Folk will be the flavour of Gurgaon’s spring utsav

GURUGRAM: The city’s spring tryst with the performing arts returns with an homage to Kabir and Bulleh Shah, and all the great bards of old. This Gurugram Utsav, the organisers promise, will be a celebration of the folk music traditions of India, as artistes from Bankura, Bengal (Parvathy Baul), Malwa, Madhya Pradesh (Prahlad Singh Tipanya) and Punjab (Nooran Sisters) will be performing for the very first time in Gurugram.
And because so much of Indian folk was sung and declaimed and presented in the embrace of nature, it’s only apt that this tradition is returned to its roots – literally. As anyone who has ever taken part in the Utsav would affirm, there’s a magic to performing under the evening sky.

Parvathy, free of spirit, has danced and sung her way into the hearts of many, and her embrace of the mystic needs little introduction. The Bauls make up a very small fraction of the population of South Asia’s Bengalis (in India and Bangladesh) but their influence on Bengali culture is immeasurable. Their oral traditions, of poetry and of song, inspired the verses and music of Rabindranath Tagore. When these troubadours of the mystic perform, all boundaries melt away.

“It is a genre by itself, a living wisdom or spoken truth,” is how she describes the tradition of the Bauls. Parvathy will be performing a jugalbandi with Shabnam Virmani, whose muse is Kabir, and whose ‘Kabira Khada Bazaar Mein’, a documentary film on the poet-saint, won her a special jury prize at the National Awards in 2011.

Prahlad, 63, sings the bhajans of Kabir in the folk style of Malwa. He has a voice that commands attention, and the ability to keep the audience engaged. But a Prahlad show is as much about the message as it is about the music.

Meanwhile, the captivatingly voiced Sultana and Jyoti Nooran call upon the traditions of the Sham Chaurasia gharana. Their music is robustly of the Punjab soil, yet reverentially evoking the family’s Sufi roots — their grandmother, ‘Bibi’ Nooran, was a happy accompaniment to their growing up years (besides being a fine singer herself).

So, much to look forward to at the Gurugram Utsav, which is being presented by the Arts and Literature Foundation in partnership with MCG and the Department of Art and Cultural Affairs, Haryana. It will be held on March 9, 10 and 11, at the Aravalli Biodiversity Park.