CIMA adda presented a khayal recital by the author Amit Chaudhuri at the CIMA Gallery on January 16. The opening hour-long session of khayals in the dusk raga Purvi was preceded by the reading of a longish extract from the author’ book Afternoon Raga by Antara Haldar. She also read out a shorter extract from the same work before the second session in which Chaudhuri presented khayals in three ragas created by his first guru Lakshman Prasad Jaipurwale.

The treatment of Purvi both in the elaboration of the ati vilambit ektal khayal and the composition itself was rather strange because the composition arrived at the same with the phrase re pa, not usually used in Purvi but a main phrase of the other major dusk raga Shri, and also with the abundance of the phrase re ma (tivra), a major phrase of Shri and a variety of Gauri. The general format of the khayal seemed to be based on that Chaudhuri’s other guru A. Kanan. The high-pitched sound production, however, suggested Gwalior school.

Chaudhuri, who sang with a semi-clenched fist raised to his left ear, on the whole showed a good degree of competence. Some woman singers have performed with a palm covering the left ear, but the semi-clenched fist is something new. Among the .P. Jaipurwale ragas, Nat Chandra sounded too much like a variation of Nat Bhairav to have a distinct character, while Jog Bahar was one of those ragas that alternately present the constituent ragas.