Just for the Ustad
JITENDRA PRATAP
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New Delhi's Arpan Society paid a tribute to Ustad Shafaat Ahmed Khan with a recital by Anandi Roy and Sarada Mukherjee. Jitendra Pratap
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YOUNGSTERS' HOMAGE Sarada Mukherjee on the sitar and Anandi Roy (below) on the sarod
The Arpan Society presented an evening of instrumental music this past week at New Delhi's Triveni auditorium, in memory of the late tabla maestro Ustad Shafaat Ahmed Khan of the Dilli gharana.
Paying her tributes to the Ustad, Shobha Deepak Singh, Director, Sri Ram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, recalled the long and close association she and her institution had with him. She also mentioned the cheerful, kind and friendly disposition he displayed with everyone who came in contact with him.
Good beginning
The evening's fare comprised a sarod recital by the teenager Anandi Roy and a sitar recital by Sarada Mukherjee.
Whereas the sitar is easier to handle in the earlier stage of learning, the sarod, in comparison, is quite tough for a beginner to gain some fluency over it. In the advanced stages the sitar becomes quite complicated and hard to continue further, while the sarod becomes comparatively easier.
However, it is in the initial stage of handling the sarod that calls for much hard work and patience, both for the teacher and the taught to attain tunefulness.
Teacher's work
It is much to the credit of the teacher Biswajit Roy Choudhury for having given a thorough training to his teen-aged pupil, Anandi Roy, a class XII student of Gyan Bharati Public School. It was a delight to observe this young girl's confident and bold mannerisms in handling the sarod with ease and good melodic insight. Her brief alap in the evening raga Rageshwari followed by two compositions set to madhya and drut Teen tala were redolent with charmingly executed melodic phrases and variations. The concluding jhala sequences were laced with colourful note permutations with neat and bold strokes of the plectrum.
Durjoy Bhowmik on the tabla provided commendable support to Anandi besides rendering a few of his own solo variations with much aplomb.
Sarada Mukherjee's sitar recital in raga Bihag did contain quite a few impressive sequences, Yet, in comparison to her recital at the India Habitat Centre about a month ago, her recital of this evening did not have the same charm and technical fluency. She did seem to be rather off-colour on this occasion. Her handling of the raga too left much to be desired.
Her frequent stress on the note Teevra Madhyam and the wrong accent on the Suddha Dhaivat, particularly in the lower octave, were not in keeping with the raga's basic structure. Quite a few of her long and sweeping glides sounded rather below the mark and at times even strident.
Delightful phase
She, however, made up in her rendering of the three gat-todas in slow, medium, and fast paced Teen tala compositions with adroit tabla accompaniment by Gyan Singh. The most delightful phase in her evening's recital was the colourful jhala sequences with reversed strokes of the mizrab.
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