Ankur Sharma

It takes a toll on you. All of a sudden, it makes you believe that death is imminent. It is close by. And you better live with the philosophy Steve Jobs made famous with his commencement speech , "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" Just in case you are not following my blog, the two people who I wrote about, were Steve Jobs and Jagjit Singh . They couldn't be more different from each other. But from the time I have been thinking about writing this note, all I could see was similarities. They both were geniuses in their own field and transformed the way people saw their respective industries. Mirza Ghalib once said, "When your creations are started being used by tawayafs and fakirs " - 19th century version of common man - "then you are destined to be immortal". Steve Jobs did that to Personal Computers and Jagjit Singh to Ghazals.

My father has been a lasting influence on how I and my siblings think, what we do and aspire. He isn't one of those expressive ones who would cuddle and would take us to play. That was Mummy's job. His way of showing love was talking about the studies, giving pat on the back when we did good and of course bashing up when we didn't raise up to the bar. But there was one thing which bind him and me, even till today. Ghazals My Father had a childlike fanaticism about them (he is kinda grown up now). In 1970s , when buying music system in India wasn't as easy as buying groceries and wasn't as cheap as Rs. 4000;  he got it assembled, just to make sure that he gets to listen Ghazals on "just the right music system". He sat through all night in the recording shops, to get the live recordings of Ghazals on the  cassette tape and spent lavish sum of his salary (by those standards) to get those tapes. I grew up listening those Ghazals and understanding ...