Udaipur World Music Festival: Bridging melody over the hills and the lakes

While motoring down from Maharana Pratap Airport to attend the 5th Udaipur World Music Festival, we had to skirt along quite a stretch of a bridge that was being constructed which when completed, per the driver, would take someone from the centre of the city, to the airport , a distance of about 25 km without hassle. Perhaps Sanjeev Bhargava, director of the emonymous festival is similarly engaged in building a conduit to bring in the sensibilities of world music in this land of kings and natural & man-made lakes.

Throughout the festival which commenced with an inaugural Indo-french tribute to Gandhi and Martin Luther King celebrating this year's festival theme of 'Unity In Diversity', collaborated by Sudha Raghuraman and Jeffery Mpondo, he, a trained hindustani classical vocalist would maintain, "You won't easily find this here", specially during the rare International acts. He is known to have said, referring  to corresponding flagship festivals, "If Jaipur has literature, Udaipur has World Music".

During these three days the music breakfasted  with the rising sun at Manji ka Ghat (Ambrai Ghat); (except on the first day ), had lunch at Fateh Sagar Paal and twinkle-toed well past after the sun had set at the spacious Gandhi ground. No less than 150 global artist culled from 20 countries ensured the continuum of melody. A scheduling indeciveness had us miss Kiya Tabassian and Charbel Rouhanna's Maqam (Arabic)-Dastgah (Persian) morning conversation on the second day but it was more than compensated the very next day during the same time slot by, easily the find of the festival, Kurdish singer Mico Kedes' authoritative vocalisations. If loss of words be any indication to describe the experience then, perfect enumeration lies bathed in silence. The boat ride back - the only at to reach the venue, sitting opposite to him was a bonus. These sessions, by invitations only were more intimate than the afternoon ones which drew mid-sized enthusiasts. But nothing of course compared to involvements during the evening segment of this open to all initiative.

The first such session had Ginni Mahi, the Punjabi folk sensation who is given to singing anti-cast and anti-racist songs warm it up for hard to pronounce and define Swiss jazz-rock trio, Schnellertollermeier, and When Chai Met Toast, who followed suit with their pleasant neo-folk stylings, bade their adieu, the energy swayed and swirled under the truly infectious command of NoJazz band from France.

The second day afternoon had Sara Correia drawing out the desired empathy and attention with her soulful Fados. The evening couldn't come soon enough and it was way too much for anything. Mame Khan, the homegrown contemporary legend; Habib koite, the Malian shining star with his own musical neologism, dassa donso and Thaikkudam Bridge with their high-energy vernacular-rock, with a cult following were to ferry the audience from one coast to next, on the trot. The programme might have commenced late, but it certainly concluded too soon!

The third and last day a family troupe from close to the Norwegian border of Russia, Sattuma entrapped the audience with their rootsy renditions. If end is an eventuality then in this instance it must be brought about by Oques Grasses. Singing in Catalan which even the mainland Spaniards fail to comprehend, they successfully infected the gathered with a restless leg syndrome.

And now, the ride back to the airport, and again the bridge and this it time an acknowledging nod.