The maiden Festival of Indian Classical Music and Dance by Ravi Shankar Centre of Music and Arts (RIMPA) brought alive the legacy of the legend himself, says Utpal K Banerjee
All the bits and pieces are there. All the finely-filigreed lattices on the inner walls, the sensuous stone-statues all dating back to the first millennium are in place. The grandiose mini-fort-like façade — overlooking the commodious interior space — envelopes within covered corridors the sprawling amphitheatre that still accommodates delighted listeners and viewers of the melodies and dances: performed on the central podium: distanced artistically from the audience. Only the presiding soul is not bodily present, for, that great spirit — in celebration of whose 94th birth anniversary, the first Festival of Indian Classical Music and Dance was recently put together by the Ravi Shankar Centre of Music and Arts (RIMPA) — who had soared away on his melody’s wings from this mortal planet appropriately on December 12, 2012.
How was that departure likeIJ From distant California — whence high heavens beckoned him — ruminates Philip Glass, the original innovator of minimalist music: “Seeing a great man die is like watching a sun-set. For me, he was the greatest of the great and the best of the best. At that unbelievable and unknowable event — as with the last tender light of the evening — all the beauty and sadness, joy and terror of life at last come together. Even Death, at that moment, is briefly robbed of its finality…”
Shankar came musically alive at the festival: in its grand finale. The novitiate students of RIMPA — whose youngest was around six and all of whom were taught by the centre-teachers, Barun Kumar Pal and Parimal Sadaphal, two of the senior-most disciples of Shankar — chanted an invocatory hymn and sang together: Prabhuji daya karo, man me anand dharo… Indeed, the amphitheatre was teeming with teenager and youthful audience, which definitely was a positive indication on how many young minds Shankar had ignited.
The programme began with petite Namrata Rao presenting her Kathak recital, Prashanti, as an ode to Shankar.A Dehradun-based artiste and a progeny of lucknow gharana, Namrata had her style marked by sparkling inventiveness.Inter-leaving lasya (sinuous dance) with tandava (virile dance) in equal measure, she moved from the hunted to the hunters of this world and extended an eloquent plea for peace and harmony: indeed a motto of Shankar all his life. She ended with choreography on a song, composed and sung by Shankar himself: Hey Nath, anantar kripa keeijiye, man me shanti-prem bhar deejiye…
A senior Ahmedabad-based sitar-player, Amita Dalal, followed her. Playing a Shankar-creation, raga Janasanmohini — out of a mind-boggling 32 ragas composed by Shankar, including Nata Charuka: especially for daughter Anoushka — Amita went from a lackluster alap to more spirited jor and jhala, with gats in ektal and teental. Amita concluded with a pre-recorded composition Abhivyakti (Expression) created by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, a Grammy-awardee disciple of Shankar and own guru.
The final segment was a Carnatic vocal concert by Maharajapuram Ramachandran, a seventh-generation descendent from saint Thyagarajan.With a three-generation association with Shankar, he regaled the listeners with a Ganesha vandana and a composition by Muthuswami Dikshitar in raga Natai.After two more compositions by Thyagaraja — in ragas Vasanta and Hamir Kalayani — the programme ended with another Dikshitar Kriti.
Post Shankar, RIMPA is gearing up to new activities, besides teaching its 16 students sitar, flute and guitar.Informs programme director Anshuman Pandey, “We propose to hold a four-day March-end festival in music and dance every year: to celebrate, together, guruji’s birth-date on March 7 and George Harrison’s on February 25. We also plan to set up a small museum with the Ravi Shankar memorabilia”.
As for the West, Sukanya, Shankar’s ever-smiling spouse, notes, “Grammy Museum in lA is going to have a year-long exhibition on Shankar’s life, starting from April 7, 2015. Royal Opera, Covent Garden, is getting ready to do his first Magnus opera, Sukanaya, which he had been writing for some time and continued to work with his disciple David Murphy: even in hospital till the very end. Anoushka will help David to its completion. Oliver Craske is doing his first biography. So, there will be so much work to do…”