That whiff of Bade Ghulam Ali
JITENDRA PRATAP
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Grandsons of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Mazhar Ali Khan and Jawaad Ali Khan - presented soulful renderings in New Delhi the other day.
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The flag bearers: Mazhar Ali Khan and Jawaad Ali Khan in New Delhi.
To mark the 41st death anniversary of India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund presented a programme of devotional music at the Nehru Memorial Library Auditorium, Teen Murti House here recently. The artistes featured were the vocalist duo of Kasur-Patiala gharana Mazhar Ali Khan and Jawaad Ali Khan, grandsons of the late Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.
For reasons best known to the trustees of the Fund, the programme this year was held in the Library auditorium, which has a very limited seating capacity - a little more than 250. As a consequence, most of the non-VIP invitees were made to sit in the adjoining foyer with a small TV set to watch the proceedings inside the auditorium. That surely robbed them of half the pleasure.
On several occasions earlier, one has attended Nehru's birth and death anniversaries on the Teen Murti's lush green lawns with a turnout of more than thousand admirers. It felt quite pleasant listening to the recitals in the open-air, even in the month of May with the entire area thoroughly sprinkled with water and a cold breeze coming from large blowers and revolving fans. But obviously things have changed as have the priorities.
Soulful renderings
The Ali brothers gave a befitting curtain-raiser with soulful renderings of `Guru Vandana' and `Maheshwar Mahadeva', both in raga Bhupali. There was adequate display of classical mannerisms in their presentation of these two opening numbers and the following "Sab Kirpa Prabhu" in raga Pahadi. The hymn "Allaha-hu Allaha-hu", though soulfully rendered would, however, have appealed better if presented in a dusk-time raga instead of the early morning's raga Bhairav. To do so, all that was required was to raise the Suddha Madhyam note of the raga Bhairav by just a semi-tone to the Teevra Madhyam and an ideal dusk-time melody of the Poorvi thaat would have emerged for that time of the evening.
Light classical
The later renderings somehow reflected a trend towards light-classical musical forms. The very fact that two harmoniums were being deployed, one played by the elder Mazhar and the other by the accompanist Zamir Ahmed, indicated an initial approach towards the overall deployment of the light classical idiom. This could probably be attributed to the presence of a very large number of VVIPs, senior bureaucrats, and the large contingent of security personnel. However, one wondered wasn't the occasion greater than all the individuals who had assembled there?
Incidentally, Idris Khan on the tabla and Ahmed on the harmonium provided excellent accompaniment to the singing duo who have quite a legacy to live up to.
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