wutheringheights

1996. It was a cassette shop inside the Palika Bazaar where we first went together with a common idea, after we became friends ten years ago: buy some good collections of ghazals. She knew Gulam Ali was my favorite. I never knew who she liked. I bought a couple of Ali’s famous ghazals, including ‘chupke chupke’ after an hour’s search. In fact we were meeting after a long time. At the bus-stop, when I was about to board a bus to R K Puram where I lived, she hurriedly handed over a small box to me. Sitting on the bus, I slowly opened the wrapper… there were two cassettes: both by Mehdi Hassan. “Ab ke hum bichhade to shaayad kabhii khwabon mein milen” was the first ghazal I played immediately after reaching home. I must have played this ghazal one thousand times. Interestingly, we have never met after that. In 2009, when I went to Kozhikode to meet Ahmad Bhai, a music-lover and friend of Mohammad Rafi, he told me how the town was graced with the presence of Mehdi Hassan in 2000. “Wh