Raisen: The Culture Department of the Government of Madhya Pradesh, in collaboration with the District Administration Raisen, is organizing the “Mahadev“ Bhojpur Festival from 26 to 28 February, 2025 in the premises of the world famous Shiva temple in Bhojpur on the auspicious occasion of Mahashivratri every year. The glory of Lord Shiva will be shown in the cultural forms of folk songs, music and dance in the festival. The program will start at 6:30 pm every day, in which the entry of the audience will be free.
Director, Culture, Shri NP Namdev said that the holy Ganga of devotional rasa will flow with the songs and music of the adorable Shiva in the three-day festival. On the first evening of the prestigious event, there will be folk singing by Shri Shiv Bhai Gupta Khargone, followed by the presentation of Badhai folk dance by Shri Abhilash Choubey Sagar and Ms. Hiramani Verma and Matki folk dance of Ujjain. The final presentation will be the devotional recital of the famous sitar player and singer Shri Rishabh Rikhiram Sharma Delhi. On the second evening of the festival i.e. 27th February, 2025, Shri Anshul Pratap Singh and his friends from Bhopal will perform Shiva Tandava at Tala Vadya Kacheri. After this, an All India Kavi Sammelan will be organized, in which all the great Dr. Hariom Panwar, Ms. Anamika Amber, Shri Vishnu Saxena, Shri Balram Srivastava, Ms. Medha, Shri Aman Akshar and Shri Laxman Nepali will immerse the audience in devotional spirit with their poems. The third and final evening of the festival will be decorated with folk songs and light music on 28th February, 2025. The first session will feature folk singing by Shri Rajkumar Thakur Sagar. After this, Gangaur folk dance will be presented by Shri Sanjay Mahajan, Badwah and Baredi-Naurta folk dance will be presented by Shri Amit Ghaaru, Sagar. The main attraction of the ceremony will be the presentation of light music by playback singer Ms. Arunita Kunjilal and Nachiket Lele and Group, Mumbai.
Rishabh Sharma, who performed at the Bhojpur Festival, is the first sitar player to be invited by the President of the United States Biden, First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to perform solo at the White House for the Diwali event hosted by the President. Rishabh is the only sitar player of his generation to have performed solo sitar at the NGR Stadium in Houston Texas in front of more than 60,000 people and more than 500 million live viewers at home. Rishabh did a worldwide “Sitar for Mental Health” tour last year, which included several shows in India, the US, Canada and South America.
Rishabh goes live on Instagram and Clubhouse weekly and creates reels entertaining the audience, which often garner millions of views. Rishabh paid tribute to the great Pandit Ravi Shankar by performing at the Woodstock 50 Reunion (50 years of Woodstock Festival). In the year 2020, he founded ‘Sitar for Mental Health’, which aims to promote mental health through music therapy. Rishabh provides free music therapy to online audiences and works with mental health experts to develop a comprehensive approach to mental health.
