Gwalior Gharana

Talk delivered at All Bengal Music Conference, Kolkata 4^th January 2008. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Gurus, Fellow musicians and all music lovers of Kolkata, My greetings to you. I wish you all a very happy new year and hope we will all be a part of more such enriching musical experiences in this year than in the past.

I thank the All Bengal Music Conference for giving me this opportunity to say a few words about the gharana gayaki of Gwalior, a tradition I myself strive to represent. It is at once a great honour and an onerous responsibility that I have been entrusted with and I seek the blessings of all the gurus of the tradition before embarking on this task.

Understanding a gharana or its gayaki is no mean task. First we would have to make a distinction between what a gharana is and what a gayaki is. A gharana, as we all know, literally means a family. Since it is not mandatory that a family member alone takes the tradition forward, a more appropriate word would probably be “Parampara”.

Gayaki refers to the style, the basic features, the tatva-sootra or the principles of the music produced by that family or parampara of musicians.  

I think my charge today is to explore the legacy of the parampara of Gwalior (the khayal parampara in particular) as well as to attempt to explain or articulate the salient features of the gayaki of Gwalior. 

So our primary questions would be, what is a gayaki? and how does it get a form? After years of learning, practising and assimilating parampara-gat taleem or gharanedar taleem, a student adds or brings something new to turn that vidya into kala and that is when he truly becomes a kalakar. But at the core, the spirit and the principles remain rooted to the taleem he has received. And that is the hallmark of a gayaki.  

When we speak of gayaki, three broad parameters may be considered, 1. The content. 2. The technique and 3. The presentation.  Firstly the parampara is seen more clearly in the taleem, in the training methodology, than in the performances. But even if we were to look at the music alone we see certain common points in the performances of all musicians of the parampara. As far as the gayaki of the gwalior parampara goes, the following may be said to be these common points. 

1. The laya. In this context, by laya I mean tempo or the gati. Not speed or rhythm. So the overall tempo of the whole gayaki is rather fast. It moves more in the Madhya and Madhya-Vilambit laya./
2. Emphasis on bandishes and distinct use of  sthaayi and antara.  I did mention before that the Gwalior khayal gayaki evolved out of a parampara of Dhrupad and therefore some principles were maintained.

• Very often, training of a raga begins with teaching as many bandishes as        one can in a raga to familiarise the student with the various ang and features of the raga.
• The bandishes very often have sthayis and antaras of two, three or even four avartans. There are some bandishes that go up to eleven avartans!
• The sthayi is sung upto twice or thrice to firmly establish it.

•  The sthayi and Antara are sung in succession at the beginning of the Khayal itself.

    3. After the sthayi-antara are established,  we come to development or vistar portion.

• The development is not Swar based, but Raga-ang based. In most cases, infact, it is khayal ang based. This means that rather than developing the raga swar by swar, the raga is explored through the phrases of the bandish. Each bandish offers a new dimension to the raga and the development is consistent with the dimension offered by the bandish in question.
• In the context of khayal / raga vistar, it may also be noted that the alap is keenly knit with the theka. Not the taal, but the theka. (Where taal refers to a cycle of of a set number of equidistantly timed beats, theka is the structure given to the cycle with syllables of the tabla. In other words, theka is the language of the taal)). The alap moves in sync with the structure of the theka and a wide variety of tals like tilwada, jhumra, ektal, jhaptal, rupak, adachoutal are employed.

   4.Once the alap or vistar in the shtayi and antara is more or less done, the gayaki moves to a distinct Gwalior feature   called the Behelava. This is a faster movement – faster than alap, slower than tans. Behelava necessarily covers two to two and a half saptaks. The use of Gamak is introduced very markedly in this portion. This is like a bridge between the alap and the tans.

    5.Among other tans the use of the raga ang tan and sapat tan in a distinct sweeping manner in the avaroh is an important feature. Sargam and sargam- tans are used extensively during training, but are almost totally absent in the presentation.

   6. The repertoire of bandishes too includes certain rare kinds of bandishes which none of the other paramparas has, such as the tap-khayal, khayal-numa (vilambit khayal with tarana bols), ashtapadi, etc.

 So these are the main features of the gwalior gayaki.  

There are several streams within the Gwalior parampara. But they all confirm to these basic tenets or sootras. The Bade Nissar Hussain Khan stream – his disciples include Ramkrishna Bua vaze, Shankar Rao Pandit and his descendants Krishna Rao Shankar Pandit and L K Pandit. Then there is another stream of D.V. Paluskar, Omkarnath Thakur and other disciples of V.D Paluskar such as Narayan Rao Vyas, Vinayak Bua Patwardhan, etc. The Poonchwale stream of mainly Rajabhaiya Poonchwale and his son Balasaheb Poonchwale , the stream of Sharat Chandra Arolkar,  the Antu Bua stream of Gajanan Bua Joshi and his disciples including my guru, Ulhas Kashalkar and today’s artist Smt. Shubhada Paradkar. Another of Antu Bua’s disciples, also of the Agra Parampara but who’s music reflected a trememdous amount of Gwalior- S N Ratanjankar and his disciples including K G Ginde , S C R Bhat and my guru Dinkar Kaikini., all these musicians I mentioned sang the gwalior gayaki but had a different individuality to their music, a shaili of their own, which was well within the confines of the gayaki parampara. 

Having said this, what is of immediate relevance to a listener today is what gwalior is today; how Gwalior gakayi came to be, how it changed over the years and what it is as we listen to today. We need to look at the history of the paramapara in context to the changes that musicians brought into it and evolved it to its current state. 

Khayal, per se, became a popular form of music only around two hundred years ago. Before this period Gwalior had a parampara of Dhrupad. It is believed that Gwalior came to the forefront of India’s musical lineage sometime in the 16^th century. Rajah Mansingh Tomar of Gwalior established and popularised this Dhrupad parampara. Even the legendary Miyan Tansen, who went on to become one of the navratna in the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar is said to be a product of the school he established. 

Much later around the time of decline of the Mughal empire, Mohamed Shah Rangiley and two of his court musicians Niyamat Khan (Sadarang) and his nephew Feroz Khan (Adarang) composed a plethora of compositions in the Khayal genre. Both sadarang and Adarang were originally from Gwalior. Although, they are said to belong to “Quawal Bacchon ki Gharana (I don’t know why they say Bacchon ki!) 

The most significant changes in the parampara came from around the late 18^th century onwards, following the migration of Nathan Khan Peer Baksh from Lucknow to Gwalior. His grandsons Haddu Khan, Hassu Khan and the lesser known Natthu Khan, it is said, evolved the genre of khayal into its present structure and popularised it. They were also greatly influenced by Bade Mohamad khan who is said to have initiated tans into the Gwalior gayaki. Haddu Khan’s son, Rehmat Khan is said to be the first to have made the shift from a very rigid dhrupad based khayal gayaki to a more flexible gayaki with the focus on the emotional appeal. 

Haddu and Hassu Khan produced a number of great musicians and one of the most important personalities at this juncture was Balkrishna Bua Ichalkaranjikar, disciple of Hassu Khan, his nephew Mohammad Khan and mainly Hassu Khan’s disciple Vasudev bua Joshi. He painstakingly acquired the entire repertoire of Gwalior from his Ustads and went on to produce a string of disciples such as Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, Anant Manohar Joshi (Antu Bua) and several others. I have already mentioned how these musicians in turn contributed to the growth of streams within the same parampara. 

In more recent times, Omkarnath Thakur and Kumar Gandharva too were self proclaimed rebels who after receiving extensive taleem in the gwalior gayaki gave very different dimensions to their singing. The former introduces a sort of drama element or histrionics into his music while the latter infused elements of folk into his presentation. 

So, in general, over time several such changes have affected the gayaki. Today,

• The overall laya, gati  or tempo, has reduced significantly, although, it is still faster than other gayakis. The pace of the alap too has become more restful, probably heeding to contemporary tastes.
• Many more varieties of tans have joined in.
• We also see use of bol baant and other gayaki angs employed.
• The presentation has become more compact and structured.

 This is the gwalior we know today.

Gwalior being the oldest khayal parampara is naturally acknowledged to be a mother to most other paramparas. It was the same Nathan Khan Peer Baksh who trained Gagge Khuda baksh, the initiator of the Agra parampara. Rampur too is said to be an offshoot. In fact, many scholars opine that it is not a parampara at all in own right, but only a deviant of the mother parampara of gwalior. To ascertain this, all we need to do is apply those basic tenets that I mentioned in the beginning of my talk to what we listen to. 

It is very hard to articulate music. But I hope I have justified my standing here at this podium with the task at hand.  

It is important to listen to musicians of different paramparas. But it is more important to listen keeping the principles of their gayaki in mind as it gives us deep insights into approach adopted by different paramparas and their gayakis to attain the one aesthetic experience or realisation of beauty through music. 

 In other words, and I conclude by saying, music to a musician is his life. His gayaki is his religion. 

Thank you.

Farewell, Appu.

   
Of the many great men I have met or known in my life, there are some who have made such a deep impression on my mind and personality that their thoughts never pass my mind unaccompanied by a strong current passing through my spine. I believe it is a current of humility, awe and deepest respect.

One such was Professor Jagannath Ganguly (Appu to me and his grandchildren). If I were to count the number of times I have actually met him, it seems so little. Although I met him very few times, a connection, a bond which we discovered between us was too beautiful and deep for words.

At this time of his passing, I dedicate to him and our relationship the refrain of one of Tagore’s poems:
“This love between you and me is as simple as a song.”

Our first meeting was at his residence some six years ago. An octogenarian by then, he was as fit as a man in his forties owing to a highly disciplined life. He walked for a good two-three kilometers every single day and insisted on going alone. When we met we started talking as though we had known each other for years. Such was his capacity to accept and love anybody he met with complete openness. Trivial details never caught his attention. When he spoke, he spoke ideas. I never heard him speak of small events. Even routine formality was not his wont.

I usually met him once in three months and the moment I walked in and sat near him he would start talking of something that he was reading or thinking about. Be it history, politics, religion, poetry or any subject under the sun and he always had so much to say. Just being with him was a learning experience. His energy level, mental focus, zest and unquenchable thirst for knowledge were things I always tried to imbibe when I was with him.

To him greatness of mind and spirit had become a habit. He had raised his mind to That state. When I met him I saw a man very much rooted in this world through his warmth and love for everyone around and yet detached from it. He lived in a state of knowledge.

As time passed I came to realize how truly invaluable this man was in his contribution to humanity as a scientist. Prof. Ganguly had a very modest childhood. Born in Sirajganj (now in Bangladesh) in a family that lived in highly straightened circumstances he completed his schooling in his hometown and pursued MSc studies in Dhaka University. During this period, he had stalwarts such as Dr. Satyen Bose (of the Bose Einstein Statistic fame) and Dr. J.C.Ghosh as his teachers and mentors. He topped the University with record marks. He migrated to Bangalore to join the Indian Institute of Science for a PhD in Biochemistry. In 1946, he was offered the Lady Tata Scholarship. Soon the then Government of India sent him to The University of Reading, where he began his pioneering studies in Carotenes and Vitamin A. After a three year post-doctoral stint at laboratories of Zechmeister and Duel at the University of California he returned to India with a burning desire to create state-of-the-art laboratories in India. He realised his dream with grants from the Rochfeller foundation and with a team of committed and talented scientists changed the face of research and biochemistry in India. Of his many path-breaking findings was the discovery of the link between vitamin A and vision. In 1959, he was invited to Enzyme Institute of Madison where he made some stunning discoveries in fatty acid synthesis. This work formed the basis of the research of Professor Lynan of Munich University for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1964.

In 1963, the University of Reading awarded Prof. Ganguly the D.Sc. degree. He was a visiting professor at the National Institute for research in Dairying, UK, 1968; the University of Columbia in 1967; the Max Planck Institute for cell research, Munich 1970 and at the University of Kyoto, Japan in 1974. He was the first recipient of the Bhatnagar award from the Indian Institute of science and from the state of Karnataka. He was elected to the fellowship of the Indian National Science Academy in 1968. His association with Indian Institute of Science as lecturer, professor and then the chairperson of the department of biochemistry finally culminated with the Directorship of the Center for Advanced Studies in Biochemistry. In time, he retired to become an emeritus scientist of the UGC.

For a man as distinguished as this, anybody who knew him would vouch for the fact that he was far too unassuming. He lived and realized the ideal of Nishkaam-Karma to its fullest.

He always spoke of great men, great ideas and great deeds. None of our conversations ever passed without a mention of his teachers. He always remembered them with great reverence. Tagore was his favourite. Subhash Chandra Bose, Swami Vivekanand and the likes were always on his mind apart from great people in the science fraternity – his mentors and collegues. He has very high regards for President Abdul Kalam, especially for the fact that he too never failed to mention his teachers and mentors and that quality, according to Appu, was the singular pre-requisite to any degree of growth and greatness in an individual. Chhatrapati Shivaji’s guru Swami Samarth Ramdas was another ideal he spoke very often of. I can vividly recall the ecstasy in his entire being as he broke into reciting Tagore poetry. He was particularly fond of Shivaji Utshab, Tagore’s ode to Shivaji. I can almost hear his inspired recitation of the words:
“Dhwaja kori udaibi boiragir uttari boshon”.

He was very concerned about the lack of leaders of the calibre that leaders should be made of. He felt that the nation needed strong leaders who could lead by example, leaders with integrity and the strength of will who could inspire people on a mass scale. For science, he was not very happy about the state of affairs, but was hopeful. To him, “the purpose of scientific study was to discover the pure joy of understanding nature”. To him science was that which “brings better life”. And he was unhappy about the lack of such an attitude among most young scientists. However he was not a man to lose faith in humanity, nor in the resurrection of India to its pristine glory.

The departure of such a soul on his onward journey is most painful to all around him. His sheer presence made a difference. It may be best for him to have left at this stage when his body was not complementing his mind.

In the words of Tagore,
“How can the body touch this flower which only the spirit may touch?”

But the rules of life and death cannot be changed. Appu lived well. He achieved what a man is meant to achieve. Professionally, he achieved greatness. He contributed immensely to the world. He raised a wonderful family. He touched the lives of several people like me and inspired all those who ever came in contact with him.

During one of my last meetings with him, when he was already ill and deteriorating gradually, he fondly held my hand and said in a voice that was hardly audible, “I wish you had come into my life a few years earlier”. His radiant face, his voice and his firm gaze will remain with me forever and inspire me every day of my life in my journey towards the perfection he achieved.
My heart goes out to Dida, the Ganguly and Tadimalla families in this moment of grief. This void can never be filled. But knowing Appu, he wouldn’t like any of his loved ones shedding tears for him. I pray that he finds peace and that he himself gives us the strength to face the void he has left us with.

Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet.
Let it not be a death but completeness.
Let love melt into memory and pain into songs.
Let the flight through the sky end in the folding of the wings
Over the nest.
Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the flower of the
Night.
Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last
Words in silence.
I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way.

Indian Raga Music – Reflections

Life becomes music when music becomes life.

The roots of Indian art music or Raag Sangeet as we hear it today permeate the soils of history of over three thousand years. Its traditions have been handed down with comment and expansion within guilds of hereditary musicians (gharanas), communicated orally from master to disciple. Each gharana has a distinct stylistic pattern of form, technique and presentation of the art (gayaki). These are merely outward appearances that nevertheless bring forth the glory of the art. Looking deeper, one finds a whole universe, similar to that which is within us.

Riaz has very deep implications in an artist’s life. An artist who is also a seeker, a sadhaka, under the guidance of an experienced master, devotes himself to the disciplines and rituals of the practice of music for several decades in search of that Kingdom of Heaven within. The breath being his object of meditation and sound being the reflection of his soul, the musician lost in riaz experiences the inexplicable, at first in flashes and later becomes an embodiment of that eternal peace. Whether this is a spiritual experience or a purely aesthetic one is inconsequential. From the very first glimpse of that experience life and the artist’s perception thereof changes.

Music is a reflection or an imitation of perfect spontaneity, which rests dormant within us, an identity of perfect intuition and expression of all that is within. The singer reaches within with the Raga.

Raga is a melodic mould. It is structure of a set number of notes sung or played in a specific pattern, manner and timing, using certain characteristic grace notes and movements. Each Raga, the artist realises in riaz, has a soul, a distinct personality. The absolute aim of the artist is to realise this soul, to become one with it and to attain a natural harmony of mind, body and spirit through the Raga. A musician is to be valued to the extent to which he has discovered the right key of this harmony and organised its expressive motives and movements. The soul of the Raga is concealed in the movement of its notes and its rhythm. Meditation on these opens the floodgates of intuitive creativity in the artist.

In all arts, as in life, there are two elements unified into one perfect being – potential and the kinetic forms of energy, the monumental and the articulate, the masculine and the feminine. The former is the eternal timeless, formless soul of the universe while the latter is the manifest, that which has become. The sound of the tambura is the ambient within which the Raga takes form, lives, and into which it returns. The drone exists before the song, during the song and continues to play after. The Raga is the life-spirit, the variety of nature, which the artist extracts from its source when he begins and returns to its source when the rendition is complete. This perfected ground where the two meet is the unity of spirit and matter, where the body (breath and voice), mind, intellect and spirit unite within themselves.

(This is perhaps the reason for the absence of chord harmonisation in Raga sangeet. In western music, each note acquires its relevance and identity in context to the other supporting notes in the harmony. However, by doing so in the rendition of a Raga, it would be like creating a parallel universe thereby disrupting the unity and peace.)

Raga Sangeet is essentially impersonal in its connection to emotions. The words of the song are treated as secondary and the melodic theme is given importance, although both complement each other. The musician uses the song as a mere vehicle, just as the representative element in a painting is used only as a medium to communicate pure form or colour.  The rendition goes beyond concrete factors to reflect an emotion, mood or wisdom that are far deeper than those of an individual. There are no tears in sorrow, no exultation in happiness, but only that underlying unity. The listener of this art form must be capable of responding to the deeper splendour of this all-encompassing kaleidoscope. He must draw himself into that same concentration as the musician and participate in that creative process which sets to rest the cycles of imagination and senses which alone hinder us from contact with reality.

To the artist who is on such a path, who adopts an approach such as this to his art, life verily transforms into music. To him, his music is his life and his gayaki, his religion. He may belong to any of the several gharana traditions adopting different physical and mental processes, but eventually he gets to the same truth. The Guru, the Master initiates his mind, the mind leads the breath, and the breath reaches out to the soul of the universe that is wrapped in sound, the eternal Om.