The Kedia Brothers and Shubada Paradkar gave listeners blissful moments the other day. Jitendra Pratap
Innovative Kedia brothers in performance.
Vinod Kapur and his wife, being true connoisseurs of Hindustani classical music, do take a lot of interest and hard work as well, to treat the city’s lovers of good music by inviting well-known artistes from various parts of the country at huge personal expense. Yet they felt delighted by the good response to their monthly VSK Mehfil Baithaks. Besides featuring well-known artistes, the Kapurs also pick up quite a few young up-and-coming ones from remote places, like the sitar-sarod duo of Kedia Brothers from Ranchi in Jharkhand’s tribal region.
Of late Ranchi has produced sportsmen like the cricket all-rounder M.S. Dhoni and musicians like the Kedia Brothers and a fine sitar player in Devapriya Thakur It is a happy sign that teaching and learning music is no longer confined to centres like Agra, Lucknow, Gwalior, Benares, Jaipur and Rampur, etc.
The Kedia Brothers impressed with their instrumental virtuosity. The handling of their respective instruments is neat and tuneful. One only wished their choices of hybrid ragas like the opening Puriya Kalyan, which is neither one thing nor the other, and the so-called Mishra Pilu, had been avoided. It would have been more creditable if they had played either the Suddha Pilu, Pilu Barwa or Pilu Jangla. The term ‘Mishra’ comes in handy to take liberty with the ragas’ forms.
Their renderings of alap-jod-jhala in Puriya Kalyan followed by the 16-beat slow Masitkhani gat-toda, madhya and drut Teen tala seemed to be over-prolonged and even repetitive. The most important factor in jugalbandi is the play of posers and retorts in a dialogue form, which was totally absent in their performance. Same was the case in their renderings in Mishra Pilu.
A distinct identity
The evening concluded with a delectable vocal recital by Mumbai’s Shubada Paradkar whose musical personality is shaped by her extended learning from some gurus of all the four major gharanas (Kirana, Agra, Gwalior and Jaipur). Years of single-minded dedication have enabled her to develop a distinct musical identity with good sensibility. Her exquisitely melodious and rich-toned voice and communicative style of presentation make her recitals emotionally fulfilling and aesthetically appealing.
One did appreciate Shubada’s choice of ragas. The raga Bihag was very appropriate to commence her recital. The well-known composition “Ho Maa dhan dhan re” was rendered in the 16-beat slow tempo
Tilwada tala that was typical of the Gwalior tradition which she rendered with her rich-toned voice and reposeful meanderings, besides keeping the raga’s format perfectly intact. There were quite a few colourful phrasings besides the chain of well-knit taans and sargams. The mid-tempo Teen tala composition “Ab hun laalan mai kaa” was redolent with liltingly phrased variations.
Shubada’s next rendering in raga Nayaki Kanada delighted further for the slow Teen tala composition “Mora re” with brilliantly handled variations. The raga’s form was kept intact by avoiding nuances of other Kanada ragas. The fast paced song “Mai ka naa mane” came off delightfully with a good number of innovatively released variations.
While the tappa in Mishra Khamaj was sung with much aplomb, the ‘thumri’ in Bhairavi, “Main tose naahi boloon”, was in fact just a dadra.
Shubada would have done better by not announcing during the course of her singing that her recorded albums were available with her for sale. This could have been better done with the help of the organisers who could have set-up a stall in the foyer for the sale of her recorded albums.
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