An ode to the Mahatma

Gandhi in verse
Their performances, work in music education and festival curation aside, an intriguing project on the life of Mahatma Gandhi is what musician couple Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan have been working on for several months. The eminent classical musician and Thumri singer, and leading tabla player perused many anthologies of poetry on the life and principles of Gandhi to arrive at a diverse selection of verses they set to tune.

This evening, they will be presenting a musical rendition of the poetry in a performance called In Harmony with the Mahatma, an initiative by Mani Bhavan Gandhi Sangrahalaya, Gandhi Smarak Nidhi and Nehru Centre. They will be accompanied by Sudhir Nayak (harmonium) and Vighnesh Kamath (dholak and additional percussion).

Aneesh Pradhan (left) and Shubha Mudgal in performance

"While preparing for this occasion [which marks the beginning of Gandhi ji's 150th birth anniversary celebrations], we worked on creating a repertoire that we hope would make an appropriate tribute, and in the course of doing so, we felt that the direction we would like to take is to compose and musically render poetry in Hindi and dialects of Hindi that have been inspired by Gandhi ji or his beliefs and principles," shares Mudgal. Some of the poems they will be presenting excerpts from include Mahaprayaan by Shivmangal Singh "Suman", Gandhi ji by Anchal and Qaidi aur Kokila by Makhanlal Chaturvedi.

The poems are rooted in the folk and literary traditions, Pradhan explains. "While some of them react to him as a personality, others reflect on his principles and how many of them have been forgotten, his assassination, and even deification of Gandhi by Gandhians. There are many layers and subtexts that emerge from these poems, and they enable us to see Gandhi ji as a human being, not a personality existing in vacuum. The entire process was very engaging and full of learning for us," he says.

About the musical treatment of the verses, Mudgal tells us, "The basic musical vocabulary and grammar we are trained in is that of raagdari music, so yes, the compositions are to some extent based on raags and taals that are part of that system. However, the compositions are not classical in the strict sense of the term, and a few are also based on folk forms from North India."

ON: Tonight, 6.30 pm
AT: Nehru Centre, Dr Annie Besant Road, Worli.
RSVP: manibhavan@gmail.com

Pratik Gandhi in Mohan's Masala

Inspiring the young
Who was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi before he became the Mahatma? What was his childhood like? What were some of the early experiences that contributed to his outlook on life? When veteran theatre artiste Manoj Shah decided to direct a play on Gandhi, he knew his production would grapple with these questions instead of focussing on the Gandhi today's India knows of through textbooks.

And so was born Mohan's Masala, a title that alludes to the vital ingredient that contributed to the making of the Father of the Nation. Or, as Shah puts it, "I wanted to explore the journey of Mohaniya [as a young Gandhi was lovingly called by his relatives], not the journey of the Mahatma."

Having premiered in 2015, the play has been performed in several theatre festivals across India, and venues abroad. It has also been taken to Sabarmati Jail, and staged amidst army personnel posted in Leh and Siachen base camp as well as schoolchildren in Madhya Pradesh. The play has been written in Gujarati, Hindi and English scripts, where Pratik Gandhi plays the role of Mohaniya in all three languages. While singer Parthiv Gohil lends his voice to the songs in the play, noted artist Atul Dodiya has contributed to the stage art through his paintings.

"The idea was to communicate with the youth and inspire them," says Shah. "We make mistakes in life, and so did Gandhi ji. He was like any of us. Then he went on to become the Father of the Nation," he adds, justifying the plays tagline - a recipe to find the hero within you.

ON: Today, 10 am (Hindi)
AT: Ravindra Natya Mandir, Sayani Road, Prabhadevi.
ON: Tonight, 8.30 pm (Gujarati)
AT: SNDT College, Matunga.

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