This article has been extracted from the Diamond Jubilee Souvenir of the Suburban Music Circle (Year 1998)
Mumbai, Epicentre of Musical Activity
By: Mohan Nadkarni
[Mohan Nadkarni, one of India's noted Hindustani musicologists and music critic of The Times of India for over 40 years. He has reviewed thousands of concerts from 1948 till date and has written more than 4,000 articles for various publications. Though most of his articles were on music, he also wrote on Marathi and Sanskrit theatre and other aspects of culture. He reviewed some of the earliest concert performances of musicians such as Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Ustad Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain, among others. He also consulted with recording companies like HMV, helping produce the early LP records of many of these artistes. He authored eight books on music, including a best-selling biography of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi which has been translated into several Indian languages. He won several awards, including Karnataka government's Kalashree Mohan award and Shreshtha Sangeet Sadhak award from the Bhatkhande Institute for lifetime Nadkarni achievement. He has lectured on Hindustani music around India and in Switzerland, the Netherlands and the UK. ]
Mumbai’s contribution to Hindustani music and its efforts to enrich and propagate it as a concert platform can be traced back to the early years of this century. Even before its emergence as the capital of unilingual Maharashtra on May 1, 1960, Mumbai was also the capital erstwhile multi-lingual Bombay Presidency and has enjoyed eminence as the epicentre of the nationwide movement, pioneered by Vishnu Digambar Paluskar and Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, for their socialisation of traditional Hindustani music.
The aim of the two “Vishnus” was to give the art a mass-base by popularising if through scholastic education and institutions of public concerts. Thanks to their missionary work, Hindustani music is being taught and learnt through a countrywide network of schools and colleges. In the process, it has succeeded in creating and fostering a proper understanding and appreciation of the performing art.
Today, we have a large number of knowledgeable and appreciative connoisseurs, not to speak of scholarly teachers, many of whom are engaged in extensive study and research into the art, science and aesthetics of the traditional music of north India.
Moreover, down the decades, Mumbai has been the favourite rendezvous of a glorious line-up of great pioneers of khayal gharanas who had earlier migrated from their distant homes in north India down to the Marathi-speaking region of the then Bombay Presidency. They had secured patronage of several princely states like Kolhapur, Sangli and Miraj, located in the southernmost part of the province.
All-time greats like Alladiya Khan, Abdul Karim Khan and Rajabali Khan, to name just a few, often came to the metropolis to regale their devoted fans. Besides, maestros like Faiyaz Khan and Bande Ali Khan, who were court-musicians in several princely states of central India, vied with one another in enriching the city’s musical like by their frequent concert visits. So abiding, indeed, was the impact of the musical environment that several of the luminaries from the succeeding generation of gharana stalwarts, like Kesarbai Kerkar, Mogubai Kurdikar, Hirabai Barodekar, Vilayat Hussain Khan and later, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, all vocalists, came away from their upcountry homes to settle down in Mumbai to pursue their vocation.
It is against this background that today pre-eminence of the metropolis in the field is better understood and appreciated. True, enough, it is music, music all the way in Mumbai almost round the year. What is popularly known as the ‘busy’ musical season starts with end of the monsoon and continues almost till the onset of the next rainy season.
Side by side, concert music continues to be purveyed to rasikas through monthly programmes by music circles almost throughout the year. Thus, while the marathon sangeet sammelans – most of which are commercially sponsored, star-studded and therefore highly priced – cater to the affluent sections of society, one more modest music circles, like Suburban Music Circle, the oldest institution of its kind, try to meet the needs of middle class aficionados by projecting less-known but conspicuous talent richly deserving of limelight.
It is a sad irony that barring one or two exceptions, these dedicated institutions, including the Suburban Music Circle, still do not have the requisite resources to have an auditorium of their own, Since these institutions cater to the middle-class which is the real patron of arts, commercialism has not been their pursuit – and rightly at that. In no other way can one explain the paradox that the 60-years-old Suburban Music Circle has still to hold a sammelan like one to raise funds for building an auditorium of its own!
A significant aspect of Mumbai’s concert scene is the sustained and consistent manner in which this activity is being conducted round the year. By all accounts, in point of planning, organisation and audience participation, it presents a sharp contrast to what reportedly obtains in other metropolitan cities like Delhi and Calcutta.
Little wonder, then, that the plenitude of today’s top-notchers like flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia, santorist Shivkumar Sharma, violinist D.K. Datar, sarangia like Ram Narayan have chosen Mumbai as their karma-bhoomi. The same is the case with celebrated vocalists like Jasraj, Kishori Amonkar, Prabha Atre, Shobha Gurtu, S.C.R Bhatt and Dinkar Kaikini. The lis is by no means exhaustive, and the names have been cited only as examples.
Even amid their hectic professional tours, many of the senior vocalists and instrumentalists are known to devote a good deal of time to groom talented younsters in the age-old parampara way. The budding artistes, in the various stages of grooming, include fautish Nityanand Haldipur, disciple of Devendra Murdeshwar and Annapurna Devi; Niladri Kumar, sitarist son of his sitarist father, Kartick Kumar; Bahauddin Dagar, son of the late veena maestro, Mohiuddin Khan Dagar and several others. They hold out the promise that they will forge ahead to deserve the mantle the old masters in no distant future, V.R. Athavale, Phiroze Dastur, Yeshwantbuva Joshi, Kausalya Manjeshwat and Ratnakar Pai are few notable gurus who are engaged in training young talent on the parampara pattern. The passing away of scholar- musicians like Sharadchandra Arolkar, K.G. GInde, Khadim Hussain Khan and Vasantrao Kulkarni came as a grievous loss to Hindustani music.
Strange but true, very few in concert would seem to be aware of the blue-blooded parampara grooming that is being given, without fus or ostentation, by acknowledged masters like Annapurna Devi, daughter and disciple of the great Allauddin khan of Maihar, and sister of inimitable sarod maestro, Ali Akbar Khan. The late Nikhil Banerjee and today’s superstar Hariprasad Chaurasia have benefited immensely from her guidance. Limitations of space forbid individual mention of the present generation artistes who are in the making.
Another noteworthy aspect of Mumbai’s concert scene is the preponderance of women artistes. It would seem, as though they have managed to steal a march over their male counterparts. What is more, almost all of them come of well-placed cultured and educated families and are also housewives. And despite their high academic qualifications in other disciplines, they have taken to concert life as serious pursuit rather than a joyous hobby. To mention a few instances, the names that come to mind are those of sarodist Zarin Daruwala- Sharma, and vocalists Shruti Sadolikar-Katkar, Padma Talwalkar, Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande, Aarti Anklikar-Tikekar, Pratima Patwardhan-Tilak and Sandhya Kathawate.
Equally significant is the point that all these artistes have had the benefit of studentship from more than one guru but in the traditional way, and not through scholastic education. As a result, they show a distinctly individual approach with an eclectic character, even while it retains its moorings firmly in tradition. All of which reaffirms the validity of the parampara ideology in the preservation and progress of our performing art even under the fast changing conditions.
Mumbai has two full-fledged departments of music affiliated to two chartered universities where instruction is given up to the post graduate level. There are, besides, other institutions like the branches of Gandharva Mahavidyalaya and the Bhatkhande Vidyapeeth, imparting instruction in Hindustani music on the same lines, not speak of a plenitude of smaller institutions.
But the question arises whether institutional education at the university level, which is supposedly aimed at training students in the traditional way, has really succeeded in throwing up artistes worthy of billing on the prestigious concert platform. To my mind, sadly, the answer has to be in the negative is one goes by the quality of artistes coming out of their respective alma mater No one need have doubts about their intellectual calibre or erudition, though!
A latter-day development that needs to be watched is the gradual exodus of artistes from Mumbai to salubrious cities like Pune – which has also long enjoyed a high position on the musical map. Leading the list of such artistes who have settled in Pune are Jitendra Abhisheki, Sayeeduddin Dagar, and young sitarist Shaheed Parvez, to name a few. It may be that they wished to move away from Mumbai’s maddening crowd and hectic life in search of a calm peaceful environment.
All said and done, two factors do seem to stand out prominently in the metropolitan scene. Very few educated youngsters show the courage to take to music as a full-time profession. While the commitment to their art looks laudable (despite the onslaught of urban alienation) to the large body of serious and sincere connoisseurs from the older generation, who have savoured better concert music in better environment, the prospects look paradoxical,
True, in terms of sheer numbers, on witnesses an exponential growth. The spectacle is one of horizontal, not vertical progress. It has not only created but also sustained the illusion of a ‘musical renaissance’. The more optimistic watchers feel that is happening today in the nature of a ferment and, therefore, a passing phase. Whether it is indicative of a ferment or turmoil, only Time will tell.