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He became aware of the anomalies and contradictions and realised that he was not alone. Several experts had raised their voices earlier. His resolve, aided by the gharanedar talim under the wings of Ustad Faiyaz and Niyaz Ahmed Khan, egged him on. As is evident, the early 20th Century could never imagine the use of pen and paper leave alone the science of notation.

Tape recorders were unheard of. Heavily depending upon his memory Bhatkhande ji had collected the bandishes from different gharanas, notated them and compiled in six volumes.

This path-breaking work was considered a blasphemous act. None of the masters, therefore, came forward to help willingly. But undaunted he went ahead to standardise the ragas supported by his theory of Thaat (scale) and Time Cycle.

It was a mammoth task and, obviously, had many loose ends. The most important one that still persists is: many compositions are rendered differently in different gharanas.

As Dr SCR Bhat, Trustee, Acharya S.N. Ratanjankar Foundation, Mumbai, clarifies, “Each raga has an independent identity of its own. Same raga may be rendered with variations in different compositions. But it is essential that once the bandish is sung, the taan and alaap should follow the swaroop observed in the bandish.” To understand this fine point a musician needs to have quite a few bandishes under his belt with a crystal clear concept of the special angle of the raga displayed in one particular composition. Beginners cannot handle this.

Since, with the blessings of Bhatkhande ji, numerous music schools and colleges came into existence, he had tried his best to solve the problem for the benefit of the beginners. But despite his best efforts there are certain ragas with lots of discrepancies in his ‘Kramik’ series.

Some have contradictory definition and elaboration while others have compositions which do not match with the alap, taans – as notated in the books. Bhatkhande ji was aware of this and like a true scientist he had said, “…taking on the currently circulating and accepted principles and giving them proper and definite explanation is the duty of all eminent musicologists.”

This is even more relevant in this era of synthetic gayaki. In the absence of gharanedar musicians many teachers, leave alone the performers, do not have a clear concept of the raga they choose to teach or perform. Yet even now, maestros hesitate to touch this ‘Gurumukhi vidya’ simply because it is next to impossible to notate the finer nuances truthfully. No one can deny this fact. Debnath, in his “Sangeet Sankalan”, published by Brajawasi Prakashan, did not try to deny this either. But he has tried his best to bring in the flavour of raganga-based phases and explained the special angle of the bandish with corroborating elaboration.

Alse, he has treated each bare note, as used in Kramik series, with essential microtones. For a sensitive student the result is stunning! Debnath takes a step further here. For the benefit of the ‘Nipun’ students he has compiled compositions by greats like Ratanjankar, Dinkar Kaikini and G.N. Natu.

Name: Sangeet Sankalan (for Nipun in Hindi)Content: A compilation of selected bandishes from:

Kramik Pustak Maalika – Pandit V.N. Bhatkhande

Abhinav Geet Manjari – Acharya S.N. Ratanjankar

Geet Samuha – G.N. Natu

Raaga Rang – Dinkar Kaikini

Edited by: Milon Debnath

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