Rajasthani musicians serve resounding finale to Veenapani festival
The Hindu
The enchanting desert grooves of Rajasthani musicians served a resounding finale to the ninth ‘Remembering Veenapani Festival’ hosted by Adishakti.
The enchanting desert grooves of Rajasthani musicians served a resounding finale to the ninth ‘Remembering Veenapani Festival’ hosted by Adishakti.
In a virtual repeat of last year’s outing, SAZ’s ‘Rang-E-Thar’ show unfolded in a hall filled to the brim as the musicians presented songs from the folk imagination of the desert region -- the woman pining for a reunion with the spouse, the carnival atmosphere of a wedding household or simply a celebration of the caparisoned camel moving across the sands.
The three-piece troupe featuring Asin Khan on the Sindhi sarangi and main vocals, Zakir Khan on the khartal and backing vocals and Sadiq Khan on the dholak, have composed their own arrangements to the repertoire of traditional songs.
The men, whose music has carved out an expanding fan base in these parts, are hailed as among the finest practitioners in their fields. Asin Khan, in fact, is this year’s recipient of the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar to go with last year’s Aga Khan Global Music Award.
The show was quite a master class on the staggering scale of music that can be created from the simplest of story threads -- one old song was about a man making random excuses to his wife about why he was late.
“It’s the story of our lives,” joked Divya Bhatia, curator of the globally-renowned Jodhpur RIFF, while presenting the troupe and the genre.
Perhaps imperceptible to the audience was the manner in which Asin Khan was coaxing those haunting strains out of the 26-stringed Sindhi sarangi. The instrument, which is carved out of a single piece of wood, was being played with a cuticle, rather than the tips of the finger.