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The Young Maestros

Background Reportage by Arunabha Deb
(January 2012)

In the first edition of the Indian music, dance and theatre magazine Avantika (published in January 2012), music journalist Arunabha Deb wrote about the new generation of great Hindustani classical musicians aged between 30 and 40. We present his article with an introduction and eight portraits of musicians.

1. The past was glorious, the present delightful, the future burning bright
2. Kaushiki Desikan, 31, Kolkata, vocalist of the Patiala Gharana
3. Manjusha Kulkarni Patil, 40, Pune, singer of the Agra, Gwalior and Jaipur gharanas
4. Purbayan Chatterjee (35), Kolkata, sitar player of the Senia Maihar gharana
5. Jayateerth Mevundi (38), Hubli / Karnataka, singer of the Kirana Gharana
6. Omkar Dadarkar (34), Kolkata, singer of the Gwalior, Agra, Jaipur gharanas
7. Murad Ali (35), Delhi, sarangi player of the Moradabad gharana
8. Satyajit Talwalkar(35), Mumbai, tabla player without specific gharana
9. Debanjan Bhattacharya (25), Kolkata, sarod player of the Senia Maihar gharana


1. The past was glorious, the present delightful, the future burning bright

The popular media got many an opportunity to kiss Hindustani music goodbye over the last decade. Since the death of Ustad Alla Rakha in 2000, many stalwarts have followed - Ustad Vilayat Khan in 2004; Pandit Kishan Maharaj in 2008; Ustad Ali Akbar Khan in 2009; and, most recently, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi in 2011. Of what could well be called a golden generation, only Pandit Ravi Shankar remains, evergreen (as he has always been) at 92. With each of these maestros passing away, the media has created murmurs of despair; with each personal epitaph, it has built the tombstone of Hindustani music at large. The lament? Young people are disinterested in either practicing or engaging in classical music; with the golden generation rested the hopes of our great music, and now, we are staring into (and therein comes that dirty word) a void.

The apprehension is misplaced, to say the very least. Even before one takes a look at the plethora of really young Hindustani musicians that are performing at large, it would be prudent to take a step back and look at the generation between the one that is gone and the one that is emerging. Who do we find? Amongst instrumentalists we have Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Ustad Zakir Hussain and Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan; amongst vocalists, there are Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar, Kishori Amonkar und Ustad Rashid Khan.

So there was never any question of a void. What is heartening is that new faces are already knocking on the doors of these maestros. And that shouldn't really be a surprise. In a tradition that has always measured the value of a musician, among other things, by the quality of his / her disciples, it is only expected that each generation should work as hard as the one previous in ensuring that the legacy continues. Of course, the world changes a tiny bit every day. For under-40 musicians today, there are options that their gurus could not have imagined. That makes this generation more divers still: their choices define them more significantly than ever before: some have stuck to tradition, some have abandoned it altogether and most are in the process of figuring out a place somewhere in between. As the poster girl of the new generation Kaushiki Desikan so eloquently puts it, "Tradition is a fluid motion - we are trained in ti, but then we also contribute to it."


2. Kaushiki Desikan, 31, Kolkata, vocalist of the Patiala Gharana

Kaushiki had started out as a complete traditionalist. She stormed into the world of music at the age of 17, in 1997, with her debut concert at the India Habitat Centre in Delhi. Her rendition of Kedar (later released by Music Today) was enough to answer the critics who were vicious in attributing her early success to her lineage. Daughter and disciple of Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty, Kaushiki has always carried the weight of her legacy with clarity and ease. "I'm not foolish enough to think that other girls my age couldn't have achieved what I have if they got the same opportunities as I did," she says. But she's quick to add that she has justified these opportunities: "An organizer may come to me once or even twice because I'm my father's daughter, but he wouldn't come back a third time if he didn't really want me to perform in his festival."

At 31, she is unquestionably the leading female vocalist of her generation. Today, it would be laughable to insinuate that she holds this mantle on the strength of her father's stature in the music world. Right from shaping her gayaki to deciding on the trajectory of her career, her decisions have been her own. Earlier in her career, she was heavily criticized for her overemphasis on tayari (especially on sargam-based taans) in her recitals, but she stuck to what she believed in. "I'm not a 40-year-old trapped in a twenty-something's body," she had told this reporter three years back "As a young girl, I like to perform my sargams and provide a certain climax to my recitals." Eventually, what was a point of criticism became a celebrated hallmark in her singing. Naysayers still point this trait out as a signifier of her immaturity, but, as always, her response to criticism is balanced. "I know that sometimes I go overboard with my tayari. I am working on it. But at the same time, it is ridiculous to say that tayari implies immaturity. So, Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan's gayaki was immature?"

In terms of her professional choices, she has been less in haste than many in her generaton to experiment with other forms. "I first wanted to ensure that my identity as a classical singer was entrenched in the minds of audiences. I was apprehensive that by experimenting with other forms too soon, I would risk diluting that identity," ??she said. For her, the decision to involve herself with a non-classical project is always dertmined by one factor: "I ask myself, can I justify my presence in the project?" Of late, her inner voice has been answering fairly frequently in the affirmative: she has sung in two Bengali films: Chaplin and Jani Dekha Hobe; in another, Chitrangada, apart from having sung, she appears in the film as herself (quite a clever ploy by Bengal's raging auteur Rituparno Ghosh to finally get her on the screen; he has been badgering her to act for quite a few years now).

There are also independent albums in the offing: one in collaboration with Rabindrasangeet singer Sraboni Sen and another, a joint effort with Purbayan Chatterjee and Sonu Nigam. But these new ventures have not hindered her previous schedule in any way: even now, she is as busy as ever with her classical concerts. This season, she has a concert in Maharashtra almost every week.


3. Manjusha Kulkarni Patil, 40, Pune, singer of the Agra, Gwalior and Jaipur gharanas

Manjusha Kulkarni Patil, another fierce young vocalist, is flying Maharashtra's flag high. Listeners find her only on the classical stage and from the kind of following she has generated, it seems that she doesn't need to look beyond that space. Hers is almost a textbook success story: small town, backbreaking riyaz, slow start, and finally, the light at the end of the tunnel. She was born in Sangli, Maharashtra; after initial talim under Chintubua Mhaiskar, she became a disciple of Pandit D. V. Kane (popularly know as Kane Bua). Kane lived in Ichalkaranji, a town close to Sangli: Manjusha had to travel daily between the two towns for her talim. On weekends she would stay over at her guru's house for intensive talim and riyaz. "The weekends were special", she says. "It was a continuing process of learning and then practising in front of him. If I made a mistake, he would immediately stop me and I would have to keep singing the part until I got it right."

She narrates stories of how she has sat with the tanpura for ten hours at a stretch while her guru has taught her. Her value system, expectedly, is more attuned to the old school: "I see students using recorders now to record their talim sessions. I think this is quite harmful: your attention is never as focused. When you know that you have one shot at internalising what your guru is teaching, the talim is immediately elevated to another level.!

Kane was an exponent of the Agra and the Gwalior gharanas. Manjusha's gayaki is faithful to both gharanas. Her present guru, Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar, is also an Agra and Gwalior exponent (as well as Jaipur - Atrauli). She feels that the Agra gharana has, of late, been on the wane and vocalists partially trained in the Gwalior gharana tend to prioritise the Gwalior elements over others. "That's why I try to bring out the Agra flavour in my renditions. Sometimes I do nom-tom alaps (a dhrupad-inspired Agra speciality), but this depends on the raags and whether it fits into the Agra style", she says.

She offers a rich variety within her khayal presentations; she also traverses with ease across different genres of light classical music. Thumris and bhajans are part of every vocalist's repertoire; her command over tappas, natyasangeet and lavanis differentiate her from her contemporaries The combination of her robust voice and her repertoire initially made her a favourite in western India, but now she is being regularly invited to perform at Delhi and Kolkata. Her recital at the Dover Lane Music Conference last year created a buzz that few young artists can achieve in Kolkata, which, as Pandit Ravi Shankar puts it, is still "the final frontier of music" to be conquered by any artiste.


4. Purbayan Chatterjee (35), Kolkata, sitar player of the Senia Maihar gharana

The rules don't change for instrumental music. Purbayan Chatterjee had figured this out early. He stormed into the Kolkata performance circuit in his late teens; the early success could be attributed to the likeness of his playing style to that of late Pandit Nikhil Banerjee. His father and guru, Partha Chatterjee, was a disciple of Banerjee. Purbayan consciously modelled himself in the image of the maestro, to the extent that he played raag Darbari and raag Hemant in his first appearance at Dover Lane - the same raags played by Banerjee in his last appearance at the festival. The confidently performed pieces evoked nostalgia for many Banerjee fans and brought Purbayan significant recognition at the start of his career. But Purbayan knew he could not ride on nostalgia for long. Before people started calling him a clone, he considerably changed his playing style and then followed up by dramatically changing his musical persona.

Ask any connoisseur to identify the sitar's brightest hope and you are sure to get Purbayan's name. You can also be certain that after him, most people will fumble for a second name. In the generation of sitar players after Pandit Budhaditya Mukherjee and Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan, Purbayan has essentialy established a monopoly.

He asserts that it was the time spent with non-musicians that gave him a new perspective, which, in turn, made him reconsider his positioning as a musician. Before anything else, he wanted to dispel the myth that classical musicians are entitled to the top rung in the hierarchy of music. "I launched my first band, Shastriya Syndicate, as a classical ensemble," he says. "I had then felt that I was doing something more profound than fusion. I soon realised that this supposed high ground was of no use; that playing with other genres of music was challenging and enjoyable. I decided that I would perform both classical and collaborative music - and that I won't be shy or in denial about co-existing in the two different worlds."

The source of Purbayan's confidence is the faith that classical organisers still show in him. They might know that he is a popular choice in several corporate shows and that his antics with the electric sitar around his neck are several cultural worlds away from his classical avatar but he continues to be invited to all the important festivals in the country, be it Saptak, Sawai or the Tansen-Samaroh. His classical concerts bear no whiff of his experimental ventures: he adheres to the strict demands of raags and listeners have accepted his aesthetic blend of contemplative alap and forceful tayari, the latter often drawing from the Imdadkhani Gharana.


5. Jayateerth Mevundi (38), Hubli / Karnataka, singer of the Kirana Gharana

Last year's Dover Lane Festival witnessed a rare phenomenon. A lanky young man from Hubli-Dharwad (that square inch of ivory in northern Karnatak tha never ceases to produce brilliant vocalists) was invited to sing at the festival for the second year in a row. Apart from top maestros (and Kaushiki Desikan), almost no other artist is accorded this honour that the organisers of Dover Lane reserved for Jayateerth Mevundi. And they foudn vindication in a special guest in the first row: Pandit Jasraj dropped in especially to listen to Jayateerth and, when the youngster finished his rendition of Puriya Kalyan, gave him a standing ovation.

But Jayateerth is no stranger to special attention. His life had hit rock bottom in the early Nineties: His singing career was not taking off and he was finding it hard to make ends meet in Hubli. Eventually, he took a job as a tanpura player with All India Radio, Goa, and left his hometown. It was during his tenure in Goa that he received the phone call that changed his life. The station director summoned him to say that there was a call for him from Pune. It was Pandit Bhimsen Joshi who was on the line. The maestro had heard reports of Jayateerth's recitals and wanted him to perform at the Sawai Gandharva Sangeet Mahotsava that year (a festival that Joshi orgnised in the memory of his guru, Pandit Sawai Gandharva). Jayateerth was given a forty-minute slot, enough time for him to sing a Yaman that sent the audience into a tizzy. They would not let him go after one piece and hollered for more. He gave them a Bahar, but they wanted more still. Joshi then requested him to sing a Kannada bhajan - a trademark of Hubli-Dharwad, their common place of birth. Later, Joshi was to say on several occaisons that the future of the Kirana Gharana was safe in Jayatheerth's hands.

To his credit, Jayateerth has lived up to that promise. That he is the most prominent young face of the Kirana Gharana is a foregone conclusion; it would not be an exaggeration to say that he is the leading male vocalist of his generation. He has left his AIR job and is back at Hubli. "I find a lot more peace here," he says, "there is no better place to focus on my music and do my riayz." He has no intentions of moving to a bigger town. And why should he? Organisers from across the country are seeking him out from his quiet haven; his decision to remain there has not come at a professional price. He has regular recitals in Delhi and in Kolkata. And as for Maharashtra and northern Karnataka, he has a recital almost every day in peak season.


6. Omkar Dadarkar (34), Kolkata, singer of the Gwalior, Agra, Jaipur gharanas

The only other male vocalist whose name crops up alongside Jayateerth Mevundi's is that of Omkar Dadarkar. His singing style is totally different: as a disciple of Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar he fuses Agra, Gwalior and Jaipur in his gayaki. But in terms of impact on audiences he is at par with Jayateerth. It works out differently for each young musician and Omkar is certainly not yet as busy as Jayateerth, but if recent recitals are anything to go by, he should not be far behind. Last monsoon, his rendition of Miyanki Malhar at a Kolkata recital (with his guru sitting in the front row: always a nerve-wracking experience) was nothing less than unforgettable. Eyes shut, it would have been impossible to tell that it was an upcoming artiste who was singing and not a maestro. His pukaars in the higher octaves, his supersonic taans and the splendour of his baritone at large all combined to assert his position as one of the finest young artistes in the country.

And he does not seem to be particularly perturbed about popularity. "Different people have different notions of success. Right now I am happy to be where I am," he says. He is presently a junior guru at the ITC Sangeet Research Academy in Kolkata, a position that gives him time for riyaz and, more importantly, proximity to his guru who is also at the academy. In spite of an intimate talm schedule with his guru, Omkar has been careful to avoid imitation. Kashalkar is one of the leading maestros of the country today; over the last decade audiences have been exposed to both him and Omkar; it was imperative for the disciple to forge an individual style. Imitation would have certainly resulted in rejection by the audience: it is well established that nobody wanty a photocopy, particularly when the original is still in circulation.


7. Murad Ali (35), Delhi, sarangi player of the Moradabad gharana

As the most promising young ambassador of the sarangi, Murad Ali is wanted across the board: classical vocalists, music directors and bands all vie for his time. He succeeds in not disappointing any of them. Alongside, he also gets solos at festivals like Sawai Gandharva and Vishnu Digambar Jayanti, where there are no regular slots for sarangi solos. A sixth-generation sarangi player, Murad says that he was never pressurised to take up the instrument. "My twin brothers play the sitar. Even I could have chosen another instrument. But I wanted to carry on the family legacy," he says.

He took lessons in singing and on the instrument from his grandfather Ustad Siddique Ahmad Khan and father Ustad Ghulam Sabir Khan respectively. By his early 20s, Murad was a regular in studio recordings and had also built considerable reputation as a classical musician. "I have a huge debt to Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan," he says. "I was part of her Ab Ke Sawan and have been playing with her ever since. She encouraged me to believe that I could be a classical and a commercial musician at the same time." He is not hesitant to admit that he has learnt as much from music directors during studio recordings as he has from his gurus. "Studio recording is far from easy. There's no room to go wrong and anyone would hate being corrected by the music director in front of other musicians. That pressure constantly pushes you towards perfection."

In keeping with the trend of his generation, Murad is also neck deep in collaborative music. He was a member of Purbayan Chatterjee's ensemble Shastriya Syndicate and has recently formed his own band Soul Samvaad. "Fusion requires serious engagement," he says, "and it's also a great way for us to earn money. And fusion doesn't have to be the dhik-chik variety - our pieces are based on raags and what conforms to our aesthetics." Murad is in agreement with Purbayan Chatterjee: as long as the two kinds of music don't overlap, listeners on both sides are content. However, he does sound a note of caution: he feels that fusion is often seen as a sham because for many young musician it is an easy route to get shows. "If you want to advance as a Hindustani musician, you have to go through a period of uncompromised talim," he says. "Only when the fundamentals are in place, can you think of venturing towards new and meaningful experiments."


8. Satyajit Talwalkar(35), Mumbai, tabla player without specific gharana

Since the success of the group Shakti in the late Seventies, with Ustad Zakir Hussain as one of the driving forces behind it, the tabla has probably emerged as the most popular cross-cultural instrument. Consequently, tabla players have been in great demand to participate in collaborative ventures. Satyajit is among the finest young tabla players in the country today; it is not surprising that he has been asked to collaborate with several groups. But, like sarangi player Murad Ali, he has taken his time before taking the plunge.

He is the son of tabla maestro Pandit Suresh Talwalkar and vocalist Padma Talwalkar. Though he was always interested in vocal music, his love for rhythm even as a child pushed him towards the tabla. Under his father's guidance, he phased out his learning (and eventually his career) according to the strict rules of tradition. "Initially, I was trained to be a soloist. For the first few years, till I was 16 or so, that was my main focus. Most of my talim comprised matter that I could play in solos. Gradually, my father started asking me to accompany vocal and then, after some time, instrumental music. And then, much later, when I felt that I was somewhat comfortable with these two aspects of tabla playing, did I decide to venture into fusion," he says.

Satyajit asserts that it is imperative to first establish oneself as a classical musician. According to him, "That is where the real challenge lies. In fusion, a lot of stuff is rehearsed, you know where the piece is going to go. But in classical you don't know where the artist is going to go. Plus, in classical concerts, you perform in front of connoisseurs, that's always a different feeling." He does play very often with other genres but insists that the satisfaction in playing pure classical music is unmatched.


9. Debanjan Bhattacharya (25), Kolkata, sarod player of the Senia Maihar gharana

Debanjan Bhattacharya, the youngest of the artists featured here, largely chooses to walk the pure classical path. At 25, he is already an empanneled artist with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (which is the pool the ICCR chooses from when it organises events in India and abroad); has won the first prize in a national competition organised by All India Radio; and has performed in most of the major music festivals in his home town of Kolkata. No wonder, then, that he is being tipped as the new face of the sarod for the Maihar gharana. He gave his first public performance in 2003, as a curtain raiser for a recital of his guru Ustad Ashish Khan, at a packed Nazrul Manch in Kolkata. In the eight years since, he has more than fulfilled his promise.

Debanjan did well in school and went on to study electronics and telecommunications engineering. In fact, he received a job offer from Infosys while he was still in college, which is when he had to battle the dilemma of choosing a conventional career or following his passion for music. "I decided to do a master's instead," he said. "Taking up the job would have meant the end of my music." That turned out to be a stellar decision (Bengali engineers are not in short supply); since then, Debanjan has surged ahead as one of the brightest hopes in instrumental music. His recitals invariably display uncanny maturity: his rendition of Marwa in a tribute concert to Ustad Ali Akbar Khan had stunned listeners. It is one of the more difficult raags to execute on the sarod; Debanjan had performed it with a balance of aesthetic judgement and virtuosity that would be beyond most established maestros. His judgement in charting a performance career displays equal maturity. Collaborative opportunities abound for sarod players but he is steadfast in his decision to first establish his identity as a pure classical musician.

Debanjan's decision and success reinforce the same truth that is evident through all these young artists: in spite of the media waxing eloquent about the need for classical musicians to rethink and reposition themselves for better marketability, musicians who are following the traditional route are doing just fine. Just as it is a myth that young classical musicians are disappearing, it is equally a myth that young audiences are looking for new soundscapes and are turning away from classical concerts. A visit to any of the several music festivals, especially in smaller towns, will reveal hundreds of young faces in the audience. Yes, there is a growing demand and hence an expending market for collaborative music, but it would be incorrect to say that this has eaten into the space occupied by pure classical music. The two markets are quite separate and, happily, seem to be coexisting well. What is significant is that none of the young musicians with promise of greatness has put the cart before the horse: like their gurus, they have first slogged at their craft, established their credentials as classical musicians and then have opened themselves up to experimenting. Their stories, like all the stories in the world of Hindustani music, have the same age-old moral: there are no short-cuts to being a maestro.