Similar gaiety and happiness is witnessed on Lord Krishna\u2019s birthday, Janamasthami<\/em>, <\/em><\/strong>by millions of devotees in many parts of the world. Krishna now enjoys a world wide popularity in which the ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) plays a significant part. There are hundreds of ISKCON temples all over the world \u2014 Europe, America, Asia, Australia in addition to several in India itself.<\/p>\n Apart from these religious festivals, there are other events celebrating or honouring various Gods and Goddesses such as\u00a0Saraswati <\/em>the Goddess of Knowledge,\u00a0Durga for\u00a0<\/em>her victory over evil etc. in India some festivals usually coincide with the arrival of agricultural crops – wheat, rice, fruits, lentils etc. One\u00a0\u00a0such is\u00a0Ganesh <\/em>(with a face that of an elephant)\u00a0Chaturthi festival\u00a0<\/em>that celebrates the arrival of rice in the month of August\/September. As a matter of fact this is being celebrated in Delhi University and elsewhere on 2 and 3 September and will continue for another week.<\/p>\n Apart of these festivals or special days, an important and an endearing\u00a0Utsav <\/em>(festival) is\u00a0Malhar Utsav\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>beseeching the clouds to shower<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>their blessings by providing rains on parched lands. This event consists of singing the\u00a0Malhar Raga\u00a0<\/em>(melody) hoping that the\u00a0Megh <\/em>(clouds) will enjoy the music and pour rains in plenty.<\/p>\n In fact a few years back, the Department of Music of Delhi University was organising the Malhar festival. After a few speeches by eminent men and women musicians, the\u00a0Malhar Raga\u00a0<\/em>(melody) was being sung by two students. Lo and behold, after a few minutes, one could hear the thunder of clouds as it started raining outside the Hall. People started clapping and there was joy and laughter on that occasion.<\/p>\n The festival, many established Indian musicologists assert, is not just of music, but symbolises the advent of clouds, rain, birds, peacocks, flowers and rivers and generates happiness, contentment within a person,\u00a0\u00a0and harmony with nature. It also represents not just musical delight, but also signifies concepts of joy, sorrow, art forms, brotherhood \u2014 in other words our very existence, our heritage, our civilisation.<\/p>\n Some people compare the music of\u00a0Malhar Raga with\u00a0<\/em>the music of\u00a0Wolfgang Mozart.\u00a0<\/em>People familiar with western music and in particular, the music of Mozart, the eighteenth century Austrian genius who composed several operas and symphonies will appreciate the joy and happiness that music such as\u00a0Malhar Raga <\/em>can\u00a0<\/em>bestow on appreciative ears.\u00a0One feels surrounded by a sense of peace, harmony and bliss listening to such music\u2014 be it western or Indian classical music.<\/p>\n These traditional forms of culture, dance and music are gradually being replaced by today\u2019s forms of jazz, soul, pop, loud music which often have dissonant and complex rhythms. Today\u2019s music is fast and often called popular music in contrast with the traditional or serious forms of music. These changes represent the changes in our socio political lives. But good music, dance and culture, traditional or contemporary, give a sense of peace, harmony and inner strength that is what we all cherish in this complex world.<\/p>\n ______________________________________________<\/p>\n There are several cultural, religious festivals and celebrations all over the world. One such festival is Christmas; although being a Christian festival, it is celebrated all over the world on 25 Dec by non- Christians also. Similarly, Jewish, Muslims, Buddhists and Sikhs have special days to remember and celebrate their own Gods or leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":142289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[759,129],"class_list":["post-142288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-india","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/malhar-utsav-india-music.jpg\")
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