http://www.imageurlhost.com/images/d0kkjtlnec2afqeu5ew3.jpg The Concert of the Centenary
Yesterday it was with a rare concert of classical music that the RAJBARI of Ekdalia Road, celebrating hundred years of Durga puja in their house, concluded Saptami din.
Sitting in a simple and refined pandal in the courtyard of the ancestral house, under the loving stare of the exquisitely crafted traditional Durga Ma, the large extended family with their friends and neighbours were treated to a remarkable musical event. A long, dazzling, epic and at times thunderous khyal opened the musical session, followed by thumris and Bhajan, each one rendered in its unique personality, with an impressive virtuosity.
The singer was Pandit Shyam Sundar Goswami, accompanied by Pandit Sanjay Mukherjee at the tabla, by Prof. Biswajit Roychowdhury at the violin, by Sri Shukanto Mukhopadaya at the harmonium and Smt. Bandana at the tanpura.
The audience was elated and on three consecutive times, asked the artistes to perform one more piece; even the kids were jubilant, and started dancing in the Thakur Dalan in front of Durga and her children. People were offered hot spicy tea to replenish their energy.
When all was over, the musicians and the guests shared the Prasad offered to Durga Ma, gracefully distributed by the young girls and the ladies of the house.
Returning home at night, everyone felt grateful and proud, one would say ennobled in a sense, by having participated with the mind and heart to such an event, which was made possible by the generosity of the Banerjee family and is also only possible because of long years, sometimes an entire life, of resolute tapasha (sacrifice) by the accomplished musicians.
Finally we were all united by the sense of beauty and devotion materialised in the vibrant tradition of Durga puja and in the antique tradition of musical offerings, combined into one.
