Sharada recalls a bandish in Malhar that Guruji had once sung at a private concert. It had given her goosebumps. It was one of those evenings when the rain had lashed at houses, people, trees, insects, everything. People had come to the concert drenched. Guruji’s opening notes of Miyan Ki Malhar, low and resonant, merged with the bass of the rain outside. Guruji was in a leisurely mood, caressing every note into a rounded, luminous presence. The listeners were keyed up, wondering which bandish he would sing. It was the way of his gharana to introduce the bandish as soon as the introductory notes of the raag had been sung. It was different that day. Guruji continued to explore the notes, delving deeper and deeper into them. Sharada was accompanying him on one tanpura and Madhavrao on the other. They exchanged glances, wondering what Guruji intended to do. There was something about his voice that they had never heard before. It was as though the rain had seeped into it and made it moist and soft. Elaborating on the notes of Malhar, he gradually climbed up the scale. When he reached nishad, he spent a long time swinging gently between the sharp and flat note. He was completely entranced by the two faces of the note and was striving to touch on every facet of their relationship. The listeners were no longer keyed up. They were swaying to the delicate swings Guruji was executing between the two nishads. Every time they thought he was preparing to touch the upper shadja, back he came to play around a little more with them, discovering for the listeners microtones they had never heard before.

At precisely the moment when the listeners’ desire to hear the shadja had reached its very peak, he slid into it quietly, without the usual drama, and almost instantly zoomed down with a taan like a streak of lightning to the lower shadja. He paused, then sang the opening line of the bandish. It was not one of the most sung bandishes in Malhar, though the sentiment it expressed was the usual. The nayika says to her absent lover, ‘See how the clouds wrap themselves around me. How I fear them. My eyes too stream like the sky. Why are you not with me?’