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| TRADITIONAL APPEAL: Pt Kashalkar at the Institute of Culture. (Picture by Shambhu Hazra) |
Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar offered Lalit as the opening raga of the daylong soiree on the occasion of the 143rd birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda on January 12 at the Institute of Culture, Golpark.
Following a long aochar, the smooth gradual progression of his hour-long recital from vilambit khayal to tarana, both in teental, was a brilliant illustration of the traditional Gwalior style with all its characteristic angas. Yogesh Samsi (tabla), Purushottam Walwalkar (harmonium) along with Samihan and Hrishikesh (vocal) provided inspired support. With superb melodic and emotional appeal, Kashalkar then presented madhya-laya-ki-gayaki followed by a fast tarana in Alhaiya Bilawal.
Santoor maestro Shivkumar Sharma presented Antar-dhwani, a new pentatonic raga with Re, Ma, Dha, Ni and somewhat deviously touched Ga in the descent, with supreme clarity. Supported by Anindo Chatterjee’s tabla, the delightful layakari in jhaptal and faster teental was essentially based on variant chhandas. The Bhairavi dadra weaved in all the 12 notes with mesmerising melody and lovely lilt.
Flautist Hari Prasad Chaurasia unveiled the features of Bageshri beginning with a mysterious two-note introduction around 8 p.m. In the jod, both the maestros introduced pakhawaj by Bhawani Shankar. This complimented the flute better than the delicate tone of santoor. Chaurasia then moved on to Chandrakauns and, accompanied by Samar Saha’s tabla and Rakesh Chaurasia’s flute, presented lively mattatal and teental gatkaris.
Earlier vocalist Rashid Khan opened the evening with Marwa, stretched over almost 90 minutes. Despite his relaxed and at times repetitive badhat, emotive pukars and cascading taans, he could not rejuvenate his beautiful but noticeably tired voice.
A jugalbandi of Carnatic violinist Mysore Manjunath and sarod player Tejendra Narayan Majumdar was placed in the second session after a Kathakali dance recital. The sarod introduced Bhimpalasi vividly and together with an equally adept violin presented alap, jod, jhala. The sawal-jawab between adi talam and teental and the solo rounds of Swapan Chowdhury’s tabla and Arjun Kumar’s mridangam were pleasing. When all the four musicians played together it was all confusion partly due to an inept sound system.
Ballygunge Maitreyee Music Circle presented 11 vocalists and an equal number of instrumentalists (January 28-30). The canvas of raga Puria Kalyan had high peaks of intellect and deep valleys of emotions in the jugalbandi of sitar exponent Manilal Nag and his daughter Mita. Later Madhusudan Mancha was packed to capacity to listen to Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Alam Khan, his son, took the mantle on his shoulders and played alap in Hem Bihag followed by teental gatkaris in Bihag. His sarod’s simple yet choicest melodic statements touched the inner chords of the listeners.
The day began with a technically brilliant Ahir Bhairav on Soumik Dutta’s sarod. Vocalists Anjana Nath and Sandipan Samajpati explored the depth of sentiments in Bilaskhani Todi and Patadeep respectively with adroitness. A majestic Bhatiyar was offered by Jagdish Prasad. Pran Gopal displayed noteworthy progress in the tabla duet with father Anand Gopal Bandopadhyay. Ali Ahmed Hussain’s shehnai closed this massive soiree of “rising talents” with a romantic Shahana.