Most impressive: Samaresh Chowdhury on stage

The daylong music festival to mark the 141st birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda, organised by The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture at its Vivekananda Hall last Monday, presented three items in its morning session, two in the afternoon and two in the evening.

The apparent penchant of musicians to play predetermined ragas created some tonal monotony in the opening session. The shehnai recital by Daya Shankar and party, which started around 9.16 am in the morning, seemed to set the modal compass to Todi. Mian ki Todi is ideal for a morning recital and Daya Shankar was quite justified in starting with it. He produced good tone and seemed to be highly skilled. His occasional tendency to weaken the rishav in descending movements, however, was uncalled for. His phrase development and taankari in the vilambit ektal gatkari was otherwise good and the drut teental gatkari produced some excellent fast taankari. The quasi-bolkari and quasi-jhala in the ati drut teental gatkari was also quite good. The brief purbi dhun, gatkari in Brindabani Sarang and the Vaishnav Jana ragamalika were excellently played.

But young santoor star Rahul Sharma, who played next, had apparently come prepared to play another form of Todi: the pentatonic variety known as Bhopal Todi. This drops the tivra madhyam and nishad of Mian ki Todi and thus has a different character. Still, it is not a raga one would choose to hear less than an hour after Mian ki Todi. Sharma, however, played well, displaying an organised compilation of the skill and artistry of his father Shivkumar Sharma in his alap and rupak tala and drut and ati drut teental gatkari. Yogesh Shamsi provided expert tabla accompaniment.

The last performer of the morning session, Samaresh Chowdhury, also sang a Todi but not a classic one. This was Bairagi Todi created by his last guru Pandit Ravi Shankar, the sitar celebrity. The raga shares its first four notes with Bhopal Todi. It, however, uses the komal nishad in place of Bhopal Todi’s komal dhaivat. Since he started singing around 12 noon, he could easily have started with a Sarang. But apparently either his ragas were pre-set or he did not bother to find out what raga had figured as Sharma’s main item.

Nevertheless, Chowdhury’s hour-long vilambit ektal and drut khayals in this raga comprised the most impressive item of the entire festival. The vilambit khayal was initially elaborated in the Bade Ghulam Ali Khan manner with gamaks and bahalawas. The Munawar Ali-style long stands and spirited movements came next. The medium-paced sargam patterns, medium-paced and fast bol taans, aakar taans, sargam taans, sargam tukras and tehais were all parts of a total tonal structure of high quality and were all executed in the powerful Patiala manner. The drut teental khayal and drut ektal tarana in Shuddh Sarang and the classic Bhairavi thumri were equally good. Samar Saha and Roshal Ali provided excellent tabla and sarangi accompaniment respectively.

The afternoon session opened with a kathak recital by Rajendra Gangani with rousing support on tabla, pakhawaj and sarangi support by Kumar Bose, Fateh Singh Gangani and Ramesh Mishra respectively. Playing next, sitar maestro Ustad Imrat Khan played alap and gatkari in the raga Patdeep that for some reason he chose to call ‘rare’. The alap was more or less up to his standard but parts of the jod, itself shoddily structured, were definitely not. Though not bad on the whole, the vilambit and drut teental gatkari were way below his old standards. The mizrab kept slipping off the ustad’s finger whenever he tried to play fast bolkari. Anindo Chatterjee provided good tabla accompaniment.

The evening session opened with ati vilambit ektal and drut teental khayals in the raga Madhumanti by Rashid Khan. The vilambit barhat was exceptionally slow with gaps between phrases but rich and tuneful. A very occasional touch of the komal nishad was used in all the khayals and also contained in the second drut khayal composition. This is not usual in Madhumanti. His slow and medium paced sargams and fast-medium and fast taankari were very much up to his best standards. The 13-minute drut teental khayal in Chhayanat was very well sung and featured some taans associated with his guru Ustad Nisar Hussain Khan.

The concluding item featuring flutist Hari Prasad Chaurasia and his nephew Rakesh was marred by wayward use of the two gandhars in the raga Jog. Neither the alap nor the jod were up to the artiste’s standards. The jhaptal gatkari, also featuring vigorous tabla accompaniment by Shubankar Banerjee, was better. The larger part of the drut gatkari in the raga Hansdhvani was reserved for ghatam-playing by star T. (Vikku) Vinayakram.