Evening of melody and bhakti
Purshottamdas Jalota
IT WAS a confluence of raga and bhakti at the spacious environs of the Taj Coromandel in the city recently. ``Bhajan Sandhya" — the spiritual evening of bhajans by Purshottamdas Jalota preceded by Padmaja Phenany Joglekar — was a dedication in aid of the service projects of Shree Banaskantha Palanpur Jain Association.
For the past 37 years the Association has been striving to improve the quality of life of the under-privileged sections of society. Its endeavour, in association with Sri Satya Sai Seva Organisation, has resulted in houses built for the poor in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry borders and at Banaskantha district in North Gujarat for cyclone hit families. The association gives scholarships to deserving students and distributes food grains, clothes and blankets to the needy. Inmates of many a mental hospital, school students in far-flung villages and people in abject poverty have benefited from the Jain Association's charity work. Septuagenarian Purushottamdas Jalota (ghazal king Anup Jalota's father) too stressed in his choice of bhajans the need for an unswerving focus of mind, be it in the `aradhan' to the Almighty or the compassionate hands that await the call of the poor. The vocalist and tabla player, who as a 12-year-old was initiated into a gurukul of Sham Chaurasi Gharana, was known for his mastery in Raagdari Sangeet, and had received shower of praises from Sarojini Naidu, the then Governor of Uttar Pradesh. The classical singer's penchant for devotional and philosophical literature and his inclusion of Tulsidas, Kabirdas, Surdas, Meerabai and Guru Nanak in his classical repertoire, was to stress life's simple truths revolving over home-spun wisdom. Jalotaji, whose career spans five decades and more said, "If our saints and sawants carried social messages in their verses, it was up to us to put them on a melodic scale and preserve them."
Purshottamdas Jalota was one of the first of progressive old-timers who was practical enough to make the Bhagavad Gita more comprehensible and enjoyable to people, in that he composed the verses in scintillating ragas.
The Padma Sri awardee vibed well with the audience on Sunday last as he blended raag, bhajan and bandish with tales, anecdotes, swaras and jokes in his nearly two-hour concert. Behag, the soothing raag of Bilawal Thaat was chosen for a Surdas geet which had tales spun from the Bhagavatam. Kabirdas was unfolded in Desh and in Mishra Maand and one of the rarely handled facets of Hindustani music, Chaturang (four essentials stressed in Hindustani Sangeet) blossomed in Mishra Desh.
It was an event for a worthy cause. Along with his sishya Pramila Bhatia and Manoj Desai on the harmonium, Ashok Johri on the tabla, Vinod Saigal on the flute, Bharat Shah on the violin, and Mathubhai Trivedi on special rhythm, Jalotaji made the evening memorable.
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Lacing literature with music
Padmaja Joglekar
SHE HAS set to tune poems of two former Prime Ministers and was awarded Padma Sri in 2001. She has received the S. D. Burman Award for best playback singing, Miya Tansen Award for best classical-based song for Marathi film ``Nivdung," and the Bharat Nirman Award. She is one of the pioneers who introduced the ghazal format to Marathi literature.
Padmaja Phenany Joglekar, a Hindustani/ghazal/bhajan exponent from Mumbai was in the city recently to participate in the "Bhajan Sandhya."
A beaming Padmaja recalled the success of her cassette "Geet Naya Gaata Hoon" containing eight poems of Atal Bihari Vajpayee says, "Initially Atalji wasn't very excited about his poems being set to music as he had termed his poetry prose-oriented and written in free style. Anyway, after he asked me to give him some samples, he actually stood up in appreciation and said, "I applaud you for your music and voice."
Vajpayee went on to become Prime Minister and of course it feels simply great as the royalty from its sales goes to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund says Padmaja.
That is not all. Padmaja also got a chance to tune and sing former Prime Minister V.P. Singh's poems that are to be released shortly.
Bhajans composed by Anup Jalota are also in her repertoire and she plans to take them across to people musically.
Just as she was getting ready to step into the lab after graduating in microbiology, Padmaja made a retreat as the call of music was simply hard to resist.
With guidance from such stalwarts as Pt. Jasraj, sarangi player Ram Narayan and music director Hridaynath Mangeshkar, she honed her vocal skills and went on to traverse not just the nuances of Hindustani shaili, but also ghazals, geet and bhajans. She revelled in her versatility and her melodic forays into Marathi poems of Kusumagraj, Indira Sant, Mangesh Padgaonkar to name a few are popular with connoisseurs of literature in the Marathi cultural circuit.
Padmaja is now dedicated to her study of saints and poets. "It helps me choose the best of each poet and offer a better package during my concerts," she says. That is how the rarely sung musical form, Tappa is also being revived by her. The harkat and murkhiyaan of the tappa style she demonstrates, used to be a favourite of Kumar Gandharv and Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, she adds.
Padmaja Joglekar's concert was flagged off with Rajesh Johri's "Mai Mangal Deep Jalawun" in Yaman. Meerabai came across in Bageshri. While the hall reverberated with raag Bhoop for Kabirdas's verses "Ananda Ananda" with the audience singing along, the Sai bhajan and an enjoyable Bandhish in Basant were a fitting finale to her show. — R. G.
RANJANI GOVIND
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