August 30, 1999

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Among a host of concerts and cassettes evoking the seasonal metaphor, Kumar Gandharva's just-released Geet Varsha showcases a classic presentation.

By S Kalidas

Even before the rains had arrived, the trendy were gyrating to the beat of something called the rain dance at the more happening discotheques. Blaring well above the decibel of the artificial water sprays invariably was the track from Shubha Mudgal's Ab Ke Sawan. Released by Virgin Records, the Indi-pop fusion album traverses like a bold rainbow the musical parabola that the rains have always inspired in the subcontinent. Then just last week, as the monsoon finally descended on the plains of north India, Mudgal -- along with thumri singer Rita Ganguli -- was singing again in Varsha Mangal, a concert not of her pop songs but of the classical ragas and semi-classical songs associated with the rains.

Nor are they the only ones giving voice to this seasonal euphoria. music today has just released a double album of the late Pandit Kumar Gandharva's Geet Varsha and in Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta several events are celebrating this most flamboyant of Indian seasons with classical, folk and pop music.

The slinky heroine in a clinging, wet (usually white) sari may be a stock cliche in Hindi films but then this is an image that has come down to us with the full force of tradition behind it. From time immemorial the monsoon metaphor has been put to poetry, sung and danced to in a myriad forms, styles, languages and dialects. At the beginning of this millennium Kalidasa wrote a whole epic, the Meghadootam, on the phenomena in Sanskrit. The Mughals had many portfolios of miniature paintings executed on this theme and as we draw close to the year 2000, the wet season still inspires the most vivid flights of artistic and musical imagination.

"Anyone who has endured the unrelenting heat of the Indian summer," explains musician and author Sheila Dhar, "will appreciate the relief that the monsoons bring to the Indo-Gangetic plains." Cleansed of the heat and the dust, all nature seems to wear a new emerald robe. Suddenly the air is laden with the smell of wet earth and the gathering clouds cover the scorching sun with the promise of showers. The men and the boys are on rooftops flying kites of a hundred hues, while women and children swing from the branches of lofty trees. Peacocks fan out their long incandescent tails and the Papiha bird sings her love song calling out for her piya (mate). The whole atmosphere is loaded with the symbology of love and yearning. And as Dhar puts it, "It's in the impending possibility of a rendezvous that the excitement exists, not necessarily in the act of union itself."

In a rapidly globalising world post-modernism has made fashionable mantras out of jargon like "appropriation" and "deconstruction". But a closer look will reveal that transcreation (by appropriating someone else's work) and vichchhed (deconstruction) have been used as creative devices for centuries. All our traditional arts revel in creating anew a given idea, tune or image. It is in this context that we need to place albums like Mudgal's Ab Ke Sawan which attempt to transfer the traditional musical metaphor of the monsoon to a more seemingly modern and globalised context. The lyrics are mostly simplified recreations of older ones beginning with the title song which lifts the first phrase from a very old thumri, Ab ke sawan ghar aaja. The music itself draws from a host of forms from the semi-classical to the folk to the South American Samba. Sung by Mudgal in her gutsy style, one can hear in her vocalism echoes of many others, including Ila Arun, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and her mentor Kumar Gandharva.

The extremely cerebral and well-informed artist that he was, Kumar Gandharva himself drew inspiration from a very wide selection of musical sources. In one of his many memorable thematic presentations he even recreated the art of the famous Marathi stage personality Bal Gandharva. Titled "Bal Gandharva Mala Umajhlele (I have understood Bal Gandharva)" it had Kumar singing popular numbers from the thespian-singer's plays, albeit with his own twist and style. While classical masters of the past like Rehmat Khan, Abdul Karim Khan and Omkarnath Thakur provided Kumar with the kernels of his vocalism, he delved deep into the poetry of the Bhakti saints and the folk music of the Malwa region for rooting his art to the soil. His eclecticism got him into many controversies with the die-hard conservatives mocking his penchant for folk songs and bhajans, but Kumar saw high art in even the most rustic of voices. "Few classical singers can use their voices the way some village women do," he used to maintain. "That kind of rustic resonance is not easy to reproduce."

Geet Varsha is a presentation of monsoon songs selected from both the folk and the classical repertoires. And so artistically seamless is the presentation that the lay listener may fail to realise where the stylistic lines are drawn. Recorded in Delhi in 1978 during the Vishnu Digambar Jayanti, this twin album has Kumar's wife Vasundhara Komkali and pupil Meera Rao accompanying him. The first thing that strikes the ear is Kumar's sensitivity to tone and timbre. Few Indian artists have been as perfect in this aspect as that rebel musician from Dewas. He may have stood many a traditional norm on its head but none in his time could match his aural aesthetic. And his orchestration of voices here is absolutely enchanting.

The album opens with a song, Ghaam pare re, lamenting the heat of the summer in the afternoon raga Marwa. Marwa is a raga which employs an imperfect consonance and Kumar has used it to convey the oppressive heat and restlessness of the time just before the monsoons break. Then slowly he draws the listener into a layered landscape of gathering clouds, the first torrent, the flashes of lightening, the yearning of the nayika (heroine), the birth of Krishna on a dark rainy night. Apart from traditional rainy-season ragas like the Miyan-ki-Mallar, Gaur Mallar, Sawani and Des, he also makes effective use of folk melodies from Malwa and some of his own combination ragas like Maghwaa and Jaldhar-Basanti. The use of rhythm is also very consciously done; not all the compositions are set to talas or rhythmic cycles. Some are very losely structured in the anibaddha (or unfettered) form.

Had Kumar lived on he would have been 75 years old now. And as one listens to this double album one cannot but recall how much passion and perfection he had packed into his brilliant but not a very healthy life. There are some other presentations of his like Tulsidas Ek Darshanand Rituraaj Mefil which should also be brought out for the benefit of his many fans and admirers. That is a joint responsibility for his heirs and the music companies to fulfil.

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