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Pandit Jasraj - Musician par excellence and a brand guru too!


I was at a Hindustani Classical music concert last evening. Organised by a society called the Iyer Foundation and heartily sponsored by a number of well known corporate houses in India, it featured two exponents of the Hindustani Classical music tradition - Smt Ashwini Bhide Deshpande and Pt Sanjeev Abhayankar. Apart from their solo performances, the highlight was a Jugalbandi  by the two. It was grandly called Jasrangi Jugalbandi -a concept created by Pt Jasraj where a male and a female singer sing the same song in two different Ragas, all the while maintaining their natural scales.  The harmony that was produced was great, and though I am not a connoisseur, and hence could not really appreciate whether they really kept to their scales and Ragas (something that was endorsed by Pt Jasraj at the end of the performance), I really enjoyed myself.
Pt Jasraj is no doubt one of the greatest musicians in India today. This was the second time that I saw him live on stage, the earlier time being in a program organised as part of the Mumbai Festival 2007. That concert was called ‘Spiritual Morning’: starting at 6:00 in the morning, while it was still dark, Pt Jasraj stirred our souls with some wonderful renditions of shlokas and Pranam mantras addressed to the Gods of the Hindu pantheon. Somewhere in between, he changed the name of the God he was invoking from Shiva to Allah while mianaining the same spiritual tone. Music, in the custody of the expert, truly has no boundaries.
But this post is not only about Pt Jasraj’s musical prowress and innovation. It is more about his understanding of the nature of today’s markets and consumers, and his efforts at popularising Classical music using this understanding. He creates brands, which consumers find intriguing and subsequent to the performance, endearing, and propagates these brands via tie-ups. He trains his students to be entertainers, alongside being great performers - they connect with the audience, ask permissions and share jokes and anecdotes.
I would love to interact with Pt Jasraj and hear his take on branding personally… He is my new age Brand Guru
First Published on my ibibo blog on 11 March 2007

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