Deepak Pandit's one-on-one with God

With memories of the Ghazal maestro still fresh in one’s mind, it was but natural to ask Deepak Pandit, who is counted among the best violinists in the country about his association with the  “Ghazal King”.

Deepak Pandit readily complies, almost exclaiming, “My first meeting with Jagjitji was around 23 years back, when I was barely 16 years old.”

As is the wont with anecdotes, he laughs remembering how, “when Jagjitji called me after seeing a performance of mine, I thought it was a prank call.” “He told me that he liked my performance and wanted to meet me but I told him that I was busy touring for concerts and would call him later,” he laughs. “I, of course, forgot to call him and so, when I met him at an airport one day, he reminded me that I never called him back.” 

That fortuitous meeting marked the beginning of a long collaboration between the two, from “a concert in Delhi in 1989 till the end,” as Deepak phrases it. “I have arranged more than 70 albums for him,” he says revealing that Samvedna, an album for which he’d composed music and had Jagjit Singh lend his vocals to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s poems, is closest to his heart.

A multi-talented musician, Deepak finds himself juggling various roles. He composes for films — credits include I am Kalam, The Great Indian Butterfly, Dhoop — “I am working on a film called Kuch Luck Phir Dhoka,” he informs us. A gloss over over his page on IMDB also informs that he’s worked as a violinist for The Namesake.

A respected musician, Deepak has also worked closely with Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal, getting these current voices of Bollywood to sing for music albums.

“I am currently composing ghazals for an album. Shreya will be lending her vocals for what might be her first ghazal album,” he says, letting us in on to the projects in his plate, now.

Deepak is all geared for the ‘Juke Box’, the concert he will be performing today evening. While he has played solo concerts before, the last one in the city being the “concert with Zakir Hussain,” he is excited about this one because, “I have my whole team performing along with me.” One of the highlights of the evening will be, “a Sufi song that I will be singing,” Deepak reveals. “My family is probably the only Hindu qawwal gharana. My dad would tell me that Sufism is not about just growing long hair and singing. It’s really about having a one-on-one with God”, he says, promising Bangaloreans a soulfully-stirring concert.