One of India’s oldest festivals, the Shriram Shankar Lal Music Festival, kicked off yesterday. The festival, in its 70th edition, began with a recital by the reigning queen of thumri, Girija Devi.
She began the recital with Raag Purvi. As tradition demands, she sang the raag elaborately in various ways in the first, second and third speed. Her voice was as clear as a bell, despite her age. However, one wished the tabla player had tuned the instrument before the rendition. Girija Devi had to prompt him a number of times in this regard. He finally managed to tune his tabla by the time the vocalist got to the third speed of the first piece in Raag Purvi. Thereon, his finishings were crisp. The maestro rendered.
The sound system, too, took time to warm up. One wished the instruments would blend with the voice of the doyenne in harmony rather than suppress the vocals, as they did initially.
As she moved to the next piece, the sound system and the instrumentalists had warmed up. The viraha of the nayika who is yearning to unite with her lover was expressed in this thumri. The nayika is stranded on one side of the river, while her lover calls out to her from the other side, but she is unable to make it. Girija Devi rendered the emotion in various patterns set to Desh Raag.
In the month of Chait, a Chait had to be part of her renditions. A folk genre from Varanasi, the song celebrates the month of Navaratri.
Ajoy chakraborty also performed on the first day of the festival.
The Shankar Lal Music festival was earlier held under the banner “Jhankar Festival”. The festival has managed to bring in senior artistes without any sponsors on board. This year’s festival will also present various senior artistes in the Hindustani genre: Manjiri Asnare Kelkar (vocal), Shiv Kumar Sharma (santoor), Biswajit Roy Chowdhury (sarod), Rashid Khan (vocal), Purbayan Chatterjee (sitar) and Pandit Jasraj (vocal).
The Shriram Shankar Lal Music Festival is on till Sunday, April 2, in the open lawns of the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra in Delhi
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