On Kishori Amonkar

Her forays into the specialties of other Gharana-s & incorporating them into her 'gayaki', firmly divided her audience. While one group preferred the eclecticism that she brought into her singing (& fetched her lifelong fans...similar to Kumar Gandharv's), the other set of listeners (like me) preferred the blend of rigour, dexterity & classicism that formed the essence of the Jaipur Atrauli Gharana. Kishori Amonkar's 'swar lagaav', 'raag-vistaar', 'lay-kaari' &, of course, 'taan-kaari' were of the highest order & on days that she decided to stay faithful to her Gharana's 'khaasiyat'-s, her recitals became ethereal things of beauty. And why not? Her mother & guru, Mogubai Kurdikar, was considered by many experts to have imbibed the best traits of Ustad Alladiya Khan, the founder of Jaipur Atrauli Gharana.

In my opinion, her timbre itself had enough emotive content to win over an audience without the additional 'bhaav' that she sought to infuse into her recitals. The water-tight madhyalaya bandish of her Gharana (a brilliant distillate of the traditional dhrupads of our land), weaving in & out of the tranquil 'tin-s', dhin'-s & 'dha'-s of a madhyalaya 'theka' (teentaal, roopak, tilwada or jhaaptaal), tended to suffer at the altar of the Kirana-styled Meerkhandi 'badhat'-s.

I remember an early-morning concert in the late 90-s, at the Fine Arts Society in Chembur. At 8 am, she commenced with an elaborate Ahir Bhairav. After numerous interruptions (an uncomfortable larynx & ‘unsatisfactory’ microphone-settings), causing her considerable consternation, the raag was finally concluded after an hour of careful & sincere rendition. As she abruptly announced a 10 minute ‘tea-break’ I remember telling a friend of mine: "This seems like another one of those rough days of hers." After the customary 'chahaa aani batata vada' we crossed our fingers & reclaimed our seats. She strummed her sur-mandal & without any pretense of an 'alaap', launched into ‘baaje jhanana’... a 'Jaipur-special-Jaunpuri'...

It was as if a magic wand had been waved across the auditorium. The ‘swar'-s flowed out of her throat like rich, viscous honey. For the next 45 mins, I lost sense of time & space as Kishori-tai grabbed my soul by the scruff of its neck & scuba-dived into the magical coral reef of Jaunpuri. There was no melodrama in her ‘gayaki’, but a rich, robust & assertive ‘raag-daari’, that unfolded Jaunpuri’s contemplative majesty... Like wispy clouds making way for the radiant mid-morning sun. The entire essence of the century-old style of her Gharana, permeated the auditorium. An ancient raag, sung in a traditional style yet with an enunciation that was credibly contemporary. Geniuses have no difficulty in creating & exhibiting new facets of a structure without altering the existing edifice. Kishori-tai’s treatment of the raag was a text book case of this. It was only when she concluded ‘chhum chhana-na-na bichhua baaje’ (with a ‘tihaai’), that my trance was broken. I do not remember what she had sung after the Jaunpuri. Maybe a Bhairavi thumri, maybe an Abhang, but I, like many others in the auditorium that day, was completely satiated by then. As they say, "raag, rasoi aur pugree… kabhi kabhi ban jaaye…"

[No recording of this recital is available (to the best of my knowledge). Here is a studio recording of Jaunpuri, released in 1967.]

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