‘Jashn-e-Jalota’ ! as Anup Jalota celebrates Sangeet Natak Akademi Award with musical swag-sey-swaagat  !

Bhajan Samrat and Ghazal Badshah  Anup Jalota was in his usual witty jovial mood last night at the private, exclusive  ‘Jashn-e-Jalota’ shaandar sangeet mehfil  hosted by him at his  luxurious terrace apartment  Shivaji Park residence.   The acclaimed singer-composer-actor- producer Anup Jalota hosted this musical-stars-studded  late evening celebration studded with music-masti-manoranjan to mark his having  recently bagged  the annual prestigious Sangeet Natak Akademi Award.

"Aapki Uunchai hee aapke Jeevan ka Saaransh hai," said the witty  zestful Anup Jalota showering praise on an  emotionally-charged  super-actor Anupam Kher when the latter shared stage with Talat Aziz . The music-savvy Anupam ( he also sings sometimes)  expressed his farmaish to Talat who  sang  the soulful  Aaaina Mujhse Meri Pehli Si Soorat Maange. This song is from  the landmark movie Daddy ( 1987) which was picturised on Anupam Kher . It was a pleasure to watch Talat and Anupam exchange witty banter and  quirky camaraderie.

What was the khaas reason for this  cel;ebration ? “ This Sangeet Natak Akademi Award is extra-special for me because it is decided by eminent musicians-artistes and it would be conferred on me personally by the Hon’ble President of India. It’s a welcome decision that they decided to include the ‘light-classical music’ category since past three years. This decision  was initiated by Akademi Chairman Shekhar Sen,  “ disclosed Anup Jalota who has several projects lined up for up for 2023 including an OTT show where he plays himself and  “gets kidnapped”  !!

 In my Birthday Parties ( July 29^th) the invitees also include my close social friends and musical celebs. But in this Akademi  Award celebration, mostly all noted music luminaries and their spouses were my special guests.”

The elite invited  gathering at Anup’s celebration  which also had non-stop live performances by various guests  also included a galaxy of stalwarts from the  music world including Madhushree, Shailendra Singh, Nitin Mukesh, Kavita Paudwal, Dr. Soma Ghosh, Jaspinder Narula,  Usha Timothy, Robby Badal, Papon, Chandan Dass,  director Subhankar Ghosh,  Samir Date and Dipalee-Somaiya Date, Sumeet Tappoo, Leena Bose, Deepak Pandit, Anuradha Pal  and popular concerts impresario Saurabh Daftary.  It may be recalled that both Anup and Kavita Paudwal ( daughter of legendary singer Anuradha Paudwal) recently performed a series of successful  combined ‘live’ concerts across various cities in the U.S.  Among the surprise highlights which elicited  a lot of applause was  Anup Jalota singing the iconic (original sung by Aziz Nazan) meaningful Qawali ‘ Chadhta Suraj Dheere Dheere’ along with Samir and Dipalee Date.  An unexpected twist to the celebration event was pop and playback singer Papon getting  stuck for quite some time in a rising elevator which got stalled mid-way.  Finally when he stepped  out , cool Papon was greeted with loud cheering for his ‘high’ level  of patience.

Overall  a  sureelay-sitaaron ki yaadgaar  mehfil  from host  Anup Jalota, which will always be remembered  by the music-world ‘ who’s who’ who  attended and enjoyed the naghmon-ki- baarat !

( The writer Chaitanya Padukone is an eminent award-winning senior film and music journalist-author )