A DIFFERENT BEAT: Mahadevappa Bhajantari and his "Khani Halige" troupe performing in Gulbarga city on Friday.

GULBARGA: A troupe of "Kani Halige" folk artistes from the remote Ambihal village in Lingasugur taluk in Raichur district on Friday held an audience in the city spellbound with a delightful performance.

The team had been invited by the president of the district Kannada Sahitya Parishat Veerabhadra Simpi to play in Sedam town of Gulbarga district.

Delightful

The artistes, led by Mahadevappa Bhajantari and Gaddappa Bhajantari, not only played exciting music using the traditional shahanai, the drum and the dhimma (a musical instrument similar to the tabla), but they also danced to their own tunes, much to the delight of the onlookers.

One of the special features of the show was the playing of three instruments — the shahanai, the dhimma and the drum — simultaneously by Mahadevappa Bhajantari, the troupe's leader.

Speaking to The Hindu here, Mr. Bhajantari, who spoke modestly of his achievements, said that the State Government had recognised the troupe's calibre and had regularly invited it for all important cultural and folk music festivals.

He said that the 12 performing artistes in the team hailed from one family in the village. "We do not know anything apart from music. Our families depend entirely on the income generate from our performances," he added.

Mr. Bhajantari said that the troupe had performed in different parts of the country, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Goa and all Karnataka districts, and had been regularly playing at the annual Mysore Dasara festival and the Hampi Utsav. He said the "Kani Halige" was a special type of drum that produced "different" sounds, and the troupe had come to be identified with its use.

He said the troupe had narrowly missed an opportunity to perform before US president George W. Bush at the AKKA festival in the US, although the Union Government had selected it for the show, owing to difficulty in getting their visas.

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