Ghazal maestro thrills fans with soulful melodies

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The open air Nisagandhi auditorium in the Kanakakunnu palace premises has the capacity for a crowd of 3,000 to 3,500. On Friday evening, all of a sudden, the crowd in the auditorium swelled to at least hree times that number.People young and old, cut ing across class and gender locked the premises of Kanakakunnu palace to hear the Badshah of Ghazals, Ghulam Ali, at the concert titled Chandni Raath' organised by Swaralaya in association with Grand Kerala Shopping Festival.Ali, who began the night with a ghazal in Kaushak Dhwani raga did not disappoint. After the first two gha als, he sang the popular number “Dil mei ek lehar si udi...“, followed by another popular ghazal “hum tere hehar mei muzhafir ki tarah aye hei...“.Overwhelmed by the huge esponse from the crowd, Ghulam Ali said he was fortunate to get such a lovely and arge audience. Pandit Vishwanath who shared the stage with Ali, also enthralled the audience by singing ghazals including “Kya karoo sajini...“, followed by the popular ghazal “Chupke chupke...“which elicited a huge applause from the audience.There were many emotional moments before the concert began. The lengendary ghazal maestro was presented with traditional per cussion instruments of Kerala like Thimila, Iddakka, Udukku and Thamburu by prominent personalities includingpoet ONV Kurup and film director Adoor Gopalakrishnan. The state police had ar ranged heavy security for the concert in view of threats by ShivaSena. A protest march by around 200 ShivaSena activists was blocked by the police near Museum police station. The activists burnt the Pakistan national flag following which police used water cannons to disperse them.The museum police registered a case against Sena activists for unlawful assembly.On Sunday , Ghulam Ali will perform in Kozhikode before returning to Pakistan.