Sprawled mats welcome you to take a seat as the percussion, wooded instruments and strings echo to the sound of moving vocals – welcome to The Month End Bhaitak. This intimate concert experience in Bengaluru is a fresh take on reviving and discovering Hindustani classical music. The community showcases up-and-coming artistes while whisking you away from your gadgets, urging you to commune with the creative energy that surrounds the room once a month. Ahead of their next bhaitak on August 26 featuring Koushik Aithal, Kedarnath Havaldar and Neeta Vivek, we find out more.
According to Sadashiv, it was the need for a classical music platform for artists and the community that was both accessible and affordable that drew them to the concept. “Most classical concerts featuring very well-known artistes happen in huge auditoriums and are expensive. The Month End Bhaitak is aimed at making the concert a personal and intimate experience,” says the 32-year-old Hindustani vocalist who co-hosts these sessions with Untitled Arts Foundation’s artistic director, Anuradha HR. While it helps to rekindle and recreate the love for classical music, they also believe that this acts as a good social exercise. “With the ever growing technology that threatens our social and interpersonal skills we need intellectual, spiritual and emotional experiences to draw from. We strongly believe that we need ‘live’ experiences to remain human,” says Sadashiv.
Scheduled to happen on the last Saturday of every month, a typical bhaitak features a vocal artiste along with two sangath artistes on the tabla and the harmonium. “It’s a unique concept that reminds artistes and the audience of those early years where the bhaitak was the real stage. It also facilitates an intimate interaction between the artiste and the audience as the gathering is small,” says Dhananjay Hegde, a Mumbai-based artiste that performed at one of the earlier sessions.
“What’s great about it is that it not just promotes original Indian music and brings like-minded individuals together, but unlike at larger concerts, here you get to speak with the artistes, give them feedback and learn more from them,” says Surya Prakash, a JP Nagar resident and a regular at these concerts. “Moreover, there are very few concerts on this part of town,” he tells us. The Month End Bhaitak hopes to spread its wings too. “We wish to take it to various spaces across Bengaluru and outside. The hope is to develop a wider and an appreciative audience for Hindustani music and make it a platform for artistes to meet among themselves and the community to collaborate and take classical forms to larger communities,” says Sadashiv. And that hope is already coming to fruition.
