Rains delay but do not dampen Brahmanaad event

Nagpur: Early morning downpour in the city could not dampen the spirits of music enthusiasts who reached SCZCC in good time to attend Brahmanaad. This Sunday’s edition featured sitarist Nazir Khan and vocalist Aditya Khandwe.
Held outside in the open, the programme had to be shifted indoors in the auditorium which set it back by half an hour as it was past 7am when Khan began the first recital of the morning which was in raag Lalit. Starting off with an alaap, Khan presented jod and a scintillating jhaala before ending his performance by playing a mishr dhun. Harshal Thanekar accompanied on tabla.

It was a day to celebrate for the city based sitarist, as he has been declared a top grade artiste by AIR, which is a rare honour and makes him perhaps the first artiste from Nagpur to be moved to this imminent category. Deepak Khirwadkar, director SCZCC, felicitated Nazir Khan on this achievement.

Khan began his training in sitar at the age of five with Pt Arun Bhattacharya of Saini gharana. He has also been trained by his father Ustad Hamid Khan, who was a renowned sarangi player and also learnt from Ustad Sardar Khan of Gwalior and Ustad Latif Ajmad Khan of Pune.

Young vocalist Aditya Khandwe began his vocal presentation with a traditional bandish of Jaipur Atrauli gharana in raag Mia Ki Todi in vilambit tritaal and followed it with another bandish in raag Ahilaya Bilawal in drut lay and ended with a tarana in the same raag. Accompanying him on tabla was Sandesh Popatkar while Shrikant Pise was on harmonium. Khandwe is currently learning music from Pt Sushas Kashalkar and has been a disciple of Pt Ratanakar Pe besides learning from Pt Yashwant Bua Joshi and Pandita Dhondutai Kulkarni.

While talking to TOI about the event, Khirwadkar said, “Music lovers of the city came today despite of inclement weather. This shows the popularity of the programme.” “To make it more enjoyable, now we have introduced two presentations, of which one is vocal and another is instrumental,” the director said and explained, “Since the event is held in the open, vocalists, especially in the cold weather, take time to warm up. But an instrumentalist does not have this issue.”

Picking up local artistes for performances has also been done deliberately as, “SCZCC is headquartered in Nagpur and artistes from here should get a platform here,” he added.