Vidushi Subhra Guha is a leading female vocalist of Agra gharana. She was a scholar of ITC Sangeet Research Academy in Kolkata and later she was nominated as a Guru in the Sangeet Research Academy.
Tags
1981, Sangeet Research Academy, Riyaz, Guru, Sishya, Agra gharana, Atta Hussain Khan, Faiyaz Khan, Sunil Bose, 1978, Music Scholar, 1975 – 79, Taalim, Nisar Hussain Khan, Nivrutibua Sarnaik, Latafat Khan, Hirabai Barodekar, Yunus Hussain Khan, Girija Devi, A.T Kanan, Malabika Kanan, 1993, K.G Ginde, Vijay Kichlu
Vidushi Subhra Guha is a leading female vocalist of Agra gharana. She was a scholar of ITC Sangeet Research Academy in Kolkata and later she was nominated as a Guru in the Sangeet Research Academy.
Tags
Guru-Sishya parampara, K. G Ginde, Srikrishna Narayan Ratanjankar, Bandish, Bhatkhande Music college, Faiyaz khan, Lucknow, Raag Viyog-Barari, Sunil Basu, Sangeet Research Academy, Raga Chayanat, 1994
Language
Bengali
Vidushi Subhra Guha speaks:
Hand-written Notation of Pt. K.G. Ginde. [Courtesy Subhra Guha]
Verbatim:
I believe in ‘guru-sishyaparampara’. Pt.K.G.Ginde was the disciple of Sri krishna Narayan Ratanjankar, S.N.Ratanjankar. He was an ocean of learning, how can I describe him, he could see the bandishes differently. When I sing a bandish I can feel it clearly. Gindeji started his learning at the age of ten, his father had left him with Ratanjankarji and told him to raise him up as he sees fit. So, he passed class ten from Lucknow and for twenty-eight years he lived with Ratanjankarji, never leaving his side. I saw Gindeji very closely; he had few demands in life, bare minimum things without luxury. He had a simple cot to sleep on, a wooden table-chair for his studies, no fancy things. He had a very poor income as the principal of Vatkhande college, I think now it would be a large sum compared to then. Anyway, I want to depict two incidents here to remember him.
Pt. S.N. Ratanjhankar
Gindeji knew every bandishes of Ratanjankarji and he wanted to publish it. It would be a great help for everyone, but when he asked the publishers they demanded a large sum which he didn’t have, so he started to write them down. I want to show you the book; it was unbelievable that it was handwritten. He used a simple scale and pencil to write down the bandishes. He spent days in a table with a pen, pencil and rubber and produced six of this. We can imagine how much reverence and dedication to his guruji can made him do this. You have to see it to believe the different swar were written using scales and eraser. His entire being was dedicated to this job, to immortalize the work of his guruji. Sunil Basu also learnt from Ratanjankarji and whenever they met they used to discuss their guruji. Every time my guru Gindeji came over to my place they used to remember his guruji and Ustad Faiyaz Khan and they would cry with all the emotions. We were quite novice then and my fellow disciples would laugh behind his back and asked me whether I got bored with the same topic every day. I too, was quite young then but now I can understand that the love behind this. They didn’t discuss the same incident every day, but the same topics would come up after some time. The gandhar his guruji sang in some programme, or some other songs and they used to cry over these. I was so overwhelmed to see them crying that I joined, I never heard any of the discussed persons and I never knew them personally but still emotions were high and I flowed through it. I now understand that to achieve proper leaning from a perfect guru is a boon and the devotion would come automatically.
After twenty-eight years Ratanjankarji asked Gindeji to live on his own, to start a life and career. The day he left his guru’s house in Lucknow he went to return all bank passbooks and other documents of Ratanjankarji which he always kept and maintained. Ratanjankarji was furious, you want me to keep a tab on you? And he tore them up, he was so upset himself. He then gave Gindeji a new composition, a new raga named Viyog Barari. He never sang this raga, he would get so emotional. I heard from Sunil uncle that Ratanjankarji was a very strict man. He was almost devoid of emotions. It’s rare to see him smile and they never seen him crying. But that day as Gindeji was leaving he was singing this raga and crying. All the people present there were crying helplessly. This is the ideal relation between guru-shishya which I am talking about.
The story I was talking about, the hand-in written notations of the bandishes of Ratanjankarji. Gindeji wrote them himself with such meticulous perfection and then he came here in Sangeet Research Academy and presented the six volumes to them.
Hand-written Notation of Pt. K.G. Ginde.
He then said that I would be ever indebted to my guruji. If I reborn ten times and he wear his chappals made by my skin, I would still be indebted to him. But I have tried to give back a little bit and this is my humble offering. These six parts of the compilation of his bandishes are all here and I am quite content to leave this world. I think my job is done here.
Pt. K.G.Ginde
Within seven days, he had a little anomaly in his heart. Then suddenly within a month of his submission of his life’s work he passed away suddenly. He was eating and humming raga chhayanat, suddenly the spoon slipped and he fell too. No chance for a doctor to do anything. I think a proper sadhak (monk) could only achieve such level.
All artists are known to be a bit moody. Musicians are no exception, as they are always within their Sadhana. Since they cannot see the music and have to attain it through the feeling, they are called Sangeet Sadhaks. So they are moody by nature. Badal Khan was moody and short-tempered too. And all the more was Vishmadeb.
One day, in 1924-25, Badal Khan saheb had come to teach and learned that his disciple was up on the roof, flying a kite. He said, “Don’t call him, I’ll go there myself.” He knew his student’s mood. He went up gently and found Vishmadev’s eyes on the kite in the sky. He took the kite’s spool from his hand .Viishmadev, finding his guru there, was taken a back, but Badal Kahan saheb told him, you go on flying the kite. He kept the kite’s spool in his hands, and started to hum a lesson from there, and his student, with his kite in the sky, was learning , singing along. These ways of imparting lessons were there in those days, but now we have become too much methodical.
Ustad Vishmadev Chattopadhyay
When Baba was a bit older, he used to indulge in physical exercises a lot. One day Badal Khan saheb had arrived when he was doing his exercises. My father could do 500 push-ups at one stretch; something many people could do in multiple sets. So Badal Khan saheb found him doing one push-up after another. When he finished, he found his Guru standing behind him. He said, “beta, if you continue exercising like this, you would ruin your voice”, but praised him too by saying that he had not seen anybody do it like this. We have heard that Moizuddin Khan Saheb did push-ups and squats before he performed at a programme, which finds mention in Amiya Nath Sanyal’s writings. So it was with Vishmadev.
Badal Khan Saheb started teaching music to father. This was at either the Chhidam Mudi lane or the Gulu Ostagar Lane residence.
Pt. Vishmadeb Chattopadhyay
Baba had learned Tappa well before this. But the first thing that Badal Khan did was to stop him from singing Bengali songs, saying that singing those cast a regional influence on his singing, which would prevent him in his endeavour to bring about the pan-Indian character in father’s voice. So Bhismadev stopped singing bangla songs, which opened up the North Indian style before him. Even to a talented artist like Bhismadev, Badal Khan taught only Malkauns for six months. He started teaching in 1923, when father was 14 years old. After the lessons had gone on for six months, my grandfather, Ashutosh Chattopadhyay, noticed that the same song was going on for six months, no new ones. And the fees or ‘Gurudakshina’ that was being paid to Badal Khan saheb was quite hefty even by today’s standards. Each day he used to come, he was paid two rupees, which was the price of one mon (about 37 kgs) of rice. And the rickshaw fare was paid separately. You can calculate how much that quantity of rice costs now. This was paid per day. It also happened, though not within those six months, that Badal Khan saheb had come twice a day, because he had suddenly remembered a song that he had to teach. Anyway, every day he came, Ashutosh Chattopadhyay, who had never taken lessons in music himself, thought that the same song was being taught for six months. Just as Badal Khan saheb had finished his lessons and gone out of the room, than Ashutosh Chattopadhyay said to Bhismadev, “ Will he not give you any other song? The same malkauns has been going on.” Badal Khan saheb had not actually left, as he took some time to put on his shoes due to old age. He came back in and said, “ Ashubabu, Malkauns is such a Raag that let alone six months, even six life spans are not enough to learn it. I am preparing the base now; you’ll see the results after the preparation is complete.” Later, it was often the case that he taught one raag in the morning and another in the evening. And, thanks to Bhismadev’s musical talent, he picked it up with ease. Not everyone he tried to teach thus could do so. He was so talented that often the raag he learned in the morning, he performed at a musical function in the evening. And I am not talking about the song, but the Raag itself.
