Dance and music festival in Guwahati

Guwahati, Feb 22 (ANI): The famous pilgrim centre of Kamakhya temple at Guwahati recently hosted a gala two-day music and dance festival.

It was a pleasant sight to see several cultural programmes being performed by versatile artistes at the renowned Kamakhya temple.

The sarod maestro, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, enchanted the audience with his recital.

"We feel it's a great honour, great privilege for all of us to perform here, basically we have to receive blessings from Maa (mother) Kamakhya, and, because you always need blessings and good wishes from everywhere, every corner of the world," he said.

P P Singh, Chief Convenor of the Music and Dance Festival, mentioned that the festival was to promote the age-old traditional relevance of the Kamakhya temple.

"The whole objective was to revive the tradition of Kamakhya Temple classical dance has been a part of worshipping process in the temple," he added.

Among others, Shri Nityananda Das, an artiste from Orissa, mesmerised the audience with his stellar performance on one leg.

It was a great inspiration for the people to see the dancer continuing to dance after he had lost his right leg in the year 2000.

Other notable participants were prominent Bharat Natyam exponent Guru Saroj Vidyanathan, musician Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan, and violinist, Minoti Khound.his was the fourth year of the festival.

It is said that music and dance were at one point of time performed ceremoniously as part the worship of the Goddess Kamakhya, the presiding deity of the temple.

Descendants of musicians and dancers, who performed here in the past, bear testimony to that tradition. (ANI)