Demonstration at Ashwini Bhide Deshpande Festival | Photo Credit: Courtesy: Navras
Gradually, literature is seen to be seen on music/musicians, and in contrast to a few decades ago when most of these books were in Hindi, Marathi or Bengali, English now seems to be a favorite language.
Autobiographies on musicians are more common, with books written on Ustad Villayat Khan, Ustad Zakir Hussain, PT. Hariprasad Chauosia, Ms. Sabbalakshmi, M. Balmali Krishna, Pt. Ravi Shankar and Ustad Villayat Khan, among others.
The second edition of the festival of literature on music held at Bihar Museum, Patna celebrated literature on music, as well as bringing relevant issues to the world of music.
Patna was once the center of music with a very intelligent audience – during Dussehra, there will be six or seven concerts the same night. There are two fortnight schools in Bihar – Dhrupad Ghar in Darbhanga and Thumri of Gaya. However, despite this rich tradition, classical music in Bihar was not given importance once.
Tabla exponent Bikram Ghosh is speaking on one of the session. Photo Credit: Courtesy: Navras
An attempt to revive the culture, the festival was organized by the Nevaras School of Performing Arts, and was a niche assembly of people with equal ideologies from all over India.
Violin player Dr. l. Subramaniam, a rare writer-musician whose latest book Raga harmony Discussed, a Lifetime Achievement Award was awarded. Other festivals of the festival included Bikram Ghosh, Ashwini Bhid Deshpande, Praveen Godkhindi, Ritvik Sanyal and Sanjeev Jha, and the dancers were Sonal Mansingh, Showwana Narayan, Prana Shrimali and Manjari Chaturvedi.
Dr. Ajit Pradhan, the mind behind the festival, is also dedicated to Urdu, so this festival was titled ‘Rang O Adab’ in memory of Kishori Amonkar. Credit, it is a dedicated patron of cardiac surgeon art and literature. The festival was opened with a concert by Tejashree Amonkar, who later shared her grandmother’s memories.
The festival has also covered books to be published so far, or musicians Kishori Amonkar, Mallikrajun Mansoor, Abdul Karim Khan and only books released on Hangal.
The sessions that were included in the music were also pleasant – it included Ashwini Bhide Deshpande, Satyasheel Deshpande, Praveen Godkhindi and Bikram Ghosh.
The inaugural concert by Ashwini Bhide Deshpande became dull for a long time, as it was a tribute to his ‘mental’ guru Kishori Amonkar – he never learned directly from him, but followed his music’s whole life closely. Ashwini sang a self-supported restriction in the raga Yaman, ‘Meen Tor Vari Vyari Jongati’. The festival concluded with a Dastangoi by Fauzia Dastang on actress Madhubala.
Published – April 25, 2025 06:29 pm IST
