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Hindustan Times
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Report: Remembering Veenapani Festival (RVF), 2025
Near the entrance of Adishakti Theatre's campus, at the feet of a large ficus tree, is a board saying, 'It wasn't always like this.' It's true – it wasn't. It has been told that the land – now a myriad shades of green, filled with butterflies and lush ferns – was arid, when Veenapani Chawla, who had arrived in Auroville to pursue a spiritual life, was gifted it. 'Do something here,' the person who gifted it to her had said. Somehow, they knew that she could turn that land around. And how she did! During the 11th edition of the Remembering Veenapani Festival (RVF), held at Adishakti Theatre, Auroville from 13 to 19 April, it was plain to see that the land is now moist and fertile. Creatures of all kinds abound on many legs. The centipedes, for instance, are quite spectacular. Dogs and cats peacefully co-exist. They seem friendlier and quieter (I noted fewer hidden-for-fun footwear incidents this time). The creatures with no legs that slither around have also been seen, bothering no one and going about their work. Adishakti Theatre, I noted, has a new office building and dining room – a fresh receptacle for the rich conversations that happen during meal times. The red-oxide covered round tables outside offer stiff competition to this space. The Ammas and Annas working in Adishakti still give actors free demos in voice projection as they discuss tasks and share banter, throwing their voices across the land. Volunteers from all over India (there were many theatre enthusiasts from Bareilly this time) blended in as if they'd always been there. The profound and hilarious sign boards painted by Malavika PC invite people to enter the layers of the space, to engage deeply. This year's RVF saw actors like Amir Khan and Prabhu Deva joining from other cities through specially recorded video messages. A new accordion book annotating a seminal address by Veenapani Chawla was released during the inauguration and made available to all festival attendees through a scanned code. RVF delivered on the promise of diverse programmes including not just plays, concerts, dances and workshops but also feasts that featured (among other things) – nannari juice, buttermilk, bajjis, burgers and popsicles. The queues to get into the theatre were longer than ever before. From Sufi to classical music, qawwalis and early morning concerts, musical plays to thought provoking dances – the festival fare was varied. RVF 2025 opened with Ilham, a collaborative concert by Sufi singer Smita Bellur and Rajasthani folk band SAZ, comprising Sadiq Khan, Asin Khan and Zakir Khan Langa. The rapport between the four musicians enabled a seamless flow of the ghazals, folk songs, khayals and bhajans presented. Two distinct approaches to music-making complemented each other in Ilham. While Smita's precise diction and skilful voice modulation reflected extensive training and a rigorously honed musical practice, the folk musicians' unmasked voices, as also the musical tonalities they created, showcased music as a way of life, imbibed across generations. Finely balanced, team Ilham treated audiences to classical and poetry based compositions as well as popular Kabir bhajans like Man laago yaar fakiri mein and Moko kahaan dhoondhe re bandhe. Savera by SAZ, Adishakti's first ever dawn concert, ushered in the new year on the Tamil calendar on April 14. Folk songs celebrating dawn, picking on love's challenges, expressing nostalgia for home, paying homage to the guru and saluting nature – sat well with the early morning air. Team Adhishakti's Bali, written and directed by Nimmy Raphel – also Adishakti's Managing Trustee – innovatively explored questions on deceit, gender and power. Urmila, another Adishakti production written and directed by Nimmy Raphel, masterfully laid out the rebellion and rage of one of the least mentioned female characters from the Ramayana. The dramatic language of Bali and Urmila, though quintessentially Adishakti-esque, deployed unexplored visually engaging metaphors and images. Vishwakiran Nambi's Yele Oota that spoke through the combined vocabulary of classical, folk and contemporary dance forms, delved into issues of inequality in food distribution and access. The coordination and skill of the dancers had the audience riveted. Bhoomi, the other Adishakti home production, broke away from their style of non-linear narratives, bringing up questions on perpetrators and victims of sexual violence within artistic spaces. The play was written and directed by Vinay Kumar, Adishakti's Artistic Director. Mallika Taneja's Do you know this song? had the audience singing through the play, even while reflecting on lost voices and broken dreams. The play's unique scenography, soundscape and musical design – also the host of handmade dolls used as props – had the audience's attention till the very end. The festival culminated in a qawwali performance by the Warsi Brothers from Hyderabad. Nazeer Ahmed Khan and Naseer Ahmed Khan with their ensemble of musicians invited the audience to inhabit the poems, taste their words and thus dive into the essence of each song. The Remembering Veenapani Festival is more than a tribute to the founder of Adishakti Theatre. It is an attempt to foster the arts and theatre watching. 'Progress in arts is not something tangible. You can't measure it by the normal yardstick. We have had some 3000 people at least coming in this festival. Out of that, if 200 people go and watch theatre, it is still a success,' says Nimmy Raphel. Explaining the ethos behind the green campus she says, 'As much as we grow, a space should also grow and be creatively stimulating.' Speaking about the decision to keep the festival open to all and free of cost, Vinay Kumar says, 'We are still building a community of art lovers, arts seekers and ticketing may create a different energy around the festival. It may become a gate. People travel from all over the world to come here. It will be an additional burden if we ask them to buy tickets.' He points out that 'the performances come from an emotional level, not for money.' That these performances are not just well received but make space for multiple viewpoints, is a huge strength of the festival. Renukamma, who came to Adishakti as a construction labourer many decades ago but was employed to work on the campus, describes how much she and her family members enjoy the performances. 'I go back after work and bring my grandchildren and others to watch the shows,' she says. 'This is a time we look forward to,' she adds, fondly recalling many memories of how Adishakti Theatre has evolved over the years. Charumathi Supraja is a writer, poet and journalist based in Bengaluru.
The Hindu
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
How the Rajasthani folk band SAZ is experimenting with sounds of the desert
The music of Rajasthani folk band, SAZ (an acronym for Sadiq, Asin and Zakir), inhabits spaces between the traditional and the contemporary. Their original compositions create much curiosity among community elders and musical mentors in the village. Urban listeners (who encore and keep them on stage for way longer than planned) may observe that SAZ's music, while rooted in their milieu and regional folk music vocabulary, takes off from fresh viewpoints. Interacting after two performances and a workshop at Adishakti Theatre's Remembering Veenapani Festival, held recently, the band members spoke about how the story of their original music is entwined with the story of their band's creation. 'Divya Saab (Divya Bhatia, curator of Jodhpur RIFF) sent us to China around the end of 2019. We never thought we would become a band. They both (Sadiq and Asin) had worked together earlier. I had played with Asin earlier but the three of us had never performed as a team. We did our riyaaz and performed two shows every day for a week,' says Zakir Khan Langa, whose dextrous khartal playing is as well received as his singing. Asin Khan, exponent of the Sindhi Sarangi, an Aga Khan awardee and evocative singer, says, 'Sadiq and I felt something clicked when we three performed as a team. We got to know each other's musical styles over that trip.' Back in India, they played one concert in Mumbai and were told they might go to China again but what followed was a long and uncertain pause because of the pandemic. In 2021, when things opened a bit, they were at a meeting with Divya Bhatia, when he asked them if they had given thought to working together. Divya would become, not just the producer of their band, but also a close collaborator and mentor. While they welcomed the prospect of working together, they were shocked when Divya put the onus of shaping the band on them, even telling them to write new songs. Says Zakir, 'None of us has ever written our own songs.' Adds Asin, 'We felt we already have so many songs. Why should we write?' Sadiq Khan, the band member who draws melody with finesse from his chosen percussion — the dholak, recalls that after the initial resistance, they understood that they could not emerge as a band unless they found their signature music. While Divya co-writes and puts the arrangements in place, the trio ideate, create the storyline, find words and compose the tune together. Divya makes them dig deeper and find a more wholesome representation of the story that is the starting point of the song in their music, because — in the words of the band, 'our songs begin in a story.' Asin explains, 'There is no raag, raagini or sa-re-ga-ma in folk music. A raag, if present, is usually a story. Like Surut is the story of a Maharani. Every song has a story. Every raag is a story. They used to tell us the stories and the music would be learnt by listening.' Though the names of raags like Surut and Khamach come up, 'they are not an exact match with classical raags,' adds Sadiq. 'Folk music is from ancient times and the bhaav of raags was coded into the music in those times,' says Zakir. Being musicians who play by ear, the musical expression of SAZ is unfettered by theoretical approaches. Though they never learnt through structure, having performed with a host of international and local musicians, across genres in different parts of the world, they can work with the terminologies of western and Indian classical music. SAZ members play multiple instruments and sing. If the online popularity of their original composition 'Sundar gori re' is anything to go by, the music of SAZ is hitting all the right notes.
The Hindu
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Hindustani vocalist Smita Bellur shares journey of breaking new ground, bridging music genres
It would seem that the more the Hindustani classical-trained vocalist Smita Bellur's career progressed and her repertoire diversified, the narrower the common ground she shared with her contemporaries. The singer, who was in Puducherry recently, spoke about her journey as a vocalist – early Hindustani training, the deep engagement with mysticism, and the convention-defying transition from a classically-trained musician to a sought-after Sufi singer. Of how small acts of rebellion as an aspiring singer and contrarian life choices culminated in her becoming the first accomplished woman singer to be accepted for tutelage by the Warsi Brothers, Qawwali exponents of the Delhi Gharana, whose lineage can be traced back to 13th century poet-singer Amir Khusro. Originally from North Karnataka, but now settled in Mumbai for several years, Smita was here to perform the opening act of Adishakti's 11th Remembering Veenapani Festival, with an evening of Sufi genre in collaboration with SAZ, a trio of Rajasthani folk musicians. And, 'Ilham', the Sufi-SAZ set too was distinct as it is unusual for an ensemble of folk musicians to serve accompaniment to a Sufi singer, though in a sense, it marked a reconnecting between interesecting music traditions. 'It is believed that both Hazrat Amir Khusro and Khwaja Garib Nawaz always used folk music as a route to get into the minds of lay listeners. Folk music was a great way to weave Sufi themes into everyday life situations. The best thing is that they did so not by disrupting the song structure to create anew, but by seamlessly integrating it with the folk culture'. On her transition to a Qawwal, Smita recalls how, at a low point in life, she encountered the rendition of 'Allah Ho Allah' by the Warsi Brothers, who sustain the legacy of the Delhi Gharana — the only institution to acknowledge Qawwali as a legitimate form of music — as descendants of the disciples of Amir Khusro. Their version is not only slow but also references an incident that the Persian poet Rumi has written about... of Moses admonishing a shepherd for the hubris of praying that he would take loving care of God if he ever met him. After the repentant shepherd leaves, Moses hears God's voice explaining how he had given each one a unique way of gaining and expressing knowledge, and that one way of worshipping is not to be rated as being better than the other, she says. The philosophical depth of the Rumi parable and the rendition left a deep imprint in the mind of a software professional caught up in the grind of everyday Bengaluru life. 'I realised that it was extraordinary for someone like me, who had been practising Hindustani music for a while, and used to a bit of spiritual orientation, to be so deeply affected by the music... and resolved that this was a genre I must delve into'. She recalls how much of a rebellious step it was for someone hailing from a Kannadiga Brahmin family, who had spent years of rigorous training in Hindustani classical music, to make a switch to Sufi music tradition. The Hindustani-to-Qawwali choice was regarded just as outrageous as foregoing a well-paying job for the singer who had trained for more than 25 years from gurus such as P.R. Bhagwat, late Pt. Arjunsa Nakod, briefly from late Pt. Rajabhau Sontakke and Shri Bhalachandra Nakod. 'After years of undergoing training in Hindustani classical under various gurus, and in different gharanas such as Kirana, Gwalior and Jaipur, switching to Qawwali was met with disbelief and opposition in the family circle, not to speak of the resistance to the idea of abandoning a lucrative career as an IT professional,' Smita said. Her decision prevailed, and she moved to Mumbai in 2015-16 to explore pathways to becoming a traditional Sufi singer, a step which was 'more a response to an inner calling than a desire for commercial success'. The city, which has attracted generations of aspiring cinema-theatre artistes, singers and dancers, offered a nourishing environment to explore new classical-to-lighter music genres, collaborate with different sets of musicians, and to discover more about her own skills. The immersion for over two decades in khayal has reshaped her performances into a profound experience. It was also a means to access the diverse spiritual poetry of the subcontinent — across the Nirguni, Bhakti, Sufi, Veerashaiva and Haridasa traditions dating back to the 12th century. She has also explored ghazals, some of which engage with Sufi kalams. The Qawwali, she says, is much more than what mainstream understanding makes of it as a performance by a group of people with harmonium, dholak, tabla and rhythmic hand-clapping. Qawwali, as a form of Sufi music, derives from the term 'Qual' or utterance of the prophet. The rendition of a Sufiana kalam, or devout poetry, is a means to connect with the spiritual dimension of existence, she explained. Unlike lighter forms, such as the aashiqana (love of the amorous kind), the Qawwali in its truest essence is about 'ishq haqiqi' or love for the divine, she said. 'The traditional Qawwali presentation in the time of Amir Khusro was not just about singing verse... it would explore a gamut of classical forms such as qaol, qalbana, chota khyal, tarana, naqsh and gul... all those diverse forms would being presented at the sama mehfil in those times,' she said. The Khayali gharana of Delhi is the only lineage to accept Qawwali as a legitimate classical genre. And, this is also why the Delhi Gharana trained Qawwal, is very much competent in forms within the Hindustani classical framework. In the Indian subcontinent, Sufi music arrived and developed against the backdrop of Vedanta tradition, and the Bhakti stream. 'Interestingly, the Sufi music of the subcontinent has been imbued with Vedantic flavour. Over centuries of interaction, the musical expression of devout poetry has created this beautiful syncretic mosaic,' Smita said. Sufism represents a lofty thought, rather than a set of doctrines. In fact, a Tamil composition like 'Kurai ondrum illai' — near synonymous with Carnatic stalwart M.S. Subbulakshmi — or the Kannada vachana 'Naanondu Kanasa Kande' of 12th century mystic Akka Mahadevi, echo Sufi thoughts about unconditional love for the divine, she said. 'This is something unique that needs to be celebrated... my academic pursuit has been to study the interweaving threads of the two religions... and better understand from where what influence was derived,' she added.
