Quite good to hear, quite easy to forget
JITENDRA PRATAP
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The recent editions of the VSK Baithaks, now housed in a more comfortable venue, provided food for thought if not for the soul.
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POWER AND POTENTIAL Manjushree Kulkarni Patil from Pune
It was a delightful experience to attend the recent VSK Baithak concert at its new venue in the basement of the Sai International Centre, which is adjacent to the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. It is a spacious auditorium and easily accessible, unlike the basement theatre at the India Habitat Centre where you have to reach by climbing down three sets of numerous steps. A large number of music lovers can comfortably be accommodated at this venue without any risks or occurrence of any hazards. The concert featured a Hindustani classical vocal recital by the Pune-based Manjushree Kulkarni Patil and a sarod recital by Kolkata's Tejendra Narayan Mazumdar.
According to the brief bio-data of Manjushree, printed on the back of the invitation card, she has been trained by a number of eminent musicians. However, not a single name of any of the "eminent musicians" had been mentioned, which is rather queer.
Manjushree commenced her recital with the serene melody of the raga Puriya of good old proven values, with detailed alap-badhat. The slow Ek tala composition of Shah Sadarang, "Pyare gare laagee" was rendered at good length and with the embellishments that were typical of the Gwalior-Agra idioms. She is endowed with a powerful voice and good lung power with a broad compass that reaches up to the middle of the uppermost octave with perfect ease. One only wished the tonal flavour of her voice was a little bit less sharp and shrill.
The slow khayal was delineated in a leisurely manner and gradually developed till reaching the stage for taan flourishes of numerous permutations, all executed with ease and tunefulness besides scores of boldly released gamaka sequences. The drut khayal set to Teen tala "Jhanan jhanan ab payal baaje" delighted for the colourful variations. However, the sargam sequences in the slow and the drut khayals were slightly marred with the intrusion of the aroma of the early morning's raga Sohini.
Manjushree next gave another at-length rendering with khayals in raga Chhayanat with the slow tempo 14-beat Jhumara tala "Eri ab goond laao malaniyan" followed by the Teen tala composition "Eri malaniyan goond laao". This part of her recital somehow lacked the fervour of her earlier renderings in raga Puriya.
Absorbed Natya Sangeet
She however came out at her best with the Marathi Natya Sangeet, in which she seemed to be totally absorbed and almost reaching a stage of ecstasy. Kudos to her accompanists, the duo from Pune, Bharat Kamath on the tabla and Suyog Kundalkar on the harmonium, for giving excellent support to the vocalist with utmost understanding and a high level of professional skill,
In view of the next performance by Tejendra Narayan Mazumdar, the vocal recital by Manjushree ought to have concluded, as per the schedule, by 8 p.m. to be followed by a short break for refreshments and the sarod recital to commence at 8.30. This was however delayed by almost an hour owing to Manjushree's prolonged recital.
Mazumdar's choice for commencing his sarod recital in raga Chandra Nandan, a creation of the sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, somehow failed to impress. It was no patch on the renderings by the sarod maestro who invariably preceded the gat-todas in Chandra Nandan with a detailed alap-jor in the raga Kaunsi Kanada. The magical touches of the Ustad's fingers have given the raga an intense aura with hauntingly released melodic strains, which were totally lacking in Mazumdar's renderings of alap-jor. His handling of this melody created by his celebrated guru seemed to be devoid of the raga's innermost soul. One was thus reminded of the phrase from an Irish air known as "Tara's Harp", which reads as follows:
The harp that once through Tara's hall the Soul of Music Shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's Walls as if the Soul had Fled.
The sarod artiste however made up with his renderings in the same raga in the Masitkhani gat-toda which he rendered methodically with the upaj or development done with colourfully executed variations, thereby negotiating the opening phrase at the 12th beat with refreshingly etched variations. Delhi's Akram Khan on the tabla provided commendable accompaniment to Mazumdar, besides executing his own scintillating rounds of solo variations.
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