At home in Hindustani as well as ghazal

February 06, 2017 09:24 pm | Updated February 07, 2017 08:01 am IST - Kozhikode:

Abhradita Banerjee may not have been the best known of the singers that performed at the recent Ghazal Festival, organised by the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi in Kozhikode, but her show was undoubtedly among the finest.

With her sound footing in Hindustani classical, superb diction, neat rendering and an electric selection of songs, she bowled the audience over.

“I also enjoyed singing at the festival a lot,” Abhradita told The Hindu . “It was one of my best audiences ever. I have found that the people of Kozhikode appreciate more than anywhere else in Kerala; I have also had good audiences at Payyanur and Tirur.”

Though she is originally a Bengali from Raipur, she has made Thiruvananthapuram her home for the past two decades. “I moved to Kerala because of my husband’s job as a scientist,” she says. “Though there were not many takers for Hindustani music earlier, now it is fast becoming popular.”

Besides ghazals, she also performs Hindustani classical and bhajans, besides teaching music.

“I also formed a band called Srishti for Hindustani music in different languages,” she says. “I like to compose, too; I have tuned an album of Swathi Thirunal songs.” Abhradita says she would love to do more shows of ghazals.

“It is not very often I get to do concerts of purely ghazals,” she says. “I was really glad when I got the invitation for the festival in Kozhikode from the Akademi. I think having a festival only for ghazals is a very nice idea.”

A disciple of Pandit Madan Chauhan, she says she was always fond of ghazals. “But my guru did not want me to sing ghazals right away,” she says. “And it is to him that I owe my diction in Urdu. He made me familiar with the Urdu literature. And that certainly has helped me in singing ghazals.”

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