The Indian Consulate Jeddah organized an evening of vocal classical music by renowned Indian classical singers Satyasheel Deshpande and his son Shrijan at its premises on Wednesday. Satyasheel is widely known for the dramatic spontaneous imagination he demonstrates in performance, for his innate sense of composition and improvisation, and for the immense scope and depth of his research in Indian classical music. He said: “I feel happy to perform here. I never expected this response, as classical music is very serious. “I felt this audience could participate in my creative process. I really enjoyed performing here.” Throughout his career, Satyasheel has been performing in major musical events in India as well as abroad. Consul General Faiz Ahmed Kidwai said: “The Indian consulate has arranged this musical evening to show the vibrant colors of India, apart from other film songs and different types of music. “This is a part of our culture and a part of our musical tradition. “It's very rare that we get such an opportunity representing our true music. “It's very good that we got that opportunity of Indian classical vocal music.” “There are many musical ‘gharany' (music schools) and many musical traditions in India and today's event provides a little glimpse of this.” Satyasheel, accompanied by his son Shrijan, performed a variety of raags (a melodic mode used in Indian classical music) and talked to the audience about the different types of raags. He demonstrated how each composition is performed in different parts of India. He said: “Our diversity is more important then so-called unity.” Syed Salim Qadri, a music lover who works for the Islamic Development Bank, said: “Satyasheel has a good knowledge of different gharanas (music schools), which is not usual. “He is a true pandit, which is very rare, and hardly any person can sing like this. He explained the different raags very fluently and his words were rich. “He explained how all the raags belongs to different parts of India.” Qadri has been living in the Kingdom for the last 30 years. “I think the consulate presented a nice gift to us by arranging this precious musical night.”
