How an annual music festival aims to revive the Patna's rich cultural history

The Hindu

25-04-2025

Slowly, literature on music/musicians is seeing an increase, and unlike a few decades ago when most of these books were in Hindi, Marathi or Bengali, English seems to be the preferred language now.
Biographies on musicians are more common, with books written on Ustad Vilayat Khan, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, M.S. Subbulakshmi, M. Balamurali Krishna, Pt. Ravi Shankar and Ustad Vilayat Khan, amongst others.
The second edition of the Festival of Literature on Music, held in Bihar Museum, Patna, celebrated literature on music, as well as brought up issues relevant to the world of music.
Patna was once a centre of music with a very discerning audience — during Dussehra, there would be six or seven concerts on the same night. Bihar has two schools of pakhawaj — the Dhrupad gharana of Darbhanga and Gaya's thumri. However, despite this rich tradition, classical music in Bihar is not given the importance it once was.
An attempt to revive culture, this festival was organised by the Navras School of Performing Arts, and was a niche gathering of like-minded people from all over India.
Violinist Dr. L. Subramaniam, a rare author-musician whose latest book Raga Harmony was discussed, was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement award. Other musicians at the festival included Bickram Ghosh, Ashwini Bhide Deshpande, Pravin Godkhindi, Ritwik Sanyal and Sanjeev Jha, and among the dancers were Sonal Mansingh, Shovana Narayan, Prerana Shrimali and Manjari Chaturvedi.
Dr. Ajit Pradhan, the brain behind the festival, is also devoted to Urdu, so the festival was titled 'Rang o adab', in memory of Kishori Amonkar. Creditably, this cardiac surgeon is a devoted patron of the arts and literature. The festival opened with a concert of Tejashree Amonkar, who later shared memories of her grandmother.
The festival also covered books yet to be published, or just-released books on musicians Kishori Amonkar, Mallikarjun Mansur, Abdul Karim Khan and Gangubai Hangal.
The sessions that involved music were enjoyable too — this featured Ashwini Bhide Deshpande, Satyasheel Deshpande, Pravin Godkhindi and Bickram Ghosh.
The opening concert by Ashwini Bhide Deshpande lingered for long, since it was a tribute to her 'maanasik' guru Kishori Amonkar — she never learnt from her directly, but followed her music closely all her life. Ashwini sang a self-composed bandish in raag Yaman, 'Mein tore vaari vaari jaaongi'. The festival concluded with a dastangoi on actress Madhubala by Fouzia Dastango.