East West - The Asian American Lifestyle Magazine

By Anuja Madar

Sitting on stage at Joe’s Pub in New York City, Kiran Ahluwalia looks the part of a serious musician. The stage is sparse, bathed in only red and blue light, but Ahluwalia is dressed in a sparkling turquoise and lime green Indian outfit. Her jet-black hair contrasts her fair skin, and her tiny nose ring can only be seen by those who know it’s there. She sits in the middle of her band—a tabla player, bassist, guitarist (her husband, Indian jazz musician Rez Abbasi) and harmonium player—and tunes her instruments with a strum of the tanpura cradled in her arm like a newborn. The mostly white audience waits patiently for her to sing, and decides it’s well worth it when her voice breaks the silence.

Music has been a part of Ahluwalia’s life since she was 5 and her parents enrolled her in classical music classes in India, where she was born. The family immigrated to Canada four years later, where she continued learning music and started attending ghazal,  a form of classical music that traditionally centers on poetic verse, concerts and Bollywood shows. Unlike other 10-year-olds in the 1970s who were listening to Cher and Donny Osmond, Ahluwalia, now 40, was listening to ghazal singers Jagjit Singh, Ghulam Ali and Mehndi Hasan. “When I was down or depressed or sad,” she says, “it was always Jagjit Singh who I listened to.” 

Ahluwalia spent her life learning music, but in between got an MBA, worked as a bond trader in Toronto and held jobs in radio and television.  In 2001 and 2003, she released two Canadian albums, and her first self-titled international release came out earlier this year. She will spend the remainder of 2005 touring North America.

In 1990, she had a vision, one that included a husband, a house in the suburbs, dusty-rose carpet and a dog. “When I could see my future so clearly,” she says, “that’s what scared me. At that time I was not prepared for that kind of future. I wanted to fulfill my passion.” So she did what every Indian parent fears—she left the security of a good job. Determined to pursue her dream, Ahluwalia moved to India to study music full time. Her parents were upset (“There was lots of yelling,” she says), but eventually they put her on a plane to Mumbai with their support.

After about five years, the ghazals of her childhood called her to Hyderabad, where she studied under Vithal Rao, one of the last living court musicians of the King of Hyderabad. The experience was nothing like Mumbai. “My guru is not a teacher,” she says, “he’s a maestro. He’s going to go to his studio and sing, and it’s up to you to figure out ‘How am I going to learn what he’s got?’ ” Mornings were spent practicing on her own, and in the afternoon, students would start streaming into the studio, where musicians and music lovers alike gathered. Ahluwalia likens the environment to a mehfil, or musical gathering, which is what she tries to emulate in her shows.

At the New York show, she gets the audience to sing along to “Koka” after explaining that the song is about a woman who reminds her lover of his promise to buy her a nose ring. They laugh when she jokes that nose rings will be a hot seller this Christmas, and clap along to other upbeat tunes like “Jhanjra” and “Meri Gori Gori.” There is no dancing in the aisles, but a few whistles escape the lips of listeners, and when the show comes to a close, shouts of “One more!” can be heard around the room. Ahluwalia and the band take their bows and look around at one another before sitting back down. The language and the melodies might be from a foreign land and tradition, but to the audience, it’s just good music.

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