Harivallabh sammelan: Begum Parveen Sultana regales audience on Day 2

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 29

After a vocal rendition late on Saturday evening at Shree Devi Talab Mandir here – something historic happened – an artiste took to the stage to dance, presenting the first-ever kathak performance during the 144th Shree Baba Harivallabh Sangeet Sammelan. At least in popular recorded history. Another first in almost a decade – Saturday also saw a performance by vocal virtuoso Begum Parveen Sultana.

While there is a sidelight on dance having been performed at the sammelan sometime before 1955, it is so miniscule that no one remembers any of the previous dance artistes, or they deliberately haven’t been recorded.

Titled ‘melodic rhythm’ – a quintet of artistes — Pt Vijay Ghate, a regular at the sammelan, Shakir Khan on sitar, Suranjan Khandalkar and Milind Kulkarni on vocals, with Kathak artiste Sheetal Kolwalkar on the forefront — rendered an interplay of percussion, vocals, strings and dance yesterday, as has not been seen at least on this stage.

A short vandana gave way to an engaging tabla-sitar duel ending in a sawal-jawab and the performance eventually ended with Ghate-Kolwalkar’s percussion duel with ghungroo and foot-tapping on floor answering to Ghate’s tabla. The vocals and harmonium led Kolwalkar across the short dance interludes. However, the duration of the quintet’s outing wasn’t enough to bring out the depth and range of the varied performers. Had the tabla and sitar lingered, they would have let out more secrets. Begum Parveen Sultana began with a rousing rendition of raga jog ending the recital with a tarana in raga hansadhwani. Her tryst with the sammelan following a decade saw an amused audience nodding to her meanderings through her characteristic lows and highs across the raga.

The first day saw recitals by vocal virtuoso Pt Ajay Chakraborty, accompanied by exponent Yogesh Samsi on tabla and Sidhesh Bicholkar on harmonium. Pt Chakraborty’s Patiala Gharana regaled audience with woke vocal renditions. Violin virtuoso Dr N Rajan gave a poignant violin rendition accompanied by Dr Sangeeta Shankar and Nandini Shankar on violin and Ustad Akram Khan on tabla. Pt Narendra Nath Dhar on sarod accompanied by Durjay Bhaumik on tabla regaled with raga Jaijaiwanti, ending the recital with Mishra Kafi. The day three on Sunday began with Kashish Mittal’s vocals with Pt Vinod Lele on tabla, Dr Vinay Kumar Mishra on harmonium.