Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan

I did not for one moment take for granted that performing before me - full-belt, alive and present; giving his heart, his craft, his music - was Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. Glorious was the word, and really there are not many words that can begin to capture it. This blog post will be short.

I smiled throughout, felt expanded and became one step closer to my own dreams and destinies.

Kitty&Kitty loved the evening - and what a fabulous and apt way to spend the turning of the spring equinox. The equinox arrived at 5.30pm and by 7pm we were in our seats. As the evening gathered pace, and the songs layer on layer worked to their ecstacy (as happens also within many of the individual songs) we were in raptures and enraptured.

Rahat did not interrupt his music with chat. He didn't need to. A quiet air of ease on his plump red and gold cushion, and a voice that belted to the Gods. It is hard to believe he is just 35 years old.

The evening was a mix of Bollywood and Qawwali. Last autumn he was in London for his Remembering Nusrat tour. That seemed a project in establishing himself as heir-apparent to the Nusrat legacy, and this year he is back to establish brand Rahat.

His version of Akhiyan Udeek Diyan was the one that really lifted the roof. It injected new energy, and was the turning point of the performance and evening. From the Bollywoods, I loved O Re Piya. After the roof-lifting, Dam Mast Qalandar (Ali! Ali!) and Afreen Afreen were just terrific too.

Afreen was the encore, which delighted me a lot as this is a song I have discovered through repeated listenings. I have a Nusrat MP3 bought for 45Rs (about 60p) in an Indian bazaar (actually I have several!) - it contains 20hours of tracks and on the digital display all are unnamed... it really is Nusrat by number! I have learned over time that if I go to track #3 in the section after the one totalling 17 songs, I get uplifted with Afreen Afreen. This is one of a number of tracks that I locate in this way. And so I heard it again at the spring equinox and Nusrat by number is fleshed out a little more.

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(Rahat Fateh Ali Khan @ Royal Festival Hall, London - 20 March 2010)

back from Wonderland!

(Alice in Wonderland @ The IMAX)

Behind the giant 3D glasses my fidget nature was set free! It's a bit like going to a masque ball perhaps: you become something different.

Everyone encased in their own goggled worlds, I was set free from convention of sitting still and behaving well (I wriggled, rustled my sweets and my head roved in giant wonder at the screen). And as Alice ran from the party - from the dreadful marriage proposal and the crowd - I thought again about Ben Okri's uncomplicated yet powerful message. >Every day is a challenge in navigating and overcoming the fears and limitations placed on us, and which ultimately we place on ourselves.

I felt too a glimmer of what it might've been like attending the first Talkies or when black&white film shifted into techniclour. "It talks!" ... "It's in colour! - like the real world, like us!"... And now: "It has dimension!"

After Alice had returned from Wonderland and set out for the far East, this army of bugs took off their glasses and left the auditorium. The IMAX exit, as it is - is a level below the street and in the middle of a roundabout, with various tunnels leading up to the surface. You can see the street high above and sense the traffic moving in orbital. My friends said our goodbyes. "Which way are you going Caroline?" I pointed abstractly upwards, towards the street. "My bike... my bike is up there somewhere... on the railings... I just have to get to the surface and I will see." I felt like Alice, trying to exit through a rabbit hole!

Change your view, and the world transmutes too!

This morning I found myself on a "Rail-Replacement Bus". Yes, ardent cyclist djinn Kitty left her bike at home in respect of heading off for an evening of merriment after work.

Already running a bit late, she was in a dash and then tripped up (momentarily) when she found the local train station has been closed for some days now, and would not reopen until - June! It was an ultra-sunny morning, and she was soon atop the double-decker bus. What a different perspective! The bus travelled through an area of very smart Georgian housing just near to her beloved neighbourhood (never-a-dull-moment Dalston broadway). She reflected if she was ever in the market for real estate and home 'ownership' (i.e. the type involving title deeds) this would be an excellent place to begin her search. A new area! But it wasn't - corners from her cycle route angled into vision; it just looked different.

She admired the flat rooves and flat frontages of these graceful terraces; saw a gnome sunning himself on a window sill; handsome vintage lamp-posts; a grown woman gliding along on a child's scooter; another woman in sari hanging washing on her balcony. Then there was a lady walking up an avenue. Only her back was in view, her black coat, and she wondered at her unusual walk - her body was straight upright but inclined, with one shoulder and one foot ahead of the other, as though slicing a headwind - like she was trying to get through an invisible narrow door. One belonging to a gnome, perhaps.

What a delightful bus trip it was: unearthing already-planted tulips in the urban undergrowth. Change your view, or the point at which you are standing, and the world will transmute too!