Pandit Jasraj's music leaves audience emotional

“If the Divine is the one singing and it is the same Divinity which is listening, then let me bow to you. Because you have always given me the strength and inspiration to keep singing,” the 89-year-old Mewati maestro Sangeet Martand Pt Jasarj told audiences after leaving many in the packed Shanmukhananda auditorium emotional with his spirited performance at a special concert to mark his turning nonagenarian. “People keep telling me that they experience God in my music but I want to sense Him and experience Him too and I am waiting for that day and keep working on my craft to draw Him to me.”

While his rendition of the popular bhajan Hanuman Lalla (supported by his disciples Rata Mohan Sharma and Ankita Joshi) immediately struck a chord with audiences, many of who were singing along, it was his rendition of his father's composition Mata Kalika that saw several members of the audience get emotional to see how he was not only in complete form musically but also infused the composition with the beseeching fervour that could be sensed. In the end his rendition of his famous composition Om Namo Bhagvate Vasudevaya 

Pandit Jasraj's performance was preceded by violin maestro Padma Bhushan Dr Lakshminarayana Subramaniam, bhajan samrat Anup Jalota, Kedar Pandit's tabla ensemble and the students of Pt Jasraj school of music.

The veritable who's who from across the spectrum of music and entertainment were in attendance along with corporate heads, politicos and religious gurus. Actor-activist Shabana Azmi, lyricist-poet Javed Akhtar, singers Alka Yagnik, Kavita Krishnamurthy, actor Suchitra Krishnamurthy, V N Mishra, the mahant of the famous Sankat Mochan Hanuman temple at Varanasi, the corporate couple Ajay and Swati Piramal were among those present at the concert.