That Ustad Ali Akbar Khan?s father-guru Baba Alauddin Khan blessed him with the title of Sur-Samrat is a well-known fact. But the listeners belonging to this generation may not know or understand why the latter did so. On the ustad?s birthday (April 14) Anindya Banerjee, one of his disciples, shared the secret at the Srijan rooftop. He spread out his enviable treasure of heavenly music created by the maestro. The magical resonance of the ustad?s sarod, his endlessly gliding Shuddh Kalyan?s unique freshness, the majestic pathos of his Darbari?s gandhar, the mind-boggling intricacy of laya-chhandakari, his die-hard traditionalism, the surprisingly modern fusions of diagonally opposite idioms ? all, aided by the audio clippings and the sheer reverence of Banerjee?s unobtrusive narration ? mesmerised the listeners.
Meena Banerjee
In Manish Puskale?s non-representational essays the viewer is confronted with scenarios of a gentle battle between geometric shapes and softly textured tonal areas for accommodation in space. It is never suggestive of one contender ousting the other, but of neatly falling in place like musical points and counterpoints, forming a harmonious whole. The seemingly repetitive chords that cover the artist?s compositional space are best construed as refrains that provide, in the given context, a kind of optic rest at measured intervals. Puskale has simulated the texture of fine gauze-like fabric to embellish his picture surface by simply rubbing it thinly with oil pigment.
Samir Dasgupta
The rich voice of Subodh Ranjan Dey reverberated in and around Sree Satyananda Devayatan (April 14). The mood was set by Archanapuri when she awarded him ?Sangeet Bharati?, a title instituted by her and mentor Sree Satyananda to pay respect to eminent musicians for their life-long sadhana. The veteran dhrupad singer, groomed under such maestros like Radhika Prasad Goswami, Lalit Mohan Mukherjee and Satish Chandra Dutta, began with an authoritative dhrupad in Chhayanat, accompanied by Ratnankur Mitra on the pakhawaj. A complex Kanada ka prakar epitomised his deep knowledge while his pulsating Hori dhamar enthralled all. But the concluding kirtan, set to a rarely heard bado-dash-kushi tala and deftly played by Swami Gadadhrananda on the khol, brought out the true essence of devotion.
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