Voice, Gender and Space in Time of Five-Year Plans: the Idea of Lata Mangeshkar Author(S): Sanjay Srivastava Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol
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Voice, Gender and Space in Time of Five-Year Plans: The Idea of Lata Mangeshkar Author(s): Sanjay Srivastava Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 39, No. 20 (May 15-21, 2004), pp. 2019-2028 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4415027 Accessed: 26/07/2010 07:18 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=epw. 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The discussion examines the stabilisation of gender identities through a number of elementsof Indian modernity including nationalism, Hindu identity, the 'woman question', representationsof space and also, the cultural meanings of the five-year plans. SANJAYSRIVASTAVA his paper seeks to make some comments on how, over So, as is well known, in India, singers are not necessarily stars previous four decades or so, a particular female singing in themselves and, till quite recently, commercial music was sold voice - with its specific tonality and modulation - became in the market under the banner of the film with which the songs an expression of gender identity in India. And, given the inter- were associated. Singers cultivated little public presence and actional natureof gender, this discussion is also about the cultural rather than the personality of the singer, it was their voice that politics of Indian masculinity. The intent is to explore the functioned as a sign. This situation has only recently begun to stabilisation of gender identities through specific elements of change and even then can't be compared to the situation of Indian modernity: a nationalist discourse in which 'woman' as western pop music. a sign has fluctuated between the poles of the mother and the Lata Mangeshkar was born in 1929 in Indore, and as a child sexually dangerous being, cinematic representations of Indian both she and her sister Asha Bhonsle learnt music from a series culture, the relationship between the performer and the audience of accomplished musicians. Lata recorded her first song in 1942 in Indian music, the cultural production of space, the relationship and since then has, reputedly, sung in 18 Indian languages. One between the Indian provincial and metropolitan cultures, the source estimates that by 1991 she had recorded around 6,000 discourse of centralised economic planning, and the relationship songs [Manuel 1993:267, 10n], while journalistic accounts speak between orality and literacy in popular culture. These topics are of a substantially greatercorpus. Among female playback singers, explored through the career of India's most famous 'playback' then, Lata's voice has dominated the Indian popular music scene. singer, Lata Mangeshkar. And, along with this dominance, she established a specific vocal style, which in conjunction with the factors I will discuss below, became as an aesthetic marker of 'modem' Indian Lata, Femininity and Space of the Nation recognised female identity. And, if "vocal style (aside from the language) This discussion is not concerned with whether Lata's voice is the single most importantmarker of aesthetic identity" [Manuel is 'good', 'bad', 'authentically' Indian or otherwise, but rather, 1993:52], then it can be argued that Lata's singing voice has with the tendencies that come to gather about her singing style itistituted a very specific identity for Indian womanhood, one and attributeto it the characteristic of 'good' and 'authentically' which has almost no precedence in traditional forms of Indian Indian-feminine. As well, what follows is not an argument about music. In otherwords, the 'woman' conjuredby LataMangeshkar' s causality.2 And, though the discourse of nationalism looms large singing voice is the product of certain development that are in what follows, this should not be taken to mean that projects peculiar to the processes of Indian modernity. of modernity can simply be reduced to it. Clearly, nationalist One music critic has noted that Lata's style has become "the ideology is only one of the grids upon which post-colonial ultimate measure of sweetness in a woman's voice. [And that] modernityis situated.3So, while I primarilyconcentrate on pleasure Its chief characteristic was the skilled use of a particular kind as a nationalist project, it clearly does not exhaust inquiry into of falsetto which did not exist in quite the same way before her the topic. coming" (Raghava Menon quoted in Manuel 1993: 53). Another During the last and the current century, Indian popular music suggests that singers from musical genres with their own distinct has, in the main, been connected with films and whilst in the style began to mimic Lata's voice and that it soon "became early films many of the songs were sung by the actors themselves, difficult to imagine a female voice that is not Lata Mangeshkar's" during the 1940s this practice gave way to 'playback' singing (Chandavarkarquoted in Manuel 1993: 53). There is, it could where the actors' singing voice was provided by someone else. be said, almost no precedence for Lata's voice - and the kind Economic and Political Weekly May 15, 2004 2019 of femininityit conjures- in the widersphere of femalesinging image Woman (could) be perceived to contain a charge of styles in India, one markedby an extraordinarydiversity of sexualitywhich always threatens to runfree" [Zutshi 1993:102]. expressivetraditions. Given this diversity(as I show below), it How, then, to deal with this dilemma?In part,it has been sug- is importantto think abouthow LataMangeshkar's shrill ado- gested, the resolutionof the 'woman question' was achieved lescent-girlfalsetto came to be establishedas the 'ideal'in 'Indian throughidentifying women not just as the carriersof 'tradition' popularmusic and film culturein general' [Manuel1993:53]. but traditionitself: women's bodies became the site on which My illustrationsof expressiveheteroglossia cannot, of course, traditionwas seen to be [Chatterjee1993a; Mani 1993]. I have do justice to that vast storehouseof emotions,cautionary and suggestedelsewhere [Srivastava 1998:chap 4] that,persuasive as moraltales, laments,incantations to sensualdivinities, and the it may seem, this formulationof the issue shouldbe treatedwith constantplay of historicinventiveness which is groupedunder someof cautionas it maycapture only one of severalscenarios; that, the rubricof Indianmusic; and hence, the randomsample pre- the publiclife of the Indianfamily - and 'its' women- also had sentedhere shouldonly be regardedas a niche in the complex a role to play in debatesabout engagements with modernity. The ichnographyof Indianmusic. The melange of female singing followingdiscussion seeks to explorethis verypublic dimension styles found in the subcontinentranges from group singing at of the 'womanquestion' in thecareer of Indianmodernity through familyritual occasions (a weddingbeing the most common),to thepervasive influence of a singerwho has,as if, craftedan entire organisedpublic performances. In some instances,many earlier structureof emotions in the post-colonialera. ritual-linkedperformances have become partof the commercial Withthe coming of cinemain India,the tableau of publicforms performancemilieu. became inextricablyattached to the possibilities of cinematic However,no matterwhat the context,women's singing styles representationand men and women become public figures, attached in India- at least those not connectedwith the film industry- to the naturaland humantopographies. This, it might be sug- havebeen markedby a strikingheterogeneity of tonaland other gested, was a resultof the particularinterpretation of the term styles. So, if the Dholi Gayikayenof Jodhpur4sing of a wife 'culture'that had come to be establishedduring the moder demandingjewelleryfrom her husband in 'heavy'and nasal tones, period.This was an interpretationfilmic techniqueshad almost then the Hindustaniclassical music singer GangubaiHangal's a naturalaffinity to. I amreferring to theunderstanding of culture deliveryranges between the low alto andthe uppertenor ranges which representedit as linked to geographicalplaces [Clifford andfrequently confuses unacquainted listeners