Daaman-e-Dil Program at the PACC
By A.H. Cemendtaur

The San Francisco Bay area is not an artist-friendly place.  The high cost of living of the area forces people to work long hours, often just to make ends meet.  Kudos to the artists who make Bay Area their home and find time for their inner calling.  Farhan Shaikh and Anshuman Chandra are such people.

Farhan Shaikh, a guitarist, and Anshuman Chandra, a vocalist and harmoniumist, work together as a band they call Sifar-Aik—the name of the band is a play on the duo’s Silicon Valley connection.

“Having a background in computers and semiconductors, we couldn’t take the 0s and 1s out of our lives.”

Though Sifar-Aik takes pride in writing its own poetry and making its own compositions, it is charitable towards great works by others too.  The band has released two albums so far—both available at Amazon: the CD titled ‘Nazaara-e-Jamal’ comprises works of famous Urdu poets sung with music composed by Sifar-Aik; and ‘Husn-o-Ishq’, a CD of songs written and composed by the band.

On October 23, in a musical evening dubbed ‘Daaman-e-Dil’, Sifar-Aik performed at the Pakistani American Culture Center in Milpitas. At the program, three other musicians -- Amit Sharma (tabla), Shashi Kedilaya (sitar) and Aditya Jamwal (electric guitar) — joined hands with Sifar-Aik to delight the audience with their music, and with popular South Asian songs.

In the first session, poetry having connection with the Bay Area (works of TashieZaheer and Noshi Gilani) was sung to innovative compositions; in the post-snack part of the program, familiar Bollywood songs, inviting audience participation, were presented.  The musicians received a well-deserved standing ovation at the conclusion of the program.