In the Mughal times a ‘Baithak’ would be an event where close friends & family came together informally to enjoy an evening of Urdu shaayari and music in an intimate home atmosphere where the involvement of an engaged audience became an integral part of the performance. In keeping with the tradition of yesteryears, LearnQuest launched “Baithak” in  January 2010, a series of cozy music concerts for Hindustani Classical music connoisseurs at the home of sound engineer Jawed Wahid in Framingham, MA. Baithak concerts have been jam-packed since the inception of the concept. The concert format has been an hour and half of music, a social break time with tea and snacks during intermission followed by an hour and half of more music.

In April 2010, when an elegantly dressed duo from the Benaras Gharana, vocalist Debapriya Adhikary and sitarist Samanwaya Sarkar took stage in the brightly lit baithak, they were greeted by more than 100 baithak members waiting to listen to their music offering. A crimson red wall formed a bold backdrop to the elevated white stage. Baithak members were seated on pure white sheets, some leaning on large divan style takias (pillows) and senior citizens were seated on comfortable large sofas against the backwall. Soon the silhouette of the evening raga Marwa began to emerge through musical notes from the sitar and the human voice. The active encouragement of the audience fueled the creative imagination of two young artists accompanied by yet another youngster on tabla – Shri Vishal Nagar. Within a short time, the trio established a solid rapport with the audience, the baithak came alive and the night became younger with the passage of time.

Here is an interview with vocalist, Debapriya Adhikary and sitarist, Samanwaya Sarkar.

Q.    When did the two of you first meet?

We met in a concert where both of us performed and got introduced to each other. That was in the year 2002.
 
Q. When did you decide to perform together on stage as a duo? Did your Gurumaa, Smt. Girija Devi suggest it?

We just thought about it four years back, but since last 7 years have been practicing together. Those sessions were very informal with the purpose to make our skills better with the ornaments of both gayaki and tantrakari. Then we performed in concert in Kolkata and it went very well. After that we took it seriously to bring this duet on stage. It was not like anybody insisted that we perform together, but, yes, Debapriya’s gurumaa once suggested that.
 
Q. How many years have you learned from your Gurumaa, Smt. Girija Devi. Do you learn together at the same time and please describe your Guru's teaching style.
 
We are learning from Appaji (our guruma Girija Deviji) since last four years. We learn together from her and each and every session with her is an event in itself, because she just takes us into a different world with her experience of long 70 years in the world of Hindustani classical music. She not only teaches us invaluable compositions but also shares with us the memories behind them as to how she got the compositions from her Gurus and in the early days how difficult it was to learn things correctly by depending only on ears and memory since there was no facility of using tape recorders. Through these interactions, we learn not only music but about life  – how to overcome obstacles in life.
 
Q. How did you choose make music into your career?
 
Our parents induced music into us right from our childhood but not with a motive that we would take this as profession. With gradual developments musically, music became a passion for us. Music competitions got us exposure and we felt inspired. The one remarkable happening was when we both stood first in All India Radio Music Competition at national level and after that it became apparent  that we would take this as profession.

Q. Do you look out for opportunities for individual performances or do you prefer to perform as a team?
 
We like to present in both formats - solo and the duet. Prior to developing the duet format, we performed as soloists in our individual fields of music. We are striving to establish ourselves both as soloists and as a duet team. We are a bit reluctant to perform solos and duet back to back in a same session.  At the Learnquest Conference in Boston in April 2010, we did solo performances and also a duet - that was excellent, as people saw us and heard our music in both formats.

Q. What musical forms do you perform together?

What we perform together is not only khyaal but a blend of dhrupad, khyaal, and tantrakari [instrumental style]. Other than that we perform Thumri, dadra, tappa, tap khyal, holi, chaiti, jhula, all those we have learnt from our Gurumaa, Girija Deviji.

Q. Who are the musicians who inspire you? Would you say that their music influences your music?
 
The fact is that we like all musicians - seniors and peers alike, so it is difficult to name somebody in particular. We don't follow somebody blindly – rather, we follow our own instinct keeping in our subconscious mind all that we learn from our gurus and the good music that we hear from others. We hope that all those things influence our music.

Q. How many countries have you given performances in? Do music loving audiences change when you move between countries? What differences do you see in the reactions of audiences to your performances?
 
We have been to Australia, England, France, Germany Denmark, Portugal and other European countries for both solos and duets. Reactions of audiences do change between countries. When we perform in Europe, the audience reacts differently - they never clap in the middle of a performance, they maintain pin drop silence and only deep facial expressions can be seen. After the performance ends, if they have liked it, they give enormous appreciation by clapping for a long time. So it's a totally different reaction in that part of the world but wherever the audience is Indian, appreciation comes throughout the performance both with claps and remarks like "kya baat" "wah wah" or "Ahaa". That is very inspiring and extracts more music from us.

Q. It is said that creative people often find it difficult to get along with other creative people. How come you two get along so well?
 
We don’t know about others but between us there is no problem of getting along until now because there is no competition between us. There is a lot of respect and love and no ego - we always pray that ego does not ever come in our way.

Q. How have you liked your first trip to U.S.A?

In this first trip to the United States, the most important thing for us has been the acceptance and the appreciation of our music from the highly interactive audience in our performances.

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