Sunday, March 31, 2002		Books

Tuning in to the lilting notes of classical music
G. K Pandey

The Cooking of Music
by Sheila Dhar Permanent Black Publications Pages - 114 Rs 195.

SHEILA Dhar's book The cooking of music reveals, in ample measure, her personal trademark of perceptiveness about foibles of character, nuances of ambience and subtleties of the musical culture. She uses culinary metaphors to convey the taste and flavour of a specific melody. She brings the tongue and the nose to bear upon the ear and does not hesitate to use the oldest analogies and examples to serve her literary and analytical purpose.

This book portrays her thorough knowledge of Indian classical music in all its manifestations, commencing with dhrupad, dhamar, khayal, thumri, dadra, ghazal, kajari and chaiti. Each chapter makes for interesting reading. The writer has dealt with various facets of Indian classical music in a subtle manner without getting into controversies.

She has selected excellent topics such as "sound and Hindustani music", "the raga— and inward journey", "reflections on kirana legacy", "fear of recordings" and "sunlight in the ragas". Sheila has devoted an entire chapter on Begum Akhtar, the Melody Queen of light classical music. Begum Akhtar was centrestage for rendering thumri, dadra, kajari, chaiti and ghazal. Though voluminous books have been written on this subject, Sheila has done a marvellous job in presenting the numerous aspects of Hindustani classical music.

Music has been cultivated as an art in India for, at least, 3000 years. Hindustani classical music has its origins in the ancient tradition preserved, elaborated and developed by hereditary musicians down the ages. It was passed on orally from master to disciple. This music brings to the present generation the awareness of times long past and a range of emotional experiences that modern life can not provide.

Raga is central to Indian music. Each raga is assigned to a particular time of day or season and is invested with the power to evoke a state of feeling related to both the human condition and to nature. Unfortunately, there are no more than a hundred ragas in the collective repertoire of Hindustani music from the thousands that were introduced at one stage or another. However, I feel, even hundred is an exaggeration. Sheila, who was an accomplished musician belonging to the Kirana Gharana, has dealt very skilfully with the numerous gharanas, a highly controversial subject. When we speak of the gharana of a traditional musician, we mean the school of music he practices and owes allegiance to. The concept of a musical gharana is physically comparable to that of families or clans in general but in reality it is far more extensive and complicated. The outstanding Khayal Gharanas today are Gwalior, Agra, Kirana, Jaipur-Athrauli and Patiala, each named after the original place of residence of the Ustad or the Ustad's family. It is fascinating to observe the manner with which Sheila has brought out the salient features of each gharana.

However, there is no doubt, she is a little overbearing as far as Kirana Gharana is concerned. There is not a single performing artist of the Kirana Gharana whose name and contribution have not been mentioned.One wishes that she had been more generous in providing similar details about other gharanas, notably the Gwalior Gharana known as the Adi Gharana.

No doubt, there were great performers inKirana Gharana like Ustad Abdul Karim Khan, Ustad Wahid Khan,Hira Bai Barodkar, Gangubai Hangal, Bhimsen Joshi and many more. But there were equally great artists like Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, Faiyaz Khan, Kesar Bai Kerkar, Krishna Rao Shankar Pandit, Onkar Nath Thakur, Vinayak Rao Patwardhan, Kumar Gandharva and Ganga Prasad Pathak whose contributions in the field of Indian classical music should have been mentioned even if briefly.