Saturday, March 26, 2011

Same beher same tune

There are many instances, when I have noticed that Jagjit Singh used the same tune for the ghazals with same beher. During one of his (rare) workshops in Bengaluru he demonstrated to the audience how he goes about composing ghazals. In that, he chose a Mirza Ghalib ghazal and one another ghazal and demonstrated how ghazals with same beher can almost always be composed on a same tune. It is because of this reason, he is able to spring surprises in his concerts singing a ghazal in the tune of another ghazal, when audience demands him to sing both the ghazals!

I have remarked on this blog a number of times, JS has a fantastic ability to understand the meter of poetry. He knows exactly, how to split the misra into his tune and can thus render ghazals with same meters in those tunes.

An example below,

इश्क की दास्तान है प्यारे,
अपनी अपनी जुबान है प्यारे.

and

उसकी बातें बहार की बातें,
वादी-ए-लालाचार की बातें.

Both the ghazals are on the same beher: Khafif Mussadas Makhbun Mahzuf (2122/1212/22). They also are sung in the same tune :)

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Ekta mein bal vs Managing the ekta

For a few days, an old public message that used to be aired on "Doordarshan", keeps floating in front of my eyes. It showed that a single stick by itself was easy to break, but when tied together with a piece of rope, they were impossible to break. That is, "Ekta mein bal".

Now, I have been thinking that this philosophy has an intrinsic overhead. When the number of sticks are massive, then tying the string properly to ensure the "ekta" over weighs the power provided by it. For example, consider a team of professionals. When there are few people in the team, it is so easy to manage it and the real power of "ekta" (or team work) is realised. Now consider a huge team (read as sticks), then we intend to go for multiple managers (read as strings) and managing the managers and sticks causes a massive overhead to the project, that impacts the output of the team right away.

Similarly consider the fact that as a nation we have been trying to stay united, from the time of our independence. Have our political system, politicians and administrative systems been capable enough to tie us all together?

तुम आओ तो सही...

This blog of mine, would be saying to me the same thing... एक वादा करो अब हमसे ना बिछड़ोगे कभी, नाज़ हम सारे उठा लेंगे, तुम आओ तो सही। An...