Eman in Bengal and Yaman in the north India ? the raga is also called Kalyan; and Kalyani in the South. It belongs to the Kalyan thaat in Hindustani and Meccha Kalyani in Carnatic music. The Dover Lane Music Conference demanded only Yaman from young musicians at Madhusudan Mancha (July 18-19).

The jugalbandi of Purbayan Chatterjee’s north Indian sitar and Shashank’s Carnatic flute (in picture), albeit highly innovative sans the characteristic oscillating microtones, blended well and presented a thrilling finale of the ‘Eman Sandhya’. The comparatively sedate sitar stayed traditional, while the chirpy flute experimented with the harmonising scales and melodic permutations.

During the teental-aditalam gatkari or pallavi Anubroto Chatterjee and V.V. Ramannamurthy on the tabla and mridangam respectively had to adjust a little as the aditalam consists of eight beats with one squeezing sam, and one relaxing khali. Teental’s sixteen beats have the ninth as the unaccented open beat. But they did it with ?lan.

The heart-wrenching puk-ars of vocalist Sandipan Sam-ajpati peaked in piety, its beauty enhanced by Pratik Srivastav’s sarod. Asim Chowdhury’s sitar found it in its romantic mood. For Suranjana Bose and Tumpa Bhattacharya it remained the raga of the evening riyaaz.