Melodies from a mentor
Unmatched Subodh Ranjan Dey in concert during Guru Purnima in Kolkata.
The exemplary life, philosophy and ideals of Sreethakur Satyananda, an ascetic with a scientist’s vision, revolved around his concept of ‘sur-yoga’. He believed in the meditative and therapeutic value of music to such an extent that
it became an integral part of his ashram’s multifarious activities. The greats like Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and a host of legendary musicians have offered their recitals at his feet. Artistes like Hemanta Kumar, Ajoy Chakrabarty, Arun Bhaduri and many others rendered a few of the nearly 7000 songs penned by Sreethakur and Archanapuri Maa — the beacon of the post-Satyananda era now.
The celebrations of the 78th birthday of Maa coincided with Guru Purnima, the birthday of the adi-guru Maharshi Veda Vyasa. This was reason enough for Sree Satyananda Devayatan, Kolkata’s venerated cultural hub, to organise a
weeklong festival of poetry, music and dance that ended this Monday. Three evenings were solely dedicated to classical music.
All others paled into insignificance in comparison to the radiating joie de vivre of Subodh Ranjan Dey, a lawyer by profession whose passion is Dhrupad and Bangla Kirtan, the fast disappearing semi classical genre rooted in Vaishnav padaavali. This is absolutely different from the oft heard and immensely popular Naam-kirtan that leads to mass participation in temples and congregations.
Stark accuracy
The frail, small built 88-year-young Dhrupad maestro apparently did not require the usual warming-up session as he preferred to enjoy the opening items of the evening. Yet the stark accuracy of his powerful voice was the first thing that caught attention when he began unfolding his raga of the evening — Megh. Aided by his disciple Sudip Pal, he etched the raga-roopa with neatly structured, simple but vital phrases.
Having done that, he did not venture for an elaborate nom-tom alap. Instead, the dhrupad, set to Chau tala, became an example of exuberance with deftly handled bol-bant and rhythmic patterns. This contagious mood inspired Ratnankur Mitra’s pakhawaj the most. The delighting saath-sangat, jawabi-sangat and solo rounds of the pakhawaj covered up the shortcomings of the harmonium, and even some loosely crafted tihais by an otherwise impressive Sudip Pal.
Armed to the teeth with a variety of brilliant traditional compositions in this majestic monsoon raga and a modern outlook that defies the boundaries of gharanas, Dey moved on to a feisty Jhap tala followed by a dhamar. Later two saadras set to ragas Chhayanat and Darbari Kanada, emoted the lyrics to their spiritual height.
On popular demand, Dey took the harmonium and offered a padaavali in typical kirtan style of the olden days. His daughter-disciple Rajlakshmi Dey, cymbals in hand, added the original flavour with melodious ‘dohar’(repeated phrases). The kirtan was set to a rarely heard Baro-Das-Kushi tala. Swami Gadadharananda, a tabla and khol wizard groomed under the loving wings of Maa who herself is an erudite composer-vocalist par excellence, came forward to bail him out.
This impromptu arrangement yielded astonishing results and made the recital a memorable one.
MEENA BANERJEE
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