Celebrated artist Ganesh Haloi and young classical vocalist Indrani Mukherjee shared Benaras as the central theme of their respective art forms on May 20 at Akar Prakar. In an ambience created by the paintings titled Steps that Seek her first step towards an exclusive evening of thumri, very aptly, sought the earthy flavours of the land of its origin. With an eye for refreshing variety she sang a thumri in mishra Khamaj set to jat with heavy glide based bol-banav, a lively Pilu dadra, a kajri welcoming the rainy Saturday and a beautiful Bhairavi dadra with unusual note combinations. Hiranmoy Mitra’s harmonium added inventive fillers and Apurbo Mukherjee was reassuring on the tabla. However her voice-throw needs to emerge out of the influence of her thumri -guru Purnima Chowdhuri for individuality
Meena Banerjee
Gallery Kanishka sculpture and painting exhibition titled ‘Melange’ is rather a mixed bag. The art objects are of high quality but lack the saving grace of proper curatio and there are too many works in too little space. Suhas Roy’s ‘untitled’ watercolour on hand made paper has an exquisite Boddhisatta with bird. Aditya Basak’s mixed media ‘Worship’, Manoj Datta over stylised picture of a boy in pastel, Atin Basak’s glum looking face of an ageing woman ‘Its an advertisement’ in tempera, Dipak Mukherjee’s acrylic ‘Composition’ of ‘The Unknown Lady’, Niranjan Pradhan’s ‘Princess of Waves’, Sunil Kumar Das’s ‘Swing 1 and 2’, Bimal Kundu’s ‘Musician’ and Shyamal Kumar Roy’s terracotta of a lovely ‘lady’are worth mentioning.
Sandip Sarkar
The Talent Search programme organised by the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre (EZCC) last Monday (May 29) at Salt Lake gave the field to nine artistes aspiring to be Rabindrasangeet exponents. Each of them were given 15 minutes to showcase their flair for Tagore songs, and among Achin Mukherjee, Mali Mitra, Jayanti Soren, Kaberi Dasgupta, Sreyashi Mitra, Subrata Sengupta, Indrani Das, Mala Deb Burman and Madhumita Bhattacharya, it was Mala Deb Burman from Santiniketan and Jayanti Soren with her Tomar khola haoa who struck a chord. Madhumita Bhattacharya with her Amar hriday tomar apan, Mone robe keena robe and Baje karun sware impressed with her easy style of rendition.
Anil Grover
