Kishori in My Soul-Passion of an Unlettered Fan

Kishori In My Soul

Passion of an Unlettered Fan

-1-

 

It was my first posting in service, if one discounts a year of internship at Bangalore. Place was a godforsaken corner of rural Delhi, about forty-five kilometres from New Delhi Railway station - a dismal wasteland of cheerless shrubs and trees. It housed a surface-to-air missile unit. Missile had now gone senile and awaited its formal burial.

 

Station had lain barren for years before this unit moved here a few months back. All buildings were in an advanced stage of ruin.  Often a huge chunk of plaster would detach from the roof exposing the rusted network of dirty-green iron grid beneath. Ground water was unfit for any use but for flushing the loo. A water tank fetched drinking water from the city, thirty kilometres away. Officers of the unit were as washed-out.

 

There was no work at the dispensary. Ten to twenty patients came every day with vague, imaginary, uninspiring ailments; probably out of boredom than due to the suffering. My day’s work finished in an hour. I read some book desultorily. I watched peacocks strutting in the unkempt garden. I looked at the clock ticking away slowly on the wall painted dull green. I tried to hold on to a past that was fading fast; and wrote long inland-letters to friends I had left behind.

 

I was the only bachelor and the lone resident of the officer’s mess. However hard I tried, I was in my room by two. I avoided afternoon siesta dreading sleepless nights. Winter was at peak. After lunch, I often pulled a chair in the lawn where a declining sun lingered for a while, a book resting in my hands. Thus, confined in a lawn chair, I read some good books in that stark Delhi winter. One I remember clearly, William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich. A cold shadow followed in the wake of the receding sun and brought chill along. Every few minutes I would inch my chair towards sunlight, all the while reading the book. My journey in pursuit of sun’s warmth would be halted abruptly when my feet hit the hedge at the farthest end of the lawn. A moribund sun now clung to the horizon and a sharp nip descended in air.

 

On some evenings I went for run on the narrow road that led to the city. From across the road, station looked remote and abandoned behind its tall barbed-wire fence. Road was as derelict. Occasionally I met a tractor hauling huge mounds of husk in its rattling trolley or a woman trotting briskly under the weight of the large bale of grass balanced on her head.

 

Winter nights were long. I did not read much then. On weekends I visited the mess bar. I drank Old Monk in the company of the barman. Stiff barman in his white mess uniform, standing erect behind the counter and trying to look busy amidst the boredom of serving the lone occupant of the bar, only heightened the gloom. Rum helped me to sleep better, but I avoided bar on week nights. I feared dependence on alcohol to fill my melancholic moments.

 

I was lonely, miserably lonely. A year in Bangalore during internship had gone by in a jiffy. Though technically I was an officer in uniform, it had felt like an extension of college life. College friends were co-interns. It was another phase of learning. All at hospital were seniors. There was no responsibility to shoulder. At unit, I was no more a student. I was a doctor and an officer. People looked up to me to be authoritative and knowledgeable, as I prescribed them medicines for however inconsequential an illness. I missed friendships that had been the constant source of joy and vigour for the past five years. I hadn’t yet seen my twenty-third birthday and I already missed the sunny past terribly. Future looked drab and dull.

 

I needed something to occupy the long dreary hours. I thought of music. Paltry albums of ghazals I had were grossly inadequate to fill the deep ennui in my workaday life then. I stumbled on a music shop in Karol Bagh. It had an impressive collection. To widen the arena of my choice, I bought a few albums of some well-known Hindustani classicists; Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Jasraj, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, etc. Shop-owner seemed to understand music and would often give me tips. On an evening as I struggled to choose few albums, he pulled out a cassette from the rack and gave it to me, ‘Beta, listen to this. You will like it.’ I looked at the name of the artist and hesitated momentarily. I could recollect Kishori Amonkar’s name only vaguely. ‘Take this on my recommendation. Don’t pay now,’ volunteered the elderly man, as I vacillated.

 

It now feels as if providence that fateful day had contrived to put the album comprising Kishori Amonkar’s best compositions in my hands. These were her immortal songs, her most celebrated raags: raag Bhoop, ‘Sahela re aa mil gaayen’ and raag Bageshri, ‘Aaj sayiyo na jaaye’. My ignorance of classical music was dense and has remained thus, since. But that night I listened to Kishori’s album mesmerised; lying on the cot in my dingy room, in a rundown military base in the backwoods of southwest Delhi. I rewound the album again and again. Sleep had abandoned me. Leave alone the nuances of Hindustani music, I couldn’t discern Sa from Ra. I had heard only a few classical singers then and that too in an effort to cultivate an interest that seemed a remedy for the emptiness in my life then. But I felt Kishori’s singing was in a different league. I was hooked. And thus, began a passion which after passage of three decades, throbs with the same vitality with which it was born that lonely night.

 

I visited the shop the very next week and bought all Kishori Amonkar’s music it had. I listened to her day and night. Her music bound me in a spell. It had come to me when I had felt vulnerable due to an unbearable solitariness. Kishori’s music had appealed to some hidden craving in my mind. It was devastatingly beautiful. I find it ironical that by invoking the profound longings and the deep pathos of human heart, it became the balm for my restless mind. Time which had sat heavy on my chest, began to lighten up. Hours melted away in the heat of my new passion. Memory of past lost a little of its sting.

 

-2-

 

A famous Jazz musician was once asked by a woman, ‘what is Jazz?’

‘Lady, if you gotta ask, you will never know.’ He is said to have quipped.

Does music have a language beyond its formal structure? A language that a person with an innate liking for a particular music can understand instantly without the knowledge of its form. Like beauty that is said to reside in the eyes of the beholder, does music too dwell in the mind of the listener?

 

My collection of Kishori’s music grew over the years. I cannot write two coherent sentences on her music. I can only write about the way it moved my heart. Bageshri and Bhoop quicken my pulse every time I listen to them. These are universally accepted her masterpiece. Raag Bhimpalasi left me utterly overwhelmed, lost in a world which one can experience only through their mind’s eye. Its drut portion is extraordinarily mellifluous, ‘Rang so rang milaaye, saanjh saj chaaye, mayee ri, ankhiyan singar laaye.’ Kishori’s singing of raag Hamsadhwani and raag Vibhas is the purest articulation of devout emotions I ever heard. In Vibhas’ ‘He Nar Narayan’ existence of the singer seems to dissolve in her plaintive entreaties to the supreme. ‘Pratham sur saadhe,’ Kishori’s another composition in raag Bhoop is breathtakingly flawless. Every time I hear it, I learn anew, meaning of complete surrender. Even my breath threatens to disrupt the delicate notes. In a few moments, there is none around: neither the singer, nor the listener. Only the yearning for the infinite survives, embodied in Kishori’s voice.

 

Of late, my beliefs were in a turmoil. I have had glimpses of rationalist thought. Scepticism was creeping in regarding theism. I read, Kishori believed her music was not for entertainment. It was her effort to connect to God. Her notes, she stressed, were born in this quest. My reason did not acquiesce in this belief. But my senses led me there as I heard her. Her music invoked such intense emotions that I felt it was not of this world. I wanted to believe in transcendence, in a soul that could be freed of the material body.

 

In Drishti, a movie directed by Shekhar Kapoor, she composed and sang all the songs. Her Alaaps in the movie are the truest expression of human sorrow and longing carved in musical notes. They tear at one’s heart with their unfathomably deep, mournful, and yet placid tones. They are short, woefully small, a few minutes each. They are divine. These are the creation of a genius mind like Darwin’s theory of Evolution and Einstein’s General Relativity. They are not born merely out of skills of a proficient artist, but also by the stroke of inspiration. Song ‘Sawariya sanjha mein’ weaves a magic of sheer romance on the loom of pure music. ‘Meha jhar-jhar barsat re’, is an incomparably beautiful monsoon song, each note of Kishori patters on your heart’s screen like the drops of rain.

 

The more I heard Kishori, the more I felt that her music was the purest I had heard. I cannot give one good reason for this. I read that while performing, her endeavour was to find the right note, the appropriate swar. She said, once she had attained this feat, raag followed effortlessly. Even after listening to her incessantly for more than three decades I cannot claim that I understand a word of what these statements imply. But I feel the truth of these. Her music feels timeless. The ineffably beguiling composition ‘Ali palak na laagi’ in raag Rageshri, ‘Chaila na rang daar mope’ in Lalit Pancham, ‘Jab se tum sang laagli preet’ a drut in Bhoop, are just few of these. They inundated me in a deluge of joy. I felt each grain of my body pulsate with ecstasy.

 

Internet brought information at the doorstep of my mind. I read enchanted about Kishori’ s life. She was the daughter of legendary Mogubai Kurdikar of Jaipur Atrauli Gharana. She had seen her mother’s fierce struggle in a male-dominated profession. When she began performing on stage, she demanded respect and was uncompromising in the standards of hospitality she expected from her hosts. She was infamous for her foul temper, a prima donna of Hindustani classical music. She asserted that she was under no compulsion to defer to her audience. Her deference was due only to her music. On stage, she was not performing for the pleasure of the audience. She was contemplating the abstract through her notes. Music was her worship, her sadhana. Audience had an obligation to let her achieve loneliness, she needed for this. And then might emerge the purest music, through which audience could expect to experience the sublime. She did very few concerts in a year. She would isolate herself in the green room for hours before the concert, matching her taanpura to the raag she was to sing later. She would refuse to see anyone, including senior artists, who had come to hear her.  She could be rude even to the most exalted in the audience. ‘Do you think I’m a Kothewali?’ she once shouted at the chief patron’s wife when latter asked for Paan during her performance. She refused to sing further in a concert when a platter of fruits was passed amongst audience. She was known to grill interviewers for long on their knowledge of music before she would agree for the interview.

 

Internet also helped me complete my collection of Kishori’s music. There were only a few albums I had not heard. They included her Kabeer and Meera bhajans, and Marathi Abhangs. She sang and recorded very little light classical music. Her bhajans, though few, have the same elegance as her Khayal singing. ‘He mero man mohana, aayo nahin sakhi ree’ a Meera bhajan sung exceedingly well by Kishori is soaked in the anguish of lovelorn Meera. I also heard her raag Bhinna Shadaj, ‘Ud ja re Kaaga’. This must rank with her best. It’s impossible to describe in words the feeling of utter desolation the raag invokes. I reserve the much-abused word, awesome, for a rare feat of creation. This is one. It is peerless. It shatters the heart.

 

-3-

 

I had listened to Kishori for two decades now. The thought that I should try to watch her performing live never crossed my mind. I could not picture her singing on a stage. Her songs seemed to descend on my consciousness from a world beyond. I learnt that on a Sunday she was scheduled to perform in SPICMACAY’s ‘music in the park’ series. I couldn’t believe that the event was open to all. I reached Nehru Park, the venue in Lutyens’s Delhi, an hour before the show was to begin. I was surprised to note that it was empty. I had expected half of Delhi to be there.

 

It was the autumn time. Days had begun to shrink. A pleasant chill descended as dusk engulfed the park. Mild fragrance of Champa floated in air. Mattresses covered in white sheets were spread facing the dais. I sat in front, cross-legged and tentatively, prepared to be asked to move back any moment. Kishori’s was the second performance of the evening. I do not remember the first. With baited breath I waited for Kishori to take the stage.

 

Night had fallen when Kishori walked on to the stage, folded her hands and bowed to the audience -which had now swollen immensely- before sitting down. I shook my head repeatedly to confirm that I was awake. Was Kishori really sitting merely ten metres away from me?

 

She tuned her Swar-Mandal and Taanpuras of the accompanying singers for long. Initially she seemed to hesitate over the raag. She coughed frequently to clear her throat. Her singing sounded tentative. Nandini Bedekar, her long-time disciple, took over whenever Kishori stopped abruptly to drink sips of water. Presently she seemed to have found the notes. She gained full control of the raag and sang effortlessly now. She was now the magician weaving an illusory web of musical notes in the cold dark night. I closed my eyes. Her voice rose higher and higher, as she pulled her characteristic taans. Disembodied and entranced, I floated in a world of dreams. I heard not the raag Kishori sang, but the strains of Bhoop, notes of Bageshri, ‘Babul mora naihar chooto hi jaaye’ in Bhairavi. I woke up from the reverie with the loud applause of audience.

 

Kishori was again tuning the Swar-Mandal for the next song.

She stopped abruptly, bent over the mike and said in an irritated voice, ‘there is a sound. Someone is recording the concert. Who is it?’

No one came forward. She was furious. ‘Rashmi, what is this? I had told you there would be no recording. How could you allow this? No, you come here. I can’t permit this.’ Her voice rose in anger.

Rashmi Malik, chairperson of SPICMACAY, rushed to the stage. ‘No one was allowed to record, Kishori Ji,’ she tried to placate the octogenarian diva.

‘I want the cassette he has recorded,’ Kishori was adamant.

‘It’s a memory stick these days, Tai,’ said an accompanying artist, meekly.

‘Whatever it is. I want it now,’

Organisers of the show ran helter-skelter. After much running around, they pushed a reluctant guy towards the stage. He sullenly threw the stick on the stage and walked away.

This impertinent gesture put Kishori’s back up. Her temper hit the roof.

‘I can’t sing for such rude audience. Is this the respect our countrymen have for art and artists? That’s why art is in such a pathetic shape in country’. She pushed her instruments away and turned away from the audience. Till now she was speaking in her Marathi accented English. She now addressed her co-artists in Marathi. Mikes were on and we could hear each syllable.

She stood up, faced the audience and addressed them, ‘I’m sorry. It’s not your fault, but I can’t sing now. I was not singing for a recording. There were bound to be snags in my singing. These recordings are immediately put on net and my fans ring me from all over the world to know why there are so many faults in my singing these days. This is an insult.’ And she turned back. Rashmi Malik was trying to calm her down all the while.

Now many people in the audience stood up too. They pleaded with folded hands. Many spoke in Marathi. ‘Tai, please. Do not punish us. we apologise on the behalf of that man. This occasion comes so rarely. We wait for it all year long.’

Nandini Bedekar also spoke with her. Kishori nodded her head and sat down. Artists began to arrange their instruments again.

Almost an hour had gone by in this impasse. It was beyond ten. Crowd had thinned considerably. There was complete silence. All watched Kishori intently.

‘Turn the light away from me, towards the audience. I want to see the people for whom I sing. Please come nearer.’ She exhorted light-man into action and addressed the sparse audience affectionately.

We moved nearer. I felt I could touch Kishori if I extended my arms a little. She then sang raag Shree. This time she seemed to gather her bearing within a few minutes. And she sang ethereally. Notes of her music acquired a physical dimension and hovered in the deep dark night. You could not only hear them but feel them around you. You wanted to soar with them and pluck them from the skies. She seemed to be at ease now and sang for an hour. I was dreaming in the first part of the concert. Now I enjoyed her performance wholeheartedly. It was an ineffably beautiful rendition. I’m sure many eyes would have been wet in the audience.

I drove back to my place, forty kilometres away, in euphoria. ‘How good it is to be alive,’ I thought again and again.

 

I heard Kishori in Nehru Park on two more occasions. The last was in 2016. There was a large crowd. Many stood at the back. There were many renowned artists in the crowd. I recognised Jatin Das, the painter and Raghu Rai, the photographer, nearby. She sang raag Bageshri on this occasion. It was heavenly. My rapture knew no bounds. What more could I have asked from life? Most men die with measly desires unfulfilled. I had lived to hear Kishori sing Bageshri in front of my eyes.

 

-4-

 

Kishori died on 03 April 2017. She was eighty-four. She had passed away in her sleep. The previous evening, she had spent time at Riyaaz, as was her routine. I had seen her perform live, thrice. I had known her through her music. This was still around me. But an ill-defined change seemed to have descended into my world. I suddenly felt very old. Kishori’s music had been a companion of my growing up years. It had come into my life when I was a callow young man, just expelled from the clean protected environment of a college into a large chaotic world. I had now stepped into my sixth decade; callow still, but hardened a little by life’s vicissitudes. It had not occurred to me that Kishori too was growing old as was I.

 

SPIC MACAY organised a musical trubute in Nehru Park. Girja Devi, the grand old lady of Banaras Gharana, led the ceremony. Nandini Bedekar sang ‘Sahela re’. Her rendition was imbued with doleful haunting tones, as if she was mourning the demise of her Guru. Raghunandan Panshikar, another of Kishori’s old protegee sang, Anand Malhar, a raag also associated with Kishori. Nehru Park had felt vibrant on the first evening when I waited with a palpitating heart for Kishori to ascend the stage. The same trees, the similar evening, looked sombre tonight.

 

Music critics unanimously agree that Kishori’s music has to be felt, not only heard. None knows this as well as me. An unlettered blockhead in Classical music, yet a dyed-in-the-wool fan, could have known her music only through his heart. I listen to her often. It continues to colour the mundane moments of my life vividly.

 

In the three decades that I came to know Kishori’s music, I was heavily influenced by the rationalist thought. My agnosticism regarding matters of spirit is now transformed into a firm belief that matter is the sole component of universe. It is the provenance of all, the ephemeral and the eternal. Kishori’s music, nevertheless, transports me effortlessly to a universe of unearthly emotions and hair-raising ethereal feelings. For fleeting moments, I experience that which nature has endowed only on humans: ability to experience the spiritual and the timeless through our material and transient brains.

 

And my heart whispers into the dark crevices of my mind- when all else will perish, notes of the immortal song will hover in the nothingness.

Sahela re aa mil gaayen,

Sapt suran ke bhed sunaayen.

Janam Janam ko sang na bhulen,

Aaj milen to bichura na jaaye,

Sahela re aa mil gaayen.