Venue: Ravi Shankar Centre for Arts, Chanakyapuri
Date: February, 2017

Ravi Shankar Centre for Arts celebrated the 97th birth anniversary of the late Guru through a series of classical concerts at their premise RIMPA off Chanakyapuri. The programme also celebrated the friendship of Ravi Shankar and George Harrison.

We attended one of the evenings. The evening started with an interesting film on the illustrious life of Ravi Shankar. This was followed by an Odissi dance performance by Arushi Mudgal. She performed a few pieces such as Basant and Krishna disguising himself as a woman to apply alta on Radha’s feet. She ended her performance dancing to the much loved bhajan “Sri ram chandra kripalu bhajman“.

Mudgal was ably accompanied by musicians as well as vocal artists. Arushi Mudgal shows promise.

The star performer that evening was tabla maestro Bikram Ghosh. Given his illustrious career and his collaborations with Ravi Shankar and artists like Greg Ellis the audience was very eager to listen to him. Ghosh is an exponent of the Farrukhabad style and started a slow number on teen taal. His power packed performance moved from classical tabla to gimmicky numbers that emulated conversations between two people. He interspersed the performance with various anecdotes and little details about his association with Ravi Shankar. Sitting in the open amphitheater the mesmerized audience lapped up every little piece of music and detail.

It seemed we were transported to another world away from the hustle bustle of Delhi.