Randeep Palit (left) with Bandish Palit perform at the musical evening in Bhubaneswar in memory of Manna Dey. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 25: The city swayed to the tunes of sitar and Manna Dey’s songs last evening.

Young and veteran sitar-players took part in Sitar Symphony, hosted at Idcol auditorium. Another concert, titled Ae bhai, zara dekh ke chalo, in the memory of the singer who passed away last month, took place at Rabindra Mandap.

The sitar concert was organised by the Odisha Sitar Akademi and it was their first presentation.

Disciples of the great sitar players of the state — Gajanan Nandi and his disciple Bauri Bandhu Sethi — and graduates in sitar from Utkal Sangeet Mahavidyalaya came together to form the Akademi.

“Bauri sir passed away last year, but he had laid the foundation and the concept of the Akademi. This was his dream and his inspiration united us to form the Akademi,” said a young Sabyasachi Rout, who, along with Prakash Chandra Mohapatra, caught the eye of the audience at the concert during a duet.

“Instrumental shows are rare in the city. It was wonderful to watch promising and established artistes display their musical nuances on the sitar,” said Shekhar Jena, a viewer.

The Manna Dey memorial concert also saw a big turnout.

Organised by a cultural organisation called Babi Anand Group, the event saw an ensemble of the veteran’s songs presented by artistes of different generations.

Local artiste Babi Anand began by singing Zindagi kaisi hai paheli from the film Anand. He followed it up with Door hai kinara from the Saudagar and Kasme waade pyaar wafa from the movie Upkaar.

He later teamed up with another singer called Suchismita and sang duets such as Ye raat bheegi bheegi and Aaja sanam. The much-loved Bengali song Coffee house er sei adda, was well appreciated and so was the Odia song Gela basara ra din sarigala, both originally rendered by Manna Dey.

Later, noted singer Laxmikant Palit and his two sons — Bandish and Randeep — also took the opportunity to lend their voice to some of Dey’s most memorable songs.