JHINJHOTI: CINDERELLA RAGA

An abiding belief of IK has been that all songs are great, some great by birth, some which achieve greatness, and others which have greatness thrust upon them, ha, ha, ha…The ‘boring ragas’ with bright prospects we talked about in this post,of course, belong to the second category…

Jhinjhoti is a raga not many would hold brief for. So much so that a friend of Missus, a knowledgeable and fine gayika confesses ‘not having gone into’ the raga…! Ustad Abdul Karim Khan’s plaintive Piya Bin Nahi Aawat Chain in Jhinjhoti (before which, says Pt. Rajan Parrikar, others sound like schoolboy howlers) was a favourite with YT from times immemorial, and therefore, not being a fine gayika, has ‘gone into’ the said raga.

Music literature says Jhinjhoti and its kin raga Khamaj, the paterfamilias, are bally ragas of ‘kshudra prakriti’! Loaded words, those, so shhhh…habits as old as Mannu die hard! The classification is supposedly on account of their being rooted in the ‘folk idiom’. Pt. Bhatkhande called it a light raga, fit for thumri and the like. Nyet for dhrupad and khayal. What condescension I sayyy…! But wait!...Here is what a western expert writes about Jhinjhoti…

[On recognizing the raga]:…”In the ever shifting wilderness of aroha-avaroha...the profuse orchards of the raga-mala...shadows of the towering thaats...the neophyte will always have trouble telling one thing from the other...but from any handful of notes, I can pick it (Jhinjhoti) out at a hundred yards…Such is the great tunefulness of its nature..”

[Going rave, attending a US concert by Shahid Parvez]…”The first full touch upon the chalan sent a shiver down my spine…It was unexpected and incomparably sweet!” (one would think Peter was onto Malkauns or Bhairavi!)

Then: “I was experiencing visions such as I had known only a few times before…”

(see https://petersonion.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/commentary-on-raga-jhinjhoti/)

Shujaat Khan’s presentation of the raga on DD Bharati, especially the initial prose, is cited as the best exposition of Jhinjhoti available to the lay public. The Ustad calls it incredibly sweet, and talks about its versatility, of how different combinations of its notes result in myriad moods, like shringaar, bhakti or gambhirya. He sings and plays to us the ancient bandish “lakuti, chutki, ab bairan bhayi, Hariju jo diyo, sur ma lagati” . The context or the traditional bandish is how a ‘lakuti’ or a humble stick become divine music united with Krishna’s lips…

In very kind words he explains how unbeknownst to the common listener, Hindi movie makers have made unfettered use of ancient compositions, passing them, by default, as their own. The first sample he sings for our benefit is: Koi hamdam na raha, koi sahara, na raha..and what a great song that...avantage navaneet chauram Kishore ! Shujaat hums the lakuti notes thus:

[*]R P’ D’ S R M M G R G S… P’ D’ S R G R M P’ D’... M D’ D’ P’ R G M n G S

From this, it is but a short step for one to make out the Hindi song notes:

RP-—---MGM-—G—-RG—--SR-- Sn’-- D’-- D’—P’-- S

koi-----hmdm--na--raha--koi---saha-ra--na---ra--ha

Thus the credit for this excellent piece goes not to the Music Director Kishore Kumar, but to the song writer Majrooh..avantage Majrooh.. and the trail is deeper into the woods than that:

The original koi hamdam with different antaras was sung by Kishore’s Dada Ashok Kumar in 1936 much before Kishore Kumar adapted it in the 1961 Jhumroo.. (Kishore was then a 5-ish commando in Khandwa) It’s said he forgot the source, his intuition got the better of him...ha, ha…The original score was by Saraswati Devi, who again was not Saraswati Devi, but Khorshed Minocher-Homji sailing under the fictitious Hindu name! SD was the tops in her era, her other famous songs being Mai ban ka panchi ban ke...and  Jai Jai Janani Janmabhoomi ..

In the video you hear Dada Muni recall warning Kishore, the song is in "chaudah matra ka ada chautaal, tumse nahi hoga". Kishore feigns ignorance about ada chautaal promising Dada his effort will be better than the previous avatar. And boyyy...the song scales new heights. Ada chautaal yields place to 1-2,1-2,1-2 chords, strengthening our senior's conviction, tabalchi as he is, that bols like tirkit, or tin, or dha dha toona don't matter, for they are anyway not very distinct in published audios- what matters is matra or interval between beats!
   
A closer approximation to lakuti is another Jhinjhoti  film song sung by Hemant Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar:

Bas ek chup si lagi hai, nahi udaas nahi.

It follows the first sargam with precision...avantage Gulzar...

About its technicals, this is a sampoorna raga, with shuddha swaras, save descending nishad which is komal...vaadi-samvaadi are sa and pa, though the jhinjhoti soul hovers between re, sa, and (lower) ni, dha, pa...comprehensively, it goes M G R G S… R n D n D P M P D S… D S R G D M P… R M G R G D S… S R G M G D S…. R M G R M P D…. N D P D M G R G S… R n D P D S… S R n D P D S

Cinderella boards the pumpkin coach...there, there...! Listen to the consummation of bhakti rasa:

Pati Devan Mahadev Shivshambhu (bada khayal taught in JA gharana)

Then karunya rasa for you:

Chhup gayakoi re, door se pukaar ke (Lata Mangeshkar, Champakali); Mera Jeevan kora kaagaz (Kishore Kumar, Kora Kagaz); Rehte the kabhi (Lata Mangeshkar, Mamta)

What versatality I sayyy...!

What brings us here is- why do Jhinjhoti compositions go beyond the theoretically defined ‘prakriti’? If one calls it ‘the wrong question’, then we are consigning to the WPB the concept of prakriti persayyy I sayyyyy..(fun intended)! There our equation e= (k*S)^p+(l*T)^q+(m*E)^r+(n*गंमत)^s steps in…wherein musical consummation has been conjured up a product of 4 attributes, raga vistara, emotion infused by singer, technique, and an unknown called gammat in maiboli, maximum weightage going to ‘emotion’.  However, people have tried to shadow the swaras and have come up with observations on how different combinations of notes engender in the listener’s mind different emotions. Pta. Kishoritai’s feel of the swaras has already been discussed in IK here.

To begin with, Dave of Dave Conservatory, a British music resource, believes that a note followed by the sharp version of the same note creates an eerie and chilling effect. This is illustrated by the background piano that plays when the white shark attacks holidaymakers in Jaws.

According to Marathi magazine ‘Sangeet Kala Vihar’ of Miraj, a khayal comprises various ‘sutras’ (strings of notes). Basically they say, there are two types of sutras, jyeshtha and kanishtha (major and minor). They are as under:

JYESHTHA	KANISHTHA
(0)        S  G  P	(4) S  g  P
(1)        S  G  M	(5) M  d  S
(2)        M  D  S	(6) P  n  R
(3)        P   N  R

According to the analyst (though we have not been able to get a hang of it so far):

“1+ 3= Hamsadhwani/ Shankara; 2+4+6= Kafi; 4+5+6= Jaunpuri/ Darbari; 0+3+Re Ma Dha + Ni Re Ma= Kalyan thaat

“The basic principle of Hindustani classical music is that Ragas are created when Samvadi swaramalika of Shadja comes into a conflict with swaramalika of vaadi swara. The swaramalika of Shadja will normally have 4-5 swaras.

“The mood of a Raga is determined by the clash of vaadi and samvaadi swaramalikas. The atmosphere of conflict can be felt most keenly in ragas with teevra madhyam. In such ragas, ni and (komal) re are found to be in conflict with the basic sa in abundance. Ragas with re- dha conflict come next in raw-power-status.

Quite plausible, requires more research…. so more, later paarkalam...chuddam...nan se piet…. Not that it is strictly about Jhinjhoti…(#)

[*] ’ for lower octave and n (i.e. el nino) for komal nishaad.

(#) “let’s see” respectively in Tamil, Telugu and Khasi- so you can guess where-where have we been, to look at the queen, in the service of the BTN!

Importance of Being Malinitai

One one important concept we wish to explore is the interplay of the two polarities of Indian Classical -one, Scholarship about Raga, and two, the engagement of the auditory and intellectual faculties of the Classical Music connoisseur...

An illustration of the supposed dichotomy between theory and sensory felicity was presented thus, in the post ''Be a Good Listener", 

"....(Pt.) Ratanjankar used to interview leading artistes as part of his mission, documentation of Indian Classical, and sportingly courted the wrath of some of the unpredictable geniuses. Ustad Abdual Karim Khan roundly castigated Panditji thus: tu bara swaranche khoke wajawnara, tu mala kaay wicharto tumhi gujri todi kashi gaata', or something like that. That's the level of resistance to documentation of any kind in our society..." [1]

Attention is again drawn to the following passage in the post 'Fourth Commandment Zindabad' where the great musical thinker Ustad Halim Jaffer Khan alludes to a favourite she-r:

मख्तबे इश्क़ और मख्तबे मौसीकी का ये देखा दस्तूर,
उसे ज़िन्दगी भर छुट्टी न मिली, जिसका सबक याद हुआ……   

“This, we learn, is the custom of the School of Romantic Love, and the School of Music- he who learnt his lesson well never got a Day Off!" 'Study' is but 'Leisure' to the one who really 'ínternalised' the lesson... We suppose this aspect of universal Musical Experience would bear  introspection and will receive attention in some of the coming posts, inshaallah.

So- what has all this to do with the title we give to today's entry..."Importance of Being Malinitai"?- the World, if Missus, and YT's intuition, are to be believed.

Listen to her Charukeshi:

At 2.03, 2.06, 2.08, 2.10 and 2.13, for instance, and at numerous other 'places' ('जागा' in Marathi) you'll find 'lehak' discontinuities, which, given the auditory equivalent of 'persistence of  vision' applicable to Cinema, seek, possibly involuntarily, to create a three-dimensional structure of the Raga, as against a linear or two-dimensional one. It can also be likened to the trapeze act where the artiste abandons one swing and clutches the other...no safety net..Once we work out the notational structure in association with Missus and Senior, we'll be able to assert with greater authority, our shared belief, that Malinitai is THE Thinker's Musician, or the Musician's Musician,blessed at the same time, with consummate tonal felicity..

To elaborate the idea of a three dimensional presentation of say Charukeshi (is only an illustration, not from the clip), just see the figure to the left, which is, let's assume, Malinitai's recital. Two taans commence in your mind from the black dot, which is सा. The actual taan sung is the unbroken line, say SA RE GA MA PA MA GA RE. By means of an illusion, say a sort of ventriloquism, the unsung part of the previous taan say SA RE GA MA simultaneously appears to fall on your ear in the shape of the dotted line, actually beginning from रे  but seemingly interpolating to सा,  thereby creating the illusion of a three dimensional structure of the recital. Mince that's our hypothesis हं,..

This phenomenon, which we call a three dimensional structure, was noted in the context of  Hindustani vocal by the British musicologist Willard, who in 1834 AD, wrote the very second book in English on Indian Classical. He writes:

"When these flights are more lengthened than a single appoggiatura (*) , the ad libitum movement runs through the full time of a whole measure, or a certain number of measures, reckoning from the instant of its adoption to that when it is dropped, taking up the measure of the rhythm at the same foot where it was dropped, or if these passages require more or less time than the complement of the measure requires, allowance is made for it in re-joining the melody."

(*) something like padding up a note.

By the way some other aspects of Tai's prowess have already been talked about by us in previous posts...as we wrote on another occasion, Malinitai was a Mathematics teacher in the first place (as was the writer himself).

[1] translated: you, who play that 12-note idiot-box, have the temerity of asking ME how I sing Gujri Todi...?