Beyond the black box: Sankat Mochan 2019

Musical offerings in Hanuman’s court

Thanks are due to the team at Sruti. An edited version of this piece appears in their September 2019 issue.

Ustad Moinuddin Khan, prior to his performance, shared, “This is where I derive pleasure in playing” while Vidushi Kaushiki Chatterjee conveyed respects of each of her family members to the deity. Her father too, like was the case with few other artists, had previously performed at the venue. Kankana Banerjee, the first lady to perform at Sankat Mochan, set up a record of sorts  by performing at the venue for the 41^st consecutive year. Shailaja Khanna in her article, An ode to the master musician, put it thus, “the concert is regarded as on offering – a ‘hazari’ which literally translates to formal presence in the court of the ruler or divine”. Banaras too has a role. Kathak maestro Shovana Narayanan had stated, during a performance at a temple nearby, “at temples of Banaras we perform for God and ourselves, neither for money nor for fame”. As a corollary, she added, “the performances in town have a unique depth and intensity”. Sankat Mochan Sangeet Samaroh stands out not just on account of it’s being held in a temple, free entry or the ‘baithak’ arrangement but also by virtue of the bonding it boasts with artists.

The line-up of artists has few parallels. On day 2 of the 2019 edition, for example, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia and Ustad Rashid Khan performed one after the other. Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia- one of the biggest names in Indian classical music today and Ustad Rashid Khan – an artist at the peak of his craft. And these were just 2 of the 7 performances of the evening in an event spanning 6 evenings. Like during the previous year’s performance, I noticed the age driven shake of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia’s hands and much like that performance once the flute reached his lips magic flowed. Ustad Rashid Khan, sipped tea from kullad as he sang, and his performance made me recall Pandit Bhimsen Joshi’s very apt praise for him, “assurance for the future of Indian vocal music”. Pandit Vijay Ghate accompanied Ustad Rashid Khan. A flamboyant charmer, Pandit Vijay Ghate had, during the previous year’s edition, accompanied Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. This year, together with Ustad Rashid Khan, he re-defined collaboration.

This uniqueness goes beyond the artists. This festival, one of the biggest annual music celebrations in the country, is where the worlds of music and devotion meet. During the performances it was not uncommon to come across people reading Hanuman Chalisa; the temple has stacks of these. Thousands of devotees thronged the temple on Saturday, like they did during rest of the year, and the festival, remained unaffected. Talking of ambience this is a place which allows you to sleep, stroll languorously, sit taking support of pillars; in other words – be comfortable as you savour music or bhakti. Chaos, here, like elsewhere in Banaras, is bereft of the negative connotation one usually associates it with. It rather generates a positive energy. Most people seem to get what they come seeking for - music, lord Hanuman, or else.

The festival walked the talk when it came to environment, withoutthe proverbial shouting from the roof-top. The basics were in place. Kullads were placed along-side the water dispenser at one end. At the other end an old uncle served water – to be scooped with bare hands. Once in a while a younger person came, filled water from the well adjacent, and toppled it in the container the uncle used. The simplicity in arrangements, including the bare minimum decoration on stage, ensured that not only was the ecological foot-print at the lower-end but also that the local people were not cut-off, a lesson many in the not-for-profit world could learn from. Next to the water point stood the stalls selling flowers, sweets and paan. Not surprisingly it was the stall selling sweets that people thronged the most; here too plastic was absent. We went with empty steel box and glass on each of the days and one day also with food.

Less people appeared to have attended this year’s edition compared to the previous year. Then it had been difficult to spot the white cover of the mattresses in the space in front of the stage or the red of the carpet, in the open area, where a large screen is put up. The local people who formed majority of the audience were well-versed with nuances of Indian classical music and this year one of the vernacular newspapers too devoted ample space. It had musicians of high repute write on the performances through-out the week. One of them observed “youth had attended in large numbers preferring classical music to Whatsapp during the period”. The event, of course, was screened live on Facebook.

Back to the artists and some of them expressed keenness to perform during the coming year’s edition as well. Dates have been announced; the evening of 12^th April, 2020 will see the first set of performances of the 97th edition of the Sankat Mochan Sangeet Samaroh.

The image are from 2018 and the schedule from the 2019 edition.

Sankat Mochan 2018 and Dhrupad Mela 2019 from First Post.