Category Archives: Arts, Culture & Entertainment

Telugu writer brings out calendar of Indian Muslim freedom fighters

December 28, 2016Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, EducationCalendar of India's Muslim Freedom Fighters, Mohammed Farookh Shubli, Mohammed Farookh Shubli-Founder-President of Youth Welfare-Vijayawada, Syed Naseer Ahamed, Telugu Writer Syed Naseer Ahamedmpositiveone@gmail.com

ANDHRA PRADESH :

Telugu writer Syed Naseer Ahamed, with the help of Mohammed Farookh Shubli, Founder President of Youth Welfare, Vijayawada, has brought out a calendar for 2017 bearing photos of India’s Muslim freedom fighters.

Syed Naseer Ahamed has been consistently writing about Muslim freedom fighters including his pictorial album The Immortals. The calendar consists of 6 pages. Each page of two months has four photos of Muslim freedom fighters who are less known to general public. A total of 24 freedom fighters have been accommodated in six pages. Role of Muslim freedom fighters in India’s Independence has been printed often in the print edition of The Milli Gazette.

This calendar is in English. Syed Naseer Ahamed is trying to release the calendar in various centres across the country in order to inform people about the part played by Muslims in the freedom struggle of India.

For more information, please contact Syed Naseer Ahamed at syednaseerahamed2015$gmail.com.

source: http://www.milligazette.com / The Milli Gazette / Home> Online News> Community News / The Milli Gazette Online / December 23rd, 2016

The generous Sultan

December 28, 2016Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Travel & TourismBhu Ali Bhatti, Bhuli -Bhatiyaari-Ka-Mahal, Bhuli-Bhatiyaari-Ki-Masjid, Feroz Shah Tughlaq, Ghazi Noorul Hasan, Khooni Darwaza, Maulvi Ghazi Noorul Hasan, Mohammed Bin Tughlaq, Pir Ghaib, Sir Syed Ahmed Khanmpositiveone@gmail.com

NEW DELHI :

A GEOGRAPHICAL LANDMARK - A part of Delhi ridge along which Buddha Jayanti Park has come up | / Photo Credit: HINDU PHOTO ARCHIVES — A GEOGRAPHICAL LANDMARK – A part of Delhi ridge along which Buddha Jayanti Park has come up | / Photo Credit: HINDU PHOTO ARCHIVES

The news of a maulvi living in an alcove of the Ridge area makes one reflect on the legacy of Feroz Shah Tughlaq who respected men of divinity

Police accosting a maulvi in a forest bordering the Bodyguard Lines of the President’s Estate recently should cause little wonder. Ghazi Norool Hassan, say reports, was found living in an alcove of the Ridge area along with his son, claiming to be the caretaker of a mazar. This shrine is supposed to be very old and in keeping with the legacy of the reign of Feroz Shah Tughlaq. A large part of Delhi was forest area in the 14th Century and this helped the Emperor to indulge in his favourite past-time of hunting. Right from Mehrauli to North Delhi there is evidence of the Sultan’s hunting lodges where he sometimes rested at night too.

While in North Delhi he built an observatory, besides a hunting lodge, a Pir of his time also set up abode in the area and, after drawing a lot of devotees, disappeared one fine day, leaving his admirers shocked. The place has come to be known as Pir Ghaib. On the Ridge near Karol Bagh is the ruined gate of Bhuli Bhatiyari-ka-Mahal. Though Sir Syed Ahmad Khan thought it was a distortion of the name of a nobleman, Bhu Ali Bhatti, there are not many takers for this assertion.

If oral history is to be believed, Bhuli Bhatiyari was the comely daughter of a dhaba owner (Bhaitiyara) with whom the Sultan fell in love while passing that way. There is incidentally a Bhuri Bhatiyari-ki-Masjid (dedicated to a fair innkeeper) opposite the Khooni Darwaza. Another story says Feroz Shah actually fell in love with a gypsy girl for whom he built a palace as she had stolen his heart after offering him a drink of water on a hot summer day while the Sultan was out hunting.

Historian Ishwari Prasad says that Feroz Shah was a pious man, despite being an orthodox Sunni who ill-treated the Shias and non-Muslims. But at the same time he was generous and not fond of shedding blood, like his cousin and mentor Mohammed Bin Tughlaq, whom he had succeeded. Feroz was a great devotee of dervishes, many of whom flourished in his empire. One of them probably was the Pir Sahib of the place where the maulvi was found living secretly for 40 years. The forest area of which the shrine is a part, had many other dargahs which were demolished when New Delhi was built. Raisina Hill was also covered with a forest where wolves, leopards and hyenas were found. So a Forest Ranger’s bungalow was set up there. In later times, this bungalow became part of the Sacred Heart Cathedral and now after renovation, is known as Maria Bhawan.

Some old mosques still exist in nearby areas which may be dating back to Tughlaq times, for that matter the place where now stands Gurdwara Rakabganj was also a jungle once in which during Aurangzeb’s time lived a contractor, Lakhi Singh of the Mughal court. When Guru Tegh Bahadur was beheaded on the orders of Aurangzeb, there was a violent storm, taking advantage of which Lakhi Singh and his eight sons (who had come on horses and bullocks) took the body away, while the Guru’s head was taken away by a man named Jatha. Lakhi Singh drove all the way from Chandni Chowk to the forest where he lived and putting the body in his house set it on fire to avoid suspicion. Later Gurdwara Rakabganj came up there.

But to come back to Feroz Shah, the number of mosques and dargahs that were set up in his reign rivalled the inns, gardens and hospitals. He is said to have laid 1,200 gardens around Delhi and nearby areas in each of which a Sufi found refuge. The Sultan lived up to the age of 90, the longest living ruler of Delhi after Aurangzeb. He was so generous at heart that even while laying siege to a city he would often turn back on hearing the cries of women in distress and suffering from the pangs of hunger, along with their children. Even while on shikar, Feroz Shah would pay obeisance to saints who had set up abode in his empire. Many of them were helped by him to set up khankahs or hospices, and when they died the Sultan was always ready to build a mazar for them.

Once while visiting a dervish he was puzzled on seeing a goat and a tendua (panther) lying in the courtyard of the jungle abode. Seeing his amazement at the sight the dervish told him that in the royal darbar this may not be possible but in his khankah the goat and the panther could lie side by side, forgetting their enmity. When the British built what is now President’s Estate, they reclaimed a lot of forest land in which wild animals roamed. But still a lot of the area acquired by Lutyens and Baker was left as forest land. The mazar of which Noorol Hassan claims to be caretaker is only one among many hidden away from the public eye. Don’t be surprised if in course of time the mazar becomes a regular shrine with an annual Urs. But for this the history of the mazar and of the saint buried there would first have to be determined. Until then Ghazi Noorol Hassan can continue to be caretaker of the legacy bequeathed to him by Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed. The late President himself preferred to be buried outside the New Delhi Jama Masjid, opposite Parliament House, where once the heart-broken poet Hasrat Mohani of “Chupke, chupke aansoon bahana” fame had made his bachelor’s quarters.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture / December 25th, 2016

Central Sahitya Akademi award for 2 Dakshina Kannada writers

December 28, 2016Arts, Culture & Entertainmentmpositiveone@gmail.com

KARNATAKA :

Mangaluru :

TWO well-known authors — Edwin Joseph Francis D’Souza from Mangaluru and Bolwar Mohammed Kunhi from Puttur — have been chosen for the prestigious Central Sahitya Akademi Award for 2016 in Konkani and Kannada languages, respectively.

This is the first time that two writers from Dakshina Kannada have been recognised for the prestigious national award in the same year.

Edwin D’Souza has won the award for his Konkani novel Kallem Bhangaar (Black Gold), while Bolwar Mohammed Kunhi won the award for his 1,110-page Kannada work Swatantryada Ota (Run of Independence). Kunhi is the only writer to have got the Central Sahitya Academy award twice. Earlier he got it for his children’s novel Gandhi Thata Bapu hege Aadaru.

Kunhi was born in 1951 in a village in Puttur called Bolwaru. He is a short story writer, novelist, playwright and scriptwriter, and one of the pioneers to have introduced Muslim culture in Kannada prose.
Won award at the right time, says D’Souza

D’Souza is elated after winning the Kendra Sahitya Akademi award for Konkani.
He said, “There could not be a better award when given at the right time and without lobbying. What is more important is to get an award when you feel that you deserve it. In my case all these three factors played their role.”

He was born in Valencia, Mangaluru in June 1948 and studied in St Aloysius (Autonomous) College, Mangaluru. He holds a degree in commerce, a postgraduate diploma in Konkani and five online diplomas from the Bible School, US, in Christian Theology.

His first short story in Konkani was published in 1964. Since then he has penned 33 novels, over 100 short stories, columns and satires. Many of his short stories have been translated into English, Kannada, Hindi, Kashmiri, Malayalam and Tamil.

He has won 13 state, inter-state and international awards for literature. His acclaimed short story A Cup of Hot Coffee was published by Late Khushwant Singh in his anthology, Our Favorite Indian Short Stories. Several of his short stories have been published by Kendra Sahitya Akademi, in its publications Prateechi and Indian Literature. The Goa Konkani Akademi published his 450-page novel Kallem Bhangaar in Devanagari script.

His spouse of 41 years Jane D’Souza was immensely happy. “I would consider it as the best-ever Christmas I ever had in my life so far. Sometime I wondered how he can write so much and so effortlessly without being distracted. Now I know he was born to write.”

Speaking to Express from his home in Koramangala in Bengaluru Kunhi said, “I could not have been better honoured. I had no clue, I am also honoured that the Akadami has recognised my work not once but twice, earlier in 2009 for my children’s literature. Kannada is a beautiful language and can effectively express and portray literature in any culture, which is the strength and the beauty of the language”.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Karnataka / by Express News Service / December 22nd, 2016

Revisiting the life and times of Hayat Bakshi Begum

December 28, 2016Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Leaders, Travel & TourismActor-Director-Playwright Mohammed Ali Baig, Empress Hyat Bakshi, Golconda Fort, Hayat Bakshi Begum, Mohammed Ali Baig, Mohammed Quli Qutb Shah, Noor Baig, Quli:Dilon Ka Shahzada, SA Majeed, Saavan-e-Hayatmpositiveone@gmail.com

Hyderabad, TELANGANA :

A day after staging the internationally-feted heritage play, Quli: Dilon ka Shahzaada , actor-director-playwrighter Mohammad Ali Baig staged its sequel, Saavan-e-Hayat in Golconda Fort this Sunday celebrating the splendour of the Qutub Shahs.

A biographical play on the life of Golconda’s de facto empress, Hayat Bakshi, the only child of Mohammad Quli Qutb Shah and perhaps the most powerful lady of medieval Deccan.

A magnificent blend of great writing and commendable acting ensured the 65 minute play in Hindustani kept the audience glued to their seats.

The play featuring Mohammad Ali Baig in triple roles as Hayat’s father, husband and son, Rashmi Seth as old Hayat, Noor Baig as young Hayat and Ayushi Gupta as adolscent Hayat also featured Vijay Prasad, Kavita Golechha and SA Majeed in prominent roles.

It was well-attended and generously applauded by the theatre lovers and the locals alike who thronged the fort to watch the historic play.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Hyderabad News / December 20th, 2016

The joys of reverse sweep

December 28, 2016Arts, Culture & EntertainmentActor Saqib Saleem, Bollywood Actor Saqib Saleem, Saqib Saleem, Saqib Saleem Qureshimpositiveone@gmail.com

NEW DELHI / Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA :

HAVING A BALL Saqib Saleem at Hindu College in New Delhi | Photo Credit: Photo: Abhimanyu Sindhu

In a candid conversation, Delhi boy Saqib Saleem revisits his college days

My encounter with Saqib Saleem happens as he converses, overcome with nostalgia, with his college cricket coach Jai Pal Singh about the good old days. His eyes survey the familiar area of the Hindu College staff room as he leads me to the Sports Complex where he ‘lived, ate and slept’ during his stint as a cricketer. So, he used to play cricket? His coach corrects me and says he still does. “Once a sportsman, always a sportsman.”

“The college has changed a lot, yet the air is unchanged”, remarks the actor seeing the new administrative building cornering the famous Virgin tree. With searching eyes attempting to gather the familiar, he spots Manish pakodewaala where he used to come in the middle of practice to satisfy hunger pangs.

Entering the sports complex, he sits at the higher end of a staircase, good enough to give him a panoramic view of the landscape. Quite seemingly distracted by the urge to relive the experiences of the college, Saqib intently looks at the field reconstructing the space for us.

Composed, yet gushed, his manner is amiable as he talks to some college students in between. He wears aviators concealing his gaze lest I intervene in his reconstruction of a personal journey. Going back in time, Saqib talks about his experience as a college student, his journey to Bollywood and his upcoming film.

Excerpts:

Tell us about your time in college.

College was the best time there could be. I used to come at 7 a.m. and leave at 8 p.m. It had become my second home. Even today I tell my friends in Mumbai that if given a chance to go back in time, I would like to relive the three years of college.

I was the president of Nakshatra, the fashion society of the college. We did fashion shows across different colleges and participated in competitions. I didn’t want to be a model or actor in the beginning but walking the ramp gave me a temporary high. I used to get the best model trophy everywhere. I thought, maybe what I do, people like that, and as a result garnered confidence. It all started with Nakshatra!

You’ve also represented Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir in cricket. Didn’t you want to pursue a career in the sport?

My love for cricket started early. I wanted to be a professional. But as I got exposure, I got a reality check. I saw better talent around me. There is no harm in accepting there are better people. Appreciation for others and recognition gives me the boost to work harder in life. I wanted to figure out something I was best at and could prove my mettle in. I wanted to carve my own niche. Thus the detour happened, Mumbai happened.

Any particular interesting incidents that you’d like to recall from your college life.

There are many. You need to be there on Valentine’s Day in the college to see the spectacle. I was active in university politics as well. My support for candidates used to be agenda-based, irrespective of party affiliations. It is necessary to indulge in campus politics as it completes your college experience. It is a huge learning experience. You get to meet interesting people and learn public dealing.

Although I was a day-scholar, I rented a flat near campus with a few friends which acted as our ‘crash pad’ in case we didn’t want to go back home after a party. I also had plenty of friends in the hostel. The annual college festival Mecca was the best time of the year. You could feel the energy of the college in just three days.

How did you end up going to Mumbai? Did you have anything to fall back on there?

Well, you won’t believe me, but I went there for a girl. I was dating a senior who wanted to be an actress, so she went to Mumbai after college. At that time, I was working with my father managing the restaurants. She called me one night and said that a long distance relationship won’t work. I asked if I could move to Mumbai to be with her. She said yes and I eventually moved hoping to make a career in modelling. But, we broke up in three months. Yes, so that’s how I stayed in Mumbai and ended up being an actor.

How was your experience in the advertisement industry working with different directors and brands?

The experience was very interesting. As an actor, I don’t really enjoy doing ads. But there are some really brilliant ad makers who make your realise your true potential and help you throughout. They make you see things you never really thought you had. My whole education in acting was through advertisements. It taught me how to face the camera. I had no background in theatre or acting. Ads helped me better my craft. People who don’t have any professional background in acting can use the medium of ads to get recognition and move forward.

You’re in the city for the shoot of your upcoming movie, Koroli Loves Sumit. How has the experience been working with Aleya Sen?

Well, I worked with her in a music video called “Tum ho Toh”. Both Taapsee Pannu, my co-actor in the movie and I featured in the video. She offered us the movie after the video. It is exciting and interesting to work with her as she also comes from the advertisement industry, and has a unique style.

I was excited as I was asked to play a Lajpat Nagar gym trainer, a role quite close to my experiences in the city. The movie is a love story about two people who’re not meant to be. It will hopefully hit the screens in the first quarter of next year.

As a new age actor, what advice would you like to give to aspiring actors and people wanting to enter the industry?

You just got to believe in yourself. If you respect yourself, others will respect you as well. There is no rocket science to it. You have to enjoy what you do. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will. You should always be ready to learn new things and acquire experiences.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Entertainment> Movies / by Sidharth Yadav / December 17th, 2016

Haunting notes from the Sitargalli of Miraj

December 17, 2016Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social IssuesAbdul Majid, Abdul Majid-Sitarmaker, Imtiaz Sitarmaker, Naeem Sitarmaker, Sitargalli of Miraj, Zuber Sitarmakermpositiveone@gmail.com

Miraj (Sangli District) , MAHARASHTRA :

A peek into the lives of the luthiers of Maharashtra and their bygone glory

Around 40 km from the bustling city of sugar lords, Kolhapur, sits the small town of Miraj. We drive through crowded by-lanes, where you can relive age-old stories of a traditional craft that has its roots in this erstwhile royal city. The craftsmanship is something of a gharana in itself — with successive generations of families engaged in creating beautiful stringed instruments, such as the sitar, tanpura and the swarmandal over centuries.

Entering one of the workshops of the sitar-makers in a bylane, we meet the gifted Naeem, Imtiaz and Zuber, strangely all with the last names ‘Sitarmaker’, a proud heritage which binds the close-knit community that can trace its family tree to a single ancestor. Their pride, however, seems to be diminishing by the day. These artisans, once the uncrowned kings of the music trade, are now struggling to survive. They say, half in jest, “We are good at two things — making sitars and living from hand to mouth”.

There was a time when these luthiers were paid handsomely and even commissioned by Mughal emperors down the ages to make their uniquely resonant instruments. Their flourishing trade had developed into an entire lane of luthiers, stretching from one part of the town to the other. It is called Sitargalli, meaning the lane where sitars are made.

Waning interest

Artisans at every shop we pass are trying to make a desperate pitch about their instruments. They even go to the extent of downplaying the quality of wares in the neighbouring shop. “Their art is not pure. They separated from the family for business and now want financial gratification from it,” they say. One such family member, Imtiaz, does not speak much. In his dingy shop lie incomplete wooden frames of sitars. Some completed but unsold sitars are visible under a dusty, mouldy cloth.

Imtiaz invites us to his home far away from the main town. On the border between Kolhapur and Miraj lies his house, an abode of legendary sitar-makers for over a century. Stretches of farmland in three directions behind his house lend it a false image of prosperity. Asked how much of the land he owns, Imtiaz politely replies, “ Hum toh rehte bhi border pe hai. Na ghar ke na ghaat ke .” (Even the house we live in is on the border between the two towns. We are neither here nor there).

The family greets us with piping hot cups of tea and biscuits. But the mood turns sombre when Imtiaz begins to speak, “Nowadays people want to play guitars and we don’t know how to make them. What they don’t realise is that the guitar is a foreign instrument. To make and buy foreign instruments in India is like sounding the death knell for our own instrument makers.”

Imtiaz recalls, “We used to live in a mansion. My father would tell me that his grandfather taught all of them how to make sitars. They would play together, eat together and live happily. But after a few years, when business slowed down, families were pitted against each other. Brothers competed to earn money; this killed the trade. Luthiers came to Miraj, learned the craft and left… started their businesses elsewhere. It is just here that they don’t want to keep the business within the family. This infighting only adds to the misery.”

Exacting riyaaz

His father, Abdul Majid, who has been making sitars for six generations, is hard at work finishing a sitar. He says, “Very few people want to put in the hard work and effort to learn the sitar. It is not easy. Your fingers bleed in the beginning. They get calloused. They hurt from the playing. It is not easy to sit with a straight spine for three hours, on the floor, for every riyaaz (practice) session. Very few have the determination to go on. If playing needs so much effort, can you imagine how much is needed to make the instrument?”

Zuber, their cousin, speaks of how he almost drove a chisel into his foot while hollowing a plank for a sitar. Gazing at the children of the family, Imtiaz wonders, “I don’t know whether these children will ever understand the power of the art that they hold in their hands. They will be the eighth generation in this lineage, should they choose to stay with the trade.”

The family has started farming because it cannot afford to wait for sitar orders. “For sustenance, we have leased some land and are growing vegetables. Most of them we sell and use the leftovers at home. We are lucky that we get to eat fresh from the farm.”

Solid guarantee

As we’re leaving, Imtiaz gives us one final sales pitch that is too hard to ignore. “We will make the best instruments you need and, if you don’t like them, I will personally carry them back to my workshop. My trade is not agriculture, it is these instruments.”

(To sustain their trade, Bajaao has offered the luthiers a fair trade deal. In an industry that is rife with duplicity and fraudulent dealings, the company offers a hundred per cent guarantee on the quality and longevity of an instrument made according to the flawless Miraj tradition.)

The writer is CEO of Bajaao and recently visited the famous town of luthiers.

source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home / by Suman Singh / print edition December 17th, 2016

Realtor Razack to open Bengaluru’s first Museum of Indian Paper Money

December 13, 2016Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Leaders, Travel & Tourism, World OpinionBengaluru's First Museum of Indian Paper Money, Chairman-International Banknotes Society's-India's Chapter, International Banknotes Society's-India Chapter, Museum of Indian Paper Money, Prestige Estates Projects-Bengaluru, Realty & Currency Collector-Rezwan Razack, Rezwan Razack, Rezwan Razack-Managing Director-Prestige Estates Projectsmpositiveone@gmail.com

Bengaluru, KARNATAKA :

In 1913, Maharaja Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV appointed William Clarence Rose as the first chief manager of the Bank of Mysore. Whilst in office, Rose collected all British India banknotes of denominations five, ten, fifty and one hundred in a series. When he retired in 1925, he received a wax-paper scroll rolled into a carved silver sheath, mounted on a teak base. Everything was made from melted silver coinage issued by the Raj.

Rose passed all this onto his daughter Vera Katherine Maud Collins, who bequeathed it to her grandson Simon Collins.The latter remembers how the “gift was kept in a 1937 coronation stamp album“ and was passed on two months before his grandmother’s death in 1982. This legacy -along with other historical nuggets -is finding its way back to the city .

The collection will be housed in a museum of Indian currency, expected to come up in Bengaluru next year.

The project is the brainchild of realtor and currency collector Rezwan Razack, who has been collecting Indian paper money since 1971. Spread across 4,000 square feet and located off Brunton Road, the museum is expected to be open to the public in the latter half of 2017. “The intention of setting up the Museum of Indian Paper Money is to display all that there is in my collection. It is to create awareness about our history and our journey so far as a nation, through our currency ,“ says Razack, who is the managing director of city-based Prestige Estates Projects and chairman of the International Banknotes Society’s India chapter.

Among the world’s most prolific collectors of rare currencies, Razack has preserved bills dating back to early 1770s.These include the uni-face (onesided) notes first launched by the government of India, portrait notes of King George V & VI, cash coupons of princely states, Indian notes issued in Pakistan and Burma, special issues made for the Persian Gulf and Haj Pilgrims and all variants of Indian notes -from the Independence era till the latest demonetisation exercise.

E a ch n o t e links us to the way of life in the past and unearths lesser-known stories of our city and country, believes Razack. For instance, on display will be 100-odd Prisoner of War coupons issued by the British. “There were eight camps across India, including Bengaluru, which issued bills from one anna to ten rupees,“ he says.

The museum will comprise of interactive displays, historic facts and trivia, along with stories and essays written by Razack from his own journey and experience as a collector.Architects are working on the blueprint of the museum and estimates should be drawn up by the end of the year, Razack informs.

source: http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / Home> ET Home> Magazines> Panache / by Divya Shekhar, ET Bureau / November 24th, 2016

Recognising a lifetime of devotion to music

December 13, 2016Arts, Culture & Entertainment17th Sri Shanmukhananda National Eminence Award, Amaan Ali Bangash, Amjad Ali Khan, Amjad Ali Khan (aka..Masoom Ali Khan), Ayaan Ali Bangash, Sarod Maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Ustad Amjad Ali Khanmpositiveone@gmail.com

Gwalior, MADHYA PRADESH / NEW DELHI :

instrumental figure:Maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and his wife Subbulaxmi during the felicitation.— Photo: Vijay Bate

Mumbai :

Sarod virtuoso Ustad Amjad Ali Khan was conferred with the Sri Shanmukhananda National Eminence Award on Saturday

The Sri Shanmukhananda Chandrasekara Saraswathi Auditorium played host to the city’s connoisseurs of music on Saturday, all in attendance to witness the felicitation of sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, where he was conferred the 17th Sri Shanmukhananda National Eminence Award.

The award was presented by V. Shankar, president of Sri Shanmukhananda Sabha, and the felicitation was followed by a sarod duet by Khan’s sons and disciples Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash, accompanied by Satyajit Talwalkar on the tabla.

Rahul Deshpande (Hindustani vocal), K. Gayatri (Carnatic vocal) and Sandeep Narayan (Carnatic vocal) were also conferred the Shanmukha Sangeetha Shiromani award for significant contribution to music.

Speaking on the occasion, the maestro expressed his gratitude to his family for their support. “It has been a long journey as an artiste, and I was no child prodigy. It takes great sadhna (practice) to achieve goals in life,” he said before presenting a short tarana .

Life dedicated to music

Mr. Shankar said, “Ustad ji is the foremost ambassador of Indian music today, taking his art beyond the borders of the country.” He added that Ustad Amjad Ali Khan was chosen this year for his lifetime dedication to the cause of music. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 2.5 lakh and a citation.

The writer is an intern at The Hindu

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National / by Malavika Balasubramaniam / Mumbai – December 11th, 2016