Ahmedabad's Saptak school students on tabla wow audience

On Tuesday, the ongoing Saptak music festival began with a 20-minute chorus tabla performance by a group of 24 students from the Saptak School of Music. In keeping with the Banaras gharana tradition of the school's founder, the late Nandan Mehta, the students performed various tabla compositions with impressive variation in rhythm.

The second item of the evening was 'sitar vadaan' by Pt Krishnamohan Bhatt who was accompanied on the tabla by 22-year-old Shubh Maharaj. Shubh is the inheritor of the extraordinary style of the tabla maestro Pandit Kishan Maharaj.

Sitting together, Krishnamohan Bhatt and Shubh Maharaj appeared a total mismatch. One had the look of a master while the other was a picture of today's youth — carefree, with looks of a greenhorn. But when they began playing, they created pure magic and wowed audience. Bhatt played Shrungaar Prakruti raga of Kafi family.

The third item of the day was a performance by the vocalists Vasundhara and Kalapini Komkali. The two were accompanied by Sanjay Deshpande on the tabla and Milind Kulkarni on harmonium. The intensely spiritual performance of the master flautist, Hariprasad Chaurasia, was the last of the session. He played raga Latangi — a raga known for its romantic, erotic, yet intensely spiritual appeal. He was accompanied on the tabla by Vijay Ghate, a disciple of Pt Suresh Talwalkar. Ghate had started playing the tabla by imitating the natural sounds of the day but later took rigorous training to become a performer. He is known for his spontaneous twists of rhythm which enhance the melody of the instruments he accompanies.