SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Pak­istani vo­cal­ist/mu­si­cian Ra­hat Fateh Ali Khan was well re­ceived by pa­trons pack­ing the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya, on Sat­ur­day night. Fateh Ali Khan opened with Al­lah Oh, and went on to de­liv­er a string of his pop­u­lar hits. The show got go­ing around 8.19 pm with an open­ing per­for­mance by pan­nist Noel La Pierre, whose strains on the na­tion­al in­stru­ment earned him the ap­plause of even the el­der­ly in the au­di­ence. La Pierre told the gath­er­ing that he per­formed in In­dia two years ago when a cul­tur­al con­tin­gent from T&T toured nine cities in In­dia.

La Pierre was fol­lowed by pop­u­lar Dig­i­cel Ris­ing Star cham­pi­on Neval Chate­lal who de­liv­ered three songs. Chate­lal, who has shift­ed gears from clas­si­cal In­di­an singing and re­li­gious songs in­to the gen­res of con­tem­po­rary Eng­lish and some Ital­ian mu­sic, de­liv­ered three Hin­di favourites-Jana Jain, Tere Naina and Dere Se Ya-be­fore mak­ing way for the star of the night. Dressed in a white kur­ta suit, Fateh Ali Khan walked on stage and greet­ed the au­di­ence with clasped hands be­fore he sat and played the har­mo­ni­um and mes­merised the pa­trons with his voice. His de­liv­ery was a clear ex­am­ple that those gift­ed with true tal­ent do not need the­atrics and stage ef­fects to pull off a great show.

His per­for­mance in T&T may not have hap­pened if he had made a fate­ful trip on May 9, 2011, with his In­di­an man­ag­er Chitresh Sri­vas­ta­va who was killed in a car ac­ci­dent while trav­el­ling from De­troit to Chica­go for a show. Fateh Ali Khan was not in the car that crashed, but on a bus with the rest of his troupe. He was sup­posed to be in the car, but mo­ments be­fore the ac­ci­dent he joined his fel­low mu­si­cians on the bus. Fateh Ali Khan, 37 was born in Faisal­abad, Pun­jab in­to a fam­i­ly of tra­di­tion­al mu­si­cians. He is the son of Far­rukh Fateh Ali Khan and was trained by his un­cle Nus­rat Fateh Ali Khan in the art of clas­si­cal mu­sic and Qawwali singing.

Fateh Ali Khan per­formed in the Unit­ed King­dom with his un­cle at a con­cert in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land on Ju­ly 27, 1985. His pop­u­lar­i­ty rose when he start­ed singing Bol­ly­wood film songs in 2001 with the movie Paap, fea­tur­ing the hit song Mann Ki La­gan. His re­leas­es are fea­tured in some of the biggest and high­est gross­ing Bol­ly­wood films of to­day and in­clude O Re Piya from Aa­ja, Nach­le and Jiya Dhadak Dhadak Jaye from Ka­lyug.

His al­bums in­clude:

2001:Ra­hat

Aankh Se Ankh Mi­lao

Parde­siya

2007: Charkha

2009: Re­mem­ber­ing Nus­rat: Us­tad Nus­rat Fateh Ali Khan Memo­r­i­al Con­cert

Nazrana-e-Aqee­dat

Koi Umeed

2010: Re­mem­ber­ing Ala­ma Iqbal

Re­mem­ber­ing Mirza Ghal­ib

2011: Kin­na Sohna Artist: Ra­hat Fateh Ali Khan, Michael Brooks