Tabla Saha-waadan by Pushkar Mahajan & Rahul Champanerkar – TMCP Ganga Legend Centre, Bavdhan, Pune
17 December 2018
Baithak’s concert at the TMCP Bawdhan Centre in December was a milestone. It was the first concert in which a few of the children from the centre performed two short pieces as a part of the concert. Seeing a few children, who are generally in the audience, come up as performers and present some music, is definitely a momentous occasion for their mentor, all the Centre staff, and Baithak.
Pushkar Mahajan and Rahul Champanerkar, both tabla players and disciples of late Pt. Arvind Mulgaonkar, were the artists for the concert. Pushkar also happens to be the mentor of the students at the Centre, where he takes weekly Djembe lessons for the children. Pushkar and Rahul being under the same Guru, were at ease in exchanging musical ideas through their instruments throughout the performance, and presented various compositions with ease and accuracy. They started with kaayda-s, and proceeded to present rela-s, then tukda-s and gat-s and the finally chakradhaar-s. There was a pretty large audience for this concert, with almost 40 children and 20 adults. Though the children were enjoying the performance and were following Pushkar’s interaction between the Tabla compositions, there was predictable restlessness as they were very eager to watch their friends perform after the Tabla saha-waadan.
Three children from Pushkar’s class excitedly brought out their Djembe-s and gor ready to perform. They performed the percussion patterns on songs ‘naach re mora’ – a popular Marathi children’s song – and ‘lakadi ki kaathi’ – a well known Hindi song for children. Pushkar conducted this performance and encouraged the children to play confidently and joyfully. Everyone in the audience clapped and cheered the children after their performance, which lasted almost 10 minutes.