Rich fare at the Arpan fest
JITENDRA PRATAP
|
Besides a joyous vocal recital by Ranjani Ramachandran, Arpan-2006 festival had much more to offer.
|
IMPRESSIVE Vocalist Ranjani Ramachandran
Ranjani Ramchandran was initiated into singing by her mother Vijaya Ramchandran and subsequently by the Gwalior gharana maestro Pandit Kashinath Shankar Bodas. Ranjani shifted to the city of Pune for advanced learning under the eminent vocalist Veena Sahasrabuddhe. She has received the Government of India scholarship in addition to that of Kolkata's ITC Sangeet Research Academy at which she had the rare opportunity of studying under the eminent vocalist of Jaipur and Gwalior gharanas, Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar.
Her singing mannerisms indicate a good degree of pure classicism with a fairly wide range of embellishments such as behelawa, sargams, bol-taans, besides a highly sedate temperament.
Ranjani impressed with her khayals in the dusk-time raga Shree that is a testing ground for most musicians. She exposed the raga's hidden folds methodically and with highly melodic appeal. The slow Ek tala composition "Vaari jaoon re" was sedate and melodic. Quite a few of her taans were bold and intricate. The madhya Teen tala piece ("Chalo ri man") was handled with good aesthetics approach. She concluded her recital of the evening with a brief but succinct Chandrakauns composition, "Sharad ki chandni". One appreciated her occasional deploying of the note Shuddha Rishabh in the upper octave, which most musicians often ignore. She had good accompaniment on the harmonium by Jairam Potdar and on the tabla by Prasun Chatterjee.
Sitar recital
Young Panchali Nandy hails from Ranchi from where she came over to Delhi for higher studies in music at Delhi University's Faculty of Music & Fine Arts, from where she graduated in Philosophy and also obtained a Masters in Philosophy. She was initially trained by her sitarist father, Ujjwal Kumar Nandy, and Prosanto Thakur while at Ranchi. In Delhi she came under the tutelage of Pandit Debu Chaudhury.
Panchali's sitar recital in the raga Jhinjhoti with alap-jod-jhala followed with a 16-beat Maseetkhani and Razakhani gat-todas in raga Jhinjhoti pleased only in parts. She would have done well by avoiding the elements of the allied raga Pahadi with frequent insertions of the phrases Ma, Pa, Dha, Sa and Re, Ma, Pa, Dha, Sa. In Jhinjhoti, the notes Re, Ga, Pa, Dha, Ni, Dha, Ma, Ga, Sa, Re, Ga, Ni appeal better. The two gat-todas did contain quite a few pleasing variations for which Mithilesh Kumar Jha provided adequate tabla accompaniment.
The Arpan 2006 festival concluded on a highly impressive note with colourful Kathak renderings by two young and highly trained disciples of Shovana Narayan, Ragini Madan and Ruchika Singhal. Their recital could not be classified as a duet but there certainly was excellent co-ordination between the duo since they were depicting different themes. Shakti or Divine Mother symbolises `prakriti' which is the counterpart of `purusha' thereby jointly making possible the creation of the world according to the religious ideology of goddess worship. The woman is also wheel of light that represents time, unity, completeness, justice, perfection and movement. She takes various forms, she is Parvati, she is Radha, she is Ganga as well as Jamuna, she is life giving river, or mirroring its unleashed fury.
The two dancers paid obeisance to the multifaceted Shakti. Ragini Madan emotionally mirrored Madhuriya Bhava that symbolises "sampoorna - aatma samarpan" (total surrender of self) where the devotee is the atma or soul that is constantly yearning for union with the Universal Soul, the Almighty. Radha and Krishna have exemplified this relationship, so is Yamuna's desire for union with the infinite Ganga. Ruchulia, on the other hand brought out the interplay between Parvati and Ganga, both different yet the same, through a popular legend. Shiva could not remain immune to the charms of Ganga, who comes at his call to provide salvation to the kings of Raja Bhagirath. When he sees his wife coming towards him, he hides Ganga. However, Parvati, his doting wife soon discovers to her horror, Ganga is hidden in the hair of Shiva. Parvati finally realises that be it Ganga or Devi, they are all the facets of Shakti.
The yearning of Radha, performed by Ragini, was based on a work by the 16th century Mithila poet Vidyapati. The legend of Shiva-Parvati and Ganga was based on a poem by Shobhavati. The music was composed by Madho Prasad.
At the end of the evening Ragini and Ruchika introduced the beauty, intricacy and the vastness of the rhythmic canvas of the chosen time cycle of 16 beats. Various syllables and nmemonics based on the sounds of nature were woven into striking patterns and were danced out with each pattern becoming a complete entity by itself, thereby exuding its own characteristic flavour, thus blending with vocal and visual imagery with a well defined body. Shovana Narayan conducted the dance recital.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
