Mandar's concert report
Attended a concert of Rahul Deshpande (राहुल देशपांडे). Rahul Deshpande was the sole singer of the concert. Musicians were Nikhil Pathak on Tabla, Milind Kulkarni on Harmonium, Swapnil Pandit on side rhythm, Amrita Thakurdesai on keyboard, Rohan Wange on Octopad. This concert was organized by Megh Malhar and Rova consulting services at ERTH, Abu Dhabi, on 3rd Sep 2022. I attended with Aditi, Dada and Thangaokar, Oka, Patil families.
Concert started with a composition in Raag Puriya Dhanashree. It was little known bandish ‘Par karo araj suno’ in Madhyalay Jhaptaal. It took some time for the audience to warm up but Rahul sang very well and was ably accompanied. Second peshkash was ‘Bindiya le gayi hamari machhaliya’, a Dadra and a composition of Vasantrao sung by Priyanka Barve.
He then gave a demo of how folk music is same all over the country by singing various folk songs with same tune. He then transposed the same tune into his song ‘Ram Ram Ram Ram jap kari sada’
Second section of the first half was Marathi songs. He started with a Natyageet from Sangeet Saubhadra ‘Radh dhar madhu milind jaya jaya’ followed by a song of his grandfather ‘Bagalyanchi mal phule’ written by Va. Ra. Kant and composed by Srinivas Khale Last presentation before interval was another natyageet ‘Jay Shankara Gangadhara’ from natak ‘Mandar-Mala’. Tabalji was fractionally late to pick up the beat.
It was announced that second half was for farmaish. It started with ‘Pratham Tula wandito’ originally sung by Vasantrao and Anuradha Paudwal from movie Ashtavinayak.
Then he sung Lata Mangeshkar’s ‘Tuj magto mi ata’ Rather than singing it traditionally, he explored this song in unplugged way. He then demonstrated how this song and famous gazal ‘Ranjish hi sahi’ have same tune. Shocking but true. Somehow, idea of bhaktigeet unplugged doesn’t appeal me because although you explore music, feelings (bhav) is lost. He then showed that ‘Malvun tak deep’ a romantic song composed by Hridaynath and sung by Lata Mangeshkar has same tune as that of Gazal ‘Ab ke hum bichade’ by Mehdi Hasan. He underlined that all music is composed with 12 notes and although the notes are same the feelings and emotions can be very different. Then he sung ‘Adh-e-gham mein’ a Ghalib again by Lata composed by K. Mahaveer.
He then moved back to popular songs with ‘Ghei chand makarand’ from ‘Katyar kaljat ghusli’. It was followed by another song from Katyar kaljat ghusli, the movie. ‘Dil ki tapish hai’ based on raag Kirwani. Milind played harmonium beautifully in this song. The gymnastics that his fingers did in this one song was more than what he did in rest of the concert. Wow!
Rahul concluded the concert with peaceful rendition of a Nirguni Bhajan ‘Guruji main to ek niranjan’ by Pt. Kumar Gandharva. I wonder how many of these songs were part of farmaish?
Rahul is an accomplished singer and whatever he sings is good. So as far as the quality of singing is concerned he gets full marks. The musicians were good and complemented the songs. Special mention of Milind, the harmonium player.
Now let’s talk about the content. I believe that the content of the concert wasn’t designed properly. There was no content manager or content designer. It was all decided by Rahul. Rahul is an artist. Artists go where their heart takes them. They are driven by the art and passion but the audience isn’t driven by the same traits. Audience comes to the concert with certain expectations. They look for popular songs, the songs which they can relate to, which they can connect with. A successful concert is the one that is enjoyed by the performer and the audience alike. Hence the concert should be designed with the tastes of both in mind. First half was more to the liking of Rahul, so it was expected that second half will be to the liking of audience. Audience craved for popular songs like ‘surat piya ki’ or ‘Ravi mi’ or ‘vithai vithai’ or popular nirguni bhajans like ‘Sunta hai guru gyani’ or ‘Avadhuta’ or ‘savare aijaiyo’. They weren’t in the concert. Also the theme of same tune different songs was repeated in both halves.
Rahul was wearing black dress. Also the background was black. So he kind of merged in the background. A little color coordination was in order.
Audience left with mixed feelings. He sung very well but something was amiss. Ye dil mange more!
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