Two classical artistes explore the connect between stage and canvas
The Hindu
Rama Sundar Ranganathan and Himanshu Srivastava come up with a novel jugalbandi
On a nippy November evening, visitors stepping into India Habitat Centre, Delhi’s art and culture hub for a painting exhibition got to listen to the rhythmic notes of Indian classical music.
Quite fitting, for Hindustani vocalist Rama Sundar Ranganathan and Bharatanatyam dancer Himanshu Srivastava had come together for the three-day exhibition Sangam, held at the Open Palm Court gallery. The gallery had 35 works on display, giving equal attention to both their artistic journeys. Rama, a disciple of Pt. Tejpal Singh and Shanti Sharma, belongs to the Indore gharana. Himanshu too has been expressing his creative ideas through both dance and painting.
“We may specialise in different art forms but wanted to present our works as a single unit,” said Rama. “It’s two sides of the same coin, like yin and yang or purusha and prakriti, the two aspects of our being.”
Himanshu agreed, “They say, an artiste always has a muse. For us, it was another art form that was flourishing parallelly within us.”
Rama’s SaptaSwara, a series of oil-on-canvas attempts to interpret ragas. “In my works, you may see an animal or a musical instrument. For a musician, a note is as good as the deity. When you meditate on it, you don’t need to pray. The bhava is nirgun (based on the belief of a formless deity),” she said.
While most pieces are dear to Rama, there is an artwork titled ‘Amirkhani’ that has a story behind it. While most tanpuras have four strings, the one used by Ustad Amir Khan, the founder of the Indore Gharana, had six strings. “The sound was so beautiful and it was very special to him and his gharana. My guru. Pt. Tejpal, also gifted me a six-string tanpura two years ago on Basant Panchami. It’s the core of my music.”
On the other hand, Himanshu’s works are saguna — they possess attributes or qualities. Mythological entities and figures are seen in his lines, shedding light on a different understanding of the metaphysical self.
