Prasad Joshi on Tabla and Rajendra Barve on Violin perfectly complimented the vocalist and guided them beautifully through this musical journey. Prasad Joshi was tutored under Ustad Alla Rakha and plays different drum instruments like dholak and pakhawaj. He has his own sound recording studio and his recent album is call ‘Taal Prashadak’ which demonstrates different forms of Indian taal and instruments associated with it .Rajendra Barve has been playing violin for the past 50 years and is known artists of All India Radio and Doordarshan. His album is called ‘The Voice Within’ is a classical and semi classical experience. Rajendra is also an executive engineer by profession with the Maharashtra State Electricity Board striking a perfect balance between passion and profession.
Dr. Sameer Kulkarni, an ENT surgeon and a writer of many Marathi plays and films, has written the show, but it would have not held its depth had it not been for the narration of Mr Milind Oak and Mrs Sunita Joshi. Both Milind and Sunita are ardent music lovers and were more representatives of the audience with a passion towards music and fervent orators.
In the context of the Indian classical music, the raga and its bhaav has a tradition to reference, to a specific time period of the day. The cyclical passage of time that we call ‘the day’ is a summation of transitions through a quantum of time which begins with the rising of the sun and turns into the silky cocoon of night. The intention of this journey was to unravel time and to go beyond what is traditionally told, questioning at times the beginnings and understanding the origin. Life for example is seen in seconds, days, hours, months or years, yet life in itself is a complete experience and music is so much the same.
The journey through time began with an introduction to an early morning raga Bhairav supposedly baring its origin to Shiva, also known as Bhairav. He was a yogi adept in all three forms of musical expression, vocal, instrumental and dance. Shaivagnya explains that the creation manifests as Shiva closes his eyes and ceases to be when he open them. This new beginning after each end is the manifestation of the dynamic energy of Shiva also known as Bhairav. After a glimpse of Bhairav the audience was also provided a flare of Adhir Bhairav through some popular light music like ‘Albela Sajan’ and ‘Poocho na kaise maine’.
A question which was now asked was, ‘What is good music?’ and the answer is good music is any music that strikes a chord with the soul and that where one does not have to make an effort for it and as Begum Aktar often said ‘Sur saccha chahiye’. The essence of music is enormous and one pursues his own pathway and this is how Gharanas were formed which were different music of thoughts. It is important to note that we are born in the world with tune and then put words into it. The focus now was on raga Todi. The focus of the discussion here was to break the myth that Indian classical music is meant for classes. Indian classical music has always had an enigma that one has to have a credential to understand the classical music to enjoy it, again a misconstrue notion. It is not true that we can use a language before learning its grammar! Music is the same; one need not understand the musical grammar, for music is the creation of joy, bliss, anand.

We then moved into the hours of early afternoon and through another popular song ‘Tum na jaane kis jahaan mein kho gaye’ raga Bilawal was explained. More a ‘That’ within which light compositions are rare. By now it was important to explain that an artist though adhering to the outline of the raga creates his own identity with the composition. Pandit Kumar Gandharva had once explained that each raga has many profiles. A raga is like a person he says and he or she may appear angry, happy, loving, forgiving or suffering. The perceived personality depends upon your perspective and that is how compositions take place. The artists demonstrated this through various compositions of bhajans, Marathi Abhanga, Sangeet Natak (Indian form of a musical) and so on and the first half of the journey ended with an afternoon raga, Bhimpalas.
The journey into the second half began with the evening (sunset) raga Marva and became more memorable with an astounding jugalbandi between the tabla and vocalists. By now one realized that the cycles of nature have the power to create moods, but is it possible to create a certain time period of the day through the apt mood? Over years artists have shown that music can create moods and these moods have the capacity to construct a manifestation of certain time periods.
The expedition now moved into the hours of dusk with ragas Kalavati where a scene was built on dusky seashore, where a lone sole stands with the music from within empathises with the music around and words diminish as the mood remains. A wonderfully spellbinding solo violin performance lingered the mood as the audience was glided into the night through raga Bageshri and then into the early dawn with the raga Bhairavi. Essentially a raga that may have begun a musical journey was where we ended ours and music became a language that the soul alone could understand, but which the soul could not translate. 

After the show we had an opportunity to meet the humble, dedicated and passionate group of artists and exchange a few thoughts with them. When we asked Ashish the reason behind conception of such a unique show he said it was mainly to inculcate the love and basic understanding of Indian classical music within the general mass and break the myth that classical music is for an elite few. Ashish believes that music cannot be taught it can only be learned. Music is not all about notes but more about the feeling and if you enjoy your music that’s the most important expression. Ashish advises youngsters that one needs to find out their passion and pursue that passion with absolute dedication and that becomes the purpose of his life and not be influenced by comparisons. He says that people should focus on their strong points and not be influenced by comparisons, losing their own identity and their individual forte. Ashish believes in coming up with shows which are more of Edutainment (Education + Entertainment). Sayali feels lucky to have had avenues like the television shows which have over the period helped her choose her path as a classical singer. As a young singer she feels that such achievements keep you motivated and such avenues help the upcoming artists to stay focused on their art rather than being dejected due to lack of avenues. Dattaprasad has broken the norms of conventions and has proven that a West Indian man can specialize in Ghazals and Urdu poetry. He feels that people tend to be influenced by sound rather than poetry of Ghazals and he believes that as an artist it is his responsibility to explain the poetry to the audience. He feels that youngsters should be given a flavour of music at a very early phase and only if they are under musical influence from the beginning will they develop a keen interest in the details of Music. Pandit Koparkar as a mentor believes that classical Indian music requires a sincere dedication. Most Indian aspects weather music; yoga etc. requires sincere dedication and patience. He believes though that the number of audience and the number of singers have been increasing over the years as the avenues for singers have been increasing over years weather it is through television programs, concerts, global music blend and so on. He also believes that the liking for Indian classical music has and will always stay imbibed as the language of this form of music is so powerful that once someone likes it there is no turning back. Saying so there sure was not turning back for the audience. As the program ended, the standing ovation and the unstoppable round of applause were but their love and gratitude for a journey that will be etched in their memory forever. Once again words may not aptly express the feeling for it could only be sensed in that moment… right there when magic happened and we felt the divine.

This magnificent program may not have been possible had it not been for ICMS of Greater Atlanta and the rest of the sponsors like Yochana, Info Ways, Samurai Infotech, Tarun Talwar, Kumar Markandan, Natyadhara, Sovi Salon, Sandeep Savla, Neetu’s Gormet, Moksha Kitchen, Udipi Café, Madras Chetinad and TV Asia. A huge round of applause also needs to be given to the hardworking and dedicated volunteers who worked night and day to make this program a successful endeavour.
A painter may paint his pictures on canvas, but through Bhairav we Bhairavi these musicians painted their pictures on silence making music the medicine of the mind… an expressive language understood by the entire mankind.