It was a memorable concert by any yardstick: 30 accomplished artists performing 16 jugalbandis that stretched over 20 hours.
The audience, absorbing the unique sensory experience, sat mesmerized till the wee hours of the morning, asking for more, as the chorus for an encore reverberated many times over.
For the first time, this longest-running musical concert was dedicated to jugalbandis, looked like a mahakumbh for music lovers. As the event wrapped up, all eyes were on Durga Jasraj, daughter of musical maestro Pandit Jasraj, and the curator of this one-of-its-kind affair.
Durga, who has grown up listening to and performing music ever since she was a child, felt an urge to hear those ragas which haven’t been performed for a long time due to restrictions on late-night musical performances.
Naturally, the first person she called was her father and demanded that he sing for her over the phone. “Instead of singing for me, he suggested that I curate a programme and listen to them live,” recalls Durga.
She adds proudly, that the conversation led to the creation of 8 Prahar which is definitely unique as a full day concert like this has never been held to date.
In the 35 ragas presented at the event, Durga wanted to give the audience an experience to soak into the divinity, purity and the bliss of classical music. “It is refreshing for the audience but challenging for the artists, because they have to perform among many great artists,” she explains. The artists, she feels, are under a 'beautiful’ pressure to perform their best, and the audience just needs to rejoice and relish the music.
As in classical music, one raga can, at times, be very similar to the one that follows if they are on the same scale. So to avoid monotony during the performance, Durga discussed and shortlisted the ragas with the performing artists to ensure they were not on a similar scale.
“I was very particular about choosing ragas, and felt all of them should be dramatically different from each other, so that, each time an artist comes on the stage, the sound elevates the listening capacity and avoids fatigue setting in,” she explains.
Conceding that it is difficult for audience and artists to be completely attentive during odd-hour performances, she feels versatility can keep the mood alive. Typical of Hindustani classical music, artists were also free to improvise on stage.
“Improvisation is key to Hindustani Classical music. It’s like freedom within the discipline so classical music stays intact,” she points out. Certainly, the key to a successful concert is the artist exploring the raga, laykari, swar-rachana and bandish with honesty. “It’s something that happens between the artist and audience,” Durga explains.
That being so, does the audience too, require to be musically educated, to understand and appreciate the technical improvisations? “Not exactly, rather awareness and open-mindedness play a big role, because music is to be experienced and it is an extension of one’s emotion and exposure that one has at home. If one comes with no bias, it’ll help one to connect with music,” she asserts.
With exponents like Tansen, Bhimsen Joshi, Shiv Kumar Sharma, Amjad Ali Khan, Hariprasad Chaurasia, and Pt. Jasraj, Indian classical music has been standing rock solid in the midst of all the new forms of entertainment and still seems far away from getting extinct.
“It has never been in crisis, it is very different and the epitome of the time. We have been blessed that in the midst of competition with many modes of entertainment, Indian Classical music has always stood with pride and massive popularity,” Durga believes.
She also insists on recording new classical music tracks to welcome new ideas because Hindustani classical music is about giving something of your own. “Old records are now archived, but we have the younger generation coming up with new ideas and compositions. Recordings will bring freshness with an individual’s stamp on it. It is an expression of personal art which is explored in midst of the large audiences,” she explains.
While one sees a lack of younger audiences turning up to such classical events, 8 Prahar that was conceptualised with Pancham Nishad, broke the myth, with a healthy turn-out groups below 35 years of age. “The young generation is coming in groups, and it’s wrong to say that the millennials don’t take an interest,” she insists.
So far Durga has been organising the event only in Mumbai. While she admits she has offered to hold it elsewhere, there are currently no plans. “You can never say never, so I leave it on time to tell,” she concludes.
