22 ghazal singers to gather under one roof for the Khazana Ghazal Festival

Pankaj Udhas and Talat Aziz

For 15 years now, Khazana Ghazal Festival has been getting luminaries of the genre in the same stage; this time, it promises to be an even more special date in the calendar of the music-loving Mumbaikar.

Pankaj Udhas

Like previous years, this year too, the list is adorned by stars like Pankaj Udhas Bhupinder Singh and Mitali Singh, Anup Jalota, Talat Aziz, Suresh Wadkar,. Rekha Bharadwaj, Ahmed Hussain and Mohammed Hussain and Anuradha Paudwal who will set the stage for upcoming singers like Sraboni Chaudhuri, Amrita Chatterjee, Shruti Pathak. Pankaj Udhas, who is also an organiser of the event, looks back at the journey of 15 years fondly.

Talat Aziz

The eralier Khazana festival, Udhas informs, started in 1981 and continued till 1985. "Long after, in 2001, friends Anup Jalota and Talat Aziz were reminiscing the good days of Khazana festival and about how much fun we had. It was then that I suggested why not organise the festival again. As by then we were already established in the field and thankfully prosperous enough we decided that we would raise money for charity through the event," he says.

Though the popularity of Ghazals particularly in cinema has ebbed slightly, Udhas says the event has grown every year and tickets are sold out soon after it is announced.

He disagrees that there is any major fall in the popularity of Ghazals and informs that even in his personal shows the audience count is as high as one to ten thousand.

"One can say there is a slight dip in popularity of Ghazals in Bollywood when compared to the euphoria around the genre in the 80s. That euphoria is gone but there are still many takers," he explains.

The festival has also acted as a platform for upcoming talent and fresh music. "As senior performers we try to provide a platform for young talented singers. As for the music at the event, though we mostly sing popular numbers on audience preference, I make sure to introduce a few new numbers too," he signs off.

The proceeds of the two evenings will be used towards the continued care and rehabilitation of patients suffering from Cancer and Thallasemia.