The beauty of dance and music returns to Triveni

Maha Kumbh Nagar: The Ganga Pandal resounded again with dance and music on Thursday, starting with the wonderful presentation of Jugalbandi Dhrupad singing by Pandit Umakant Gundecha, who was awarded the Padma Shri and Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and National Film Award for the music of the documentary Songs of River Narmada, with his nephew and disciple Anant Ramakant Gundecha. Disciple of Ustad Zia Muuddin Dagar and Ustad Zia Fariuddin

Pandit Umakant Gundecha, his brother and the late Ramakant Gundecha have performed in more than 30 countries. He has disciples in more than 25 countries. Pandit Umakant Gundecha performed Dhrupad Jugalbandi in Raga Adana, Malkos, Yemen and Shankara. He started the programme with Shiva Stuti, "Shiv Shiv Shiv Shankar Adidev, Shambhu Bholenath Yogi Mahadev".

After, he presented Shiva in Raga Malkos, Shankar Girijapati Shambhu Bholanath. In Yemen Raga, he sang the verse "Shiv Shiv Dhyavat, Shiv Pad Paavat".

As the second presentation of the programme, the pandal was mesmerized by the Bhajans of Usha Uthup, a prominent playback singer of the 1970s and 80s and Padma Bhushan awardee who has shown her excellent singing ability in more than 16 Indian languages ​​like Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, Assamese, Oriya, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and many other foreign languages ​​like English, Dutch, French, Jamai, Italian, Russian, Nepali, Spanish. Usha Uthup entertained the audience by singing Bhajans in her familiar style. She started her performance with Shiv Tandava. Songs like "Hai meri prarthana, aur maange kya", and Bhajan Karo immersed the audience in the essence of Bhajans.

In her own style, she made the audience of Ganga Pandal dance to "Bhajan karo bhari jawani mein, budhapa kisne dekha hai". The audience kept humming songs like 'Yun mat kaho khuda se', and 'Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram' along with her. She ended the performance with Ganga Meri Maa and Om Triyambakam Yajamahe. She thanked the Ministry of Culture, Government of India and the Department of Culture, Uttar Pradesh, for coming to Prayagraj and giving the performance. Usha said that she is overwhelmed by coming to Prayagraj. Taking a dip at such a unique time after 144 years gives completeness to life.

As the last presentation of the programme, dance director of Kuchipudi and Bhadatnatyam and Padmashree and Sangeet Natak Academy awardee Pratibha Prahlad mesmerized the audience with her dance form titled Samarthya: Women of Ramayana, a dance prepared by a mixture of Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi, Odissi, Mohiniyattam, Kathakali and Chhau. Samarthya is a mixed form of dance and drama in which female characters of Ramayana are presented through various dance forms. In which the stories of Maharishi Valmiki were presented through monologues, poems, music and drama. Characters like Mata Sita, Kaikeyi, Surpanakha, Urmila, and Rani Mandodari were depicted in it.

At the end of the programme, all the artists were honoured by the Programme Executive of the Culture Department, Kamlesh Kumar Pathak.