Of divine melodies and riveting rhythms
The second day's performance of the Bengal Classical Music Festival started off with percussion quartet by four Bangladeshi artistes – Enamul Haque Omar (mridangam), Bishwajit Natta (pakhawaj), Goutam Sarker and Md. Zakir Hosen (tabla). They played some beautiful uthan, peshkar, kayda, rela, loggi, sawal-jawab, combined rela kayda, various laykri (ekgun, dwigun, tingun, chargun and panchgun), rhythmic chakradar tukra and several long domdar and bedomdar tehai on teentaal. The audience received the performance with applause.
Bangladeshi vocalist Supriya Das came next to perform raga Nand. Her presentation of vilambit bandish “E Barey Saiyan” was on ektaal and the drut bandish “Dhan Dhan Bhag Nand Ko” was on teentaal. The artiste ornamented her rendition with bahelawa with melodious gamak, aakar taan, beautiful ragdari, and pukar. She established two bandish meaningfully, revolving around romance by using bistar and sweet murki. Sabuj Ahmed on tabla superbly accompanied the performance evoking the desired mood of the raga.
Abir Hossain recited raga Jaijavanti on sarod. Ustad Akram Khan on tabla decorated the recital with vilambit teentaal, madhyalaya ektaal and drut teentaal. The recital evoked a saga of love and melancholia, and the audience connected with the performance spontaneously. Abir weaved the story of raga Jaijavanti with some marvelous musical phraseology, weighty ragdari, gamak-ang bahelawa, speedy jod and tehai from some striking portion of teentaal.
Magic happened on stage when Rahul Sharma created the melodic flow, with the sweet essence of raga Kaushik Dhwani. Satyajit Talwalkar added a unique dimension to it, generating a spectrum on matta taal and teentaal. The evocative features of his alap performance included various rhythmic laykari. Centering on different musical phrases, the incredible Rahul Sharma styled mellifluous pieces one after another covering ascending-descending taan. Rahul's fabulous jod performance influenced Satyajit to be on fire, during the gat and jhala presentations. The performance mesmerised the audience thoroughly.
Pt. Umakant Gundecha and Pt. Ramakant Gundecha took the stage next to perform dhrupad set on raga Jog, with Pt. Akhilesh Gundecha on pakhawaj. The dhrupad bandish “Sur Ko Praman Jaan Tab Hota Shadaj Gyan” went on choutaal. The brothers' second bandish “Prothom Nad Saraswati Ganapati Buddhidata” was on lakshmi taal. The pandit duo later offered another composition based on raga Shivranjani.
Guru Karaikudi Mani and his troupe took the Dhaka audience by storm with the infinity of rhythm world. Karaikudi Mani on mridangam, Narai Narayanan on thalam, Amit Nataraj on khanjira and Suresh Vaidyanathan on ghatam produced a rhythmic euphoria with Carnatic percussion. Their solo parts together with fantastic combined parts and bol recitation enthralled the music lovers, who spontaneously gave a standing ovation at the end of the performance.
As finishers, Pt. Rajan Mishra and Pt. Sajan Mishra appeared on stage to diffuse the divine musical blessings among the 40,000 audience on the night. “Music is our ibadat (prayer) and pooja (worship). We seek the divine blessings through music,” said the Mishra brothers.
The pandit duo started with performing raga Bhairav. An intimate bond between the ultimate and them was the basis of the meditative vilambit bandish “Piharwa Mayka Bhor Jagawe” (on vilambit ektaal) and unique drut bandish “Meherki Najar Kije” (on teentaal). A very old tarana “Tanum Tadiyana Rey” (on sul-phank-taal) followed. The rendition of raga Lalit came next, with the madhyalaya ektaal bandish was “Janena Dungi Bansia Bajaye Bina”. Infusing sweet melancholia in the morning air, the maestro duo ended up with a famous Bhairavi thumri “Babul Mora Naihar Chhut Hi Jaye”.
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