House Concert at Sherwood Ct

Shiv started learning music from Pt Raghunath Prasanna who was fortunately living near by in Jangpura Extension, New Delhi. He was about 5 when I took him to Guru Ji to learn Harmonium. He could barely cross the road himself. We had to accompany him for his classes initially.

I had great hopes that he would learn Harmonium to play with Gurbani rendering. I wanted to cooect this fault as  I could sing but would not know how to play Harmonium along.

After three four years, I would find him playing on fluite on the landing of the steps near the Balcony of our house. He had hardly learnt any tune or Ragas on the keyboard. Hence I complained to Guru Ji. Guru Ji replied that he was on the right course, as Pt Hari Prasad Chourssia also started playing Fluite as a kid in our house and rose to be world class. Any body and everybody who comes to learn music from our School automatically learns Fluit, he added further.

So when Shiv grew up and joined University of California at Berkeley, he gave a stunning solo performance of Fluit in the "Asha" programme for all the four years of his stay there. By now he was very skillful Harmonium Player and would often perform in Gurdwaras. Shiv had a thorough knowledge of Indian Classical System. The credit of this goes to Pt Raghunath Prasanna and his illustrated family of Pt R Prasanna, Pt Rajinder Prasanna and Pt Rakesh Prasanna.

Pt Rajesh Prasanna s/o Pt Rajinder Prasanna had been visiting USA for his various performances. This time, Shiv invited him to visit us for a few days. He was accompanied by Mohammad Ahsan Ali Khan who is exponent of Saurangi at Eigth generation.

We sent last minute invites to close friends and musicians to enjoy an evening full of music, punjabi folks and Sufi rendering. The gathering of about 85 people were spell bound to enjoy the colorful music at our place. School time friend from DPS R K Puram and a member of their first band, Surya Ganguli and his wife Bushra also graced the occasion traveling all the way from San Francisco city.

Thanks Preston Merchant for beautiful photo Shots, Nilesh and Ritu for logistics help, and Gurdev Hora for traveling from Sacramento in bringing his talented kids Ajooni and Ardaas for adding icing to the cake.