by a critic

Sangeet Natak Akademi, the national academy of music, dance and drama is organizing a five-day festival of instrumental music in Delhi from 22 to 26 July at the Kamani Auditorium. The SNA Secretary mentioned that this is in continuation of the two-week long exhibition of musical instruments held at the Rabindra Bhawan galleries from 21 March to 3 April this year.

Some of the eminent artists participating in this festival include Asad Ali Khan (Rudra Veena), Pramod Gaikwad (Sundari), N Ravi Kiran (Chitra Veena - the original Gottuvadyam), Anant Lal (Shehnai), Thiruvizha Jayashankar (Nagaswaram), E Gayathri (Veena) and Ram Narayan (Sarangi).

While the performances are taking place in the evening, SNA is presenting symposiums on all the festival days during morning sessions at the Triveni chamber theatre. These sessions were chaired by Prof. SK Saxena (scholar), Buddhadev Dasgupta (Sarod), MG Swaminathan (Carnatic vocalist & critic), N Ramanathan (Scholar), Debu Chaudhury (Sitar), Umayalpuram K Sivaraman (Mridangam), Komal Kothari (Ethnomusicologist), N Rajam (Violin) and Bhaskar Chandavarkar (musicologist-scholar). It is surprising that eminent vocalist Shanno Khurana, a member of the advisory committee of SNA is not conducting a single session. An expert like Shanoo Ji could have at least advised the SNA to hold the exhibition and festival of musical instruments together.

I met the project officer, Ms. Sharbari Mukherjee (who was removed from the post of Secretary some time back) and asked about the expenditure incurred in the two-week long exhibition held earlier. Her answer was that she does not have the calculations readily available. However the Finance Officer of SNA had the ready answer. He said it was approximately Fourteen Lakhs. The festival concluding on Friday might eat another five to six lakhs amounting to a total of twenty lakhs. Does this calculation serve the purpose? Only the mandarins of the Department of Culture and auditors can tell us.

Sahitya Kala Parishad of the Delhi Government used to have a mobile book exhibition vehicle (a bus converted into a mini gallery) that used to go to every corner of Delhi including schools, colonies and slums. SNA could have thought of something like this since people from Noida, Rohini, Gurgaon and other far away places might find it difficult to attend such exhibitions and festivals especially on working days.

Among the Government sponsored cultural agencies in the country, the fact remains that only SNA can work out such important projects and festivals giving a balance to forms and regions since some of the officers of SNA are performing artists. One wishes this festival could have taken place in other states (not Assam, since a good number of activities and even SNA board meetings and awards ceremony have been held in Assam in the last three years) for the benefit of music lovers living elsewhere. (Has SNA sponsored critics from other cities to visit Delhi to attend this festival like they take selected critics from Delhi to other cities?)

It is overheard at the Kamani auditorium that a recently retired officer of SNA who apparently did not have a straight service record has been appointed as Officer-in-Charge of its golden jubilee cell to plan major festivals and opening of centres all over India on the occasion of its completion of 50 years. One humble suggestion is that SNA should consider opening a documentation centre preferably three thousand kilometres away from the main documentation centre in Delhi for keeping duplicate copies of photographs, slides, films, audio-video recordings etc. so that in case of any unexpected natural calamity or fire, the precious archival material collected over the last 50 years will be saved. It would be wise to open such a centre instead of organizing festivals featuring the same artists whose recordings are aplenty with the SNA archives. This would be a concrete service to the art world instead of wasting money on one-time events.