Ekla chalo re

BACK in 1935, in the same year that the second of only two key legislations, the Government of India Act, was passed by the British Raj, noted khayal singer Kesarbai Kerkar first performed a thumri in Bombay, in the plaintive, haunting notes of Raag Bhairavi called 'jaat kahan ho'. Kesarbai had by now learnt at the feet of Alladiya Khan, the founder of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana, for over a decade. In the world of Hindustani classical music, both master and disciple are widely acknowledged among the greatest virtuosos.

But the real reason 'jaat kahan ho' has survived the decades is because ethnomusicologist Robert Brown in the mid-seventies persuaded renowned astronomer Carl Sagan to include it in a time capsule, that NASA was packaging into a spacecraft called Voyager which would travel beyond the solar system. NASA's idea was to kindly acquaint any beings that might live beyond the times and tides of men with key sounds and images of Planet Earth.

Brown had heard 'jaat kahan ho' and proposed it as a "paramount representation of world music for outer space." He was enchanted with its lyrics. Jaat kahan ho/akeli gori/jaane na paiyyon. (Where are you going, alone, girl? Do your feet not know?)

In the same month and year, September 1977, Voyager blasted off into space and Kesarbai breathed her last — Voyager was launched only 10 days before she died, with 27 tracks of golden music aboard. It's not clear if Kesarbai knew that her voice was the only sound (or music) from India. Other tracks included the Brandenburg Concerto No 2 by Bach; a pygmy girls' initiation song from Zaire; Georgian chorus 'Tchakrulo' provided by Radio Moscow; Louis Armstrong's 'Melancholy Blues' and Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring.'

At home, the 3.35-minute thumri remains the anthem of our times. It has survived both Partition and Independence. It is a testament to the changing mores of society. It has stared down patriarchy, even if it hasn't had the capacity to change it. It's a tease, a challenge, a gauntlet to the world. It walks hand in hand with those who may not have the courage to walk alone.

Much is being said and written these days about women — and their capacity to negotiate power as well as honour excellence. Mamata Banerjee's loss in West Bengal is a real loss for the Opposition. The rebellion against Mamata is being led by women — Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, Saayoni Ghosh, Satabdi Roy, Sushmita Dev, and others.

The BJP's focus on women as a politically targeted group was never stronger. Then there's Vinesh Phogat, who has publicly accused a former BJP MP for sexually harassing her and for using his influence to continue to deny her space on the wrestling mat. And Giribala Singh, a retired district sessions judge, who has blamed her daughter-in-law, Twisha, and her parents, by way of explaining Twisha's alleged suicide.

Only the other day, the Supreme Court ruled that cohabitation before marriage was "not a blot" on a person's moral character — a judgment that, incidentally, follows the 2018 decriminalisation of homosexuality by eight long years. It has taken the honourable court a while. Only 10 years ago, in 2016, the top court picked up the courage to side with Lata Singh from Uttar Pradesh — the geographical footprint of the brave thumri — who had married a man from another caste, while her brothers demurred.

It is not a coincidence that the longing notes of the thumri, kajra, chaiti are sung mostly by women unspooling their desire for freedom in the angry, caste-driven badlands of North India. Begum Akhtar's music is a classic example. Wikipedia doesn't tell me more or why "jaat kahan ho" is synonymous with Kesarbai Kerbar, rather than Akhtar. Certainly, it's not a coincidence that Rabindranath Tagore, who gave Kesarbai the honorific of "Surshri", was embedded in the cult of the Devi in Bengal, and that his cultural heir-apparent, Satyajit Ray, was so much at home making women-driven films like 'Mahanagar' and 'Charulata.'

Some of these women are now leading the charge against their own leader, also a woman. Dastidar, Ghosh, Roy and Dev have allegedly picked up the sharpest kitchen knives in their homes and stabbed the leader they once swore they would fight for. Dev has been telling the press that she "wants to work for her people" and "her constituency" and cannot do it in the TMC. Seems, the alleged price for her switching favours is allegedly a Rajya Sabha seat.

What a film Ray may have made on betrayal if he were alive.

Certainly, the BJP recognises, as does the rest of the country, that Rahul Baba's underwater escapades in the coral reefs of the Great Nicobar are limited to setting Instagram on fire. Mamata Banerjee, on the other hand, must be made an example of because she is a non-dynastic leader in the Opposition space who has built a political party. Even her enemies will admit the woman is a fighter. Certainly, she cannot be bought or sold cheaply.

Meanwhile, the TMC MPs who are quitting to form a ginger group in the Lok Sabha, whether nameless or claimant to the "real TMC", will now vote in favour of the BJP. This model could apply elsewhere too, including Sharad Pawar's NCP.

Perhaps there's a moral in these stories of three women seeking either power or excellence or both. When Kesarbai Kerkar went to Alladiya Khan, pleading that he accept her as a disciple, he said it would be on the condition that she practice at least 8-10 hours a day for 10 years. From that daily riyaaz, hour after hour after hour, was born her music — including her thumri, honed to perfection.

In contrast, Sushmita Dev won the 2014 general election on a Congress ticket, lost in 2019, moved to the TMC in 2021 when Mamata Banerjee gave her a Rajya Sabha ticket from West Bengal and has now dumped the TMC to join the BJP. She knows too what she wants and how to get it.

And then there's Mamata Banerjee, a woman of many foibles, who sought and exercised full power for 15 years. Now, as she watches her own party disintegrate and her closest friends turn against her, the question is whether she can find the courage to hold on to adversity as her calling card. So when Kesarbai asks her, a voice from the Voyager spinning in interstellar space, far away, "jaat kahan ho?" she answers, "akeli, ekla, if need be."

As life imitates art, Mamata could invoke her inner Rabindranath Tagore and add, "If I call and no one answers me, I will walk alone." Ekla chalo re.