washerman's dog: Kabir

Showing posts with label Kabir. Show all posts

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Stress Fighting Music: Pandit Sanjeev Abhyankar

Bhakti bhajan gaate hue

You probably know by now that I love Kabir and that whole cohort of Bhakti poets. There is absolutely no other form of music that gets me in as meditative and calm and peaceful a place as their bhajans and dohe.

I don’t know how much stock anyone holds in the psychic vibrations that supposedly attend this existence. I do and I don’t. But one of the whispered truths of the moment is that 2012 is a year of cosmological significance and much turmoil, chaos and change will come about in the coming months. Certainly, my little slice of reality suggests this is an unusually intense year compared to most.

The last several weeks have been really hectic. Like the ‘Zafar’ poem I referred to a few days back, my present does seem very much like a ‘sargam-e-justuju’ (fevered and frantic search).

And so the quieting and calming strains of Pandit Sanjeev Abhyankar singing the songs of the great Bhakti saints of India are very welcome, indeed.

Panditji, hails from Pune and studied for sometime with the mighty Pandit Jasraj. Unsure as he was about whether he should follow his passion, he hedged his bets with a degree in Commerce. But thankfully for us his singing was strong and pleasing and he’s become one of India’s most prominent classical singers of the past decade or so.

So if you, like me, are feeling a bit harried, stressed and strained, find a quiet space in your house and let Pandit Sanjeev Abhyankar evoke the Spirit that brings Peace and Calm.

Track Listing:

01 Matwaro Badal (Meera)

02 Ram Japu Baavare (Tulsidas)

03 Soi Rasna Jo Hari Gun Gave (Surdas)

04 Raghubar Tumko Meri Laaj (Tulsidas)

05 Chalo Ri Murali (Surdas)

06 Rehna Nahi (Kabir)

07 Beet Gaye Din Bhajan Bina Re (Kabir)

08 Main Toh Saanvare Ke Rang Raachi (Meera)

here

Friday, March 2, 2012

Hero of Hyderbad: C.H. Atma

C.H. Atma

Until very recently I had never heard the name, C.H. Atma. I’m so glad I discovered him because his singing comes from the exact place and time I was first becoming conscious of film music. I was young, perhaps not even 10, and I would listen to the songs on All India Radio that our cook tuned into as he prepared our lunch. Post colonial India was a bit older than me but unabashed hope and idealism still permeated the air. And though I cannot claim to recall any of Atma’s songs his rich, calming voice fits perfectly with those times.

Having an astonishingly deep and rich voice C.H. Atma as a singer is in a class by himself and is rightly known as the artiste with a golden voice.

He made his debut in the gramaphone world way back in 1945 with what is perhaps his best known song even today, namely Preetam Aan Milo. And it was this song which was responsible many years later for his entry into the film world and for skyrocketing him to fame. This was when the late Dalsukh Pancholi gave him a chance to sing in his film Nagina and Atma scored a big hit with the song Roun Main Sagar ke Kinare under the music direction of Shankar Jaikishen. Since then he has come a long way and has sung and acted in a number of films. In addition he is a much sought after concert singer and apart from travelling over the length and breadth of the country participating in concerts and music conferences, he has also visited East Africa on an extensive concert tour.

Born at Hyderbad, Sindh in what is now West Pakistan in 1923 and educated at Karachi, Atma took to singing whilst at College as a hobby. He started his working life as a Radio Officer in one of the internal Airways Lines but little did he realise in those far off days that his hobby would day become his career.

This gifted artiste’s soft and melodious voice is ideally suited to geets and ghazals of the romantic type and this record offers some of his most popular geets, ghazals, and also bhajans. A number of these selection have been tuned and orchestrated by such well known music directors of the film industry as O.P. Nayyar, Shankar Jaikishen, Khyyam and Bulo C. Rani and this issue will be a rare treat for lovers of good modern and melodious music.

(Liner notes)

C.H. Atma and Talat Mahmood

His style of singing is influenced heavily by K. Saigal, one of the greatest Indian singers of all time, and his unhurried, assured delivery is similar to that of Talat Mahmood and Hemant Kumar.

A very soothing way to end the week.

Track Listing:

01. Preetam Aan Milo (Geet)

02. Main Ghee ka Diya Jalaun (Geet)

03. Odh Chunariayan Taron ki (Geet)

04. Apna Aap Pahchan Re (Kabir-Bhajan)

05. Nainon Men Do Nain Samaye (Geet)

06. Hairan hun Dil ko Roun (Ghazal-Ghalib)

07. Hazaron Khwahisen Aise (Ghazal-Ghalib)

08. Chalo na Gori Machal Machal Kar (Geet)

09. Sham Bhayi Sakhi (Bhajan)

10. Aye Sakhi na Balama (Geet)

11. Main Nashe Men Hun (Ghazal-Meer)

12. Roun Main Sagar ke Kinare (film: Nagina)

Listen here.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Mystical Songs of Malwa: Nirgun Singers and Lata Mangeshkar

Meera and Kabir

The western districts of the Indian state Madhya Pradesh are known as Malwa. One of the many ancient kingdoms of India, the Malwa region blends Gujarati, Rajasthani and Marathi culture, language and cuisine into a unique regional tradition.

Indore, a huge industrial and commercial center is the biggest city in Madhya Pradesh but the glory of the region is the ancient capital Ujjain. It was here that India’s greatest monarch, Ashoka, served as governor in his youth and it was in Ujjain that the Homer of India, Kalidasa, wrote his ancient plays and poetry. Ujjain was also where the art of perfumery was perfected and where it is said, they could make perfume that smelt like rain falling on dust.

In contemporary times Malwa is home to some of India’s brightest lights of the arts: Pandit Kumar Gandharva (classical vocalist), Lata Mangeshkar (Queen of Bollywood), Kishore Kumar (Prince of Bollywood), Rahul Dravid (cricket) and Johny Walker (the Bollywood comedy actor, not the whiskey) and M.F. Hussain (India’s greatest contemporary painter).

The region has been ruled by Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims and the British at some point and its tribes and local cultures draw upon the bordering regions of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. A strong folk music tradition exists here in the Vindhya Mountains and their surrounding plains. Within this tradition are the group of singers renown for singing songs of the great bakhti poets, especially Kabir. Collectively known as the Nirgun (the One without Attributes; God) singers, they are led by an amazing singer, Prahlad Tipaniya. A Dalit (formerly known as ‘untouchable’ or Harijan) with no musical tradition in his family, he came across the poetry of Kabir as a young man and has since, in effect, become a disciple of the 15^th century weaver-poet.

Tonight’s first selection is a selection of mystical songs by Malwa’s Nirgun singers. (Prahlad Tipaniya above) This is real folk religious music. Sung with minimal and entirely traditional instrumental accompaniment, the songs are heartfelt, uplifting and enchanting. If you’ve ever travelled for days on an Indian train or through the villages these sounds will be entirely familiar. Devotees singing their hearts out to their God.

The second set highlights India’s nightingale, Lata Mangeshkar, a native of Indore, singing several poems of the mystical woman poet, Meera. A high born daughter of a Rajput chieftain, Meera, was a devotee of Lord Krishna, who is said to have composed more than a thousand bhajans (hymns) during her lifetime. Along with Kabir and Surdas, Meera is regarded as one of the greatest mystical poets of India.

The Rajputana had remained fiercely independent of the Delhi Sultanate, the Islamic regime that otherwise ruled Hindustan after the conquests of Timur. But in the early 16th century AD the central Asian conqueror Babur laid claim to the Sultanate and some Rajputs supported him while others ended their lives in battle with him. Her husband's death in battle (in 1527 AD) was only one of a series of losses Meera experienced in her twenties. She appears to have despaired of loving anything temporal and turned to the eternal, transforming her grief into a passionate spiritual devotion that inspired in her countless songs drenched with separation and longing.

Meera's devotion to Krishna was at first a private thing but at some moment it overflowed into an ecstasy that led her to dance in the streets of the city. Her brother-in-law, the new ruler of Chittorgarh, was Vikramaditya, an ill-natured youth who strongly objected to Meera's fame, her mixing with commoners and carelessness of feminine modesty. There were several attempts to poison her.[2] Her sister-in-law Udabai is said to have spread defamatory gossip.

According to some myths Meera's brother-in-law Vikramaditya, who later became king of Chittor, after Bhojraj's death, tried to harm Meera in many ways like as follows:

▪ The famous one is that he mixed poison in the prasadam or chandanamritam of Krishna and made her drink that. But by God's grace, Krishna changed it to Amrit.

▪ Secondly, he pinned iron nails in Meera's bed, but again by God's grace it turned into rose petals.

Another one is that he put a snake in a flower basket and said her that it's a gift from him to her Lord, but when she opened it it actually became a gift- a garland.

Meera's songs are in a simple form called a pada (verse), a term used for a small spiritual song, usually composed in simple rhythms with a repeating refrain, collected in her Padavali. The extant versions are in a Rajasthani and Braj, a dialect of Hindi spoken in and around Vrindavan (the childhood home of Krishna), sometimes mixed with Rajasthani.

(Wikipedia)

Lata’s interpretation of these bhajans is, as expected, polished, as all things surrounding Bollywood royalty are wont to be. But that doesn’t detract from there austere beauty and it is always great to see playback singers doing things that have nothing to do with their day jobs. Lata’s voice is gorgeous and it rises and lifts beautifully to the spiritual heights (and depths) of the occasion.