The sixth edition of the Prakriti Foundation’s annual Gharana Festival that concluded recently presented Yuji Nakagawa on the sarangi. Belonging to the Bundu Khan Sahib Gharana tradition, named after the great Rampur and Indore court musician, Bundu Hussain, Yuji had his initial training with Faiyyaz Khan in Benares and later came under the tutelage of Pt. Dhruba Ghosh in Mumbai.
A student of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, Mumbai, Yuji has imbibed the Hindustani tradition and proved that he is a player of promise and calibre. Beginning with Raga Patdeep in vilambit ektaal, Yuji’s amazing strokes in the lower octave seemed to replicate the vocal guttural sound. True to the instrument’s name “saurangi” (meaning “one hundred colours”), Yuji produced variegated and multicolored music.
Yuji underscored the versatility of the instrument by performing a short aalap followed by a slow badat that projected pathos, then owly built up and transformed into a slow and steady zhala tans. He executed the tihais with fervour. In a fast tempo of 16 beats, he played on the key swaras in Gayaki style, creating murkis and alankaras and bringing out bird-like sounds in the phrases of the laya. He also gave great moments of delight when he indulged in a dialogue with the tabla (dexterously handled by Aditya Srinivasan, a budding pupil of Yogesh Shamsi in Mumbai) in dhrut.
Yuji moved on to delight the audiences with Raga Jog in vilambit Zhaptal by bringing out the beauty of the phrase ‘ga ma pa ga sa.’ In this beautiful raga, he executed fast gats and tans and short tukras in dhrut. The dhun in Mishr Piloo was reminiscent of the beautiful ‘Koyal Kare Pukar’ in Kaharva, using two madhyams.
On popular request, Yuji played Bhairavi in a Punajabi ang. Improvising on the spot, he displayed his skill and experience as a mature sarangiya. There was an ever-present ease and playful gaiety in the special sound of his sarangi, in his bowing on the gut strings, and in the way the sympathetic strings were played upon to both enhance the jawari effect and produce other nuances in the human voice.
Yuji used the main string for the lower octave. There were three main strings. He also used the cello strings, in keeping with the unique style of his guru Pt. Dhurba Ghosh.
