Recalling a legacy
|
Jaipur's Sangeet Sankalp highlighted the late Kaka Hathrasi's contribution to music with recitals by two youngsters this past week.
|
BRIGHT SPARK Divya Sharma impressed with the sheer quality of her voice
Not many people would know that the late Kaka Hathrasi, whose real name was Prabhu Lal Garg, the renowned Hindi satirist, was also the founder of Sangeet Karyalaya, Hathras. Under his patronage, the Sangeet Karyalaya became instrumental in promoting all genres of music. It brought out a number of publications about the theory and history of classical music. Its monthly magazine Sangeet with its various special numbers was perhaps one of the earliest popular sources to cater to the inquisitive mind of the practitioners and followers of the classical, semi-classical and rich folk traditions of India, particularly in the Hindi heartland.
As the realm of comic Hindi verse celebrates the birth centenary year of Kaka, so called for his prolificacy in the comic Hindi verse of `kundali' in his elderly years, Sangeet Sankalp also came forward to pay its musical tribute to the man whose influence on his son Mukesh Garg eventually led to the founding of this Society by Garg. This, in a way, may be described as an extension of the activities of the Sangeet Karyalaya.
While Delhi's Hindi Akademi initiated the centenary year celebration bang on September 18, Kaka's birthday and incidentally, the day of his nirvana also, when a Hasya Kavi Sammelan was arranged at FICCI auditorium in Delhi with all the bigwigs of the genre, the Jaipur chapter of Sankalp joined the celebration the same day by arranging a morning concert by two local musicians.
Jaipur concerts
The first was the very young and bright star on the horizon, vocalist Divya Sharma, and the second the violinist Suresh Motia of the famous Maharani Gayatri Devi (MGD) School.
Divya's recital was a hit for her swift rendition of one bada khayal and two chhota khayals. Disciple of vocalist Kundan Mal Sharma, also of Jaipur, the class XII student Divya selected raga Bairagi Bhairav for her recital, where both the vilambit laya and madhya laya were set to Teen tala.
Clarity of bol
Her rendition of the chhota khayal later, with the verse "Shiva Shankar Maheshwar Rameshwar Vishwanath", was a hit again for the sheer clarity of bol and the energy that depicted the tandava element. Even as Divya didn't venture a long alap nor attempt too many embellishments like taankari, sargam and the rest, she proved a winner simply for the quality of her voice.
The young artiste was accompanied on the harmonium by the veteran of the instrument Giriraj Balodiya and on the tabla by Mangi Lal.
The other recital of the day was by the instrumentalist Kailash Motia. A disciple of Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt in his second spell of learning under the guru-shishya tradition, the violinist Motia selected raga Megha, possibly for an end-of-the season invocation to the Rain God. Playing in the gata ang, Motia didn't seem to have amused the gurus with his recital. They perceived the lack of depth in his exploration of the aalap and jhala, and yet his fast-paced stroke work went down quite well with the younger audience, who enjoyed his notes as also the charged tabla accompaniment by Parmeshwar Kathak. Motia ended his recital with a light composition.
NARESH GULATI
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Entertainment
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
