Maestro’s birthday

By MOHAN NADKARNI
The Economic Times, May 7, 1989

Ustad Allah Rakha, the world-famous – and possibly the greatest – Hindustani percussion maestro of the present generation, became 70 on April 29. It was indeed a major event which comprised, besides the formal felicitation of the Ustad by the sitar maestro, Ravi Shankar, a musical session, featuring young vocalists, instrumentalists and percussionists.

Yet, strange as it may seem there was no advance publicity to the felicitation at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Perhaps the unassuming Ustad himself wanted it that way.

The birthday celebration, organised by the maestro’s disciples, friends and admirers, in association with New India Assurance Company, was predictably an unostentatious affair. One felt that it could have been organised much better. Admission to the event was by invitation. Yet, one did not see the auditorium so crowded. But the occasion did not lack the spirit of bonhomie. The Ustad was showered with bouquets from his votaries even while he kept listening to the programme, sitting in the front row.

The birthday celebration, organised by the maestro’s disciples, friends and admirers, in association with New India Assurance Company, was predictably an unostentatious affair. One felt that it could have been organised much better. Admission to the event was by invitation. Yet, one did not see the auditorium so crowded. But the occasion did not lack the spirit of bonhomie. The Ustad was showered with bouquets from his votaries even while he kept listening to the programme, sitting in the front row.

Pandit Ravi Shankar’s presence at the celebrations, which was announced in the middle of the proceedings, was all too brief, but nonetheless significant. Panditji was himself actively participating in Zubin Mehta’s orchestral extravaganza at the Brabourne Stadium in south Bombay, at the time of the function. It was an eloquent expression of his epochal friendship with the Ustad that Panditji too time off to rush to the Bhavan to share the delight of the most heartwarming ritual – that of cutting the birthday cake. After this, the two maestros warmly embraced each other – and then Panditji left the proceedings to drive back to the stadium.

The music programme, with which the celebrations began and continued after the interval, somehow did not quite match with the spirit of the occasion. By all accounts, there was nothing much in the programme to write home about, in point of content and quality.

The bill of fare covered a tabla solo by young Kulvinder Singh Namdhari, followed by a tabla duet partnered by Narendra Khot and Anuradha Pal. All the three artistes are students of the Ustad’s recently started institution for teaching music. Of absorbing interest was the talent and skill shown by Anuradha, a teenage girl, wielding the percussion – which has been for long the exclusive preserve of male artistes – with such finesse and aplomb.

But the sarod solo in Puriya Dhanashree and Pilu presented by young Basant Kabra, son of the late veteran, Damodarlal Kabra, and now a disciple of the erudite musician and teacher, Annapurna Devi, failed to click, with all his undoubted virtuosity. His sarod strings kept snapping all too often, causing a good deal of distraction and irritation to the listeners.

The father-son flute duet by Malhar and Rupak Kulkarni in Janasammohini and Nagamini was fine specimen of teamwork, while the vocal duet featuring the visiting Pakistani brothers, Akhtar Ali and Zakir Ali, turned out to be a routine effort. Curiously, Fazal Quriehi was quite restrained in his tabla support to his duo. The singing brothers presented Bageshri. There was also a young, popular Aarti Tikekar (Ankalikar), who too, could have done greater justice to her khayal Jogkauns.