PANDIT Jasraj has been regaling audiences with his devotional renditions for half a century and is one of the most popular and revered vocalists today. Music Today has tied up with Sony for bringing out this album so that it can feature some of his best-known bhajans on Lord Krishna.

The album opens with Guru Vandana, a short piece in which the artiste pays tribute to the guru. The next, Om Namo Bhagwate Vasudevaya, is his most appreciated bhajan ever that culminates in an ecstatic crescendo.

Then come Surdas’ immortal Shyam Bina and Rani Tero Chirjeeyo Gopal. The album closes with an effervescent aarti, Gopal Niranjan, but before that comes Shyam Murari, a short bhajan.

"Here are but a few half-opened flowers plucked from the rose garden of the Tariqab (mystic way). Here is grace, which has been bestowed by someone’s enriching glance, and I do not claim that it is for me to bestow the grace on others in turn. Rather, it is the expression of one’s humble allegiance to the Masters who live in a state of ecstacy." That is Sufi doyenne Begum Abida Parveen describing this album in which she has embraced poetry from Sufi and Sindhi mystics like Wasif Ali Wasif whose Main Nara-e-Mastana glorifies the moment when there is no difference between God and his follower.

According to Sufi belief, the state of ecstasy lies in between absorption into the divine (Jazb) and reaching out for the divine (Salook). The man who lives in a state of ecstasy finds himself in a mode where wonder and consciousness exist side by side, where madness intermingles with awareness.

With a mystic amalgamation of music, lyrics, melody, improvisations and note arrangements passed down from older generations, Abida evokes powerful imagery in Tune deewana banaya (Hazrat Zaheen Shah Taji), Hum ko pasand yaar ki (Hazrat Khwaja Ghulam Farid), Jis din ke saajan (Hazrat Waris Shah), Pritam mat pardes (Hazrat Mishri Shah), Ajab nain tere (Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai) and Hairan hua hairan hua (Sarchal Sarmast).