Renowned Music Critic, Musicologist and Music Connoisseur
Tags
Ulhas Kashalkar, Vilayat Khan, 2003, Mahajati Sadan, Autobiography, Shankarlal Bhattacharya, Raag, Raga, Sanjh Saravali, swaravali, Yaman, Behag, Bihag, Hameer, Kamod, Thumri, Bhairavi, Jayanta Chatterjee, Amir Khan, Charhi Lay, Gwalior Gharana
Language
Engllish, Hindi, Bengali
Meena Banerjee Speaks :
Text Version:
This is about a very memorable recital of Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar Ji. He sang during this seventy fifth birthday celebration of Ustad Vilayat Khan Sahab. We were very excited, we went to Mahajati Sadan, and that evening the hall was absolutely packed. There was that official release of the Ustad’s autobiography in Bengali, penned by Sri Sankarlal Bhattacharjee. That also took place there and Ulhas Ji was suppose to sing.
Ustad Vilayat Khan
Prior to that Vilayat Khan sahib spoke about his connection with Kolkata, and that he wanted to come back to Kolkata, live here forever, so very emotional kind of beginning, then ulhas ji came and announced that he is going to sing a Raag composed by ustad Vilayat Khan Sahab, and he sang Sanjh Swaravali. It was fantastic, absolutely fantastic, where one experience that, now Yaman came and went away, and then face of Behug, absolutely chiseled Behug came and went away, then Hameer, Kamod, you name an evening melody and their pretty faces, they came and then like a moving, like audio visual, you could feel that they are coming and going away. That was there and then he concluded his recital in Thumri, stripped in spirituality- “ Tum ho jagat ke data” in Bhairavi. That was also composed by Ustadji,
Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar
Ustad Vilayat Khan, and let me tell you since then ulhasji’s style took a totally different turn. As I told you that this was the turning point of Ulhasji’s singing career, from where his singing style took a new turn, where lots of surging emotions, one could feel, that earlier his Raga delineation was absolutely very pristine and pure but there was not much of emotions, but suddenly it was so stripped in emotion that I was forced to think what was the force behind it, then I found out that he came very close to Ustad Vilayat Khan Sahab, thanks to Mr Jayanta Chatterjee of Sunny Towers, he is a well known music connoisseur, so Ustadji’s influence worked wonders with Ulhasji’s singing, and that is how we find the Ustad Amir Khan’s elements in his singing and that ‘Charhi Lay’ which was his forte earlier, became much slower than the usual Gwalior style, and in that he incorporated lot of emotive aspects.
Verbatim: Rajeswary Ganguly Banerjee
Data processed at SAP-DRS Lab, Department of Instrumental Music, Rabindra Bharati University.
Renowned Music Critic, Musicologist and Music Connoisseur
Tags
1998,1999, Ali Akbar Khan, SRA, Vijay Kichlu, Auditorium, Omkar Dadarkar, Scholar, Ulhas Kashalkar, Behag, Bihag, Guru
Language
Engllish, Hindi, Bengali
Smt. Meena Banerjee Speaks :
Text Version:
That time this was around 1998 or 1999 not later than that. So once Ustad Ali Akbar Khan Sahab came to SRA. He stayed very close to SRA. His house was here in Tollygunge area only. So he came to visit SRA and everybody was on his toes because such a great musician came to visit SRA and see how the young musicians were faring.
At that time Mr. Kichlu was there and he was very excited and he took Khan Sahab to you know, all over SRA. He must have visited earlier also.
– In 1998 or 99?
Shri Omkar Dadarkar
– In 1998 or 1999 not later than that because in 2000 Mr. Kichlu retired and left SRA. So when Khan Sahab came this was during the day time so even we were also call that you come and sampling the auditorium. You know there is a compact hall there. There legendary musicians had performed and even youngsters performed, even now. So Khan Sahab was made comfortable. He was sitting there and all of us were around him what he says, we were hanging on you know, each and every word he was uttering. So he was telling about his younger days and all, we were laughing and all. Suddenly he said let me hear someone. So Mr. Kichlu immediately called Omkar, because he was newcomer and somehow he had made a mark s a very talented student of SRA, talented scholar of Ullasji. So Omkar came and Mr. Kichlu asked him to sing. He said ‘abhi to mujhe Bihag hi aata hai. Guruji se hi sikha hai’ (at present I know only Bihag. I learnt it from Guruji). So Khan Sahab was quite for some time then he said –‘tab rehne do, Rag rege jabe’(then you better let it, or Raga would be angry).
The next day he went to play a cricket match and played all day. In the evening all the colleagues who had gone to play were on their way back together in a bus. When the bus was crossing AkashvaniBhavan, he noticed that Akashvani Bombay was written in large letters. The moment he noticed that, he asked his colleagues to stop the bus and accompany him inside where he wanted to do a voice test. His colleagues were astonished and said “What! You! Gurujiwas very calm. He asked his friends “Yes, I want to do. Why don’t you come with me? I want to do a voice test.”
However his friends were little bit puzzled. They anxiously said “We didn’t know that you sing. And if you go inside you’ll get beaten up, and you’ll get us beaten up too. We can’t go.” So Guruji said, “Okay, let me off the bus.” Guruji had always been a brave man, he was a sportsman. He was brave, but he was also curious to find out how his voice would sound. They let him off the bus and drove off.
Ustad Allarakha Khan
He went straight inside. In those days, there wouldn’t be many recordings, so it used to be empty in the evening. AllaRakha Khan sahib, who was a staff of Akashvani Bombay, along with the sarengi player Hamid Hussaid, and the Station Director were sitting together in a room and drinking tea. When he appeared at the doorway, the Station Director asked, “What do you want?” And Guruji gave him the same answer. He said, “I want to do a voice test.” AllaRakha Khan sahib and Hamid Hussain laughed, because it was an unusual occurrence. But the Station Director was very enthusiastic about it and he said, “Okay, Okay, I’ll see what can be done.” He went to the next room and asked the technicians to set everything up. In those days microphones were needed to be fixed before the recording, it couldn’t be used straightaway as it can be now. The technicians came and set everything up. Then he asked Guruji to sit in front of the microphone and sing. The sarengi player asked for his scale. Guruji replied, “I don’t know.” So he said, “Then how will I play? I have to choose the right scale.” Then Guruji said, “I’ll sing the tune, you can figure it out from that.” At that time, Abdul Karim Khan used to sing in F#. If he sang without any accompaniments in F#, the pitch wouldn’t be correct. But when he sang, it sounded like he was singing in F#. So Hamid Hussain Khan sahib said, “Oh! You will sing in such a high pitch? But this is the pitch that Abdul Karim Khan sings in.” To this, Guruji said, “Yes, this is me.” That is all he said.
When AllaRakha Khan was about to start playing the tabla, Guruji said, “No, no, I won’t be able to sing with that.” He had no sense of rhythm. But Khan sahib said in Hindi, “No, no, you sing. I’ll keep pace with you.” That is, he would adjust. Anyway, Maalkosh was the first song he had heard, so he sang as much of the bandish as he could remember. He sang for one and a half minutes or so. He was never been in a classical music before the first concert that he had heard with his father. He said, “I won’t be able to sing any more. I’m done.” They didn’t say anything either.
The Station Director said, “You sit here, I’ll be back.” When he returned, he had a contract form with him. He said, “Take this contract form home. After three months, you’ll have to sing three times for the radio in one day.” In those days there would be live broadcast of three ragas, each for half an hour.” Guruji was frightened. He said, “No no, I didn’t come here to sing, I don’t want to sing, I don’t want to sing, it was just my voice….” And they were saying, “No, you must sing.” AllaRakha sahib and Hamid Hussain sahib said, “You go home and tell your father that we have said that you have to sing.” They thought that since he had such a great voice, he would sing. Guruji couldn’t understand anything, and they were very insistent.
He came and told his father about the contract form and his father was very surprised because he wasn’t aware of the fact that his son could sing. So he said, “Is that so? Did you sing for them?” And he said, “Yes, a little bit.” So he took him to the music room and said, “Sing me what you sang for them.” So he repeated the performance. That was the first time his father felt that he had music in him. But in three months’ time he would have to sing three ragas for half an hour each. He needed to prepare. It would be very difficult. He would have to sing three ragas for morning, noon, and night. Then his father had a brainwave. He appointed three teachers for the three different ragas so that the student wouldn’t confuse one raga with the other, because he had shortage of time to manage all the three ragas. Then he did sing for the radio after three months.
So this is something we have heard from him, we had asked him, “Guruji, how did you feel during your first recording?” He had replied, “Twenty minutes after I sang, I felt like I had nothing left. Like everything was over. Then it felt like e repetition, because how much could one do in so little time.” Anyway, he did sing, that is how he began to learn, or maybe it was the beginning of his desire to learn, and then he recorded his first song for the radio.
