60th Savai Gandharva Music Festival - Day 2

There was a hint of wintry chill in the air, and as the venue is barely 200 meters from the river cutting across the heart of the city, for those who prefer to sit in the ‘Bharatiya baithak’ section in two flanks -the chill gets more severe after sundown. Very few people had turned up to listen to Pt. Rattan Mohan Sharma, one of the senior disciples of

 Pt. Jasraj. I distinctly recall having heard him very often on AIR when at school, and that was in mid-1960. Both he and Askaran Sharma impressed me greatly. Was curious to see how high or low has been Pt RMS’s flight after AIR and AM radio went out of my life.

He sure was good, flanked by two pretty young things on tanpura, and a pair of good tabalchi and mridnangam. Pakhavaj or mridangam? I had to look and listen carefully. It was mridangam played by Shridhar Parthsarathy, and I was jolted back to reality that Pune stands as the Gate to South. Deccan plateau starts from here, that word is an anglicised version of Urdu word dakkhan, which is a corruption of Sanskrit Dakshin. Oh boy, I have been a South Indian for nearly two decades. How thrilling.

Pt. RMS began with a very masculine sounding deep voice that Pt. Jasraj sometimes resorts to, very effectively. The melodious nature of the Mewati gharana was very much apparent, the decades of riyaaz showed perfection and some experimental forays into the taans and the trickeries that separate the seniors from juniors was very much there. He sang wonderfully well with admirable aplomb and control on singing. The alaap in Raag VaraaLi and vilambit gat were very good.

The sinking sun, throwing whimsical shadows on the advanced LED screens, made amazingly distorted views, weirdly adding to the exuberance. A clutch of koels kept making garrulous noises in the huge trees at the venue. A lot of kites, hawks and an occasional eagle kept circling high up in the sky.

The crowd slowly swelled, the applause got louder and the biofeedback sort of singer-audience symbiosis came into play. Over 10,000 had attended, according to experts. He later on sang a short piece in raag Megh, which also was hugely applauded. Finally he sang an abhang, with the Anna-topi guy with specs, providing excellent accompaniment on manjira, causing the audience to go into raptures. Though he looks like a prosperous trader from North, his singing is authentic, energetic and adventurous, he does not mimic his guru, which is commendable. He sounds very original.

The young duo of Ayan Ali Khan Bangash and Aman Ali Khan Bangash, the sons of Ust. Amjad Ali Khan, were not new to the SGSM regulars. I think I saw them and heard them here some 4-5 years ago, and had liked them. My worry was that the line up was unusual, like the famous Blues-based rock band of Allman Brothers of US who used to have two lead guitars and two drummers! Each sarodiya had his personal tabalchi… that was surely interesting. Ayan Ali Khan had the son of Pt. Anindo Chatterjee -whom I personally rate as the best accompaniment to any artist worth his or her salt because his table sound has a unique personality all his own. Unlike today’s over-commercialized superstars who overwhelm the performer, Anindo always remains where he is slated to be, and shows his brilliance is short spurts. This trait is disappearing in today’s cut-throat scenario where the ’15 minute’ fame scenario predicted by the American Pop artist Andy Warhol, and serious musicians crying hoarse over the 20 minute workshop to teach how to appreciate Hindustani Classical Music.

The youngsters with their duo of percussionists played to the gallery when the time came, but despite my personal dislike for the galloping sarods trying to keep pace with prancing percussion, this performance showed for the first time in my life, that all that high speed frenzied accompaniment can be separated from melodious pattern of the raag still being played. Both are excellent sarodiyas, and it showed.

After a very long time I saw a Bharatnatyam performace, since I am biased towards Kathak. Shobhana Chandrakumar performed making most of the viewers glued to their seats. She seems to be in her 30s, with a dancer’s agile and supple body, astonishingly piercing black eyes, and an amazing control on the ‘abhinaya’, the science and art of using facial expressions to portray a story in dance. There was something wrong the sound engineering set up because she had complain several times wordlessly, using eloquent gestures to say that she could not hear her own payal / ghungrus. This complaint of sound being insufficient rose to a crescendo with the next vocal performance, surely somebody hearing-challenged was manning the controls.

She gave a very convincing performance, with good use of fading of lights and vocal / music support in the background. One peculiar thing I noticed with the high power cameras showing every nuance on her face is that her left arm seems like that of a lady at least 40 years old while the right arm seems like a teenager’s. This could be noticed only from certain angles and it was no illusion. Most of us have one side of the body slightly more developed than the other side. Very few of us are perfectly symmetrical. She won a fulsome set of applause, thoroughly well-deserved

Finally came the giants, Pt. Rajan Mishra and Pt. Sajan Mishra, who were much honoured for their lifetime achievement. Their sons, Ritesh and Rajneesh started off the proceedings with alap in raag Joag, which is a guarantee to thrill. On four different occasions (while at Pune) I have heard the brothers and always found their singing good enough to make me beyond goose pimples and enter the wordless territory fit for Zen thinking and flying in a nameless sky. This time around the sons did the same, despite their repeated complaints the sound level remained too low -finally someone at the control console woke up and after half an hour normal sound was restored. The singing was simply astonishing with no drama, nor an intent to please the gallery. Strangely, after the vilambit, they moved back to allow the senior Mishra brother to take over, who also put in their cent per cent. One could not help but compare the ‘fils’ with the ‘peres’, and the dads indeed possess immensely relaxed style, engage into more challenging juxtapositions of the sur and laya, in brief, they perform like veterans. But the boys are slated to go very far -both impressed the audience very much.

60th Savai Gandharv Music Festival - Day 6

The final day of the festival is always on a Sunday, with two sessions, and over the decade and half that I have religiously attended most sessions, I have always waived the morning session because howsoever great the artist and the performance - the magic of the night is gone. When the festival used to be an all-night bash till 7-8 years ago, when th

e government clamped down the 10.00pm deadlie, openly pooh poohed by the irrepressible Pt. Jasraj first, who reacted to the announcement by asking the compere : Sangeet toh sadhana hai, aur sadhana par kaisi paabandi?” This year also, cops had arrived and had to switch off the mike when he was singing way past deadline -sad- but then we music lovers are given a double whammy by such happenings.

One, there are more music haters than lovers in the tall buildings that surround the venue (of course I can sympathise with old and sick, but those who cannot be soothed by such lovely music, at one tenth the volume of the Ganesh Mandals blasting mindless hoompa-hoompah-thud of modern day rap and hip hop and other increasingly monotonous quasi-mindless forms of music, should perhaps leave us music lovers alone. Two, the organisers need badly, to look at the alternative sites to escape all the problems - such as, the music haters sending cops to snatch the mike or arrest some rookies, the inhuman pressure of crowd on some ageing music lovers, the chowpatty at the rear end where eating food continually makes the youngsters chat loudly, laugh and clap as if the concert was happening far away in Nigdi or Katraj, the people squatting on the walking paths or trails… and the nightmare of traffic outside. Why can’t SGMF be held outside the city in Balewadi sports stadium or the Sahara India stadium near Dehu Road? There are a dozen other less crowded sites where this superhuman rush of people treading on toes could stop, the stink of the rotting food could be done away with and perhaps the performers could breathe in peace.

The newspaper reports say what I missed was Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma -who is probably the greatest living exponent of Santoor, a folk instrument that he has converted to a powerful medium for serious Hindustani Classical performances. I have seen him perform from the humble days when the trio of Pt. SS, Pt Hari Prasad Chaurasiy and now-forgotten acoustic guitarist Pt. Brij Bhushan Kabra, who recorded the epoch-changing album “The Call Of The Valley” way back in 1970s, when the world was going through an intensely musical phase. The youtube has a magical performance of Raag Marubihag by this genius. Kabraji was a successful businessman from Ahmedabad, who was not interested in promoting himself nor participating in international events a la Pt. Ravi Shankar, and later on Ust. Amjad Ali Khan, great PROs themselves, leading flashy ‘celeb’ lives. I feel rather sad that Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhat who did a great PRO job of promoting himself, and who aims at the gallery and gleefully scoops up the applause at every thirty second interval, and who claims to have invented the Mohan Veena ( the acoustic guitar was already there for Kabraji to use to amazing effects many years before the world knew who this suave VMB was), became so popular that the pioneer is just a faded name. Having seen Pt. S.K. Sharma in many cities under many different circumstances, his morning performance didn’t attract me enough to make a trip.

I also missed vocalists Kalpana Zokarkar and Vijay Koparkar -both I have seen and heard in earlier concerts, some years ago. But I truly missed a golden chance to see and listen to a 9-year old child prodigy, Viraj Joshi, who is the grandson of the great late Pt. Bhimsen Joshi. This is incredible, the fact that at such a tender age, a child could face 10000+ crowd of pretty difficult-to-please music connoisseurs, and get an applause for this abhang and bhajan effort with his father Srinivas Joshi. May be I can search for this child prodigy on the youtube (which has enriched our lives in so many ways, if you search for the right thing!)

I did attend the second session, in the evening, and it started nearly 20 minutes late. One quirk of ticketing at SGMF is that on Sunday the cheapest ‘Bharatiya Baithak’ ( I love these Marathi grandiloquent names for the most ordinary things in life e.g. A cup of chai is called ‘Amrut-tulya’ -the equivalent of nectar for the soul, wow. Also an apartment / flat which is such a suffocating name in English, becomes a saucy and sexy sadanika… a sadan is a mansion, while a sadanika is a diminutive mansion. Wow, how poetic.) that costs Rs.100 per session, costs double that on the last day. Even if you want to miss the morning session, you cannot attend the evening session without paying for the session you missed. Whatever the compunctions, the idea is difficult to swallow without a hot or even a tepid cup of Amrut-tulya!

The first to perform were a female duo -which was a rare sight to witness, there are umpteen male duos around, brothers, cousins and father-son duos, but female duos? I can’t recall except the South Indians, wherefrom recently two sisters Lavanya and Aishwarya, had come to Pune to perform Carnatic music on alto saxophones. Oh boy, they really play it hard. There are enough videos of these talented sisters at youtube -the observant will not fail to notice one of them has been piling on kilos, as if she believed that the Apocalypse is sure to occur for sure on 21.12.12, or God knows what else.

Both Apoorva Gokhale and Pallavi Joshi, maintained their synergy well and seemed to have a perfect respect and understanding of each other’s style of singing. However the younger one, I think her name is Pallavi, with her jet black eyes that glistened with a unique depth, thanks to the hi-tech cameras, seemed innocently aware of the watchful gazes of 20K+ eyes. I found sometimes her facial expressions a little alarmingly mismatched with the emotional content of the raag Multani, which portrays the viraha ras ( pangs of separation), in fact she made herself look almost dyslexic, which probably needs some events manager to train her how to behave. They could use lifesize mirrors for these youngsters who get so lost in singing the do not know what ‘abhinaya’ aspect of their performance is doing, when not under control. The performance was very good. Apoorva Gokhale seems to have been true to her profession, the riyaaz and the taiyari showed or rather gleamed.

The middle-age-approaching Shaunaq Abhisheki was next. The sun had gone down behind tall building and I had chosen a spot in the open, the last corner left uncovered by tatters. At least six different pairs of young kites were gliding and pretending to indulge in dog-fights, which was a wonderful opportunity for me during the ten minute break required for announcements and musicians changing over. How severely handicapped we humans are, I was wondering, as I saw the graceful dives and unpredictable recoveries and false threats that the kites were engaging in. Clear sky, only two tall trees in the background, and a dramatic infusion of white steaks of clouds too high up above to carry rain, with reflected rays of a dying sun - it seemed like an impressionistic painting by Cezanne or Degas come alive. Back to music, Shaunaq began with a roaring lion sort of first few sound-byes that would shake up those sunk into their reveries. I tend to compare him unfairly with his very famous father Pt. Jitendra Abhisheki who always disappointed me in every concert, and his guru-bandhu, Pt. Prabhakar Karekar who was a hot new discovery in 1980s beginning with the Purna Ratri samaroha by TOI in Ahmedabad. I am still in love with his voice, very clean approach to improvisation and his least glamorous presentations that do not distract.

Shaunaq probably needs to have lifesize mirrors around him because his distorted facial expressions at times could scare kids into hiding beneath beds or in closets. I would advise him to grow a mustache too it soften his villainous expressions. He sang raag Amrit-varshini, which is a Carnatic creation, and one that I have never come across so far. He sang well, his vilambit and drut seemed perfectly timed, with great sense of unity between accompanists and I can’t really help commenting on a fashionable youngster who was his co-performer, Mahesh Kale. When viewed from a side profile he manages to look exactly like a drowning fish gasping for breath. I had to watch the crowd, which always presents plenty to observe, rather than see a novice who should always be videographed from the front. This overall impression dilutes the effect of his singing. The other two short pieces failed to impress me. I took another of my several jaunts across the teeming crowds to buy some CDs from the stalls offering huge discounts, and get jostled in the unruly crowds queuing up for instant nirvana at the Dosa stall. Probably 50 more stalls are needed for the sake of avoiding the precarious almost-riotous situations at the fast food stalls. But then we are famous for our Kumbh-melas, what is a mere pittance of 10K+ folks, compared to millions?

Parmeshwar Hegde, who looked terribly familiar, though I can’t recall where I had seen perform earlier, probably at the same venue some 4-5 years ago, was next and he chose one of my special favourite raags, Shuddh Kalyan. It was very decently improvised upon, elaborated upon and finally offered upon a silver platter, in a polished manner. Hegde has a lovely voice and like many other upcoming vocalists such as Kumar Murdur or Venkatesh Kumar, also with Kannada origins, and melodious voices, he offers very plain performances - excessive gesturing and gesticulating is disapproved of in the South, I presume. His briefer pieces were pleasant too.
By the time the famous Sitarist Shahid Pervez came, the crowd had swelled to the superhuman scale. He was accompanied on the violin by Atul Upadhye. This sounded like an odd couple to me.

Perhaps the the Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was right when he declared, the secret to great cooking lies in familiarity. I have friends from Northern parts who rave about Makkiki roti and sarson da saag - and when I tasted that after years of folks going ga-ga over it, I told them I would prefer to go hungry than eat the alien tasteless stuff. Similarly, a very affluent family in Ahmedabad, who went on raving about Daal Baati, were perplexed to see me eat a few mouthfuls and reject the stuff, for the same reason. Lack of familiarity. The same reason prompted me to go home, because violin and sitar made strange bed-fellows, and performers were nowhere near the highest bars set earlier many decades ago by Ust. Vilayat Khan and Pt. V.G. Joag. The thought that Northern musicians have failed to bring a deep sense of oneness with violin, compared to angelic mastery by South Indians, prompted me to buy a CD by the legendary Lalgudi Jayraaman Iyer, and walk out.

I chosen to miss the greatest of them all, Smt Prabha Atre - because again, I have seen her and heard her too often to be able to withstand any more jostling or that new menace to music, the cellphone. There are hundreds of music lovers at SGMF who talk loudly, usually giving precise instructions to some lost souls, as to what to look for and where to take a turn. As if GPS and other aids to navigation or the sms messaging exists only on some other planets. These are young folks, mind you, who do not care a fig for the dirty looks they get from bewildered oldies around them. But then in public performances the bitter comes mixed with sweet. Larger the setting, larger the dollops of bitter and sweet both, naturally. On the whole, this was the most wonderful music festival, lasting a whole week. Unforgettable.
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60th Savai Gandharv Music Festival - Day 4.

Sadly could not attend at all, had an emergency at home caused by food-poisoning which kept me on my toes till late at night. 

For those who are not in Pune, the artists who performed were :
1. Smt. Pallavi Pote (vocal)
2. Pt. Hari Prasad Chaurasiya (flute)
3. Shri Anand Bhate (vocal)
4. Smt Malini Rajurkar.

Posting my notes on Day 5 in some hours...

60th Savai Gandharva Music Festival - Day 3

On the farthest side of the majestic shamiyana that houses the 5000 main guests at the SGMF is the open ground that features the music related stalls, and a solitary giant screen. I always prefer to sit there rather than on chairs or sofas because one needs to walk about and savour so many other flavours apart from just listening and watching. Old l

adies come equipped with durries, shawls, homemade savouries, and knitting needles.

That ladies are multitasking, more so when they reach the grandma age, is amply seen here. I could see three such sets, one couple of ladies engaged in knitting, another pair busy weaving mogra ‘venis’ that is a must for a stylish lady, and finally one foreigner lady busy weaving what seemed like a belt churning itself out from four or five thick cotton strings. All were deft, precise and yet, deeply aware of the music. This picnic atmosphere, and homeliness makes the whole experience something else altogether. Friendly folks, they are always helpful.

Sanjeev Chimulgi, the upcoming young Kirana singer started off sharply at 4.00pm with raag Bhimpalasi, elaborating upon with a degree of unsteadiness and a shade of nervousness on his face magnified by the hi-fi cameras that record and broadcast every emotional nuance on the artist’s face. The most common nuance continually for three days has been utter disgust, because there is an operator at the sound mixing control who has a passion for turning the volume, treble and bass low. He is rather stingy with increasing them liberally because the speaker to microphone feedback, a nightmare for sound engineers seems to be his obsessive fear. Even the announcer has had to tap the microphone again and again, which remains switched off all the time. The audience growls at such gaffes.

The raag picked up later on, since Puneri audience is famous for awarding a singer with applause continually or presenting a chilled response -nothing in-between. He presented three good sounding bandishes, followed up with a bhajan which drew wild applause with the first word ‘Laxmi’.

There are five tall trees with a sixth Palm Tree, which I have always thought as 3-4 stories high. There is something very attractive about these trees where several kites have made their nests. One kite was bringing a biggish twig to add to the new nest in the palm, when it struck me there are apartments five storey high just behind the trees. This means the trees are 8-9 storeys high, as they tower ar above the apartments. It’s great fun to watch these smaller cousins of the eagle glide about in space without flapping their wings, and build their nests so high. Absolutely riveting to watch all this when there is a gap between artists changing or even awkwardly choreographed awards ceremonies happen, the crowd slips away to sip warm tea or rummage through CDs in music stalls or chat in clusters, on cold winter evening or night.

The next was Kalapani Komkalli -what a musical name- the famous daughter of the legendary Pt Kumar Gandharv, whom I have never seen in person, though I am a regular at Hindustani and Karnatic live concerts since 1964. The closest I came to watching the maverick singer was at Baroda when he was invited by Komal Nishaad, a local music lovers group, and we were all set to see him perform in the main hall of Laxmi Vilas Palace. That was not to be. He was suddenly awarded the Kalidasa award by the M.P. government and he had to stay back home. The concert never happened again, this was in late 1980s. He passed away a few years later.

I have seen and heard Kalapani earlier on two or three occasions and she comes across as very confident, knowledgeable and fluent. Others in her family, like her, show distinct shades of Pt. Kumar Gandharv and his forceful style of singing. His singing style remained unpredictable. At times he would be gentler than a lover wooing a difficult-to-please raag, and at times he would sing as if slaying dragons with his sound-bytes.

I missed the announcement about the raag, and thought it was Marwa or Multani, from few notes in the beginning. Imagination, said Albert Einstein, is better than knowledge because knowledge can get you from A to Z, but imagination can get you anywhere. I closed my eyes, and saw this formidable raag which seems to be composed of sounds between the keys, as a giant two storeys high with bloodshot eyes radiating blazes, elephantine teeth and hairballs all over his scaly hide. She seemed like a teenaged school girl armed with just a twig. The giant rumbled and roared, thumped and trampled trees as if they were shrubs, and she kept on fighting him -using his energy to at least fatigue him if not destroy him. She is a lec-dem (lecture-demonstration) expert teaching youngsters how to appreciate Hindustani sangeet, so she has many weapons in her arsenal. By the end of the baDHat in the vilambit khayal the giant seemed thrashing his limbs and hissing like a wounded python. During the next phase she had turned the cluster of notes into docile rabbits, pulled out by her from hats to perform tricks. It was a most magical illusion, and one that successfully dispelled the initial daunting nature of the raag - and it turned into a melodious bandish soon. Absolutely amazing, the whole experience was. She later sang a composition in Hamir, ‘ajab duniya, jaariya kahan’ with a lot of feeling an ended with a shorter piece. Kalapini comes across as an accomplished singer.

The young pair of Sarangi players, Farooque Latif Khan and Sarwar Husain Khan came next, seemingly very uncertain, probably awed by the 10000 plus audience with its finicky taste and a penchant to give the cold shoulder to new artists should they stray. To make their first appearance more uphill they chose the sandhiprakash raag Shree, which like the two mentioned earlier, can become dry if not handled well. Their alap seemed as appealing as a desert, and the vilambit seemed like wild flower were sprouting up here and there. I reminisced about the good old days till 1980s when a relaxed Sarangi performance on the radio would invariably invoke the question : Kaun mar gaya? With the frequent passing away of oldies in powers that be, it was mourning period for three days, and the plaintive sounds of Sarangi would blank out all other music. They sounded rather like that. However they shone with their brilliance in the drut gat, wherein the savaal-javaab that beganin the latter portion vilambit, found a great unfurling. The table and the pakhavaj, gave ‘sound’ accompaniment with dramatic interludes. The foreigner lady sitting close-by was so much moved by the spectacle of this weird instrument being used as weapons in a duel, with great histrionics being employed by the uncle-nephew duo, that she abandoned her weaving, and sat mesmerised with her jaw dropping and eyes agog. The performance was superbly dramatic. They are fun to watch.

I was roaming in the music stalls later, when my favourite singer Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar came to introduce his child prodigy son Sameehan Kashalkar who is an ITC Sangeet Research scholar, and who like a no nonsense oldie, asked the sleepy sound engineer to increase the sharp -this set the tone for the performance, He needed to ask the guy for more volume, less bass what not. He sings with an authentic control over all the nuances of vocal performance one would expect from a much older singer. By now my neighbour who would guard my place during various forays into music stalls and the faraway loo, was nodding and clapping enthusiastically. I leaned over to ask him how old the boy must be. He said not more than 13. Whew, this is in the mould of Ustad Rashid Khan, the darling of Puneri crowds whom I first saw at the Laxmi Vilas Palace 3-day long festival by the ITC Akadami, he too was 13 years old when launched.

Sameehan, who seems slated to go far, started off with raag Kedar and gave a very convincing account of the melody. Fils was joined by Pere Kashalkar and they sang raag Bihag. It was a very catchy composition, and Pt. Suresh Talwalkar whose disciples had been accompanying artists in almost all performances so far, accompanied the father and son duo. It was a wonderful performance.

60th Savai Gandharva Music Festival - Day 2

There was a hint of wintry chill in the air, and as the venue is barely 200 meters from the river cutting across the heart of the city, for those who prefer to sit in the ‘Bharatiya baithak’ section in two flanks -the chill gets more severe after sundown. Very few people had turned up to listen to Pt. Rattan Mohan Sharma, one of the senior disciples of

 Pt. Jasraj. I distinctly recall having heard him very often on AIR when at school, and that was in mid-1960. Both he and Askaran Sharma impressed me greatly. Was curious to see how high or low has been Pt RMS’s flight after AIR and AM radio went out of my life.

He sure was good, flanked by two pretty young things on tanpura, and a pair of good tabalchi and mridnangam. Pakhavaj or mridangam? I had to look and listen carefully. It was mridangam played by Shridhar Parthsarathy, and I was jolted back to reality that Pune stands as the Gate to South. Deccan plateau starts from here, that word is an anglicised version of Urdu word dakkhan, which is a corruption of Sanskrit Dakshin. Oh boy, I have been a South Indian for nearly two decades. How thrilling.

Pt. RMS began with a very masculine sounding deep voice that Pt. Jasraj sometimes resorts to, very effectively. The melodious nature of the Mewati gharana was very much apparent, the decades of riyaaz showed perfection and some experimental forays into the taans and the trickeries that separate the seniors from juniors was very much there. He sang wonderfully well with admirable aplomb and control on singing. The alaap in Raag VaraaLi and vilambit gat were very good.

The sinking sun, throwing whimsical shadows on the advanced LED screens, made amazingly distorted views, weirdly adding to the exuberance. A clutch of koels kept making garrulous noises in the huge trees at the venue. A lot of kites, hawks and an occasional eagle kept circling high up in the sky.

The crowd slowly swelled, the applause got louder and the biofeedback sort of singer-audience symbiosis came into play. Over 10,000 had attended, according to experts. He later on sang a short piece in raag Megh, which also was hugely applauded. Finally he sang an abhang, with the Anna-topi guy with specs, providing excellent accompaniment on manjira, causing the audience to go into raptures. Though he looks like a prosperous trader from North, his singing is authentic, energetic and adventurous, he does not mimic his guru, which is commendable. He sounds very original.

The young duo of Ayan Ali Khan Bangash and Aman Ali Khan Bangash, the sons of Ust. Amjad Ali Khan, were not new to the SGSM regulars. I think I saw them and heard them here some 4-5 years ago, and had liked them. My worry was that the line up was unusual, like the famous Blues-based rock band of Allman Brothers of US who used to have two lead guitars and two drummers! Each sarodiya had his personal tabalchi… that was surely interesting. Ayan Ali Khan had the son of Pt. Anindo Chatterjee -whom I personally rate as the best accompaniment to any artist worth his or her salt because his table sound has a unique personality all his own. Unlike today’s over-commercialized superstars who overwhelm the performer, Anindo always remains where he is slated to be, and shows his brilliance is short spurts. This trait is disappearing in today’s cut-throat scenario where the ’15 minute’ fame scenario predicted by the American Pop artist Andy Warhol, and serious musicians crying hoarse over the 20 minute workshop to teach how to appreciate Hindustani Classical Music.

The youngsters with their duo of percussionists played to the gallery when the time came, but despite my personal dislike for the galloping sarods trying to keep pace with prancing percussion, this performance showed for the first time in my life, that all that high speed frenzied accompaniment can be separated from melodious pattern of the raag still being played. Both are excellent sarodiyas, and it showed.

After a very long time I saw a Bharatnatyam performace, since I am biased towards Kathak. Shobhana Chandrakumar performed making most of the viewers glued to their seats. She seems to be in her 30s, with a dancer’s agile and supple body, astonishingly piercing black eyes, and an amazing control on the ‘abhinaya’, the science and art of using facial expressions to portray a story in dance. There was something wrong the sound engineering set up because she had complain several times wordlessly, using eloquent gestures to say that she could not hear her own payal / ghungrus. This complaint of sound being insufficient rose to a crescendo with the next vocal performance, surely somebody hearing-challenged was manning the controls.

She gave a very convincing performance, with good use of fading of lights and vocal / music support in the background. One peculiar thing I noticed with the high power cameras showing every nuance on her face is that her left arm seems like that of a lady at least 40 years old while the right arm seems like a teenager’s. This could be noticed only from certain angles and it was no illusion. Most of us have one side of the body slightly more developed than the other side. Very few of us are perfectly symmetrical. She won a fulsome set of applause, thoroughly well-deserved

Finally came the giants, Pt. Rajan Mishra and Pt. Sajan Mishra, who were much honoured for their lifetime achievement. Their sons, Ritesh and Rajneesh started off the proceedings with alap in raag Joag, which is a guarantee to thrill. On four different occasions (while at Pune) I have heard the brothers and always found their singing good enough to make me beyond goose pimples and enter the wordless territory fit for Zen thinking and flying in a nameless sky. This time around the sons did the same, despite their repeated complaints the sound level remained too low -finally someone at the control console woke up and after half an hour normal sound was restored. The singing was simply astonishing with no drama, nor an intent to please the gallery. Strangely, after the vilambit, they moved back to allow the senior Mishra brother to take over, who also put in their cent per cent. One could not help but compare the ‘fils’ with the ‘peres’, and the dads indeed possess immensely relaxed style, engage into more challenging juxtapositions of the sur and laya, in brief, they perform like veterans. But the boys are slated to go very far -both impressed the audience very much.

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60th Savai Gandhar-Bhimsen Joshi Music Fesitval -Day 1

Pune's Answer To Woodstock... Savai Gandharv Music Festival in its 60th Year, kicked off today.
It was my 17th visit to the same venue where it is held, took a bus an walked thru' labyrinthine maze of lanes to the venue at Raman Baug. I was 30 minutes late on purpose since the festival starts with a Shehnai recital, mostly upcoming new artists. The first vocalist of the day was Meena Phetarpekar, 

grand daughter of Ustad Abdul Karim Khan and daughter of Sarasvatibai Rane. She seems to be having some difficulty in hitting the higher registers, and her voice does not have any special appeal. She had chosen raag Khambhavati which is rarely heard in live concerts, and it is not one of my favourites either. A bhajan on the other hand was sung very well, replete with an Anna Hazare cap-wearing warikar.
I walked around to see new changes. Plenty.

No more dust clouds that used to choke one, because twenty thousand pairs of shoes can kick up colossal dust, despite sprinkling water. Now every inch is carpeted. Wow.

The place is bigger and dimmer (not brighter) because the green bug seems to have bitten the organisers. Good good. There is a new generation CCTV with brighter screen, and the tiny cubbyhole for artists to change or hobnob with one another or entertain the trailing hordes of fans, has been increased to triple its size. Great space utilization.

Padma Deshpande who also learnt from the stalwarts like Hirabai Barodeka, Sarasvatibai Rane, snag next. She made a wiser choice, Yemen, which is a always a hit with any kind of audience. She sang well with very expressive hand gestures but her two proteges on the tanpura sang very well with robust voices. The experienced vocalist gave us two variants of the drut gat, and her lightening fast sargam seemed to have impressed the audience.

Then came the young rockstar of Hindustani shastreeya sangeet,Rahul Sharma- dressed in a jetblack ensemble, with curvy long hair. He chose Kalavati, one of the most melodious raags and one that suits the dulcet, bubbling brook sounds of Santoo. He had a very nice tabla accompanist who did not overwhelm him and both together produced a nice long an leisurely savaal-javaab rally at the end. A bit of playing to the gallery wit overuse of histrionics seemed slightly ot of the place. The audience went wild.

After some 'sanmaan' ceremonies to recognize various oldies like Pt Ajay Pohankar et al, the grand old man Pt Jasraj arrived. He seems older, slower and a tad detached. I had complained to a true blue connoisseur of Hindustani music that for the last 3-4 years his singing seems to have lost its edge. The TBC said : Naturally, he had Pt Bhimsen Joshi to raise the bar all the time -now that he is gone, poor Pt Jasraj feels all lost. Makes sense. That was healthy competition indeed. 

He chose to sing Shuddha Nat, another rarely performed raag and one which I am not very excited about. I didn't wait for the end of the concert an left early.

More tomorrow.... good night.

Crooning Dreamily....

If wounds could speak

I'd be rustling like an autumn tree.

If hurts could swell up,

I'd be wriggling under stones.

As it is, I croon in my dreams

to lighten the cacophony of life.

(c) Max Babi