December 10, 2005

If you'd like to give your iPod a jog, try listening to a radically different type of music. I am really enjoying a new CD by a former bond trader from Toronto of South Asian extraction.

Kiran Ahluwalia sings Punjabi love songs and Ghazals, many of which were written by contemporary poets; some are even cab drivers in Canada.

I love this paragraph from her website:

Having graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Industrial Relations, Kiran was ensconced in the Human Resources department of a credit union. Educated and employed, her parents were beginning to raise the next item on a young woman's agenda - marriage. Kiran, however, was haunted by a recurring vision of waking up as an old woman and realizing she had never done the one thing she really wanted to do --pursue music as a full time occupation. Having studied Indian music on a part-time basis throughout high school and university, in 1990 she quit her job and went to India to immerse herself in the rigorous life of a full time music student. Everything was hard, finding the right teacher, the studying, the loneliness, the culture shock, the weather, the life of a single woman in a patriarchal society. But when Kiran Ahluwalia came home she knew she had found what she really wanted to do.

She composed the music and sings them so beautifully. On two of them she is accompanied by Cape Breton Fiddler, Natalie MacMaster. She was just profiled on NPR's Weekend Edition and she talked about her transformation from an MBAer to an Indian folk singer. It was fascinating and inspiring, as is her music. You can get the album on iTunes and at Amazon.