Music in unison
The power of music has been recognised right from the beginning of the civilisation. We have many anecdotes describing how music is capable of miracles. Tansen, it is said, was able to light up a lamp through his raga Deepak, and even stave off death through a raga when a wild elephant was instructed to kill him. To observe the miracles of music, one need not follow the past. Only recently, Japan faced drought conditions. The sitar maestros Pandit Debu Chaudhury and his son Prateek Chaudhury offered to sing raga Malhar to convince the God of rain to bring water to the parched earth. "If it rains, give us the credit, if not, don't," is how Prateek put it at the time. It did rain, and Indian musicians' faith in the miraculous power of music when rendered with love and dedication was reaffirmed.
Music is also used in curing illness. Says Kamal Sabri, son of sarangi maestro Ustad Sabri Khan, "Raga Marubihagcan prevent and cure heart ailments. Very few people know that during the illness of Jawahar Lal Nehru, it was the sarangi played by my father which cured him totally",
Jugalbandi now
The two proud sons came together to combine the power of their music the other day in a jugalbandi of the sitar and sarangi at Kamani auditorium.
It is not that such jugalbandis are unheard of, but as is the penchant of the present generation, the `USP' of the event was spelled for the by the two young musicians. "For the first time in the new generation, we are uniting the sarangi and the sitar, though such jugalbandi has been performed by the older generation like my father Ustad Sabri Khan and Pandit Kartik Kumar," explains Kamal, who happens to be in the seventh generation of a distinguished family of traditional musicians.
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Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
