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Photo: M. Vedhan

DESTINED TO BE A MUSICIAN: Kishori Amonkar

“I was destined to be a musician,” she begins. Why else would her ambition to become a doctor be thwarted when illness made her miss her examinations? “I began to learn music from my mother’s womb when she took lessons from her guru Alladiya Khan. At that time I had no ego so I learnt in all innocence,” she explains.

Mogubai had a split personality — indulgent mother, martinet teacher. “Don’t ask me questions, ask me doubts,” the guru said. No phrase was sung more than twice. The dread of missing nuances instilled alertness in the pupil. But, sitting before Mogubai as a student, and later beside her as vocal accompanist, both guru and sishya were transformed. “It was a bond of samskaras.”

The same trust made Amonkar give up singing for films even though her first “Geet Gaya Pattharone” became an overnight hit. “I wanted you to know what playback singing was all about,” said Mogubai. “If you continue, you can’t touch my tanpuras.”

Would Amonkar call herself a tapasvini, a title given to her mother? “I don’t know,” she answers, “I want to sing for the soul and reach the soul. Mine and the listeners. There is no plural here, the soul exists in everyone. What touches me is bound to touch you.”

Believing in the meditative quality of Indian music is to shun glitz and din. “Acrobatics, and dependence on the tabla belong to the periphery. I want to plunge into the essence of the swaras. The most important thing is the value of the sound. Explore it! Every feeling has its inherent rhythm. Find it!”

Are her disciples as committed as she expects? “I don’t know if they want to sing the way I do. Our Bharatiya sangeet is not performance but sadhana. Music will come up again, but right now it is dying in kaliyug.”

Who are the musicians who appeal to her? “When my mother sang the medium was transformed! Others deal with the medium, not the purpose behind it.” She believes also that true music requires pure minds in listeners. Her gharana specialises in its treatment of major raags, as also rare and difficult ones. Why and how did Bhoop, the short-scaled raag of five notes, become her favourite? After all, it is not considered to be a raag of depth or emotion. An animated Amonkar replies, “Bhoop is a raja (king), and I personify that king who lives for his praja (subjects), showing emotions from valour and anger to love and compassion. He is honest and dutiful, and a gnani like Raja Janak or Raja Ram.”

Her first long playing record had Bhoop on one side. How different from what she sings now! The raag became an obsession. When she finally composed her own lyric (‘Pratham Sur Saadhe’) in Bhoop, she wondered why the phrases homed towards shadj, whereas the old khayal she knew focussed more on the pancham.

“Suddenly I got the answer. Gandhaar, the prominent note in Bhoop, is heard in kharaj. Its resonance marks the shadj in madhyasaptak (middle octave), the range of the normal human voice. So if gandhaar signifies the activity of the raja, shadj is the base of his power, in a relationship of prakriti and purusha.” We conclude that this is similar to the balance of a noun and its verb.

Amonkar’s loss of voice for nine long years probably helped her to ponder on the art form. “It was torture to sit in my mother’s concerts and see how poorly she was accompanied by her sishyas. That’s why I teach my students how to accompany as well as sing.” When her voice returned as unaccountably as it had vanished, her guru said, “God has given your voice back. Sing for Him.” Amonkar believes that this advice has guided her journey since then.

Film maker Rajiv Menon’s reverent introduction to the artiste could not restore the lost excitement. The lights threw a red carpet before the stage, and a green backlight for the violinist, leaving the musicians in the dark.

Amonkar’s voluble objections to volume, lights and cameras, however valid, only added to the desultoriness.

The singer’s voice was not at its best. Hoarseness dimmed resonance in the lower octave, and flattened the higher sancharas. Yet raag Bhoop did bear the Amonkar stamp. Nestling within the mesmerising sounds of two real tanpuras and two electronic drones, aided by empathetic vocal support, harmonium, vioin and tabla (Tejashree Amonkar, Nandini Bedekar, Vishwanatha Shirodkar, Suyog Kundalkar, Milind Raikar), the raag was unfolded slowly, hesitantly and with tonal unevenness. But soon, as the khayal “Pratham sur” progressed, some simple phrases did refract finesse, as did those conceived with fresh glints. The higher shadja was held with some difficulty. Despite shrillness, it launched phrases interlaced with little rhythms, including a suggestion or two of tisram. The tarana that followed in the same raag featured taans mellower than those in the khayal, brought off with conviction if not with the usual sharpness. No fireworks, the taan syllables were handled like a meditative chant. The recital ended with a “Shivji Ka bhajan” in Bhairavi, where the mishra digressions sounded more forced than organically developed or spontaneous, aborting bhava.

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