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That the G.D. Birla Sabhagar authorities brought down the curtain unceremoniously on V. Balsara was no indication of the audience response to The Music The Piano The Legend, last Saturday. On the contrary. After concluding in Bhairavi, the grand old man on the grand piano was left hands-folded, cut mid-sentence and shooting startled looks at the rudely descending curtain. After a 25-minute introduction by Kabir Suman, complete with his patented lethal humility, it was the 83-year-old magician with just his piano, for two hours. It was what Suman called “the great joy of music” that the 10 frail fingers were capable of creating. For this “burradin” that Anya Haoa afforded us, even The Master himself was grateful, confessing that he was overjoyed by the rare opportunity to display the “completeness” of the piano, which he played for the film industry, “harmonium style”, first when he was 16 years old.
Crediting Pankaj Mullick for pioneering the use of the piano in film music, Balsara began with Piya milan ko jaana. Plenty of medleys in three beats/waltz (dadra) and four beats/fox trot (kaharwa) followed, including tributes to Uttam Kumar, whose death anniversary it was that evening, and Mohd Rafi who died seven days later the same year.
The abiding memory will be the child-like smiles Balsara would give himself when he would hit the tough notes perfectly. Or, more fascinatingly, his gnarled hands quivering when he would hold or remove the sheets of paper, but the delicately tapering fingers flying ever so surely on the keyboard.