Shovana Narayan’s lalit Arpan Festival brought together doyens of performing arts to display the rich legacy of various gharanas. By Utpal K Banerjee
The heritage of literature on Indian performative arts is immeasurably rich. In the genre of music, Sarangadeva’s Sangeeta Ratnakara holds the foremost place in importance, alongside Narada’s Sangeeta Makaranda, Parsvadeva’s Sangeeta Samayasara, and works by Bhoja and Sureshvara. Penned in the 13th century, Ratnakara is the last text in the Indian musicology: referred to by both Carnatic and Hindustani classical traditions, marking the point after which these two streams diverged. It chronicles swaras (notes); srutis (quarter-tones), marking their names and individual spacing with swaras; jatis (mnemonics); tanas (rapid note-successions) and other intricacies of Indian music. It also punctiliously describes — in its seven chapters — 264 ragas and their designated hours as well as seasons of singing.
lalit Arpan Festival, recently organised by Asavari under the redoubtable danseuse and aesthete, Shovana Narayan, was a tribute to the unfailing Indian legacy. The first evening’s classical music by Shounak Abhisheki — the gifted son of the maestro Jitendra — began with raga Shuddha Kalyan, marked as an early evening raga. The alaap in jhumra tala took some time to warm up but the madhya laya and drut laya (medium and fast tempi) enunciations were captivating. What came as a pleasant surprise was a beautiful composition of saint Gorakhnath Maharaj: Ek Nirankara dheyao, Guru duje na dikhao…The bhajan in raga Mishra Bhairavi came through very well.
Vishwamohan Bhatt, who took the stage next with Mohan Veena, is well-known for his adaptation of the Hawaiian base-guitar by adding 14 more strings. His instrument’s tonal pattern was an amazing blend of sitar, sarod and veena’s note-emission. He played an evening raga Shyam Kalyan with an elaborate alaap, followed by short jod and jhala. He concluded with a sonorous composition. His characteristic use of sapat tana (long stretches of note-succession) was most enthralling, as was his deft mixing of both glide-dominated gayaki ang and stroke-dominated tantrakari ang. The second evening began with the Ahmedabad-based Manju Mehta playing on sitar. She chose a relatively rare raga Gawti, reputed to reflect the gait of a cattle-cart.
The programme concluded with a Kathak recital by Jayantimala, daughter of Sitara Devi, the doyen of Banaras gharana of Kathak. She performed well her invocatory Ganapati Vandana, followed by technical Kathak with toras and tukras. There was generally a panache for lokadharmi (exhibitionist) features — often of the nautanki kind of the northern region — that seemed to dwindle the artistic prowess of the highly-endowed artiste. Her teenaged daughter, Rishika Mishra, rounded up the programme with Durga Stuti. About the motifs of the festival, Shovana explained, “It was created in the memory of my mother lalita and also to remember lalit Suri, the great patron of the arts. My mother was imbued in the traditions of the performing arts, having been a gold-medallist in literature from Banaras Hindu University in those early times and an accomplished sitarist. My upbringing to respect heritage comes entirely from her.”