Just returned from sitting through the Pune edition of Ruhaniyat. Last year, it was during a Ruhaniyat that the German Bakery blast happened. Runa was inside watching the performance while I ended up being outside waiting in the car and anticipating that the Pune Police would start shutting down roads and various gatherings. Anyway, that's not the story. A year just whizzed by.

Barring the artists from Egypt, who obviously weren't able to make it, it was a tightly conducted event with not much loose ends. The only thing, that I can say right now is that I've always held Abida's Jahan-e-Khusrau rendition of Chhap Tilak (that's the quickest link I found, need to work this out later) as the best from any living exponent I've heard. Sarfaraz Chisti did manage to convey in a very elaborate manner that Khusrau's verses can be seductive as well as vocally powerful when rendered by a group that's just too well put together.

• The number of folks who deliberately, wilfully and constantly flout the no audio/video recording rule at a concert is high and very annoyingly disturbing
• Free seating brings out the worst parts of manipulative nature of folks. Sweet-talking and cajoling people into shifting, dumping water bottles, fruit juice tetrapacks and what not to "reserve" seats
• Sound systems for open-air concerts require a different set of skills (one speaker bank was partly down for a while)
• Perhaps the organizers could take time to print out the selected compositions and, their meanings as opposed to having them read out. That should cut down on the mistakes in speaking out unfamiliar words.