‘The Hindu November Fest 2017’ opened at Ravindra Bharathi with ‘Classical and Beyond’ to an overwhelming response. It was an honest effort that served as a bridge to make classical music accessible to lay audience. It was right after all that the performers — Taufiq Qureshi, Kaushiki Chakraborty, Satyajit Talwalkar, Rakesh Chaurasia, Purbayan Chatterjee and Sudhanshu Gharpure dedicated their piece ‘Pace of Mind’ to the Hyderabad traffic and the long queues at the airport (during which they wanted ‘Peace of Mind’). Through the concert, the musicians blurred the lines between individualistic brilliance and holistic execution, giving each other the right space to showcase their skill and working in unison to let music reign as a single river that flows in many directions.
The mood surrounding the concert was often interactive. The musicians’ cheeky one-liners between their pieces, like how Kaushiki did a ‘ jee huzoor ’ for being a minority in the group, Taufiq Qureshi's response of ‘ Har taal mein aap ke saath rahenge ’ to her teen-taal bandish, spoke effervescently of the performers’ spontaneity and their desire to keep the audiences involved with their music. There couldn’t have been a better start than ‘Pace of mind’ in raag Jog featuring a myriad musical influences, from the semi-classical to classical and Sufi, apt for it served as a window to the musicians’ strengths for the evening.
Kaushiki took the honours to announce the ‘marwa’, that she had talked of having the best seat listening to her co-musicians on the stage emphasised on the spirit of the event. Purbayan Chatterjee’s sitar took centrestage as it lent an authoritative quality to the piece, while Rakesh Chaurasia on the flute and Satyajit Talwalkar on the tabla were equally responsive. The show stealer was Kaushiki, though with the bandish Sundar naveli naar , the unfussy, succinct instrumentation deserved credit in embellishing her vocal repertoire to good effect.
Taufiq Qureshi did leave his signature in the show with ‘Rhythm of Life’, a middle-road approach between konnakol and beat-boxing, where he used his breath control to perfection in producing a train of sounds laced with great texture. The piece revealed another facet to his percussion skills and what followed too was a breathtaking duet between Qureshi and Talwalkar, the former on the djembe, the other on the tabla created a fusion of diverse music styles that left a packed-hall wanting for more.
Rangi sari gulabi chunariya , a composition that Kaushiki has religiously embraced and performed in her concerts across the country was a fitting culmination to a two-hour musical feast. The Hyderabad concert being the last leg of their tours this year, Qureshi encouraged the audiences to participate to the duet. Purbayan kept reiterating Hyderabad has the best music-loving audience-to which Rakesh Chaurasia responded, Har jagah yeh hi bolte ho . The sitar-player’s Har baar Hyderabad reply was welcomed with loud cheer by the crowds.
