A group of teenage boys, donning skull caps, sit by the Ganges. The triptych, essentially a set of three panels, manoeuvers this particular frame from various angles and has a story to tell. “‘Hum toh Ganga ma to dekhne aaye hein.’ This is what the boys told me. This incident epitomises the spirit of Varanasi,” says Soumitra Ranade, filmmaker and photographer. The varied frames that he captured, which were later treated as collages, form the visual backdrop of Karadi Tales’ new book, Varsha’s Varanasi. Through his frames, and the way in which they are portrayed, the spiritual city’s many shades and layers come alive.

Varsha’s Varanasi tells the tale of a tour guide’s daughter who is in search of her father to give him the pair of spectacles that he had left behind. Through the narrow alleyways, busy streets filled with cows and the banks of the Ganges she goes, virtually inviting the readers to follow her lead. The story, written by Chitra Soundar, is backed by the photo collages treated extensively by Soumitra.

“When Shobha of Karadi Tales approached me to do this book it was supposed to be illustrated. But Varanasi being what it is, I thought it would be better if it was photographic,” says the artist, adding that he observed the city for the two months that he was there, and let it speak to him before arriving at the frames. As he got familiarised with the city, Soumitra realised that it is a place that “operates on so many levels”, leading him to stray away from plain photographs, towards collages that rightly capture the multiple, parallel narratives of Varanasi. “How does one remain truthful to the many movements, colours, textures and forms? I have used multiple frames to coincide, treated on photoshop by adding different colours and textures to it,” explains Soumitra. He believes that a single image cannot bring out the ambiguities, contradictions and contexts of a particular frame.

The city made him see and feel different emotions, he says. “Varanasi kind of grows on you. Everything that you see around you is mundane. All these routine activities operate on a very metaphysical way. Something that happens at a given time and point, is strangely linked to something else that’s happening somewhere else. Once you get into the rhythm of the city, it’s quite hypnotic.”

The faith the people have on the river is quite mesmerising, according to the filmmaker. The people in the city go about something as routine as washing their clothes in the river, in a spiritual way. “And, you always have to negotiate with the cows,” laughs Soumitra. To him, the tenor of the city lies in how different it is from an urban setting. Pointing to another triptych of his, which shows a man buying kachoris from the shopkeeper and having a candid conversation at the same time, he continues, “This old man, buys kachoris from the shopkeeper every day. They have a very interesting relationship. The customer advises him on his personal life and so on. In the urban setting, everyone is on their own trip.”

After working on this project, Soumitra had a lingering thought that he hadn’t experienced the city in a complete way. This paved the way for his triptychs to form an independent exhibition, titled Varanasi Walk. “My whole way of seeing things is compository — I see everything as a continuous shot. One single image can never capture what one has to say. I see it in motion. The past, the immediate future, all are a part of it.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Entertainment> Art / by Gowri S / December 03rd, 2018

Malini Awasthi shines a light on different strands of the secular culture that continues to live on through its music

The legends of Awadh need no introduction. The kind of art, culture and traditions that emerged out of a province has almost come to define an entire genre of music today. As an artiste from Awadh, who has grown up there and is recognised with it, Malini Awasthi’s muse came early to her.

“I have observed the music of Awadh I have spoken independently about the journey of it and how it has evolved over the years. Being classically trained and with an excess or passion for its folk music, I have also been blessed with the Ustad from Lucknow, Rahat Ali Khan saab as well. I have also been closely associated with mirasans, who went to different houses and sang for ceremonial functions, like childbirths, or weddings. I also went through some of the thumris of Wajid Ali Shah and so I thought that it was time that the journey of music of Awadh is separately seen by people in totality,” says Awasthi. In an effort to bring together all of Awadh’s heritage, Awasthi along with musicologist Yatindra Mishra, is bringing to Delhi Awadh ki Raushan Chauki. It will showcase the Awadhi heritage through music, stories, anecdotes and conversations.

“It is an interesting concept starting from Ram. Any boy who is born or is married, the importance of Ram is overwhelming in his life. He is the epitome of all the celebrations there. It sort of changed when Khusrau came in the 13th century from Delhi. He lived in Faizabad which was then capital of Awadh. He familiarised himself with the local dialect, Awadhi, and his sufiyana influence gave so many dimensions to the music of Awadh, starting from “Chaap Tilak to Mai Toh Piya se Naina Milayi”.

Then came Tulsidas who re-established Ram as the saviour of the society, and Ramcharit Manas became part of the popular culture. We also had the mirasans and tawaiifs later. Due to Wajid Ali Shah’s interest in dance, he wrote particular thumri songs for it. And we all know how Begum Akhtar who lived in Faizabad made ghazal ghazal. Later, the film music evolved due to composers like Madan Mohan, influenced by Awadhi dialect and music. So I thought I will put it all together, in one space, where I am going to talk as well as sing. The climate would be Awadh and film songs,” says Awasthi.

“We have picked a few factual stories, about how particular songs originated like the word bitiya, which is popular in songs as well as the dialect. There are also sohars, which when Hindus sing use Kaushalya and Ram and when Muslims sing use Nabi and Fatima, with the same compositions, which is very interesting. I always wonder what music would have been if not for Lucknow or Awadh. The rich traditions of mirasans and tawaiifs has resulted in numerous beautiful compositions in films as well. It is essentially about this evolution of music from Awadh, and the people who came, influenced and changed the musical scene of Awadh,” she adds.

But, folk, essentially has struggled a lot more than classical to gain a certain momentum in India. “People have been very biased against folk. They might be able to appreciate it superficially at the surface level but there are no long term plans to sustain folk traditions. Looking at how fast the world is changing, it is scary for certain instruments and folk traditions to continue,” she says.

The music of Awadh ranges from nautanki, dadra, thumri, ghazal, khayal, sohar, banna, mubaraqbadi, kajri, chaiti to name only a few. “They are all traditional folk form. Inspite of this step-motherly treatment given to folk, somebody needs to talk about it. A lot of literature has also originated here so it is time that we give respect to it and its artists. I just find myself to be the medium,” says Awasthi.

True to identity

She says that to embrace folk, one needs to embrace the lives of the people, sans which, there will be a lack in one’s sensibilities.

“Folk is more of a lifestyle and not just a stream of music. They are sung because you believe in them and only someone who believes in those traditions can do justice. My graduation in Sanskrit also helped me take myself back to my value system, which also improved my Hindi. Our Indianness, our traditions, were common and only the expressions were different.” Awasthi finds it sad that folk artistes haves been reduced to performance orientations. “Songs are a part of their lives. They were never meant to perform on the stage. There is a contrast in the sensibilities as well, to see them in artificial settings. They can never understand what is being sung. The 100 years preceding independence was one of the best phases of Indian music wherein everything evolved. Different people followed different streams of music, but it was inclusive. Post independence, people became extremely narrow minded about their art. As an artiste, I need to stay true to my identity.”

(“Awadh Ki Raushan Chauki” will be held at Kamani Auditorium on 26th October at 7p.m.)

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Entertainment> Music / by Anuradha Vellat / October 26th, 2018

The tabla maestro, brought up in Varanasi, was trained under his father, Vasudev Maharaj and started performing from a fairly early age. In order to celebrate his 74th birth anniversary, Googe doodle has been dedicated to him today.

Born in 1944 as Laxmi Narayan Singh, Pandit Lacchu Maharaj has been the recipient of several accolades. The tabla maestro, who was brought up in Varanasi, trained under his father, Vasudev Maharaj, and started performing on stage from a fairly young age. Although his talent was never doubted, the maestro did not find much fame during his lifetime. It was his namesake and famous kathak dancer Lachhu Maharaj who received most of the adulation. Celebrating his 74th birth anniversary, Google on Tuesday paid tribute with a doodle of him on its homepage.

Watch him perform here.

source: http://www.youtube.com

During his lifetime, Pandit Lacchu Maharaj performed with various artistes but it was his solo performances that are best remembered. After smoking a chillum, he would go on to play for a few hours as the audience sat enthralled and mesmerised. “What was interesting was that in all those hours, there would never be any repetition. He would keep showcasing new gats, tukras and parans (compositional forms) for all that time, leaving his audiences mesmerised,” Girija Devi, who had accompanied him on stage, had said.

source: http://www.youtube.com

As a form of protest, the table maestro had apparently played the tabla inside the prison during Emergency and refused the awards that were given to him, including Padma Shri. “Applause from the audience is any artiste’s prize. He/she does not need anything else,” he was often heard saying.

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Art & Culture / by Lifestyle Desk / New Delhi – October 16th, 2018

In ‘Requiem in Raga Janki’, Neelum Saran Gour pays careful attention to the richness and texture of an extraordinary yet forgotten life.

Janki Bai of Allahabad was a star of her time. A contemporary of Gauhar Jaan of Calcutta, she was one of the earliest recording artists of India, and it is thanks to gramophone technology that we can still hear what she sounded like when she sang the thumris and ghazals she was so well loved for.

The broad details of Janki Bai’s life are known – that she was from Benaras, the daughter of Shiv Balak, a wrestler and Manki, that her mother, who was sold into a kotha in Allahabad, made sure Janki was trained in vocal music by Ustad Hassu Khan, that Janki became an accomplished and eventually successful singer, that she wrote ghazals that were published in a collection titled Diwan-e-Janki, that she sang at the Delhi Durbar in 1911 with Gauhar Jaan, that she amassed a great deal of property and wealth, and that she had a marriage that eventually failed.

But perhaps the single most repeated detail of Janki’s life is that she was nicknamed “chappan churi” – she of the fifty-six knives, after a horrific attack on her life that she survived when she was very young.

A long overdue story

To a student of courtesan culture, in which the Indian sub-continent has been seeped for hundreds of years, perhaps it is this last fact that is the most frustrating. Here was a woman who lived a full and fascinating life, who by all accounts reached the pinnacle of worldly success that was possible for a woman in her position and context at the time in which she lived. And yet, when she is remembered at all, it is for what was done to her when she had not yet lived most of this life,.

This detail perfectly encapsulates how stories about courtesans in general are now told in India – the reduction of a long, complex and diverse set of histories into one neat little idea. One interesting way to respond to this reduction is by doing exactly what Neelum Saran Gour has done in a remarkable novel titled Requiem in Raga Janki – by paying careful attention to the richness and texture of one life.

Gour breathes life into her reimagination of Janki’s journeys by inhabiting the voice of a unnamed narrator (presumably a fellow tawaif) who, in her own words, is “pushing ninety” and promises to “tell you what I know of her and also what I guess and imagine.”

This guessing and imagination is essential to a retelling of this kind, for even our chronicles of the best known courtesans’ lives are marked with elisions and erasures. For hundreds of years, courtesans have been represented largely by other people, and these representations have been shaped by the agendas and biases of those telling the stories, whether it is a Mughal morality tale or an iconic Bombay film. The result is that although stories of courtesans proliferate, they are animated less by the courtesans’ lived realities and more by ideas projected onto their lives and persons.

Fiction is best placed to play with, and powerfully challenge, these flattened representations, which is why it is bewildering that Gour’s novel is the first major Indian novel in English that deals with the subject head on.

Restoring the protagonist

Fortunately, Requiem in Raga Janki lives up to this challenge superbly. Gour’s knowledge of her subject is formidable, but her writing is very rarely overtaken by the breadth of her research, whether it is the history of Allahabad, or an exhaustive history of Hindustani music and the many forgotten women who shaped it for so long. With all the noble intentions in the world, a novel only works if it keeps the reader wanting to turn the page, and Gour’s skill as a fiction writer keeps the reader’s appetite whetted.

In Gour’s hands, Janki becomes more than an idea, a courtesan needing to be rescued from obscurity or obfuscation – she becomes the protagonist she always was. The subjects of her musical training, her relationships with her family and her milieu, her conversion to Islam and her navigating both her freedoms and her loves are depicted with remarkable empathy and wisdom. In the process, Gour also chronicles a particularly significant chapter in Indian history – the coming of gramophone technology to the sub-continent, and the way it transformed how music was performed and experienced.

Gour’s device of telling Janki’s story through a conversational, feisty narrator works in her favour, because this way, the guesswork that is necessary to the telling of this story becomes easy to communicate. There are many versions, for example, of the attack that left scars on Janki forever, and Gour’s narrator tells us of all of them. This is the biggest triumph of Gour’s novel – Janki’s story is never caged by one version, but breathes and flowers in its many possibilities, and therefore comes alive in a way that a subject like Janki deserves.

Requiem in Raga Janki: A Novel, Neelam Saran Gour, Penguin Random House India.

source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Book Review / by Shreya Ila Anasuya / October 21st, 2018