TRESPASSERS WILL BE EATEN

Article II of Outer Space Treaty 1967, which is based on the Antarctic Treaty 1959 states:“Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means…”. However, the elite of advanced western nations, not having achieved the escape velocity to take leave of the colonial hangover, does not take kindly to India or other ‘developing’ nations partake of efforts to explore these regions. This is what the western press has to say about the Mangalyaan mission:

“India Mars Mission to Launch Amidst Overwhelming Poverty” was ‘The Guardian’ headline when the probe was launched.... ‘Is India’s Mars Mission the latest escalation in Asia’s space race?’, asked CNN.... The Economist asks ”How can poor countries afford a space programme..?”

This used to be called ‘churlishness’, if one remembers aright!

Balaji Vishwanathan, writing in Firstpost mimics the headlines thus: “European Space Agency launches a satellite despite the inability to control religious riots in Paris and Tottenham, London”…

Closer home, Harsh Mander calls the mission a ‘remarkable indifference to the dignity of the poor’! (Firstpost.com). Real harsh, he, he, he...The pompous gentleman needs to be reminded that there was only one man who had courage to carry his feelings about the Indian masses to the logical end, and who can therefore legitimately harbour these feelings (don’t know if he did)

LET HIM CAST THE FIRST STONE

BV ends the article with” These journalists are like the rich bullies who enter a poor man’s house and mock at the books kept by the poor man – “You poor people can’t afford to eat rich food and you can afford to buy more books?”

But wait: there are people who know, and matter, in the US, who warmly applauded India’s achievement. Emily Lakdawalla, Senior Editor with the Planetary Society founded by Carl Sagan has this to say:

Today I am delighted to welcome India into the ranks of inter planetary travelers. Today their Mars Orbiter Mission has successfully propelled itself onto an interplanetary trajectory, departing Earth forever and setting sail for Mars. No matter what happens to the spacecraft between now and next September, India has achieved interplanetary travel. Congratulations to India, to the Indian Space Research Organisation, to the mission's scientists and engineers, and to the people of India.

As reported on ISRO's website, the rocket burned for 1328.89 seconds to impart an incremental velocity of 647.96 m/sec. Here's a little animation I put together from photos posted to the mission's Facebook page:

MARS ORBITED MISSION DEPARTS EARTH (EMILY LAKDAWALLA)

EMILY AT DRYDEN SPACEFLIGHT CENTRE OF NASA

What's next for the mission? According to a Press Trust of India article, the plan includes four trajectory correction maneuvers, the first happening on December 11. The rest are in April 2014, August 2014, and then 10 days before orbit insertion on September 14.

….For this mission, the three most hazardous events were always the launch; the injection onto an interplanetary trajectory; and arrival at Mars. All three of these events have to go absolutely perfectly -- any problem would almost certainly mean failure of the mission. Mars Orbiter Mission has now successfully weathered two of the three biggest challenges. The last comes in September 2014, when the spacecraft will meet Mars.

… We can look at Japan for two tragic cases when this step did not go well. Japan's Nozomi, which was intended to be a Mars orbiter, suffered a series of setbacks, beginning with a short trans-Mars injection burn, and ending with frozen fuel lines. Nozomi reached Mars but was unable to fire its rocket to enter orbit. Unable to be grabbed by Mars, it continued on a heliocentric orbit and, too damaged to produce a useful science mission, it was shut down. 

……Of course there are other kinds of failures, too, like the one that happened to NASA's Mars Observer only two days before it was to arrive at Mars. India is not out of the woods yet; the next step, entering Mars orbit, is a tough one, and it comes after 300 days of deep-space operations. But so far, so good. And so far, it is more than India -- or, indeed, most nations -- has ever achieved before….”[Planetary.org: 30.11.2013]

After the final entry in September 2014 she said “Mangalyaan is already a mammoth success. If the Mars Orbiter Mission does nothing else but return to us a variety of global images of Mars from different positions and phases, the mission will be a great success, as far as I’m concerned”

FIRST SNAP: DUST-STORM ON MARS

And you must watch what NASA’s Carl Sagan, the popular American space visionary, spirit behind the Voyager mission, says about ancient Indian thought about the mystery of Creation. This movie was shot in Tamil Nadu by Carl: just appreciate the tenor of the movie so far as the subject 'India' is concerned. Radiates with Carl's curiosity, empathy and affection...that's what a little more of intelligence does to a human being, Louis Malle, Guardian, Economist need to be told no...?

Finally, about Emily’s spouse: Indian born Darius Lakdawalla is the Director of Research at the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at the University of Southern California and a managing director and founding partner of Precision Heath Economics, a health care consulting firm. He is best known in the insurance world for his views favouring “Terrorist Cover” insurance policies. 

WILLIAM BLAKE: TIGER TYGER BURNING BRIGHT...!

Two poems by William Blake , the British poet (1757-1827) have been quoted by us on earlier occasion. The third, Tyger...is a testimony to the stunning  God-Nature-Man triangle that subsisted in Blake's mind. It's the coping stone of deewan-e-Blake,, and the primeval song of Creation.  The feeling and the words coalesce to form the Power Theme:

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

                                                                       In what distant deeps or skies. 

                                                                       Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

                                                                       On what wings dare he aspire?

                                                                       What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? and what dread feet?
                                                                     What the hammer? what the chain, 

                                                                       In what furnace was thy brain?

                                                                      What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

                                                                       Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 
When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
                                                                   Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

                                                                        In the forests of the night: 

                                                                        What immortal hand or eye,
                                                                   Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

                                                                 

Blake manuscript: The creation of the Tiger has been described in the poem crisply, but the process of fashioning the poem itself is quite untidy as one can expect. This is again not the final draft, because the poet oscillated between 'Dare' and 'Could' in opening and closing para, settling for Dare, but finally the poem came out with the bland Could in opening para and the rhetorical Dare at the end. 'Horrid ribs' and 'sanguine woe' stand jettisoned. Note that there are no punctuation marks in the draft. Finally, the hand-or-eye: symmetry rhyme is visual and not aural.

The Tiger has received some bad publicity of late after the Delhi Zoo incident, but people conversant with the feline  mind convince us that Vijay picked up our friend by the scruff of his neck in the manner a tiger is wont to rescue its kids...Quite conceivable-the message lies in the method, not the media he, he, he...

The Hindi film-music world has definitely   taken cognizance of this extraordinary poem, substituting 'Power' with 'Love': just check Hasrat Jaipuri's moving lyrics in Teesri Qasam

duniya banane wale kya tere man me samayi
kahe ko duniya banai tune kahe ko duniya banai
kahe banaye tune mati ke putle
dharti ye pyari pyari mukhde ye ujale
kahe banaya tune duniya ka khela
kahe banaya tune duniya ka khela
jisme lagaya jawani ka mela

gupchup tamasha dekhe wah re teri khudayi kahe ko duniya banai tune kahe ko duniya banai duniya banane wale kya tere man me samayi kahe ko duniya banai tune kahe ko duniya banai tu bhi to tadpa hoga man ko bana kar tufa ye pyar ka man me chhupa kar koi chhavi to hogi ankho me teri koi chhavi to hogi ankho me teri ansu bhi chhalke honge palko se teri 

bol kya sujhi tujhko kahe ko prit jagayi kahe ko duniya banai tune kahe ko duniya banai duniya banane wale kya tere man me samayi kahe ko duniya banai tune kahe ko duniya banai prit bana ke tune jina sikhaya hasna sikhaya rona sikhaya jivan ke path par meet milayi jivan ke path par meet milayi meet mila ke tune sapne jagaye 

sapne dikha ke tune kahe ko de di judayi kahe ko duniya banai tune kahe ko duniya banai duniya banane wale kya tere man me samayi kahe ko duniya banai tune kahe ko duniya banai

The correspondence can be noticed in the blued sections:

Ameen!

THE KALEIDOSCOPIC SWARA

A millipede can scarcely walk, if asked to recollect the sequence its 1000 feet follow-CvB

Pta Kishori Amonkar is quite particular about methodical study of our shastras, particularly those by Bharatamuni, Narada, Panini & Sharangdev. As promised in the last post, her findings and beliefs have been summarised by us, in tabular form, for convenience. How useful these pointers are practically in music today, is anybody’s guess. We have already written about departures made by Masters such at Pt. BSJ... Pt Bhatkhande and Pt Ratanjankar were never for these straight-jackets. The latter wrote in Bhatkhande’s Biography: “It is a general notion among people that our Hindu music is an ancient and very important branch of knowledge. It is not intended here to run this down as an erroneous notion..But the question that arises in our mind is: is there any connection between the theories of those texts and the art we consider today as music? We may have read the granthas and even understood them, and yet if there is no connection between today’s music and the music propounded by granthas...why bother to study the granthas? This question is asked by many, and...it is difficult to give a satisfactory answer...”

One of the greatest contemporary teachers (Missus’s teacher, also representing Gwalior) Pt. Ramashray Jha generally prefers to go along with the swar-prayoga of the times: for instance the relatively recent treatment of Bhimpalasi as a separate angg rather than as part of Dhanashri angg is appreciated by him..

Nevertheless it’s important to know these rules, observed more in breach than in compliance today. Anyway...Abraham Lincoln was once asked by a friend to offer comments on his book on occult. That was a tough one, for Lincoln did not share the enthusiasm for the black sciences. So he wrote: “It’s just the sort of thing that will be liked by people who like that sort of things...”

SWARAS AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS AND MOODS:

SWAR	SHRUTIS (Narada)	ETYMOLOGY	BHAV OR MOOD	OTHERS
Shadj	-	Gives birth to six swaras	vir, adbhut	Born in devkula, chhanda anushtubh, in nature, call of peacock
Rishabh	Shikha and Deeptimati	Taurus- dominant amongst other swaras, quick	Raudra	Born in rishikula, chhanda gayatri, in nature, call of chataka
Gandhar	Riddhi and Niwari	Gaan-rupa-dharita	Karun	Born in devkula, chhanda trishtubh, in nature, call of the calf
Madhyam	Hira, Sarpsaha, Vibhuti	The centre-piece of the saptak	Hasya/ ananda	Born in devkula, chhanda bruhati, in nature, call of a crane
Pancham	Malini, Chapala, Bala, Sarwaratna	Fifth in the saptak	shringara	Born in pitrakula, chhanda pankti, in nature, call of kokila (cuckoo)
Dhaivat	Shanta, Diklini, Hrudayonmalini	Buddhiman	Beebhatsa/ gambhir	Born in rishikula, chhanda ushnik, in nature, call of a frog
Nishad	Visarini, Prasuna	Finality	insistently karun	Born in asura-vansha, chhanda jagati, in nature, call of elephant

Terminology : (we have omitted the simple words in sanskrit)

Chhanda: metre: each chhanda has a fixed number of syllables and steps (charanas). For example, the following line of gayatri mantra goes: तत्सवितुर्वरेण्यं /भर्गो देवस्य धीमहि/धियो यो नः प्रचोदयात्- i.e. 8/8/8 or 3 steps of 8 syllables each. The concerned swara is supposedly best suited for such a chhanda. Therefore there are 7 chhandas: गायत्री, उष्णिक, अनुष्टुप, बृहती,पंक्ति, त्रिष्टुप and जगती... (interested readers may see srijangatha.com)

Rasas: Vir= valiant, adbhut= wonderment, raudra= wrathful, karun= showing pathos, hasya/ananda= happiness or bliss, shringar= exciting erotic passion (closest we could find), beebhatsa= grotesque

RAGAS AND MOODS:

BHAV OR MOOD	RAGAs
vir, adbhut	Ahir Bhairav, Darbari
raudra	Durga, Khat, some Nat mishrit
karun	Bhinna Shadja, Khambawati, Asawari, Bageshri, Kaunses
hasya and ananda	Kedar, Basant
shringara	Nat, Bahar, Hindol...karun shringara: bageshri, rageshri, bhimpalasi
beebhatsa or gambhir	Gunkali, Bhairav, Kaunses
insistently karun	Shivranjani, jaunpuri
Vairagya/ Surrender	Yaman

DASHALAKSHANAS:

These are components enhancing and accentuating raga mood. For example in case of Yaman:

LAKSHANAS	EXPLANATION	RELEVANT SWARA
Graha	Commencement	Nishad
Ansha	Swargroups and templates enhancing mood, normally meant for Madhya-saptak	-
Taar	Upper swar limit for raga, beyond which there are chances of rasabhanga (remember one Pta Parveen Sultana?)	Gandhar, Pancham
Mandra	Lower notes which do not supposedly enhance mood (belief not followed in Pt BSJ e.g in his Bhimpalasi, to great effect)	Gandhar
Nyaas	Concluding swaras	Shadj
Apnyaas	Swaras preceding nyaas	Shadj, Gandhar, Pancham,
Sanyaas	A composition has 4 parts: ashthaayi/antara/aabhogi/sanchari- Sanyaas is the link between the first two
Vinyaas	Swara granting impetus or motion to swara plans	Rishabh, Teevra Madhyam
Bahutwa	Abundance	Shadj, Rishabh, Gandhar, Pancham,
Alpatwa	Swara only glancing the chains, not being repeated	Teevra Madhyam, Dhaivat
Antarmarg	Swara used in an unconventional manner imparting what Pascal called ‘classic beauty arising from strangeness in proportion’

 

We’re not sure, if an artiste decides to abide by these rules, she or he can  sing effortlessly! 

Nevertheless, for the one who thirsts for musical consummation, mrugamarichika or Mirage is the reality!

YE 'SA' THA KI MANDRA SAPTAK KA 'NI'? MUSINGS OF A MILLIPEDE, WORM WITH 1000 SWARAS, THAT MAY BECOME A BUTTERFLY OR A BAT HAAA!

DISCORD OVER HARMONY

Our nadaswaram man Y Gopal reminds us that for a month we have strayed from the theme of the blog, i.e. Indian Classical. No, we were merely beating about the bush, nursing all these hours, days, weeks an old concern of ours, the endurance of our Classical, its eternal existence as a vibrant, virtuous system…that should hopefully offer solace, delight, and excitement to a steady stream or torrent of a spanking new set of young listeners….what are the conditions for the fulfillment of this wish....?

What makes a Music great? Here is what we speculated in the entry dated 13.07.2013, on the subject ‘There’s Hope for Boring Ragas’:

Musical consummation apparently comes from four variables, that is features of a composition: Contents (say vyakhya or vistara of the raga in our context), Technique, Emotional Content and an Unknown, an ‘x’-factor related in the main to the artiste, not occurring universally...The most important attribute according to IK is emotion...hence the sway held by Pt. Bhimsen or Lata or, Jesudas or KL Saigal or Ilayaraja...

Missus was quite excited when she found partial vindication of this theory in Pta. Kishori Amonkar’s book “Swarartharamani”. Tai- to avoid repeating the whole name- too believes that the supreme test of Music lies in the emotion it engenders. Only, she believes that the emotion is generated by an interplay of the swara and the raga, and that poetry results basically from this interplay. This to us is an utterly abstract and subjective assertion. The proof of the pudding lies in the eating. You must listen to awachita parimalu by Pta. Kishori Amonkar and Lata Mangeshkar, in the same sequence:

Even the tone-deaf can tell which of the two versions Dnyaneshwar Mauli really meant! According to the humble ear of YT or our readers like Arvind Pradhan, one can only express anguish at the disconnect between the Academics part and the sheer Thrill part of our music. That’s why we reckoned Emotion to be a primary or independent variable, rather than dependent upon technicals. Suppose you ‘want’ to suffuse your composition with emotion. Can you do so consciously? Can you work on raga+swara to reach there? Is it simply a matter of choosing 'right' sequences from the 5040 (7! or 7 factorial) long merukhand inventory? Take an analogy from the stage. Suppose a scene demands tears in the character’s eyes. Some actors like Nutan or Madhubala get it spontaneously, while many have to use glycerine.  That’s the equivalent of relying on some third parties to generate emotion in your composition. The twin factors named by Tai are both subsumed under ‘Content’ in the IK paradigm. Of course no one can challenge Tai, and for the present excuse ourselves with de gustibus non est disputandum-may be a matter of taste...after all she’s a Padmavibhushan ! Soo many movies on Youtube...!? Our Muse Pta Malini Rajurkar left her PR to audiences and could not log even a Padmashri, whereas Senior Tai has the ishtyle!....panduranga..asu de- for Malinitai couldn't care less -for her genius, a Padmashri is little more than a bauble and Padmavibhushan little more than a trinklet!

‘Swarartharamani’ (not 'swaartharamani I sayyyy...) is Tai’s book on music appreciation, which could have been eminently readable had she not received good-natured assistance from the editorial staff of Rajhans Prakashans. Whattdyu make of this:

निखळ स्वरविश्व हे शब्दविश्व आणि काल (लय ) विश्वाला सालंकृत, सार्थ करत असले, तर ते प्रत्यक्षात

किती सुंदर, किती अर्थवाही, किती रम्य असेल हा विचार काही केल्या मनातून जायीना …

There are volumes to be written on the aesthetics of Classical Vocal, but let’s begin today with a simple point of departure: Tai’s views on the importance of the Word- you may say Ganesa vis-a-vis Saraswati! We take up only this single aspect of the emotional appeal of a vocal composition: the contribution of the Word. The House believes that in arrogantly repulsing the eminence of the Lyric in the classical vocal scheme of things, riding rough-shod over the spoken word, we are not aiding the survival of our Classical, or are we …?

Here go relevant extracts from the said book, duly translated:

स्वर भाषा ही एक निखळ कला आहे. त्यात जेन्ह्वा शब्दांचे सहाय्य घेतले जाते तेन्ह्वा या कलेच्या निखळतेला धक्का पोचत नाही का?: The swara-bhasha is unalloyed Art. Does the helping hand received from the Word not dent this Purity?

शब्द किंवा मात्रांचा अधिक वापर असलेले संगीत शेवटी लौकिक, भौतिक पातळीवर असते। ....Music rooted in the Word or the Matra (beat) is after all Physical (rather than Spiritual)

Does this mean that Pt. Bhimsen Joshi delivered whole ragas on the vehicle of an abhang because his swara+raga was found wanting? Given the contempt Tai regularly heaps on Lata Mangeshkar or that great craftsman of words Pt Jasraj (kasturi tilakam- fantastic Multani), one seriously suspects all is not well, of late, between Ganesa and Saraswati…!

The place of lyrics in bandishes has always been a matter of animated debate. The late Dr. Sobhana Nayar’s description of the phenomenon in ‘Bhatkhande’s Contribution to Music’ (1989) can  be taken as a fair summary. She notes three historical watersheds that govern the fate of the Word. The first is the advent of Mughals and development of the Dhruvpad traditions, presumably under Raja Man Singh Tomar (15^th Century). Before this dateline, the words were as per the Prabandha Geeti, a highly sanskritised and lyrical genre. 

According to Dr. Giovanna Milanesi, “ The name dhruva indicated a kind of music that was composed with a fixed combination of swara, tãla and pada. The name also signifies that the music was 'made to fit a particular dramatic situation at a defined time, with specific structure and specific rhythm, and it could not be changed'. The dhruva songs had a strong metrical arrangement based on the number of syllables that constituted each verse, in the way that the metrical structure was based on the phrase. In the lyrics of dhrupad, we can find in some use of figures of speech like anuprasa, alliteration, obtained by repeating the same consonant sounds in a close succession of words: e.g. Mohan Jago Manohar Madhusudan, MadanMohan Madhi Mukund Man...” (Punyaswar, Pune University, 2011). Subject to these conditions, the traditions of Prabandha were maintained. The second watershed, advent of khayal led to momentous changes. Most of the khayal bandishes or  songs were written by Adarang and Sadarang. 

In the words of Dr. Nayar: “The beauty of these compositions was in the words embedded into notes and typically expressive of the raga form,… indicating movements, catch notes and rest notes…The rhythm part of these traditional compositions was intricate and intelligent, giving enough scope for pauses, which provided opportunities for extempore elaborations”. Raghava Menon has also devoted some effort to document this ‘spaces’  theme (Punyaswar). In shayari-speak you are saying that, in order to balance the radeef with the qafia, you will pad the qafia with taans.  It is really this phase that agrees with Tai’s beliefs and wherein she has locked herself and cast away the keys. Naturally.. if your gharana is known for convoluted murkis, this theory suits you belief (incidentally Missus is now learning Jaipur-Atrauli taans from a disciple of Pta ABD, who rocks..). But how off-putting to potential listeners would be the para-dropping of silly phrases like ‘sun payegi mori saas nanadiya’ in the midst a most sombre and spirituality redolent, life-and-death exposition of Bhimpalasi! It is certainly bad publicity for Classical...it is almost as if for some obscure reason we were consciously choosing ugliness over beauty of expression...but whyyy!? The ordinary listener can’t be expected to share the wave-length of the greatest vocalist. She’d better start singing to herself I sayyy!

The third watershed is the appearance of Pt. Bhatkhande on the scene. He was the person who swept the Augean stables and performed the Herculean task of reorganising the body of knowledge on Classical in a manner that would breathe new life into our waning legacy. Our Classical was most fortunate in having the right apostle at the right time...His whirlwind tours aimed at gathering learning from the most reluctant sources are the stuff of legend. It was he who adapted the Caranatic’s scientific melkarta classification to Hindustani. His views on the importance of words therefore deserve attention.

There are really three user-categories or ‘interests’ when it comes to the attitude towards poetry in the khayal. One is the class of well-wishers and do-gooders like Chatur Pandit Bhatkhande, you and me, who would like to see reform and delight.  The second category is of the traditionalists or no-changers, that is purists. The third is the fakkad practitioner who cares two hoots about what the purist would say, and in the process changes practices with the times- people like Pt. BSJ who were self proclaimed eclectics with scant regard for a gharana culture- imagine- in an interview to Pt. Ashok Ranade, he reveals that his booming taans are a learning from none else than Kesarbai Kerkar of amcho Goa!

Lest this sound idle speculation or effrontery, let’s make mention of the authority on which we speak : it’s:  the persuasive Pt Bhatkhande’s Hindustani Sangeet Paddhati and Kramik Pustak Malika, ‘A Treatise on the Music of Hindoostan’ by Capt. N. Augustus Willard (1834),  the well-known treatise ‘Bhatkhande’s Contribution to Music’ by Dr. Sobhana Nayar already quoted (1989), and most of all, the ethereal music that flows from the vocal chords of say Pt. Bhimsen Joshi or Pt. Jasraj etc.. Capt. Willard’s book was the second book written on Indian Classical (in 1834) by a Britisher, an enthusiast who became a classical vocalist out of passion. It is, incidentally, interesting to note that Willard found Indian Classical more profound than contemporary Western Classical. He says about Western Music: “Indeed, perhaps all the most beautiful successions of tones which constitute agreeable melody are exhausted, and this is the reason of the poorness of our (Western) modern melody, and the abundant use of harmony.” 

Someone who denies the power of the spoken word and stays aloof of the দারুন- daroon-frighteningly emotional amalgam of word and swara, aiming simply at technical completeness can never be in possession of our  x-factor, and will never create the magical séance of Pt. Bhimsen Joshi singing Anuraniya Thokada or Tirtha Vitthala. He’ll be a Pope but not a Saint..Fortunately, Tai’s book, read between the lines, does offer a little Union Territory to the ‘Word’ called ‘Sugamistan’, which we shall inshallah elaborate…

This is what our ancient connoisseur Capt. Willard said about the  cold-shouldering of the word: “When we come to examine the sentiment which has been delivered in so delicate a strain, and which we fancy will be in accordance with the beauty of the melody, we find ourselves sadly disappointed for they contain odd sentences awkwardly expressed..”

To quote Dr. Nayar, in the khayal dominant phase, “driven by the idea that …literary aspect of the song was less important than the melodic structure, the musicians of the 19^th century and early 20^th century neglected the poetic part of the classical songs.” (and hilariously) “the illiteracy of musicians no less contributed to such criminal neglect”

In his ‘Hindustani Sangeet Paddhati” Pt Bhatkhande says “we have seen singers who do not know the meaning of compositions they sing….how can then they have the key to the emotion…?”

Pt. Bhatkhande made hundreds of compositions of his own and added to that the ones he compiled, cajoling the greatest maverick masters of the day, Ustad Aziz Khan and Ustad Wazir Khan- they make up bulk of the 4 volumes of Malika. We’ll illustrate his philosophy with one example. The following is an old bandish in teen taal for raga Darbari:

Madhuwa bhar laye meet more, hamse de lukai, ham tum bhar bhar peewen, make de lukai kahun lan na janen, jo jo det madhuwa hamra, to ham tum bhar bhar peewen.

Roughly translated the braj words mean: get me some wine my consort, and we shall drink to our heart’s content.  Does it support the Darbari mood? It’s like commissioning a cartoonist to draw a portrait of Urwashi!  Pt Bhatkhande made his own bandish to be sung identically (i.e. teen taal) yesssir…equipped with pegs to hang your taans and alankars upon:

Sumiran kar man pavitra nirgun par brahma, phir pachtayega to gani vrutha abhimaan..: this leads to a philosophical mood of renunciation.

Must your words go against the grain of the raga just to ensure that there are pegs to hang your vocal wizardry upon? Does the listener have - whaddyusay- a locus standi  in the whole affair. It all boils down to your manners I sayyy...Ustad Amir Khan of all persons set much store by the poetry. He abandoned some of the older saas-nanad stereotypes, calling them 'vulgar' and substituted them with chaste wordings. In this process he brought out the excellence contained in the seemingly meaningless and garbled tarana -'junk' words as our kids say. It was as if what we considered trinklets turned out to be precious antique jewellery after being burnished at the hands of the Ustad. Of course this is of little import to vocalists on the look out for pegs where to hang their virtuosity! See this for a flavour of the sufiana mijaz of our paak Indori soul:

To come to the last and final link in the above train of thought, in http://www.indrayanikaathi.com/2014/03/being-pandita-malinitai.html we had speculated upon the Pt. BSJ’s penchant for delivering bandishes  in the form of abhangas. Saas-bahu ki naseehat se bagawat, we had called it. Just listen to anuraniya thokada  in Malkauns, hailed as one of his greatest Malkaunses...

Panditji devotes at least 20% space to alaaps without displacing a single syllable from Tukaram’s words- the pegs to hang complex taans are in-built by the author!. In fact in the beginning, for a couple of minutes, you hear Panditji deliver the essence of Malkauns in taans like Sa ga ma ga sa (kauns) ga ni sa ni dha pa and uttarang sa ni ni ga sa (all swaras save ma are komal in Malkauns)

Of course Tai loves great poetry, but she has reserved it for her sugam, and she doesn’t rank sugam with classical when it comes to sublimeness. Panditji had no such hang-ups.

More Tai’s views later…most interesting being her matrix of the relation of emotions inspired by individual swaras and ragas, in the context of the navrasaas.. the matrix can assist artistes to choose appropriate lyrics for their composition…!

Disclaimer: The extreme and startling views expressed about Pta Dr Kishori Amonkar above are the personal views of the writer and not necessarily the official views of the Blog...Classical Music remains a mysterious, unexplored forest, and the possibility was always there of her being the lost prophet of an ancient faith- it was not as if what she said was untrue, or that there was an error on the part of the modern listener, but simply that the route which she chose to reveal to others had lost relevance or comprehensibility...(quoted from Phaedrus).

Afterthoughts:

Years of listening, that is tonnes of processing feeble gold ore, has yielded one gold nugget: Kesarbai Kerkar...to the ears of YT, that is the ideal KA thinks about: that voice leaves only the holy imprint of the raga on your faculties...it does not make a difference whether she is crooning as in a lullaby, or croaking the swaras...what matters is only Madam and the swara..