BENGALURU: On January 26, friends and artistes of tabla maestro Chandrasekhar Badiger will come together for a fund-raising recital. Chandrasekhar is in poor health, after an attack of jaundice, and the event is to help him with his medical and other expenses.
Padma Shri Venkatesh Kumar will be performing, accompanied by Pt Raghunath Nakod on tabla, Sarfaraaz Khan on sarangi and Madhusudhana Bhat on the harmonium.
Hindustani vocalist and sarangi player Faiyaz Khan, who is one of the organisers, says, “Chandrasekhar is a good friend and I have known him for the past 20 to 30 years. He has always helped artistes who come from smaller districts such as from Dharwad, Hubbali and Kalaburagi. He gave them a place to stay and supported them in every way, and I have known people to stay from 3 months to 3 years.”
“He is a very good tabla player, a student of Pt Raghunath Nakod,” says Khan. “He does not have a family, he has not married. Chandrasekhar is currently being taken care of by a relative in Hubbali, but that family is not well off. We want to bring him back to Bengaluru. But he will be too weak to work when he returns, so we are hoping to raise enough to support him.”
There is no target amount. “Whatever friends and well-wishers give will be helpful,” says Khan. Donations will have to be made to Ananya Arogyadara Nidhi, which has been set up to help the art fraternity.
Pt Venkatesh Kumar says that he decided to be part of the event because of all the help Chandrasekhar has done for younger and struggling artistes. “Any of them who came from distant villages found a place to stay with him,” says Pt Kumar. “This is just a small gesture of support.”