Patna: Old-timers miss music Puja extravaganza

PATNA: The Covid-19 pandemic has taken the sheen off the Durga Puja festivities this year. Old-timers recall that Durga Puja in Patna was synonymous with classical and light music till 1970s. In fact, musical soirées were an inseparable part of the Puja celebrations in the town every year.
Connoisseurs of classical music say they used to wait for Durga Puja to listen to the maestros for three consecutive nights from Saptami.The grandeur of classical programmes, however, started waning after late 1970s. Several music lovers have a lingering memory as ‘jaane kahan gaye who din’.
The Puja festivity and musical programmes took a hit in the 1975 due to floods in Patna. Durga Puja was the only occasion when diehard music lovers in thousands listened delightfully to their favourite artists performing on the stage. Patnaites said ‘such programmes were held at the Hardinge Park, Miller School, Gandhi Maidan, Patna Collegiate School, Langartoli, Golghar, Machhhuatoli and Station Road where celebrated artists used to regale the people through their performances in Patna.
Octogenarians Basu Da and Niloo Chakraborty said famous table player Alla Rakha, sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, shehnai wizard Bismillah Khan, noted singers Kishori Amonkar, Shamshad Begum and Praveen Sultana, violinist V G Jog and a galaxy of other celebrities used to add colour to the Durga Puja festival in Patna. Noted danseuse Sitara Devi was always the centre of attraction. Her fans were so much fascinated with her dance that they sat from dusk to dawn.
Ghazal singers Anup Jalota and Pankaj Udhas also evoked applause from the audience during puja festival. Patna was the only city where Bollywood stars performed on the stage during Durga Puja. Mahendra Kapoor, Sulakshana Pandit, Manna Dey and several others regularly performed during the Puja festival. Patna was so famous for the classical music during Puja that music lovers from Kolkata and Varanasi visited here to enjoy classical music and dance. “Patnaites will perhaps never witness such a rare combination of music and dance during Puja now,” an old-timer said.