Shankar Mahadevan regales Puneites at 59th Sawai festival

True to the adage that music knows no boundaries, Shankar Mahadevan took the audience across musical traditions, styles, forms and genres and mesmerised Punekars with his renditions on the third day of the 59th Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav.

In one of the best performances at the 59th Sawai festival so far, Mahadevan started with pure Carnatic classical and ended with Pandit Bhimsen Joshi’s famous rendition, Maze Maher Pandhari, for which he received a standing ovation.

The pandal was overflowing with about 18,000 music lovers, who had assembled to hear the vocalist. It is rare to hear Mahadevan present pure classical, though he is trained in both Hindustani and Carnatic music. He started playing the veena at the age of 5 and was trained under famous Marathi music composer, the late Shrinivas Khale.

He appeared on the stage amid loud applause, as the crowd waited anxiously for him to settle down. Before starting his performance he said, “I could only imagine myself as an audience at the Sawai fest. I had never dreamt I would ever perform on this stage. It is a great privilege.”

Accompanied by Padma Shankar on the violin, Giridhar Udupa on the ghatam and Sridhar Parthasarathy on the mrudangam, Mahadevan revealed the magic of Carnatic music in layers. After presenting a few Carnatic ragas, Mahadevan sang Marathi abhangs by Panditji and songs composed by Shrinivas Khale as tribute to both.

In a continued presentation (without gap), he sang Indrayani Kathi Devachi Alandi and Savale Sundar Roop Manohar. But Maze Maher Pandhari, with which he concluded the performance, was the shining moment.

Earlier Kumar Mardur, a first-timer at Sawai, started the day’s session with Raag Multani. Mardur hails from Dharwad and was trained under his father, Pandit Somnath Mardur. He was followed by sitarist Kartik Seshadri, disciple of well-known sitarist, Pandit Ravi Shankar.

Seshadri has performed at various national and international concerts. He regaled the audience with his own compositions.
The day ended with the performance of the stalwart, Pandit Jasraj. He stated that Pandit Bhimsen Joshi was an ideal for the artists.

“Without him we do not know whom to follow,” he said. He dedicated his performance to Panditji.