Mehfil culture to return to city

In a novel initiative, Tabla player Tanmoy Bose has collaborated with an institute to bring back the 'mehfil' culture, which had defined the city's classical tradition.
The first such 'mehfil', or informal get-togethers of renowned musicians, organised in collaboration with the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, was attended by celebrated vocalist Pandit Ajay Chakraborty, who demonstrated the rich Persian influence on Hindustani classical music.
"How many people of this generation know about Amir Khusro's influence on Indian classical music - both instrumental and vocal? From sitar, tabla, dholok every instrumentation bears his hallmark," he said before rendering some of the couplets.

"Kudos to Tanmoy, from this initiative we can look forward to the revival of the thumri sessions we used to attend in our childhood days," Pandit Chakraborty said.
He felt that bringing back such concerts would give impetus to the practitioners of classical music and revive interest about 'uchhango sangeet' among young people gradually.
He said that 75 per cent of popular songs are influenced by Indian ragas, which went to show that today's audience was more inclined to classical music.

Bose has promised to make this a monthly affair where the non-populist form of music would be discussed and performed by renowned and upcoming singers.

"In my childhood, the city was known to host many gharoa sessions. This helped mould me. Somewhere down the line this practice totally stopped. We need baithaks which will help the participants and audience interact more actively, and can be made possible with the involvement of an institute funded by the ministry," Tanmoy said.
"We had been planning this for the past one year. Our institute is involved in research work about the rich history of our music in different genres. With people like Tanmoy Bose and his friends on board, we will host small musical sessions several times in a year and there will be no restriction on entry," the institute's director, Dr Sriradha Duitta said.