18th October 2014, was a memorable evening at the Gulshan branch of the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre with eminent scholar, artiste, writer Nashid Kamal. The multifaceted genius has been honoured by Nazrul Institute on August 27 this year for her music and works of translation. Amongst her numerous translation works, Nazrul’s biography (from the original by professor emeritus Dr Rafikul Islam) and Return of Laili, an anthology of 50 Nazrul songs translated by Kamal deserve special mention. Her other noted works include translation of Nazrul’s love ballads titled Chokrobak and also the translation of her grandfather Abbasuddin Ahmed’s autobiography My life in Melodies.
The evening came alive as Nashid Kamal, clad in the traditional white sari with red border, lighted up the stage with her five musicians Gazi Abdul Hakim, Biswajit Sarkar, Feroze Khan, Binod Roy and Md Sulaiman. The programme started with presenting an `Uttorio’ to her tutor and uncle Mustafa Zaman Abbasi, to whom she dedicated the entire programme.
Starting with a bandesh in Yaman raga, newly composed by her Guruji Pandit Jasraj; Nashid took the audience to new heights in her songs one after the other. She paid tribute to the Nazrul Shongeet exponent legendary Feroza Begum and sang some songs from her recordings, while she inserted interesting anecdotes in between.
Then Kamal shifted to bhawaiya and bhatiali, remembering the birthday of her grandfather, which fell on October 27. She sang one of the Urdu ghazals from Ferdausi Rahman’s collection, Yeh raat tumhari hey (available on youtube) and embarked upon the finale.
This brought the audience to an exalted mood and everyone listened in pin drop silence as Nashid traveled three octaves to present Pandit Jasraj’s timeless composition `Aj to anand anand’ with taan and laykari, bringing the evening to a moment of peace as well as restlessness, craving for more. It was a new Nashid Kamal, reaching even greater heights than before, more refined, more dedicated.
-With New Age input
