With an aim to promote the unseen, unheard talent who hardly ever get any chance to perform in Delhi, the India International Centre (IIC) keeps inviting them from time to time. The Midsummer Festival during the dry season of the Capital’s cultural calendar was a brilliant idea, when the IIC featured four deserving Hindustani classical vocalists in their main auditorium on two subsequent evenings this past week.
The festival opened with Iman Das, a Patiala Gharana vocalist from Bangalore, who performed with much aplomb and gay abandon. Trained under Gurus like Pandit Ajoy Chakravarty and Kalyan Basu, a direct disciple of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Iman has a tuneful voice, capable of performing the complex sargam and aakar taans with zigzag movements in the footstep of his guru, but surprisingly he chose the afternoon raga Patdeep for his main raga. With its limited possibilities, normally it is performed as a side dish after the main course.
Iman did follow the conventional way of presentation starting with a detailed elaboration of the raga during the alap-barhat of bada khayal set to vilambit Ektala, a chhota khayal in Teentala and a tarana set to drut Ektala adorned with a variety of taans. He did follow the proper ‘Silsila’ but the vistar was beyond the capacity of the raga, hence the complicated sargam, gamak and aakar taans sounded repetitive after a while.
Iman Das
The second raga was a good contrast in Sohini with a Punjabi bandish, but this again had the same limitations hence Iman had to take shelter of a tarana, again. The dessert, of course, was a delicious “Jao kadar naahin bolo...”, thumari Khamaj, immortalised by Ustad Barkat Ali Khan, taught to him by his present guru Kalyan Basu. He had excellent harmonium support by Devendra Verma while Susmoy Mishra accompanied him on tabla.
The second artiste of the inaugural evening was Dr. Sarita Pathak Yajurvedi from Rampur Sadarang Parampara. The worthy disciple and daughter-in-law of guru Sulochana and Acharya Brihaspati, Sarita is an auditioned artiste of All India Radio and Doordarshan, has done M.Phil and Ph. D. in music and is teaching at the Delhi University.
Accompanied on harmonium by Vinay Mishra, on tabla by Akhtar Hasan and on sarangi by Kamal Ahmed, Sarita opened her recital with the most timely raga Bhupali with a vilambit and a chhota khayal set to Ektala composed by Acharya Brihaspati ‘Anangarang’ and a tarana in drut Teentala. Being a senior disciple of Vidushi Sulochana Brihaspati, Sarita has got a well groomed voice but a sombre raga like Bhupali deserved a serene auchar to begin with. Her tuneful systematic aalap-barhat, at times, needed simple sustained ‘sur’, devoid of the habitual khatkas. Both the khayals had taiyar taans and the tarana with tanaiti reached very fast tempo like the instrumental jhala.
Sarita concluded her presentation with a thumri in Mishra Shivaranjani, set to medium tempo Deepchandi. The sensitive touches of harmonium and the laggi on tabla added charm but the sarangi went out of tune off and on. The vocal support by her disciples Amarjeet Kaur and Shubhangi Vardhan went totally inaudible.
Sonorous start
The next evening took a melodious start with the most popular evening raga Yaman in the cultivated voice of Purvi Nimgaonkar from Indore. Initiated into classical music by her musician parents from Gwalior Gharana, Shri Sudhakar and Rajeshwari Dixit, Purvi is currently being groomed under Vidushi Ashwini Bhide imbibing the nuances of Jaipur gayaki as well.
The authentic treatment of the raga with her leisurely, gradual aalap-barhat during the bada khayal in raga Yaman set to vilambit Teentala, saw her savouring the nectar of each and every note before coming back to the sam ‘Laagi….’, with its spacious aakar in her full throated voice.
She touched the ‘pancham’ of the higher octave with effortless ease before reaching the multi-hued aakar taans of varied patterns that flowed like a gushing river. The chhota khayal “Neha kaise laaga…” in addha theka saw her enjoying the rhythm, provided by the ace tabla player Hitendra Dixit, a gifted disciple of Ustad Allarakha and Pandit Yogesh Shamsi.
The refreshing shower of 8-8 matras, taans and the bol-taans playing with the rhythm were remarkable. Purvi concluded her melodious recital with a lilting jhula sung in Dadra style. The masterly accompaniment on tabla by Hitendra Dixit and the inspired harmonium by Sumit Mishra, enhanced her riveting recital.
The Midsummer Festival concluded with Pandit Arun Debnath, the senior-most performer of the two-day event. Trained under his father Pandit Atul Nath, who in turn was the disciple of Ustad Amir Khan and Pandit Jasraj; Arun Debnath has occasional impact of both, on his gayaki. Assisted by her disciple Sanghamitra Acharya, he opened with Rageshree, presenting his own compositions in this raga.
Rhythmic play
With his penchant for rhythm, he seemed revelling in rhythmic play of sargam and aakar taans and the overdose of tihais. Pt. Debnath concluded his recital with the well-known Jhaptal bandish “Dekho ri na mane Shyam…”, a bandishi thumri in raga Des set to Jhaptala. He should have refrained from tampering the text of the ‘traditional’ bandish by replacing it with his own words.
