Shankar Mahadevan Pulls A WTF At The Allarakha Barsi Concert

It was all going so well. At the Allarakha Barsi Concert on Tuesday (Feb 3), visiting jazz men, saxophone player Charles Lloyd and drummer Eric Harland, were doing their thing (which they did very, very well), Zakir Hussain was showing us once again why he is still the greatest tabla player of his generation, and even Louiz Banks resisted the urge to experiment and seamlessly blended his keys into the mix.

Then Hussain called Shankar Mahadevan on to the stage. For his first song, Mahadevan performed some of the classical vocal gymnastics he is known and loved for – and then in a complete abandonment of good judgement, he decided to sing a “popular song” which he dedicated to Zakir “bhai”. Of all his songs, Mahadevan chose to sing ‘Maa’ from Taare Zameen Par, a tune more emotionally manipulative than an entire Karan Johar film, a composition that tries so hard to make you cry that it should come accompanied by a knife and some onions, a track so coyingly sentimental, it should… (you get the idea).

Now we at Indiecision are not purists in anyway but even we were shocked by this truly WTF moment at what is supposed to be one of the most highly anticipated Indian classical music events of the year. ‘Maa’ isn’t even Mahadevan’s best song – if he was going to be crassly commercial, he should have just done his inspired breakthrough pop hit ‘Breathless’.

Watch ‘Breathless’ after the jump.