BENGALURU: It was on July 6, 2020, that Bengaluru-based Hindustani artiste Pravin Godkhindi began his Ragatainment series: Performing 101 ragas live on Mondays and Thursdays to spread classical music on online fora. A year on, he has completed 95 ragas in as many episodes which were live streamed on his Facebook page. Godkhindi believes that classical music is losing its popularity these days, especially with the pandemic kicking in and depriving many artistes of opportunities to perform their music.
“I felt folk artistes and classical music artistes did not have the opportunity to tap the digital world to present their creativity. I wanted to spread the word on the vast subject of ragas and their nuances, and encourage more youngsters to tune-in to classical music through social media,” says Godkhindi, who performed even when we was ill with Covid-19 in April. He explains that ragas express different moods of music and have a therapeutic impact on human beings.
“Each raga has its own character and we try to bring out different emotions in these ragas. The swaras emerging from the ragas have a therapeutic impact on people and contribute to their overall well being. It acts as like a stress buster and this has become all the more important during these difficult times,” he says. Some of the ragas he has performed include marwa, miyakitodi, vasanthi, komal rishab asavari, and madhumad sarang. “I believe people must understand the nuances and the names of these ragas.
Every Sunday I organise Facebook live sessions to explain at length the ascending notes and descending notes of the ragas to people. This also helps aspiring classical artistes to brush up their skills,” says Godkhindi. The 100th episode - to be held on June 24 - will be live streamed on his Facebook page and will also feature esteemed artistes such as Raufiq Quereshi, Durga Jasraj, Pandit Venkatesh Kumar, and Vidwan Mysore Manjunath. He will perform raga bhairavi with his son Shadaj Godkhindi for the 101st episode at the end of June.