Inside-Out/Anuradha Pal

On Sunday she performed with Roopak Kulkarni, Hariprasad Chaurasia8217;s disciple, at Malhar Utsav in Nallasopara.

Tabla exponent and a disciple of Ustad Allah Rakha and Ustad Zakir Hussain, Anuradha Pal, is back after the debut performance of Stree Shakti, her all-woman percussion ensemble, at WOMAD 8212; the World of Music and Dance festival in London. Stree Shakti also performed exclusively for a live BBC telecast during the festival last month.

quot;Percussion is one field in music which has always been male-dominated,quot; says Pal, with a glint of anger in her eyes. And when you don8217;t come from musicians8217; family, she says, it8217;s all the more difficult. Add to it the woman8217; tag and things get worse further. quot;I know it because I am both. My ensemble8217;s ghatam player once told me that one mridangam accompaniment to a famousCarnatic vocalist refused to perform with a woman8217;.quot; All other members of her group have had similar experiences. So, in 1996, Pal founded the first ever all-woman percussion group called Stree Shakti 8212; Woman Power.

quot;Sometimes.quot; It was more in the days when she had started performing at the age of 11. Even though she was marked as a Zakira8217; in the making after she performed at the Swar Vilas festival at the age of 17, her career is marked with incidents where the sponsor refused to pay her as much as the male performer because she didn8217;t have a family to take care of.

They do, in fact. quot;In Indian classical music there8217;s this idea of hierarchical importance of percussion and that you can8217;t fuse Hindustani and Carnatic styles of singing with vocal instruments and percussion.quot; But Pal stuck to her guns and worked at it.quot; In such projects one needs to work hard on themes, for it8217;s difficultto visualise which instrument should come at what point. But my judges 8212; the audience 8212; received it well.quot;

It is yet to be decided. But she is working on an experimental tabla-ghatam tarang where six pitches of tabla will be accompanied by six pitches of ghatam to perform raga Hindole using rare six-and-a-half beats. quot;For now, I am performing at Ideas and Images at the National Gallery of Modern Art 8212; today.quot;

A week ago, she released her solo CD called Anu which means special8217;. quot;I have used some rare taals in it.quot; And then I have composed and performed the entire background track of M F Husain8217;s Gajagamini, slated for a September 17 release.

quot;Yes. Very few people know that. Husainji says I was his first choice because of my work and that I, like Gajagamini, have made a mark for myself. I have struggled. I saw the film several times todecide on what was perfect.quot; While it took Pal two weeks to work on the compositions, she recorded the score in two days. In fact, Pal has one of the very few copies of Husain8217;s script for Gajagamini which has every single shot drawn out in the form of a painting. quot;It8217;s special because he has signed it for me in the form of a verse with which the film begins.quot;

8211;Meeta Bhatti