Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Sept 13: The ‘Dogri Gazal Sandhya’ organized by Dogri Sanstha, at the K L Saigal Hall, here today, turned out a memorable experience for the rare combination of high literary merit of poetry, beautiful compositions and soulful rendering by singers.
The program due to the sheer quality of chosen poetry set to compositions based on Indian classical ragas, once again reiterated the fact that inherent prowess of Dogri language to coalesce the philosophical and the lyrical into a unique poetic expression has resulted into to a definite genre of modern Dogri gazal today.
What made today’s program unique was the presence of the Deepak Arsi and Shusheel Begana, the poets whose chosen poems set to tunes composed by well known singer and musician Sham Sajan and sung by young and upcoming singer Sargam Pant and talented singers like Neelam Langeh, Subhash Langeh and veteran musician Sham Sajan.
The mesmerizing compositions of the gazals set in ragas like Darbari Kanhara, Malkouns, Bilawal and Pahari with excellent accompaniment by Karan Malhotra on tabla and Sanjay Pashi on guitar bestowed upon the lyrics a definite emotive ambience. Deepak Arsi’s lyrics ‘phi besuri nazar ne kite kamal kinne, sochein di dhartiya par, ugge swal kinne, and ‘aas di godaa ch palna theekh ha, palda reha, pathrein sha murtai di shakliya dhalda reha’, received lot of appreciation.
The audience especially went ecstatic on Begana’s poetry such as ‘inni te dosta, jeene di aas de, akhkhin tarel de, dana hothein aas de’ and ‘klapein kaleja napiri napiri, kadoon jam soukhe plounde n yara, surahi jadoon bhed khole manei de, glassein de sanghe ghatonde ne yara’.
Welcoming the guests Prof Lalit Magotra, president of Dogri Sanstha, said that this was first in the series of programs to be presented by Sanstha, in which, in every program the poetry of a single poet will be showcased to the audience in presence of the poet.
Anjali Sharma, Assistant Director, Doordarshan Kendra Jammu, was the chief guest of the program which was attended by poets, writers, artists, and members of civil society.
The vote of thanks by Prof Veena was marked with insightful observations as to how Dogri gazal for its sheer merit and depth has not only emerged as a major literary genre in modern Dogri literature but can even vie with mainstream gazal poetry.
The proceedings of the event were anchored by Ravinder Kaul, whose comments and observations added to the quality and grace to the program.