IBTIDA – Ek Mehfil returns to Delhi to present

ARCHIVAL: Season 3 – QISSA.

For the first time, Rekha ji joins IBTIDA in a true baithak setting. 

Not a stage towering above the audience. 

Not rows of distant chairs. But gadda seating, close, intimate, accountable. 300 people &. No more.

Delhi has always been a city of private mehfils. From the courtyards of Shahjahanabad to the salons of Lutyens’ homes, music was once experienced at arm’s length. 

A singer could see your eyes. A listener could feel the breath between alaaps.

Archival brings that grammar back.

You will enter a space scented lightly with gajra and memory. Indian attire, worn with pride. Cocktails crafted not for haste, but for slow sipping.

Conversations humming softly before the tanpura does.

Then she arrives.

She will sit among us. She will narrate. She will open chapters of her journey, from early riyaaz to the silences between recordings. 

A Sufi ensemble will unfold the way it once did, unhurried, immersive, conversational. Between kalaam, there will be qissas. 

Between verses, pauses. Between us, no distance.

It is about remembering how music felt before amplification replaced intimacy.

Archival is our offering to Delhi. A closed-door gathering of 300 custodians of culture. 

A night where sur is not consumed, but shared. 

Where applause is not loud, but knowing.

We invite you to be part of this document in sound.

To sit close.

To listen without distraction. To experience Rekha Bhardwaj the way very few ever have.

Tie the gajra.

Raise your glass.

Settle into the evening.

This will not be replicated.

Only remembered.

Milte hain.