Rendering the ghazal as geet
By Rekha Surya

THE ghazal as a poetic form originated in Persia in the 10th century. Though Persian in origin, the Indian ghazal has a distinctive character of its own and is rooted in the Indian ethos. Its poetry is written in Urdu, a language born in India. The first ghazal was evidently written by Amir Khusro in the 13th century. This ghazal combines two cultures clothed in two languages — half of each line is in Persian, and the other half is in Braj bhasha; and each couplet is arranged thus. The Urdu ghazal matured during the 18th and 19th centuries, when it flourished in Delhi and Lucknow.

A ghazal consists of couplets, each of which is complete within itself, and may not resemble, in thought and content, any other couplet in the ghazal. All the couplets in a ghazal share a common rhyme scheme and metre but may be thematically unrelated, discrete and disparate. Those who seek the logical development of an idea in a poem, find the fragmentary thought-structure of the ghazal perplexing; but it is precisely this lack of thematic continuity which is the peculiar virtue of the ghazal and which makes the ghazal a specialised verse- form. Each couplet, holding the complete expression of an idea, is self-contained. Despite its limited space, a couplet is capable of exploring the entire range of human experience, absorbing and describing its complexities.

The Arabic word ghazaal — its derivative being ghazal--- implies conversing with one’s beloved. Its other etymological meaning is ’the painful wail of a wounded deer’. The plaintive note insistently heard in the ghazal can be ascribed to the state of the lover, who is traditionally presented in the ghazal as one in anguish.

Major poets broadened the scope of the ghazal and looked beyond the confines of love and wine. They also moved away from the indiscriminate use of conventional or exaggerated and far-fetched imagery and diction. The ghazal also became a vehicle of philosophical contemplation, and its spectrum included political and social issues.

Ghazals were and are often sung by poets themselves in mushairas. In the music world, they were generally sung by courtesans, some of whom were renowned musicians. During the early and mid-twentieth century, amongst other prominent ghazal-exponents like Zohra Bai and Kamla Jharia, it was probably Begum Akhtar who gave a definite shape to ghazal-singing — what can be called ghazal-gayaki.

She kept her listeners alive to the poetry by keeping them constantly waiting for the ‘punch’ phrase, found in the second line of every couplet, completing the poet’s picture and bearing its point and essence. She would play around with the first half of couplet, building anticipation, and then, using her innately superb sense of timing, pause for a split second. Her fingers on the harmonium would freeze in a moment of tense stillness. Then she would throw the ‘punch’ phrase; consummating the sense of drama...

Begum Akhtar laid bare her soul, and the poet’s, in her ghazals. This naked vulnerability made her listeners vulnerable to their own emotional wounds and experience. One of the reasons for the popularity of ghazal-singing is this ability to identify oneself with the thoughts, emotions, and situations described, making it meaningful to one and all.

In terms of musical lineage, ghazal is — and should be — the off-spring of Bol-banao thumri. (Thumri is of three types: Bandish-ki-thumri which is composition-oriented, Artha-bhava thumri which is sung for Kathak dancers, and Bol-banao thumri). Bol-banana means creating musical variations in and around a textual word or phrase. An important element in Bol-banana is kahan — the speech intonations within the musical framework — which literally means ‘to speak’.

Earlier, ghazal was presented in a light-classical concert as one of the allied forms of thumri.After gaining popularity for itself, it has been plucked out of the light-classical repertoire, and is no longer associated with thumri. Today, it is seldom heard as part of a larger whole. This in itself is not deplorable as all art-forms are mutable with time. What is pitiable is the improper musical handling and loss of quality.

Most present-day ghazal-singers, being unversed with thumri, are unacquainted with its intensely emotional element of pukaar, which literally means ‘to call out’. Hence, their ghazal-gayaki lacks passion. A thumri-singer who understands the poetic structure of ghazal can render ghazal ideally; for a sound thumri- singer has the necessary khayal background, and has also been trained to pour passion into a musical rendering and to evocatively elaborate textual phrases.

Yet even a thumri-singer’s musical elaboration must be restrained and judicious in ghazal. If the poetry is swamped with excessive musical treatment, the poetic thread between the two lines of the couplet gets lost. Begum Akhtar, once said that a ghazal is like a painting. The poetry is like the painting itself, and should be given paramount importance. It should never be overwhelmed by the musical portrayal.

Ghazal-gayaki must have covert musicianship. Overt musical technique like sargam and tihai — borrowed khayal characteristics being popularly used — disturbs the romantic aura of the genre, even while such technique imparts classical seriousness to the ghazal and dazzles audiences with its inherent virtuosity.

The decline of Urdu as a language started during Begum Akhtar’s time. She herself, aware of the fact that after the Indian sub-continent’s Partition fewer people in India understood the nuances of Urdu, chose to sing — along with Ghalib and the other masters— common place poetry which had mass appeal. However, musically she remained true to the ghazal- form. Soon after her death, the void left by her in the Indian ghazal-world, was filled by Pakistan’s Mehdi Hasan, who awed audiences by his command over the classical idiom. He rendered khayal-oriented rather than thumri- oriented ghazals in a tender and sentimental manner rather than with the full-throated and passionate style associated with Begum Akhtar. This soft and sentimental style of voice-production became a trend-setting phenomenon. Upon his departure from India, he left in his wake a host of Bombay-based ghazal-singers, who borrowed his manner, but were unable to reproduce the musicianship. Also, influenced by Pakistani orchestration, they adopted several accompanying instruments, particularly the guitar. Their treatment of ghazals as mere songs makes these ghazals musically identifiable with geet. These tunes, often framing pedestrian poetry, have drawn crowds, and so while the ghazal has spread from the elite to the masses, it has also degenerated.

Audiences often accept what is available to them for lack of an alternative. Sometimes audiences are musically ignorant, but they can be trained to be discerning and discriminating, simply by being given good fare. Excellence of standard and commercial viability need not be mutually exclusive. If artistes choose to be unaware of this, and wish to merely entertain, as so many do today, a vicious cycle can set in — as it has — between audiences and artistes in terms of deterioration in quality. If facile ghazal-singers seek justification by saying: "This is what audiences want," why is it that when audiences receive good fare, they gladly accept it, even without complete comprehension? Coleridge has said: "Poetry is best appreciated when half understood". Perhaps this is true of both poetry and music.