Ronu, Rafique's jugalbandi in Mumbai

Flautist Ronu Mazumdar and sitarist Rafique Khan go head-to-head in an entertaining jugalbandi.
The term jugalbandi has been defined as co-ordinated music by a pair of performers and it can either be in vocals or in instrumentals. On December 4, Ronu Muzumdar will play a jugalbandi with sitarist Rafique Khan at an evening programme organised by Sangeet Bharati.
The flautist has played with musicians of the caliber of Shahid Pervez, Tarn Bhattacharya and Vishwamohan Bhatt."The musicians with whom I play jugalbandis don't remain mere colleagues or fellow artistes, they become my soulmates," says Ronu.
Senior musicians like Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan or Vilayat Khan with Bismillah Khan combined forces to produce fantastic music. "Jugalbandis between musicians belonging to different systems was the in thing in the 1980s," says Ajoy Chakraboty, the Patiala gharana singer who has performed in duet with Dr M Balamurali Krishna. "Since there is an element of curiosity at work and also a sense of happening about the music being played or sung, jugalbandis are a hit with the audience," adds Ronu.
Sitar player Rafique Khan has performed with Ronu Majumdar in Banglore and Manglore. The 41-year-old musician, who shot into the limelight thanks to duets with his brother and sitar player Shafiq Khan, playes mostly solo concerts nowadays.
Khan has had the benefit of learning from a long line of skilled sitar players from his family. He has trained under his father Abdul Karim Khan, his two distinguished elder brothers Usman Khan and Bale Khan, and his uncle Ghulam Dastgir Khan. Khan's style is an amalgam of gayaki and tantkari (stringed instrument music) and draws a lot from vocal music while playing.
He blends vocal music in his strokes, like' jhamjhama' in which a cluster of notes is produced in a swift manner. His 'gamak' (a technique in which a vibrating effect is achieved) patterns and his interaction with rhythm are the most impressive aspects of his playing.
"Most of the sitar players prefer to render their compositions set to the 16-beat teen taal," said Khan. "I make an attempt to deviate from this trend. I like to play slow-tempo gat compositions set to the seven-beat rupak taal or to the nine-beat matta taal. The audience needs and appreciates rhythmic variety.
Ronu Majumdar is a versatile musician and I enjoy playing in duet with him," says Rafique Khan. At his concert this fortnight, they will be accompanied on the tabla by Mukundraj Deo.
The evening programme will also feature Vinayak Torvi, the Banglore-based classical singer who is considered to be the heir to Bhimsen Joshi, the most celebrated vocalist of the last century. He hails from Dharwad in north Karnataka which is regarded as one of the most fertile regions for Hindustani music.
It has produced musicians of the stature of Mallikarjun Mansur, Gangubai Hangal, Basavraj Rajguru and Kumar Gandharva. Usually, celebrity performers hate spending time teaching but Bhimsen Joshi himself offered to teach Torvi. If not the war of instruments, the vocals will be a treat.
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