Timeout - The names of the Lord

by Satish Purohit

Jagjit and Chitra Singh’s soothing voices have given Ghazal lovers across the world many enchanted moments. This album of bhajans, which features him with his wife Chitra, begins with a Vaishnav stuti. Among other lines in the song is one from the Narada Puran that says that in the Age of Kali all one can bank on for deliverance is the chanting of the names of the Lord. Other traditions confirm that meditating on the Lord’s names delivers one from the clutches of darkness into light. Islam has its 99 names of Allah and Catholicism has its rosary. Nothing, the great devotees tell us, compares with the sweetness of the Lord’s names.

I would single out Chitra Singh’s Yeshomati Nandan (The apple of Yeshomati’s eyes) as my favourite in this album though Bhajahu re man (Dwell oh mind on the feet of the Lord, the dispeller of all fear) by Jagjit Singh comes a close second . Yeshomati Nandan evokes the first and probably deepest bond that we form as infants – the one with our mothers. We relive the bond again when we become parents. Nothing compares to the beauty and joy in the unity of the Madonna and child. Nice.