The right strokes on the strings
JITENDRA PRATAP
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The city was witness to two fine sitar recitals by Ranjit Makuni and Sarda Mukherjee.
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It was an elaborate function by the newly founded cultural organisation, Swar Sandhya, to express the young tabla player Mithilesh Jha's gratitude to his octogenarian guru, Pandit Bulbul Maharaja of Mungher, in Bihar. A large number of senior musicians graced the occasion - with sarod maestro Ustad Amad Ali Khan as chief guest.
The main attraction of the evening, however, was the sitar recital by renowned multi-media expert Ranjit Makuni of Kerala, now settled in San Francisco. Makuni is also president of The Sacred World Foundation. He has been learning the sitar for a long time - from the renowned sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan at the Ali Akbar College of Music at San Anselmo in California.
Listening to Ranjit's sitar recital for the second time, after a gap of nearly five years, one noticed the vast improvement in his handling of the frets and strings. One was particularly impressed with his neat and crisp strokes of the mizrab (the plectrum). His choice of commencing the evening's recital with the dusk-time raga Shree with its serene character was befitting. One did however miss the preliminary rendering of the alap-jor-jhala, which is a `must' in classical music.
Most of his renderings of the evening seemed to be in the bandish format of tailor-made or pre-composed renditions, which is rather different from the extempore renditions in the form of upaj or the badhat. The slow composition in the 16-beat teen tal, followed by others in the ten-beat jhaptal, and again in fast teen tals, indicated his penchant for rhythmic formats. His guru seems to have put in much effort in arranging the contents of his music.
Varying tempos
His next rendering, with several compositions in raga Pilu, set to varying tempos and time-cycles, also seemed to be pre-conceived bandish sequences. The remarkable feature in Indian classical music is the artiste's capability for on-the-spot improvisations, rather than sticking to the bandish formats of musical contents. Indian classical music is essentially melodic-oriented, unlike the Western system that is dominantly harmonic, thereby necessitating paper work and pre-composing to arrange the simultaneous combination of different harmonic notes required in a composition.
Makuni's neat and crisp strokes on the strings would have sounded even better had the tone of his instrument been more resonant and vibrant - instead of sounding rather mute, and at times even harsh. One would like to suggest that he develops the preliminary alap-jor-jhala that would certainly add richer dimensions to his sincere and dedicated efforts in playing on the sitar. He had excellent support on the tabla from Mithilesh Jha, whose numerous rounds of solo variations drew applause from the audience.
Short and sweet
This past week, on the occasion of the Guru Poornima, Sarda Mukherjee gave a sitar recital at the India Habitat Centre to offer respects to her gurus, Pandit Manilal Nag of Kolkata and Pandit Biswajit Roy Choudhury of Delhi. The latter was present on the occasion to bless his disciple. Sarda has done her graduation in music from the Rabindra Bharati Univerity, Kolkata and is presently under the guidance of Roy Choudhury. Her recital, though short and sweet, was notable for its contents, particularly the selection of the ragas Yeman and Kamod.
Since both the ragas are derived from one and the same mode of Kalyan thaat, it seemed quite reasonable for her to do the preliminary alap-jor-jhala and the slow tempo teen tal gat-toda in the raga Yeman, and follow it up with a fast tempo composition in the raga Kamod instead of the usual Yeman. Sarda rendered the entire fare with good understanding of the ragas' basic structures and their melodic appeal, besides an able display of her instrumental virtuosity. Her plucking of the strings and her left-hand finger movements on the frets were indeed neat and bold. She also displayed her able command over the rhythm if her several rounds of rhythmic dialogues with the ace percussionist Abhijit Aich on the tabla are an indication.
One did not observe any influence of her former guru, Pandit Manilal Nag's mannerisms of the West Bengal's Vishnupur gharana to which he belongs. Instead, there was much evidence of her present guru Biswajit Roy Choudhury's style in her recital under review. The only discord during her recital was the frequent re-tuning of the sitar, which, according to the compere, was on account of the air-conditioning system in the auditorium.
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Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
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Thiruvananthapuram
