Young Designers 2011

		Young Designers 2011
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Ridham Janve | ridham.janve@gmail.com

Pratah Smarana

Film and Video Communication | GDPD
Guide: S B Saksena
Sponsor: Ford Foundation, NID, Ahmedabad

Keywords
Documentary
Haveli Sangeet
Hindustani Classical Music
Nathdwara

Pratah Smarana is a meditation on the complex grammar, aesthetics and spiritual foundation of Haveli Sangeet, one of the oldest forms of Hindustani Classical music, traditionally practiced in front of Lord Krishna as the only audience. Nathdwara, located amidst the mountains of Aravali in the Indian state of Rajasthan, was the main seat of the Vaishnava devotional cult that developed a rich historical tradition of temple-based music. Haveli Sangeet is a recent term for the Pushtimargi keertans practiced by the keertankars appointed for the temple service. 'Haveli' here is referred to a palace that the deity chooses to reside in.

Interweaving fiction and documentary, the film evokes the inseparable bond between nature and music. Following the story of a young man from a Keertankar family in Nathdwara, it goes on to illustrate the spiritual relationship between Guru and Shishya through the practice of music. Steeped in nostalgia, the young man's memories of childhood drift along, moving and evolving around the music and his experience of learning it. The film goes on to depict the compositions by the popular Ashtasakha who wrote songs in various emotions and composed them in the suitable raga.
Film elaborates on the sakhi bhaav in which the keertankar imagines himself as a lover of Shrikrishna.

Simultaneously improvised and damaged by modern ways of living, we see the mysterious rupture of deep traditional beliefs through the organic and complex evolution of the musical form.

The process of the film was enlightening in respects I cannot enumerate here. Dealing with a subject like this I believe I could have gone into greater depths by doing even more research and spending more time. I feel that the learning does not stop here. This film has given me the enthusiasm to carry forward the craft of my choosing.