Saturday, October 3, 2009

Bihar me shastriya sangeet ki parampara bahut purani hai. Vidyapati ki banayi geeton me ya bhojpur aur mithila ke warshon purani lok geeton me uski jhalak hi nahi milti par ye geet yah bhi batate hai ki yah parampara atyadhik prabal aur vikasit thi. Uniswi aur bisween shatabdi me bhi yah parampara surakshit aur sanrakshit thi. Bettia aur Darbhanga ke Dhrupadiye hon ya Gaya aur Patna ke thumri or tappa gayak unhe samanton ka sanrakshan prapt tha. Wadan ewam gayan pratha dono yahan pad majboot thi. Pakhawaj, tabla, sitar, sarod, israj ke kayi phankar yahan phal phool rahe the.


Swatantra ke baad bhi Shastriya sangeet me abhiruchi bani rahi. Paluskar sangeet samaroh ho ya dhrupad sangeet samaroh ya Patna ka Dusshera ka warshik samaroh, bharat ke sabhi guni phankar yahan pad aana pasand karte the aur unki yaadkar prastutiyan yahan ke sangetangyon aur rasikon keliye prerna swarup thi. Yahan par Bihar ke sangeetkar bhi apna phan prastut karte the aur is prakar se unka utsahwardhan hota tha. Par aaj ke samay me Bihar ki yah amulya parampara lupt ho rahi hai. Iska karan yahan ka mahaul - bihar ka sanskritik patan ewam kala ke prati samajik upeksha kahi ja sakti hai. Bihar me abhi bhi kayi sangeetkar aise hain jo is pratha ko atyant kathinayon ke bawjoot jiwit rakhe huye hain. Bettia ke Indra Kishore Mishra, Darbhanga ke Vidur Mallick, Gaya ke Goverdhan Mishra inme se hain. Pad Bihar me bhi unka samuchit samman nahi hota hai. Bihar me kuch badlao ke asar dikh rahe hain aur umeed hai ki kala ke prati bhi sarkar aur samaj me jagriti ayegi. Tabhi hum apni is dhani aur bahumulya parampara ko bacha payenge.


Bihar ke purane sangeetkaron me Ustad Altaf Hussain Khan, Pandit Ram Prasad Mishra, Zohrabai of Azamgarh, Dhelabai of Gaya, Pandit Yaduveer Mallick, Pandit Ram Chatur Mallick, Pandit Shyama Mallick, aur Banaili ke Kumar Shyamanand Singh ullekhniyan hain. Iske alawa wadan kala me bhi kayi awwal darze ke phankar huye jaise ki Pandit Balram Pathak, Pandit Pannalal Upadhyaya, Pandit Anokhelal Mishra, Mian Ali Kadar of Azamgarh.


Inki aur Bharat ke anya bhaagon me purani sangeet me ek pawitrata aur shudhta thi jo aaj ki sangeet me kayi baar nahi milti hai. Kalakar apni khushi ke liye gate the aur ras, tabiyat aur masti usme saaf jhalakti thi. Jaisa ki Banaili ke Kumar Shyamanand Singh kaha karte the “agar apne gane me masti nahi laaoge to dusro ko masti kya doge”. Sangeet unke liye ibadat thi aur jeewan pran thi. We sangeet ke jeete the. Dhan aur Khyati inke liye apradhan mahatwahin thi. Raagon ki shudhta, man ki swakchchta aur tabyat ki masti purani sangeet ko daivik uchayi take le jaati thi jahan par sunne walon ko bhi param divya aur awarnaniya antar tripti aur anand ka anubhav hota tha.

Ram Prasad Mishra

Very little is known about this great maestro from Gaya.


Shri Gajendra Narain Singh in his book "Surile Logon Ki Sugandh" has written that when it came to Purbiya Thumri and Tappa, then after Ustad Moujuddin Khan, there has been none like Ram Prasad Mishra or Ramujee. This is not to say that he was not good at Khayal singing. I have a 28 minute piece in Chayanat from his that is exquisite. In fact, I do not have any tappa pieces from this great maestro.

He was from Dewaria in Uttar Pradesh and learnt his music in Benares, but he later shifted to Gaya where he spent the rest of his life. After 1960, he had to give up public singing because of Asthma but he continued to teach. His son Goverdhan Mishra is still one of the finest tappa singers in the country.

Bade Ghulam Ali Khan used to call him the "Gateway to the East". Almost all contemporary Bais considered him their guru and Kesarbai Kerkar wanted to keep him in Bombay and had offered him an impressive payment for that, but Panditji had refused, wanting to stay in Gaya.

Shri Gajendra Narain Singh in his above-mentioned book has written that he had heard a tape, which is now untraceable, where Akhtaribai sang with Ramujee, and Godai Maharaj and Munne Khan were on Tabla in accompaniment. Shri Singh says that even Akhtaribai could not keep up with Ramujee in that tape.

I have some pieces of this great maestro. As a sample here is one for download:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=8663 … fe0b5a8db2

Ustad Vishmadev Chatterjee and Kumr Shyamanand Singh, his disciple

Ustad Vishmadev Chatterjee of Bengal was a great genius who unfortunately was lost for many years to his spiritual pursuits in Pondicherry. But many of his recordings in 78 RPM are left behind. People who took taalim from him were Rajkumar Shyamanand Singh of Banaili Raj, Sachin Mukherjee, S.D Burman (Music Director), Suresh Chakraborty and Film personalities like Kanon Devi, Chhaya Devi, Lily Chakraborty. Besides, Begum Akhtar, Uma Bose, Juthika Roy, Prakash Kali Ghoshal, Protima Bandyopadhyay, Bhabani Das, Himansu Roy, Saila Devi, Chinmoy Chattopadhyay and Jayanta Chattopadhya also took talim from him. His Gurus were Ustad Badal Khan and later Ustad Faiyaz Khan. He also gave music for 12 films and S D Burman was his assistant in 4 of them.
To listen to his music, please visit http://www.vishmadev.org/M_GALARY.htm

There were four main centres of classical music in Bihar – (a) Bettiah Gharana, mainly known for Dhrupad but has been in obscurity for a long time which has helped to keep them away from modernistic influences and maintain age-old purity; (b) Gaya Gharana, famous for thumris and tappas. In fact it is living exponent, Govardhan Mishra, is considered by some as the finest tappa singer in the country; (c) Darbhanga Gharana made famous by Mallicks who are mainly dhrupad exponents; and (d) Champanagar Banaili, where Kumar Shyamanand Singh (not any more with us), arguably the most able disciple of Ustad Vishmadev Chattopadhyaya, was the finest exponent.


I do not think that either Ustad Vishmadev Chatterjee or Kumar Saheb had any direct Paluskar influence. Ustadji had his initial talim from Shri Nagendranath Datta. Later, Ustad Badal Khan of Sonipat adopted him as a disciple and took him away from his father to teach him music. He learnt from Ustad Badal Khan for 14 years. Many years later, Ustadji was enticed by Ustad Faiyaz Khan on a Barwa composition and was asked to come to Baroda to become his gandbandh disciple. However, when he reached Baroda, not much happened by way of learning.

As for Kumar Shyamanand Singh, his only gandabandh guru was Ustad Vishmadev Chattopadhyaya. He also learnt for more than 20 years from Ustad Bachu Khan, son of Ustad Badal Khan. He also obtained a few cheez from the Pandit Bholanath Bhatt of Allahabad, Kedarjee from Pratapgarh, Ustad Altaf Hussain Khan of Khurja (who used to live with Kumar Saheb in Champanagar for many years), Ustad Muzaffar Khan sahib, Mubarak Ali Khan, Mahaveer and Jaduveer Mullick of Darbhanga, and some others. His singing style was very much on the lines of Agra Gharana beginning with a nomtom alap, rendition of a vilambit bandish as learnt from the guru followed by innovations, layakari, and taankari and then a drut composition.

A common factor with Paluskar (and I can only compare with D V Paluskar whose recordings are available) is the quality of bhajans. Both Ustad Vishmadev Chatterjee and Kumar Saheb’s bhajans were exquisite and perhaps incomparable with any that we have in public domain. In fact, the story goes that Kesarbai Kerkar was so enthused by Kumar Saheb’s rendition of “Bin Kaj Aaj Maharaj Laaj Gayi meri, dukh haro dwarikanath sharan me teri” that she offered to make him a gandabandh guru to learn this song from him. This song was an adaptation of an old composition by Ustad Vishmadev Chatterjee who had later passed it on to Kumar Saheb. I am yet to hear a more beautiful bhajan than this.

In case you are interested in reading about music traditions of Bihar you can read Gajendra Narayan Singh’s books : Swar Gandh and Surile Logon Ki Sangat. Both are in Hindi and deals with broader subjects but have a lot of stuff on music traditions in Bihar.

Friday, October 2, 2009

The Book Ban debate has been raging in the media last month. Arguments range from an outright freedom to write whatever one likes in the name of creative freedom to an unabashed right for the government to effect bans as and when felt necessary in the name of maintaining public order. Both arguments seem faulty. There cannot be an absolute freedom to write, to express oneself, and there have to be reasonable restrictions as in case of other fundamental rights. At the same time, nobody can argu that there be a right to ban especially as this right is usually exercised for political reasons.

In my opinion, the right to ban must exist but it is important that this right be exercised with restraint and on rational grounds. Government of the day may not be the right agency for the purpose as all its actions would either be or will be perceived as politically motivated. A better option would be to have a Group of publishers and writers that self-regulate themselves. The Government of the day may refer the matter of a book ban to this Group or the latter suo motto may take action.