Breaking male-female jugalbandi barrier

AHMEDABAD: The universe is arranged in duets: the sky and the earth, night and day, and sound and silence. Then why, Pandit Jasraj mused in the early 1990s, was the collaboration between a male and a female vocalist missing from the Hindustani stage.
He went on to develop a musical philosophy that could make such a unity possible. Of course, he developed technical minutiae, now known as Jasrangi, to provide the cosmos with a Hindustani Yin and Yang.But we can call it a philosophy because his quest started with the questioning of conventions.
Ankita Joshi, Pandit Jasraj’s disciple, brought Jasrangi to the Saptak stage on Thursday. “The female musician sings in the scale with which she is comfortable. The same is the case with her male accompanist,” Joshi told TOI.
“They complement each other and produce harmony.” In the recital, she dwelt on Raga Chandrakauns while her collaborator Krishna Bongane gave her company with Madhukauns. The composition for the musical alliance was “Ud jaa re bhavra”, roughly translated, “Fly away, bee”.
Joshi’s rendition was confident and she made the notes take off with the delicate hum of a bee surveying flowers. “For me, guruji’s greatest lesson was to hold fast to the core values even as circumstances change around you,” Joshi said.
That steadfastness has served her music well too. And at Saptak, Bongane was a stellar partner. Pandit Jasraj was always met by a full house when he performed at the festival. Thursday’s baithak would have given a houseful of memories to rasikas.