"Alladiya Khan was a Saraswat Brahmin." Dhondutai Kulkarni
Harish Chinai
interview Smt. Dhondutai Kulkarni gave to Namita Devidayal of Times of
India on March 16,'98.
Music devoid of religious colouring kept Khansaheb moving
The Times of India, 16 March, 1998
Ustad Alladiya Khan
It had been over an hour into the rigorous lesson, but the student was
having difficulty with 'Raag Tilak Kamod'. The notes kept slipping into
'Desh'. Exasperated, she asked, "Raag. Gharana. Why does all this
matter, as long as it sounds good?"
Her teacher, Dhondutai Kulkarni, stopped singing and said softly,
"Because this is the 'adhyatmik' music of Haridas Swami. Let me tell you
a little story.." She put down her tanpura and motioned to the tabalchi
to stop playing.
"Alladiya Khan was a Saraswat Brahmin."
The student looked incredulous. To thus rewrite the history around the
legendary founder of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana was close to blasphemy.
But clearly there was a story here, one that evoked not only the strains
of this particular school of music, but also touched on the nuances of
India's social history. Alladiya Khan, whose birth anniversary falls on
March 16, was born into the family of Nath Vishwambhar, the direct
descendant of Haridas Swami, deemed to be one of the fathers of
Hindustani classical music.
One of the Khansahib's forefathers was the court musician and head
purohit of a small princely state called Anup Shahar. During a spate of
takeovers, the king of Anup Shahar was captured by the badshah of Delhi.
Shortly after that, the court
musician disappeared, without telling anyone where he was going. He made
his way to the outskirts of Delhi, established himself in a small sarai,
and started singing. Over the weeks, many gathered to hear him, until
the news of his musical prowess reached the badshah. The emperor
summoned him to his court and asked him to perform. Moved by his music,
he said, "Ask for anything and it will be yours."
"Are you sure?" Expecting the usual request for jewels or gold, the
badshah smiled and nodded. The canny musician then asked for the release
of Anup Shahar's king.
Taken aback, the badshah thought for a bit, then said, "I will release
him, but only if you convert." The badshah thought that this condition
would never be fulfilled by the singer. But loyalty to the king --
deemed in those times to be an avtaar of Vishnu -- prompted the singer
to agree right away. And that is how he became a Muslim.
"But when anyone falls ill in their family, they still do a satyanarayan
pooja -- not in their home, of course, but at a neighbour's," smiles
Dhondutai, who started her musical training under Alladiya Khan's son,
Burji Khan, in Kolhapur.
Many years later, when Alladiya Khan told this story to his biographer,
Govindrao Tembe, the scholar-writer asked him, "Why doesn't your family
convert back?"
"Is it necessary?" the Khansahib asked. "Besides, even if we convert,
will you give us your daughters in marriage? Will you eat roti with us?"
The assembly of brahmanical scholars who were seated around him remained
silent. "If I convert, I will be neither here nor there. Better I stay
this way," he said laughing.
However, there is more to the origins of this gharana than these
adhyatmik roots. It came into being during one of the most strained
moments in Alladiya Khan's life.
Long before he established himself in the court of Jaipur, the Khansahib
had spent a brief tenure under the patronage of a small prince who was
insanely passionate about music.
The prince forced the Khansahib to perform relentlessly, day and night,
until the singer lost his voice. Distressed, he was on the verge of
suicide, when someone said to him, "Killing yourself would be the easy
option. Instead, create music that has never been sung before."
Thus, the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana, does not lay great stress on the
quality of voice. Characterised by complicated taans, a constant
interaction between singing and percussion, and the full-throated
aakaar, this school of music has, rather, a deeply intellectual
orientation -- something which the recordings of Kesarbai Kerkar,
Mallikarjun Mansur and Mogubai Kurdikar, among others, will always
attest to.
Building a gharana brick by brick
He was an exacting genius who tried to convey the nuances of a raag as
compactly as possible. Doyen of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana, Ustad
Alladiya Khan is remembered here by Dhondutai Kulkarni, a leading
practitioner of the gharana. By Sathya Saran
Fifty years after his death, Alladiya Khan's music lives on in the
memory of his admirers and the succeeding generations of singers who
tutored under him and have kept the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana a living
force.
It was in 1896 that Alladiya Khan first laid the foundations of the
gharana as it's practised today, having learnt his music for most of 36
years from his uncle Jehangir Khan, who, in turn, had learnt from his
brother and Alladiya Khan's father, Khawaja Ahmed Khan.
Alladiya moved from his native Jaipur to Baroda, and thenceforth to
Bombay. Here he lived a life dedicated to music sessions that took place
mostly at his own home, but such was the force of his singing that it
attracted attention all round.
It wasn't long before news of his genius reached the court in the
kingdom of Kolhapur and Alladiya Khan was invited as the court singer in
1896. Presiding over matters musical in the royal durbar, Alladiya Khan
spent his years there perfecting his art, and evolving a style that
lives and grows even in an age where classical music has been drowned
out by a more strident kind of music.
Today the exponents of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana, who include Dhondutai
Kulkarni, Kishori Amonkar, Shruti Sadolikar-Katkar and Jitendra
Abhisekhi among others, have kept the flag flying high. Khan saheb's
main disciple, Kesarbai Kerkar, took on from him the mantle of teacher,
and in her inimitable style, perfected the real gayaki, based on the
dhrupad dhamar style. In the process she also made it more acceptable.
Today, though Kesarbai's voice is only a memory that has been poorly
captured as a couple of moments of pure song in a few records and
cassettes, the Jaipur-Attrauli gharana lures the largest number of new
students and listeners, thanks to its rich tradition of different raags,
many of which are sung by practitioners of no other gharana.
Khan saheb's style of expounding each raag with the asthayi antra, of
giving the bandish utmost importance, and ensuring it is sung clearly
and properly, of using voice culture to present a raag in such a manner
that even 10 minutes of singing can convey its complete texture and
colour, are lessons that the exponents of the gharana have treasured and
passed on; and it is this that has resulted in the gharana's present
strength and popularity.
"Khan saheb knew almost 15,000 compositions by rote," says Dhondutai
Kulkarni, one of his foremost disciples. She first met him when she was
about 15 years old, and talks of his imposing height, his luxuriant
whiskers, bright pink safa
(turban) and the black cane he always carried with him.
Though the age difference between the 90-year-old genius and the
teenaged pupil of his son, Burji Khan, was substantial, Alladiya Khan
took an indulgent liking for her. "He would come over to our house
sometimes, on his way to the garden he
loved to walk in; at other times, I was allowed to visit, and listen
while he sang, or talked on matters relating to music," she reminisces.
"Perhaps he felt I showed promise, and therefore indulged me."
She recounts how he once decided to hear her sing. "A scholar of music
tipped him off that his son, Burji Khan, had been giving me good
training. At which, Khan saheb said he wanted to hear me sing.
"Pandemonium broke loose in my family. Why would a genius of his stature
want to waste his time listening to me sing! But when my father finally
told Burji Khan about the matter, my guru told him promptly, 'Don't
delay, let her sing for him, he is not testing her, but me, as a
teacher. And if you delay, he will walk in casually while I'm at my
lessons, and that, I cannot dare to allow to happen.' So a formal
invitation was sent, and Alladiya Khan came over to Dhondutai's home for
dinner to hear her sing."
She passed the test. "There was a strange camaraderie between us, like
that between a grandfather and granddaughter," Dhondutai says. "I had no
fear of his stature, I was too young to be in awe; I'd joke with him,
ask him questions, report to him about the musical soirees he could not
attend, and comment on the various singers. He appreciated my comments,
and would listen carefully."
Alladiya Khan continued to create music till his last days. "Once he
lost his voice temporarily, he was almost driven to despair and
suicide," Dhondutai recalls. "But instead, he found his courage, and
used the time to evolve a method of singing that emphasised the style,
rather than the voice, of the singer. This is one reason why our gharana
has such an intricate and rich style," she adds.
"If I live another year, I will have something wonderful to share with
all of you," he had said 50 years ago. But that was not to be. Yet his
music lives on, in the city where he lies buried, a tribute being paid
annually to the genius for the last 19 years.