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Of mythology Geeta Chandran.

Recently, a three-day national seminar on Performing Arts was organised by the faculty of performing arts at the Banaras Hindu University. Almost six dozen artistes and scholars from various parts of India presented their research papers with artistic demonstrations. The convenor duo of Ranjana Srivastava (Dean) and Lipika Dasgupta said that this was the first time that all aspects of performing arts, from Natya Shastra onward, were being set out.

Danseuse Geeta Chandran performed on the first evening at the University’s Pandit Omkarnath auditorium. She dedicated the evening to Mridula Goswami, a music exponent who died in Varanasi recently. She first presented the classical nuances of Bharatanatyam. She also demonstrated the symbolic representations of Lord Shiva such as the snake, moon and the Nataraja with her impeccable footwork. But she could not maintain this scientific language while interpreting the meaning of the third eye of Lord Shiva. In order to display the cosmic vibration and energy of Shiva, she interpreted the third eye as the one which destroys evil acts. This is a common but inaccurate interpretation. The third eye symbolises the grace, anugraha or shaktipat of Shiva as mentioned in the ancient scriptures. Besides her graceful performance, she also presented a research paper on myth and mythology. The next evening, listeners witnessed a beautiful performance by sarod maestro Pandit Narendra Nath Dharfrom Lucknow. Currently the acting Vice Chancellor of Bhatkhande Sangeet Vishwavidyalaya, Dhar learnt the finer nuances of the sarod first from his father Nimai Chand Dhar and later from Samarendra Nath Sikdar, Pandit Radhika Mohan Maitra and Ustad Amjad Ali Khan.

Dhar comes into his own when playing a raga on his sarod. This is his speciality. He maintains the grammar from his lineage but through his own emerging style, one can easily distinguish his way of playing from that of others

He played raga Madhuvanti ( with komal Gandhar and teevra Madhyam) with an elaborate alap. In order to distinguish all the 12 angs (parts) like vilambitvilambit, vilambitmad, vilambitdrut, madvilambit, ladi, lapet etc., he announced the name of each of them. Rarely does an instrumentalist show all this in a lucid manner. The way he presented the alap was outstanding, reflecting his musical montage. He concluded his concert using the popularly known ang of sarod and other instruments, the jhala.

GAUTAM CHATTERJEE

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