A few posts earlier I had written about my fascination and admiration for Ustad Amir Khan’s singing…I think one has to hear him singing once to realise the difference between his style and the others’…it is said that most of the singers who came after him, irrespective of Gharana, imbibed a number of features of his singing…Pt Bhimsen Joshi has publicly said that he was influenced by Ustadji’s singing…Ustadji had a number of disciples, though we may not be aware of many of them…Pt Amarnath, a disciple of Ustad Amir Khan and considered to be a genius of Indore Gharana singing, has chronicled his discipleship and relationship with his guru in great detail…and in recent times, his daughter Bindu Chawla has made every effort to place these chronicles, along with Pt Amarnath’s renditions, before the music world… and in this effort she has received solid support from Underscore Records, a unique record company run by Shubha Mudgal (yeah…the eminent Hindustani classical singer who captured the nation’s imagination through the unusual ‘Ab ke saawan’) and Aneesh Pradhan, the tabla maestro… the first of these reminiscences by Pt Amarnath was in the form of an audio CD called ‘Pioneer of the Khayal – the music of my guru Ustad Amir Khan Saheb’ (Underscore Records)…the CD is in the form of a lec-dem and was recorded live in 1982…here Pt Amarnath speaks about Ustad Amir Khan’s style of khayal singing and sings to demonstrate the unique style…listening to this CD gave me a lot of insights into Ustadji’s singing – the merukhand style, his taans, taranas, and other features…the brief liner notes say… “Called the Bernstein of India, Pt Amarnath … tells you the story of how his legendary guru, Ustad Amir Khan Saheb, not only pioneered a new gharana, but also created a new road to the khayal altogether, changing all earlier perspectives to the form…”
I was listening to Pt Amarnath’s singing for the first time in this CD…I liked it immensely…and I remember writing a mail to Shubhaji asking her if it was possible for Underscore Records to come out with at least a couple of albums of Pt Amarnath’s khayal renderings…Shubhaji wrote back saying that Bindu Chawla held all the rights and that Underscore Records would be happy to produce the albums…this was a long time back…at least 2 years ago… and they did produce 3 albums of hindustani classical vocal by Pt Amarnath sometime last year… the moment I saw them on the website, I wanted to buy them…but as it sometimes happens, it took a long time for me to actually buy them…which was…as recent as 10 days ago…I bought 2 CDs… Pandit Amaranth – Stirrings from the Soul: Vols 1 & 2…there is one more called Seep ke Moti: Pearls from the Oyster, which I intend to buy soon…
But what made me to finally buy these 2 albums was the fact that Underscore Records recently put up a book for sale in their print section which really caught my attention…and I had to own and read this book…Prophets of Indore: Memories of Ustad Amir Khan Saheb by Pandit Amarnathji … this amazing book (I am half way through…) is translated from the Hindustani into English by Bindu Chawla and published by Pandit Amarnath Memorial Foundation …
It is a bilingual book with the page on right in hindustani (devanagari script) and its translation in English on the left… the language is everyday spoken hindustani with all mid sentence pauses and stops and interrogatives…and makes for very interesting reading…as though Pt Amarnath is sitting right in front of you and speaking to you… Pt Amarnath talks about the world of Ustad Amir Khan’s khayal in the 40s-50s-60s…and it is a different world of music...of discussions, soirees, chamber concerts…and significantly, Pt Amarnath’s narration of the recognition of Ustad Amir Khan as a pioneer of a new gharana and style of khayal after Khansaheb’s death by critics and experts…and more than anything else, the emphasis in the Pt Amarnath’s narration on Ustad Amir Khan’s reflection and thinking about khayal & Hindustani classical music which made Khansaheb a great singer and an innovator…
Thank you…Shubhaji and Bindu Chawla for bringing out such gems for the aam aadmi… a forgotten magnificent piece of music history and music is now before us…
I really didn’t think that I’d write so much…but, I think I got carried away…
Jayasrinivasa Rao
1 comment:
Thank you for sharing. Can I get these recording in the States? From whom? Thank you
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