Saptak maestros weave mundane with the music in Ahmedabad

• Pt Birju Maharaj explains through tabla and ghungroo how kids balance themselves while skating.
  
• Ustas Zakir Hussain creates on the tabla the experience of traffic in a city with an elephant walking through it with calm grace
  
• Padma Bhushan Girija Devi gives a stunning vocal rendition creating the atmosphere of Holi at Saptak.
  

The maestros performing at the ongoing Saptak music festival have given thrilling demonstrations of how music — vocal and instrumental — can communicate even the most mundane experiences of real life.

Every evening, the maestros  begin their performance with traditional ragas, which include one or two bandishein, followed by tukdas and taals.

However, during performances given so far, the maestro would wait for the right moment in the evening to give a demonstration of how music can tell you about an elephant passing by, children balancing themselves while skating, and even about traffic in a city.

For instance, on Friday the great kathak exponent, Pandit Birju Maharaj, demonstrated with his ghungroo synching with the beats of the tabla, how children learn to balance themselves while skating. In an impromptu performance, the maestro beat time verbally — ‘ek-do-teen-chaar-paanch, ek-do-teen-chaar-paanch, teen-chaar-paanch, teen-chaar-paanch’ — even as his ghungroo and the tabla gave the audience a sense of children learning to skate till they had achieved mastery.

With his ghungroo (as the nayika) chiming in rhythm with the tabla (the nayak), Birju Maharaj was also successful in communicating the experience of a man and a woman engaged in a domestic argument.

The ‘jugalbandi’ between the two, as presented by Maharaj, could have been a mirror image of any couple arguing at home.  On Sunday, tabla maestro Zakir Hussain recreated at Saptak the experience of a city’s traffic. Nearly 8,000 people had turned up to watch his performance; of these, 50% were first-timers at the festival this year.

After presenting two rules (kaide) of the tabla, he played an interesting composition representing the blowing of a conch shell. He then acknowledged the devotion of the audience which had been coming to Saptak performances almost daily despite the cold weather.

The tabla maestro's hands and fingers then moved swiftly like a sports car as he presented on the tabla and in speech the experience of a city's traffic. Giving a vocal rendition of the experience even as he created it on the tabla, he told the audience about traffic on a city road. Adapting an old Punjab-style of playing tabla to contemporary technique and swaying slowly from left to right, the Ustad rendered the experience of trucks and buses (da-din-da, da-din-da) moving on a road.

The pace of auto rickshaws, cars and two-wheelers, criss-crossing their way between buses and trucks, was brought to life with a change in the rhythm of the tabla (ti-ge-de-dha, ti-ge-de-dha, ti-ge-de-dha). For people walking in haste across road at a zebra crossing, the Ustad's tabla changed rhythm once again and played a fast-paced tir-kit-dha- tir-kit-dha, tir-kit-dha.

And what if an elephant walks into this road bustling with people and traffic? The Ustad's tabla slowed down (ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta, ta-ke-ta) to acknowledge the grace of an elephant indifferent to the traffic around him.

But the dogs and other stray animals who invariably become agitated when they see an elephant did not get the same respect from the Ustad's tabla as the tusker. It dropped to a weak but angry pace and went 'ter-e-kit, ter-e-kit, ter-e-kit' for the stray animals. This mesmerising performance had the audience enjoying the music and laughing at the same time.

On Sunday, Girija Devi, the classical vocalist of the Banaras Gharana, created the spirit of Holi, months before the festival. Her memorable rendition of, 'Aaja khele Holi', had the audience humming it even after the day's show was over.