Bhakti Utsav at Nehru Park from April 20

The festival with its underlying theme of Bhakti or devotion was started 15 years ago in 2003 by the then Delhi government through Seher, a Delhi based cultural organization.

Held in Nehru Park, in the open, it has always been an eagerly awaited event in Delhi’s music calendar.

In the words of Seher founder Sanjeev Bhargava “the event was conceived to bring people of all faiths together, including from Bangladesh Nepal and Pakistan. We located a tree inside the park, to symbolize Bhakti, and fabric in white color was wrapped around the tree to symbolise saadgi (simplicity).

The tradition remains, with the Bhakti tree remaining the backdrop of the artists “stage”; the organiser is now the Sahitya Kala Parishad.

In the words of the organiser “Our country has a rich legacy of celebrating the idea of bhakti in its diverse forms. Various faiths have stressed on the importance of music in reaching the divine — the paths are different, but the destination is one. In these difficult times, when hatred and violence have enveloped our society, it is important for us to reclaim our religious traditions and celebrate the pluralism in our devotional music. Recently, the shocking rape in a temple alerts us to this importance.”

The line-up for the Bhakti Utsav is diverse, featuring artists from different parts of the country; this year the festival has been innovatively curated by Abhinandita Mathur, herself a trained classical vocalist.

“Devotional music should not remain confined to bhajans and quawalli only, nor should it be only for the elite, with only well known popular artists,” says Mathur.

The attempt was to introduce rarely heard artists, as well as covering the wide range of devotional music from Marathi abhang, Carnatic devotional compositions, Punjabi Sufi saints like Baba Bulleh Shah, Baba Farid, saints like Surdas, Kabir and Meera, (interpreted in both the classical and folk tradition), Islamic and Hindu religious music from the East, to the traditional Vaishnav Haveli sangeet.

This time the festival will open with Mumbai based popular singer Pooja Gaitonde, followed by first timers in Delhi, a little known group Jikir Wazidur Rehan from Assam. They will be singing rarely heard devotional Islamic music in the folk tradition of Assam, in Assamese.

 Pt Ajoy Chakravorty will be singing the traditional devotional music of Bengal, “Shyama”, which is basically stutis to the Goddess.

Pt Ajoy Chakravorty explained this was an old tradition in Bengal, spreading all along settlements along the river Ganga, including Kalighat, Dakshinesh-war, Shyamnagar.

This musical tradition was perhaps 200-250 years old, but became very widespread in Ramakrishna Paramhansa’s time, (1836-86) as he used to sing himself.

Pt Ajoy Chakravorty shared he had learnt some 35-40 songs from his own father.

Along with devi stutis, he said he would also sing devotional pieces dedicated to Lord Shiva at the concert; in his words “where there is Devi, there is also Shiva”. The evening will end with the ever popular Hariharan, who has sung at this festival before.

The second day, April 21, will open with Prahlad Singh Tipaniya who will sing Kabir in the folk traditions of the Malwi region; Kalapini Komkali concludes the festival with interpreting Kabir in the style immortalized by her late father, iconic Pt Kumar Gandharva, again in the Malwi tradition, but more classical based.  Delhi based Sudha Raghuraman will focus on Devi stutis rendered in the Carnatic style, Sarita Pathak will sing Meera and Surdas bhajans, and the evening ends with the Sufi music of the Punjab, the Nooran Sisters.

The concluding night will start with Pushkar Lele representing the abhang tradition of Maharashtra.

This will be followed by lesser heard Dhrupad exponent, disciple of Pt Uday Bhawalkar, Sagar Morankar.

Being visually impaired has perhaps aided his attempt at the inward introspection required to sing devotional music.

He will be accompanied by the masterly Pt Mohan Shyam Sharma on pakhawaj.

Next will be the very popular Punjabi spiritual singer, Dr Madan Gopal Singh who will perfom along with his band.

 It promises to be 3 days filled with bhakti rasa.

The writer writes on music, music matters and musicians