Love arts and culture? This archival centre in Pune is worth checking out

Stepping into the Dr Ashok Damodar Ranade Archives ADRA at the Jyotsna Bhole Sabhagruha in Pune you feel as if the boundaries separating the arts have collapsed This is what the late Dr Ranade believed in as wellThe public archive built in memory of the eminent Mumbaibased ethnomusicologist is the goto address in Pune if you are looking for a particular composition or reference material or simply to soak in the rich interconnected world of arts culture geography and languagesADRA is the brainchild of Dr Keshavchaitanya Kunte a former student of Dr Ranade ldquoHis death in 2011 was untimelyrdquo he says ldquoAfter he passed on tabla player Aneesh Pradhan a few of his close associates and I visited his wife and suggested that we donate his personal collection to performing arts institutes or universitiesrdquo His wife Hemangini Ranade he remembers wanted the material to be more accessible ldquoWe then thought of creating a public archive that could benefit researchers artistes students and laymenrdquoKeshavchaitanya with his wife Shruti who is responsible for digitising archival material and creating metadata PicsM FahimIn March 2013 the KuntesmdashKeshavchaitanya and his wife Shrutimdashtransported Dr Ranadersquos collection from Mumbai to Pune ldquoAs I have been associated with the Maharashtra Cultural Centre MCC for nearly three decades I put forth a proposal before its members to set up the archives in the premises of Jyotsna Bhole Sabhagruhardquo ADRA was inaugurated a year later by noted vocalist Shubha MudgalPramod Kale a member of the MCC says ldquoThe centre was founded with the idea to promote cultural activities nothing could be better than being associated with Dr Ranadersquos workrdquoThe archives are home to valuable and rare material The print section has a collection of approximately 3500 works which include books research papers journals handwritten notes and photographs The audio segment comprises gramophone records audio tapes and live concert cassettesAt present the audio collection has around 3000 hours of recorded music ldquoWe were initially guided by Pramod Kale and Varsha Joglekar she worked under Dr Ranade at the National Centre for Performing Arts Currently my work involves preserving material that is over a centuryold digitising it and creating metadatardquo says ShrutiOther stalwarts from Indian classical music have also reposed their faith in the Kuntes and ADRA by handing over their collections ldquoThe personal collection of Sardar Abasahaeb Muzumdar a music scholar from Pune was donated by his granddaughterinlaw The Hindustani classical vocalist late Malinitai Rajurkar also handed over her material to the archives Recently Dr Balwant Dixit who resides in the US and has spent nearly five decades of his life researching Indian classical music shared his audio and print material with usrdquo adds KeshavchaitanyaWhile academicians have made use of the archives the struggle was to get artistes to take an interest in it ldquoTo make this possible we decided to select a theme and organise a performance based on the archive It is staged each year around October 31mdashADRArsquos foundation day The idea was to make use of the archival material and create something entirely new out of itrdquo adds Keshavchaitanya who teaches music at the Lalit Kala Kendra Gurukul Savitribai Phule Pune University Maharashtratil Stree Geet a programme that was organised last year and focused on songs prevalent nearly a century ago was a result of this effort Madhavi Chakradeo who works at ADRA and performed at this event shares ldquoKrishnarao Mule who was a connoisseur of music had made notations of Stree Geet which we had in the archives I composed songs based on the notations and sang them It was a challenging yet enriching experiencerdquoThis year on November 4 Kale has curated a programme to highlight the works of DG Godse ldquoGodse was a multifaceted personalitymdashhe was a critique of the arts an art director painter playwright and a pakhawaj player ldquoWe have planned to showcase his writings paintings and also conduct dramatised readings of his worksrdquoApart from the concerts weekly or monthly activities are planned to reach out to newer audiences ldquoRecently Iranian musician Sasan Bazgir conducted a live demonstration on Persian musicrdquo says Keshavchaitanya adding ldquoAt these sessions the attendees come up with interesting observations A change in perspective is seen I think thatrsquos a good signrdquoPrachi Gondachavar a regular attendee says ldquoI enjoy the curated guiding sessions They reveal how huge and transcendent the world of music isrdquo