Pune: While the online ticket booking of Sawai Gandharva Bhimsen Mahotsav is getting a huge response from the public, Shrinivas Joshi, Executive President, Arya Sangeet Prasarak Mandal, said the organisation might not continue with the online booking system next year due to the extra charges that the organisers have to incur on online bookings.

According to the organisers, this year, more than 100 tickets were sold within 10 minutes of the opening of online booking.

Speaking to the media, Joshi said, “Last year, we introduced online booking of the tickets for the first time to make up for the limited availability of cash due to demonetisation. We decided to continue it this year as well. Although, the response to the online booking is huge, which could account for more than 70 per cent of the ticket sales, developing the system for this is turning out to be expensive for us. If we are unable to balance the costs, next year, we might not have online ticket sales.”

Shadja, Antaranga and photo exhibition that are part of the festival for the past 10 years will be held this year as well. The ‘Vatsalabai Joshi Award’ will be awarded to veteran tabla player Pandit Nana Mule this year.

Screening of documentaries
The documentaries ‘Music of India’ (instrumental) made by Bhaskar Rao, followed by ‘Ravi Shankar’ made by Pramod Pati - a tribute to sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, and a documentary on renowned classical musician Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar by SB Nayampally will be screened on December 13 as a part of Shadja. On day 2, a documentary on Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur by Prajana Parimita Parasher will be showcased followed by a documentary by Rajat Kapoor – Tarana and PK Saha’s documentary Sarangi – The Lost Chord on day 3.