Here is a collection of contemporary ghazals that transcends boundaries. Kiran Ahluwalia is an Indian vocalist who grew up in Canada, but like many expatriates has guarded her musical heritage closely in her heart. She has assembled a great group of classical musicians and written melodies to accompany some lovely poetry. She also sprinkles her set with Punjabi folk songs. There is the suggestion of a synthesizer drone behind the opening track which gives it an unwelcome New Age flavour: the harmonium would have been enough. Kiran plays tanpura to back her singing, and it's really great to hear someone singing Indian love songs with a fine voice who is not Lata or Asha! But still you start seeing movies in your head when you hear this, it's unavoidable and she even quotes a few famous filmi riffs in her melodies (I cant name it, but I've seen the movie with the "Jhanjra" melody in it). The Beatles were famous for borrowing Indian sounds for their music, so here's a tit-for-tat: the guitarist quotes (perhaps unconsciously) "Something in the way she moves" in "Yeh Nahin"!

Kiran's parents were pretty upset when she quit her stock-trading job in Toronto and went back to India to study music! She studied with Vital Rao, a 70-year-old performer who entered the household of the King of Hyderabad as a lad! Rao taught her the thousand-year-old tradition of Persian ghazals (which came to Indian with the Mughals in the 14th century) and she has mastered many of the forms and gone on to compose her own versions. To bring the ancient tradition to young audiences she explains that the ghazal is "just a highly literate pick-up line." She has been fortunate in finding expatriate Punjabi poets in Toronto who are also immersed in their folk traditions and have been writing poetry in this form, which she now sets to music and sings beautifully. Because Punjabi folk music also produced Bhangra we cannot expect Kiran to put us to sleep, and she does kick out the jams for "Meri gori gori," a rousing song about yellow bangles.