शब्दांच्या पलीकडे...

Well, today was a different Sunday morning altogether. Usually, the week's toll takes on me and I find myself leisurely going about the day at my own pace. But today, my parents and me were to attend a Marathi cultural programme in a neighbouring locality. We had already tele-booked for it and were to reach well in time to collect the tickets. So we had to scamper through our breakfast hurriedly and rush to find the Purandara Bhavan, a public institution where literary meets, dramas and cultural gatherings like this are held regularly by MitraMandal Indiranagar Association. Surprisingly, we located it pretty soon among the long-winded lanes of the neighbourhood.


Now, this program was a biographical tribute to a renowned and highly talented Marathi literatteur Shanta Shelke whose writings, poems, songs have gone to become all-time classics in Marathi circles. Music aficionados had already lined up to attend this cultural meet organized by Niche Foundation, Pune. A large no of Marathi folks, age no bar - septagenerians, retired people, adults and teenagers were present. It was nice to see people still vividly attend such programmes especially when it is a Sunday morning :) The program named "एक होत्या शांता बाई" took a little while to start. The volunteers were doing last minute preparations and floral decorations.

I remember Shanta Shelke would have a weekly programme on DD National way back in 1990s by the name of "रानजाई". It would be a nice recital of her poems and songs amidst the pastoral surroundings. The TV program was well directed and I as a kid would love it - quite strange for me to watch it at a age of 13-14. But I would really like the folklore, the rural flavor so called as बोली भाषा in Marathi very typical of the rustic life of the villagers. She had an exemplary career spaning that of a journalist, a professor, composer, story writer, translator, written child literature and the likes. Today, it just brought back the mad rush of memories when I would be glued to the TV with my mom watching the series more than a decade back.

Finally, the show started with four amazing singers - Jitendra Abhyankar, Saavni Ravindra, Hrishikesh Ranade and Vibhavari Apte-Joshi. They mesmerised the audiences with Shanta Shelke's most popular songs. I particularly enjoyed the folk and koli compositions below which took me to a different world altogether atleast for few moments:

• रेशमाच्या रेघांनी
• ही वाट दूर जाते, स्वप्नामधील गावा
• जिवलगा, राहिले दूर घर माझे
• ऋतू हिरवा, ऋतू बरवा
• अशी चाल तुरु तुरु
• मी डोलकर, डोलकर, डोलकर दर्याचा राजा
• वादळ वारं सुटलं गं

All these young singers from Pune were professionally qualified yet pursuing singing for the sheer pleasure of it. They had also made their mark in the playback scenario to Marathi and Hindi songs. The compering of the show done by Rahul Solapurkar, an ex-actor of Marathi cinema, included memories of the literatteur from her life span. There was narration on how some famous poems and songs were composed by inspiration or accident. It was a 3-hour programme and we enjoyed it to the hilt. I look forward to more such events in the near future but hopefully not on a Sunday morning to disturb my relaxed demanour :P