PAST & PRESENT
Composing a culture
RAMACHANDRA GUHA
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The composite culture of India, so decisively denied in other spheres of life, is upheld and vindicated in the sphere of music.
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Carnatic... M.S. Subbulakshmi.
WE speak of two styles of Indian classical music — the Carnatic and the Hindustani. But in a happy irony, some of the greatest modern exponents of Hindustani music have been from Karnataka. For years, All India Radio, Dharwad, had on its rolls a cast of musicians which rivalled that of A.I.R., Delhi or A.I.R., Bombay. It included such luminous names as Mallikarjun Mansur, Basavaraj Rajguru, and Gangubhai Hangal. Also from North Karnataka are two other vocalists of possibly even greater distinction. These are Kumar Gandharva, who later made his home in Dewas in Madhya Pradesh; and Bhimsen Joshi, who settled in Poona.
"Success has many fathers," said John F. Kennedy. Thus Bhimsen is claimed by both Kannadigas and Maharashtrians as their own. As is Dinakar Kaikini, who comes originally from the west coast of Karnataka, but who was born and has spent much of his life in Bombay. But North India also has a strong claim on Kaikini. As a young boy, he was sent to Lucknow to train under S.N. Ratanjankar, and his own style can be described as a blend of the Agra and Jaipur gharanas.
I grew up in a family that was indifferent to music. Fortunately, while studying in Delhi University I fell in with a crowd of cultured Bengalis, who educated me step by joyous step. I cannot pretend to a deep or extensive knowledge, but 30 years of listening have at least trained me to distinguish the wheat from the chaff, or the great from the very good. At any rate, music has given me as much pleasure, and greater solace, than the game of cricket itself.
In cricketing terms I am a shameless partisan. I am extraordinarily possessive of the players from my home state, so much so that a Bombay critic once wrote that "the rather lavish praise that Guha heaps on cricketers from Karnataka may be the harbinger of another Cauvery dispute". I do not care if India wins, so long as Anil Kumble takes wickets and Rahul Dravid scores runs. Many of the musicians I revere are from Karnataka too. For the State's contribution to Hindustani music has been comfortably on par with its contribution to Indian cricket. Consider the names of Kumar Gandharva, Mallikarjun Mansur, Bhimsen Joshi, and Dinkar Kaikini: names which would be on any short list of the finest vocalists of the 20th Century.
Of this great quartet, Mansur and Gandharva are dead. Joshi is ailing, and not frequently to be found on the concert circuit. Kaikini is pushing 75, and not in the pink of health either. Yet, to my great good luck, he has sung several times in Bangalore in the past 12 months.
Kaikini's most recent recital was at the home of Tara Chandavarkar, a lady of his age, of his community, and of some accomplishment herself. She is a partner in Chandavarkar and Thacker, Bangalore's leading firm of architects. With her friend Lalitha Ubhaykar, she runs an annual music festival showcasing young artistes, which is now in its 20th year. Architecture is her profession, music her passion, yet her life ranges beyond them. Warm, humane, widely read, Mrs. Chandavarkar uniquely combines personal charm with civic-mindedness.
This particular baithak was held to commemorate 50 years of the Chandavarkar house. But any recital by Dinkar Kaikini is special. One does not know when one will hear his like again. For he has a range of learning and experience that is now impossible to replicate. When Kaikini began his career, the old gharana system was still solidly in place. Traditions refined and elaborated over decades, even centuries, were passed on from teacher to pupil. Yet there was also a considerable amount of cross-fertilisation. Kaikini came of age in the 1930s to 1940s, which was in many respects a golden period for classical music. The railways had made it possible for musicians to travel long distances and meet one another. Gramophone companies had made it possible to record their work for posterity. Had Kaikini been born 50 years earlier, he would have been forced to root himself in one gharana. Had he been born 50 years later, when the princely order was dead, there would have been no real gharana system at all.
Musicians sing nowadays by design rather than impulse. Well before a concert they decide what compositions they will perform, the choices made from a limited range which the artist has mastered. But that day Kaikini sang one raga because it was a favourite of his wife's; another because it was a favourite of the original owner of the house, Tara Chandavarkar's father-in-law. (The latter composition had not been sung by Kaikini in public for 40 years.) Musical genius is distinctive and individual. But music itself is social and representative. There will never be another Dinkar Kaikini. Yet Kaikini himself embodies the larger ecumenism of the musical world of the subcontinent. He is a South Indian who went North to study and learn music. He is a male vocalist who has trained many women, one of whom, his daughter Aditi Upadhyaya, sang with him that day. Also in attendance was his son, Yogesh Kaikini, a tabla player who had been trained by Allarakha Khan.
THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY
Hindutani... Pandit Dinkar Kaikini.
Dinkar Kaikini's life and art represent a creative commingling of cultural traditions: North and South, as well as Hindu and Muslim. Thus his teacher, S.N. Ratanjankar, was in turn mentored by Ustad Faiyaz Khan. Such cross-religious exchanges were not exceptional. For, as the sociologist D.P. Mukerji long ago pointed out, some of the most moving songs to Krishna had been composed by Muslim musicians. Writing in 1945, Mukerji could insist that "there is no Pakistan in Indian music at least". Sixty years later, it remains for us to add: "And no Hindutva, either".
Perhaps the finest illustration of the unifying power of music is contained in the career of Kaikini's elder contemporary, M.S. Subbulakshmi. The most accomplished Carnatic classical vocalist of her generation, Subbulakshmi learnt and performed Rabindra Sangeet, Meera bhajans, and plain old film songs. Among her teachers were Tamils and Andhras but also at least one Bengali (Dilip Kumar Roy).
Subbulakshmi took from all of India, but she gave back to all of India in return. Thus Indira Menon's book The Madras Quartet: Women in Karnatak Music has a fascinating appendix entitled "Benefit Recitals by M. S. Subbulakshmi". Between 1944 and 1987 Subbulakshmi gave 244 charity concerts. These were held in aid of schools, hospitals, temples, and nationalist icons, and in towns big and small, spread across the country. Here is a sampling:
This table tells its own tale. Study the careers of other great musicians, and you shall come to the same conclusion — that their life and work emphatically reject boundaries of region, religion, caste, or gender. The greatest "Hindustani" vocalists sometimes come from the deep South. Muslim musicians pass on their art to Hindu musicians — and vice-versa — while male gurus take female shishyas — and vice-versa. Where traditions of food and dress, or methods of worship and ritual, divide, songs and singers unite. The composite culture of India, so decisively denied in other spheres of life, is upheld and vindicated in the sphere of music.
Ramachandra Guha is a writer and historian based in Bangalore. E-mail him at:ramguha@vsnl.com
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