Gurgaon stage celebrates India's diversity, tradition

GURGAON: This past weekend, the Arts and Literature Foundation (Gurgaon) presented the 3rd Gurgaon Utsav, to an enthusiastic local response.
The festival of performing arts, held in the rugged but sylvan surrounds of the Aravali Biodiversity Park, was supported by the Department of Cultural Affairs (Haryana) and the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon.
The three days saw a diversity of performance that dipped into India's vast repository of performing arts traditions, and with nary a dip in quality. The only dip was the one in the temperature - not that the cold deterred Gurgaon's culture vultures from gathering at what is a unique outdoors venue.
The first evening saw celebrated dancer Manjari Chaturvedi delight with a presentation of uninhibited expression. Whether it was her hand gestures, eye movement, or, indeed, the soft-soled lightness of her feet, you just couldn't take your eyes off Manjari. She was, literally, poetry in motion, drawing from the traditions of Sufi verse and Kathak dance - and managing to combine both effortlessly. At once teasing and pleading, flirty and touchy (or, when occasion demanded, solemn), Manjari elegantly blended the eclectic mysticism of the Sufi philosophy with the rigour and regality of Kathak.
The accompaniment of qawwals from Awadh and Manganiars from Rajasthan made this an evening to lift the soul and stir the senses. The qawwals performed compositions by Amir Khusro (Ae Ri Sakhi More Piya Ghar Aaye, Chhap Tilak Sab Chheeni Re Mose Naina Mila Ke, Mohe Apne Hi Rang Mein Rang De Rangeelay) with both full-throated endeavour and an engaging spirit (as the best qawwals always do), while the Manganiars gave Bulleh Shah's lyrics (Tere Ishq Nachaya, Wah Wah Ramz Sajan Di Hor, Dama Dam Mast Qalandar) a bluesy airing, at the same time imbuing the tunes with desert-folk hues.
On Day Two, dastango Danish Husain and Mahmood Farooqui regaled the audience with a spellbinding couple of hours of storytelling. Husain and Farooqui have been part of the revival of the Urdu art of dastangoi, a style of narrating tales that has its provenance in the 16th century. The timing and flow was spot on, as Danish and Mahmood deadpanned and declaimed with superb effect. First up was the traditional (and laugh-out-loud funny) 'Dastaan-e-Mehtaab', and this was followed by excerpts from 'Mantoiyat', the life story of writer and satirist Saadat Hasan Manto.
The latter brought out Manto's eccentricity with observational detail and a stream-of-consciousness delivery, and was notable for some side-splittingly humorous asides.
On the final evening, The Susmit Sen Chronicles brought the Gurgaon Utsav to a lively climax with a fantastic set that had at its heart some exceptional musicianship. Sen, on guitar, was joined by Sudhir Rikhari and Amit Sharma (vocals), Nikhil Vasudevan (drums), Varun Gupta (tabla) and Anirban Ghosh (bass), the sextet keeping the chill at bay with a show that thundered and hushed in equal measure.
The 'Chronicles' played numbers from their latest record, 'Ocean To Ocean', and also from Sen's 2011 solo release, 'Depths of the Ocean'.
The new disc is a treasure trove of sounds, with songs that seamlessly fuse Hindustani Classical with a folk-rock sensibility.
Live, they took on a life of their own. The insistent Uprising was a call to arms for the 2010s, but the standout moment was the psychedelia-tinged Neptune's Dance, a track whose hypnotic atmospherics could have come straight out of the late Sixties. Mention must be made of the stage lighting (complete with smoke effects), which produced an effect that was utterly magical. It all made for a mesmerizing, and thoroughly enjoyable, three nights.