Known as the city of palaces, Calcutta was once spread over only three kilometres. The city produced immortal greats like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Rabindranath Tagore, Vivekananda and many others. Today, it is known as backdated 'North Kolkata' that thrives on old traditions. The Jhulanbari of Bahubazar is one of them. Krishnomhan Adhicary, great grandfather of Ramkanai Adhicary, founded a temple, and later, across the lane, Ramkanai built a palatial residence that was joined with the temple by a hanging passage at first-floor level to facilitate easy access. The unique hanging link and the Jhulanyatra festival (since 1875) became the house's identity and became famous as Jhulanbari. The legendary Jodunath (read Yadunath) Bhatta (1840-1883), dhrupad maestro of Bishnupur Gharana and guru of Rabindranath, would perform and stay here for the entire festival, perhaps the oldest in Kolkata when dhrupad was at its zenith. The aristocratic men of the family learnt to play pakhawaj and often accompanied the vocalists.

Utpal Adhicary and cousin Raja are maintaining the legacy of celebrating the festival at a grand scale with five days of classical music as its main offering to their resident deity, Radhavallabh Jiu. Shivdas Adhicary, Raja's father, was a proficient pakhawaj player and preferred dhrupad to khayal but to seek the divine blessings of Thakurji many eminent artists like V.G.Jog (violin), AT Kanan (khayal), Falguni Mitra (dhrupad), Vijay Kichlu (khayal) offered their sangeet seva. The present crop of well-established musicians follow their footprints.

Jhulanjatra Music Festival (August 27 – 31, 2023), therefore, had no dearth of artists. Day three and five were earmarked for two seasoned vocalists, Anjana Nath of Kolkata and Shobha Chaudhari from Indore. Both trained with several gurus, but while all the mentors of Anjana belonged to Patiala gharana, Shobha learnt from stalwarts belonging to Agra, Jaipur and Gwalior.

Anjana's rendition of Kedar and Charukesi remained steeped in sur and varied emotive colours created by her sophisticated techniques of octave covering nimble meends, volume variation, huge range from ati mandra to ati taar shadja with an aesthetic application, taans with chiselled grains of all measures, and enviable command on tala and laya.  Ashoke Mukherjee's inspiring tabla helped her create numerous thrilling moments. On request, she also sang a self-composed, beautiful tarana (Behag) before a devotional version of Thaande rahiyo baanke yaar (thumri) and bhajan.

Shobha Chaudhari began with key phrases of Miyan Malhar and its elaboration with Ek taal bada khayal that was slower than her gharanas' usual tempo. She shied away from lower and upper octaves along with bol-based rhythmic behlawa and bol-baant due to her limited voice range and deficient rhythm sense. Sujit Saha's vociferous tabla and Jyoti Goho's seasoned harmonium also supported her singing Gaud Malhar, Khamaj thumri and a jhoola.

Following the rituals to the tee, the festival included a fair amount of dhrupad by featuring dhrupad exponent Sagar Morankar and Souravbrata Chakraborty, who plays surbahar in dhrupad-anga. Sagar's deep, melodious voice has an uncanny similarity with that of his guru, Uday Bhawalkar. In the same unhurried, loving style, he elaborated the majestic persona of Kedar in his longish, delighting alap, a traditional dhamar replete with bol-baant and a beautiful shooltal composition of his guru. Among other participants were brilliant vocalist Koushambi Mukherjee, Partha Pratim Roy (sitar), Atish Mukherjee (sarod) and Shuddhashil Chatterjee (santoor).                                               PC:  Shilpi Ravi