`Music is my puja'
DEEPA GANESH
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Girija Devi is oblivious to the fact that she is the greatest living legend of multiple music traditions
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ETERNAL VOICE Girija Devi: `That I can perform even at this age is a great blessing' Photo: k. gopinathan
Nothing has changed. Her voice is just as sharp, resonating, and continues to cast a spell. The lilt, passion and intensity she packs into each word as she sings from her rich repertoire of kajri, chaiti, thumri, hori... is still intact. And she chews paan (even in between her rendition) with the same relish.
The reigning Queen of Benares Gharana, Girija Devi, is 77. She has a slight limp and has had a bypass surgery, but her zeal remains undiminished.
Girija Devi, like her music, looks devout and sensuous at once: her silver hair, paan-stained teeth, graceful demeanour, and the manner in which she offers herself to her music is all her own. If this exponent of the romantic genres of Hindustani music tradition had this to say recently to an audience screaming for more, you can envisage her energy: "I am learning for the past 70 years; I can sing at least for 70 hours."
Conservative environs
Coming from conservative environs, she learnt music at a time when girls weren't sent out of home for lessons. The little girl loved music so much that her father put her under Sarju Prasad Mishra, who was a sarangiya and a fine vocalist to boot. He taught her khayal in major ragas even as he exposed her to tappa and thumri, in the true spirit of the Benaras soil. "He sang as he taught, but mostly played on the sarangi," recalls the doyenne, who was in Bangalore for the ITC-Sangeet Research Academy Sangeet Sammelan. She's on the faculty of the academy.
Young Girija Devi later learnt from Shrichand Mishra, a master in both vocal and the tabla. If you always wondered of her distinct treatment of rhythm in each of the forms she sings, the answer lies in the tutelage she's had. She admits to her fascination in an interview: "Laya maya hai jo har kalakaar ko uksati hai aur main bhi is se bach nahin paati hoon... "
Unlike male counterparts, the going has never been easy for a woman who seriously pursues traditional art forms. She has to cling on her passion even as she fulfils her role play as dictated by the society. It hasn't been very different in Girija Devi's case either. This musician of the pre-Independence era, probably among the very few comfortable with both the khayal and the lighter forms, talks detachedly of her struggle as a married woman running a household. "I couldn't have given up music. I used to get up at 3.30 in the morning, practise till 6 and then get on with household chores. Once everybody left, I would finish all my work and sit with my tanpura. This would go on for a couple of hours before it was time to ready the evening tiffin, dinner, spend time with children... . After dinner, the men in the family would sit down for a game of cards and I went back to my practise until midnight."
Even as she gave herself to music with total dedication, she never aspired to perform. For her, her muse was an offering to God, a form of prayer. "Music is my puja." But she had achieved such excellence that her gurus and well-wishers wanted her on the concert stage. "That's how I came to perform."
Different traditions
Even as she was pursuing two entirely different traditions and the moods that came with it — a sense of tranquillity that enveloped her as she sang khayal and her sensuous ardour as she sang thumri — Girija Devi saw no conflict. She is quick to add that her rendition of thumris is not seductive in nature but of the highest philosophical order. The switchover, however, was never difficult. "I learnt classical, but all these other forms could not be escaped in the Benarasi soil where I grew up. There was so much festivity all the time. And it was a vital part of our lives," she reasons. Musicologist Deepak S. Raja, in his liner notes on a Girija Devi CD produced by IMA, says: "As an exponent of the romanticist genres, Girija Devi is an original musician. In its detail, or even in its broad approach, her music cannot be compared with the Benares stalwarts of the earlier generation — Rasoolan Bai and Siddheshwari Devi. Her thumris induce a state of sustained inebriation because of the unique interaction she engineers between the poetic, melodic and rhythmic elements."
Her research
Girija Devi has spent years on research, exploring the connection between the emotion and the word in great depth. "I have laboured for months on the various ways in which one can negotiate words such as dheere, aao, jaao... " Deepak Raja also observes: "Her command over the melodic and rhythmic elements is such that she can deploy them within any framework with equal facility. Her depth of involvement in the poetic element drives the melodic element to achieve the appropriate emotional communication."
There aren't too many proficient thumri performers left in the country. Though there is a recent crop of youngsters that shows some inclination towards this form that is otherwise scorned by practitioners of classical music. In fact, the Bandisha thumri was perhaps born out of this condescension. Only male singers sang this strain of thumri that lays greater stress on rhythm than emotion.
Girija Devi, like musicians of her generation, remains unaffected by all this. "That I can perform even at this age is a great blessing." She recalls her recent trip to France, soon after her bypass surgery, where she gave a two-and-a-half-hour performance. "I got a standing ovation for four full minutes. These are moments I want to cherish... "
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