The atmosphere was electric, as the incessant rain didn’t deter fans from packing Mumbai’s massive Shanmukhananda Hall on the evening of July 13. The Abhangwari concert, conceptualised and presented by singer Mahesh Kale, had the entire crowd in a daze, basking in the melody of Marathi abhangs like ‘Kaanada Raja Pandharicha’, ‘Avghe Garje Pandharpur’ and ‘Sakha Panduranga’. Towards the end, everyone chanted ‘Vitthal Vitthal’ along with the singer, who walked down the aisles.
Now settled in the San Francisco Bay area, Pune-bred Mahesh started the Abhangwari series eight years ago. The idea was to present the abhang genre, dedicated to Lord Vitthal, and musically depict the annual visit of thousands of pilgrims to Pandharpur in Maharashtra, on Ashadhi Ekadashi day. He says, “Besides the songs, I wanted to create an experience for the audience.
Thus, teeka is applied on the foreheads of those entering the hall, and topis given to them. We also show visuals of scenes that take place on the way to Pandharpur.” Mahesh points out that though the basic theme remains the same, he has a new script written every year.
This year, Prajakt Deshmukh worked on the script and Subodh Bhave was the narrator at the Mumbai show. Mahesh’s effort is to popularise abhangs outside Maharashtra, and this year’s schedule thus includes Hyderabad on July 19, Chennai on July 20 and Bengaluru on July 21. For this tour, he has written a special song called ‘Abhangwari’, which .