Swami Haridas Tansen music festival begins

Hundreds sat transfixed by the sublime melody of the sitar along with powerful renditions of myriad ragas and thumris of Benarasi gharana of Hindustani classical music that filled the thick winter air of the capital.
In a set of scintillating performances, Sitar maestro Shujaat Khan and Hindustani classical music virtuoso Chhannulal Mishra enthralled the audience who thronged the Shankarlal Hall of Modern School here.
The artistes were performing on the first day of the three-day long 'Swami Haridas Tansen Sangeet Nritya Mahotsav' that aims at reviving interest in traditional art forms and to revive its famed position amongst the younger generation.

Earlier, Kathak doyenne Uma Sharma, one of the organisers of the event, asked the audience to immerse themselves physically, spiritually and mentally in the music and forget about "time and spatiality for the time being".
Perhaps taking a cue from her words, the elderly among the audience slowly closed their eyelids while the youngsters quietly unplugged their earphones, listening to the exponents in rapt attention.
By the time Shujaat Khan began singing Sufi saint Amir Khusro's 'Main To Piya Say Naina Laga Aayi Re' while playing the sitar, the audience broke into a thunderous applause giving a fitting standing ovation to the maestro.

Channulal Mishra, on the other hand, was at his engaging best as besides serving a musical treat, he converted his concert into a lecture demonstration on Hindustani classical music by putting in efforts to explain the nuances of the rich classical tradition to uninitiated ears.
The high point of the evening came when Uma Sharma went up to the stage and gave a spontaneous yet riveting dance performance to Mishra's 'Jai durge more maiya bhavani' showing glimpses of her now legendary 'abhinaya', a dying form of art of emoting in depictions of daily life or devotional pieces.
The festival, which began in the 1970s in Vrindavan, as a tribute to the bond between saint musician Swami Haridas and his disciple Tansen shifted to Delhi where it had been held for the past 12 years.