Pakrashi Harmonium - A review on sales, instrument quality and after-sales-service:

Short Review : Overall rating 1* - Defective Online product, Bad after-sales service.

Sales - 2 stars:
===========
We bought a Pakrashi Harmonium after much consultation in 2013 over the internet. Pakrashi is a big name in Harmonium market and given there were multiple reviews which were positive about the internet site and the the associated facebook page, we were convinced that the order will be duly honored. We bought a scale changer harmonium ( http://www.pakrashi-harmonium.com/scale-changer-harmonium-c… ) for around AUD 594 in July 2013 given our remote chance of visiting Calcutta for purchasing an instrument in person. Mr. Shuvojit Pakrashi was very communicative and expedited the order quickly once the money was received.

http://www.pakrashi-harmonium.com/scale-changer-harmonium-c…

Make and Quality (as delivered): 2 stars
==============================

The biggest issue with ordering product online is the trust factor. We were uber-excited about the Harmonium since this would be a legacy instrument for the family unlike the electronic ones. The harmonium from Pakrashi was well-packaged and in spite of that a corner (metal) cover on one of the corners had been dented during transit. I was prepared to overlook that if the harmonium were to sound fine.

I opened the Harmonium for playing and it sounded absolutely fine. And then came the biggest issue - The scale changer would not work - i.e. the knob was flimsy, had no integrity and would rotate without allowing the scale-changing pad to move freely on the keys thereby making the harmonium a very difficult proposition to play live since I rely greatly on transpose for performance.

After-Sales-Service - 0 stars :
======================

I was really upset that the trust has been broken as I was afraid and contacted Mr. Shuvojit Pakrashi . He did respond well by coming on skype and guiding me to "fix" it using pliers. However it simply did not work since the knob was too loosely attached and only an experienced factory-worker would have been able to fix it. Given my inability to go to Calcutta, the harmonium sat at home for 2 years without being played. I was peeved and had come to an uncomfortable but inescapable conclusion that I would have to live with this defective harmonium.

Luckily, Mr. Shuvojit Pakrashi visited Sydney (he is now in Sydney as I type) for expanding his business and repairing local harmoniums. I took my harmonium to him and after examining and declaring that the harmonium needed absolutely no other service (it was in perfect tuning), he fixed the knob and the scale changer in a couple of days. And then came the fee..

A ridiculous $100 for fixing a product which was shipped with a factory defect !

When I tried to convince him that he must not be charging me at all and that I should have got the harmonium without the defect in the first place, he dismissed my plea with the casual nonchalance typical of local Indian shop-keepers who fault the customer squarely for the defect, claiming it arose from the mishandling of the product. I have played the keyboard from 1994 and I am the last person to be manhandling a harmonium which has been procured at such a high price.
Thus I ended up paying a full price for a defective harmonium and paid a service fee of $100 to fix it.

Recommendation
============

• Do not order a Pakrashi harmonium online if you cannot afford to go to Calcutta any time later to fix what comes to you. It is not worth it. The trust factor for online orders is poor.
• The instrument's sound itself is great. If you can go to their physical store and buy it directly after full visual inspection, you will be better-off.

Ye baatein Jhuti Baatein - Ghazal - A cover

Song: Ye baatein Jhuti Baatein 
Composer - Singer : Ghulam Ali
Genre : Ghazal 

Covered by : Murali Venkatraman

A beautiful ghazal which playfully convinces the beloved not to take the "rumours" but only "love" seriously.  A humble attempt from me.

Dil Mein ik Lehar - Ghazal - A Cover

Song: Dil Mein ik Lehar
Composer - Singer : Ghulam Ali
Genre : Ghazal 

Covered by : Murali Venkatraman

A ghazal that caresses you like a gentle wave of in the shore, one which distills the romance and admixes the solitariness with an exquisite tune.  A humble attempt from me.

Baharon Ko Chaman - A cover version

Song: Baharon Ko Chaman
Composer - Singer : Ghulam Ali
Genre : Ghazal 

Covered by : Murali Venkatraman

If ghazal is a poetic form which expresses the unrequited love of a platonic being and represents a monologue to one's beloved, the highest form of its human manifestation can be called Ghulam Ali.  There is none who would take a ghazal and present it such that the beloved would feel guilty and possible run into the hands of the forlorn lover.

In here, is a humble attempt to sing one of his signature ghazals - Baharon ko chaman.  The lyrics are reflective and contemplative in content.  Hence the master chooses a simple lilting tune with not many accidentals which could overwhelm the listener.

Hoshwalon ko khabar - A Cover Version

Song: Hoshwalon ko khabar
Film : Sarfarosh 
Composer : Jatin-Lalit
Originally Sung by : Jagjit Singh 
Genre : Ghazal 

Covered by : Murali Venkatraman

Thanks to Raja Govindarajan for introducing me to the wonderful world of semi-classical singing in Hindi, Bangla and Telugu in 2000.  He sent me two cassettes with the choicest melodies of Ghulam Ali's ghazals, Hariharan's Hazir, Ajoy Chakraborty's raagpradhaan and SPB's old telugu classics.  While gravitating to SPB's numbers was easy as my soul was nurtured in a south-indian family, I could not help but get severely attracted to ghazals and raagpradhaan. Thus over the past 15 years I have been predominantly into (self)learning the nuances of these genres helped amply by my wife Lalita and given some good pointers by my good friend Ramanan Moorthy (Dallas). In this process, I discovered a whole array of singers who made me crave for more and more of the melody genre where their deft singing embellished the gazillion accidentals which one could miss if a careful listening is not accorded.  Singers like Manna dey, Shyamal Mitra, Sandhya Mukherjee and Haimanti Shukla whose works I flirted with have now become the staple source.

However, both urdu and bangla are tricky languages with inflections, intonations and pronunciation that one needs to familiarize with, to an extent that he does not sound out of place or at times, idiotic. Both are north-indian languages which are similar to hindi in some sense ( urdu in grammar and bangla in vocabulary) but far different from it in many aspects as well ( urdu in vocabulary and bangla in pronunciation ).  Hence a singer constantly and consciously requires to examine his/her diction.  This had pretty much shunned me from singing and releasing anything in public for quite long.  However, I believe I have now reached a reasonable level where I do not at least sound downright out of place and this is probably the best I could hope for :)

When it comes to pronunciation, the master is Jagjit Singh.  Here I start with a famous ghazal of his from the film Sarfarosh.  Bouquets and brickbats welcome :)