STRANGE STORIES OF SOME SUPER MUSICIANS

STRANGE STORIES OF SOME SUPER MUSICIANS

V.S.Gopalakrishnan

Like top philosophers and scientists, top musicians often get to live in a world of their own, far removed from the realities of the big world. It is not that only their individual persona could get warped, their social connections and marital life could be strange, colourful and bizarre. In this piece, I have picked up three “super” musicians. The word “super” is the most used adjective by the Tamilians for whom a very good movie is a “super movie” and a very good meal is a “super meal”, and the word “super” has become a Tamil adjectival word in a sense!

It could be said that more than a century ago musicians were generally known for wayward habits and many or most of them took to drinking, drugs and womanizing. It was due to the tireless efforts of the great musician Vishnu Digambar Paluskar (1872-1931) who established regular music learning schools called the Gandharva Mahavidyalayas, and worked for the eschewal of unbecoming habits and practices by the musicians , that the musicians as well as classical music in general received a good image and a boost amidst the public in India.

The three musicians I have selected here for our inquisitive scrutiny, rather at random, are (1) Ustad Khan Abdul Karim Khan, a doyen of the “Kirana gharana” (2) Ustad Alladiya Khan, the founder of the “Jaipur-Atrauli gharana” and (3) Pandit Ravi Shankar.

USTAD ABDUL KARIM KHAN (1872-1937)

   Ustad Abdul Karim Khan

Abdul Karim Khan was a doyen of the Kirana gharana which was founded by his ancestors who came from the Kirana village (and now a town) in Muzaffarnagar District in Uttar Pradesh. The Kirana town has gone into the new Prabhudhh Nagar District from September 2011.The sad-looking man with a silken voice did the unusual thing of marrying a young Hindu girl who was his student in Baroda.

He was born in Kirana and had musical training there from his father and uncles. He was a very good sarangi player but switched to vocals due to the inferior status of a sarangi player. His talent was spotted by the Baroda Ruler who made him a court musician. While living in Baroda he fell in love with his student Tarabai Mane who was related to the royal family. Karim Khan already had a wife called Gafooran. When Abdul Karim and Tarabai Mane decided to get married, they could not stay in Baroda and shifted to Bombay. In 1922, when Abdul Karim was nearly 50 years old, Tarabai left him. They had five children, all given Muslim names, but they were given Hindu names by Tarabai after her separation. Three of these children became prominent musicians themselves and they are Hirabai Barodekar, Sureshbabu Mane and Saraswathi Mane.

From Bombay, Karim shifted to Mysore where he received patronage from the Maharaja. His last years were spent in Miraj (Dt.Sangli, Maharashtra). He toured the South and gave recitals. Sawai Gandharva and Roshanara Begum were among his disciples. Bhimsen Joshi and Prabha Atre have been the recent stalwarts in the Kirana tradition. Considering that Abdul Karim was one of the best musicians of the 20^th century, some people have even named him as the real founder of the Kirana gharana. This gharana is marked by leisurely alap and soulful singing and considerable use of swaras and sargam taans.

Here is the YouTube link to the great Ustad’s rendition of the famous “Piya Bin Chain Nahin Awaat” : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Gje0EyBO4

USTAD ALLADIYA KHAN (1855-1946)

Regarded as a “Gaan Samraat”, he was the founder of the “Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana”. 

   Alladiya Khan

Not much was strange about this great singer except the stories relating to the tutorship of the great female singer Mogubai Kurdikar (1904-2001), the mother of Kishori Amonkar.

Mogubai was born in the village Kurdi in Goa. Her musical training started very early and she also acted in dramas in which a lot of singing was always required. Later she shifted to Sangli and began training. Alladiya was temporarily in Sangli for medical treatment and he used to pass her house and hear her quality singing. Very impressed, he met her and offered to teach her, and Mogubai accepted it not really knowing the high reputation of Alladiya.

Alladiya went to Bombay and Mogubai followed him. What followed was a high drama of mean value involving the music circles and high society!

Alladiya already had rich students of high society in Bombay who supported him, and they would not let an outsider like Mogubai become his student. In desperation, Mogubai went to the Agra gharana exponent Bashir Khan who agreed to teach her. This upset Alladiya who asked her to take lessons from his own brother Hyder Khan (of Jaipur-Atrauli gharana). But the Agra gharana Ustads had also a lot of clout and were displeased at this. Anyway, Mogu agreed to learn from Hyder on the condition that Alladiya should step in to teach her if Hyder ceased to teach her. Thus Hyder Khan began to teach her but this led to Alladiya’s patrons exercising pressure on Alladiya to terminate the Hyder-Mogu teaching arrangement as Mogu was making outstanding progess much to their jealousy! Alladiya intervened to stop Hyder’s teaching of Mogu and in his own turn broke his promise too to take her as a student.

Mogubai was left to her own device to practice. She did that with such vengeance that she became a top artiste. One day Alladiya went to see her on his own and took her as a student with proper ganda-bandhan ceremony (tying of thread) and continued to teach her till his death!

Alladiya was born in Rajasthan and his ancestors belonged to Atrauli, UP. Hence the name Jaipur-Atrauli gharana. His great merit was recognized by kings in Rajasthan. He settled later in Kolhapur under the patronage of the king Shahu Maharaj. When this king died, he shifted to Mumbai in 1922 where he became a celebrity and he lived there till his death in 1946. Mogubai Kurdikar and Kesarbai Kerkar were amongst his foremost disciples.

   Moghubai Kurdikar (Kishori Amonkar’s mother)

PANDIT RAVI SHANKAR (b.1920)

Who has not heard of the sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar? I heard his name the first time when he played at Rasika Ranjani Sabha, Mylapore, Chennai more than 5 decades ago.

   Pandit Ravi Shankar

His family life has been nothing but messy and his frequent amorous adventures have invited a lot of criticism.

He was born in Varanasi in a Bengali Brahmin family. He was the last of  7 children. As a youngster he joined his brother Uday Shankar’s dance troupe that toured India and Europe. In 1934 he discovered his guru Ustad Allauddin Khan who was in the Maihar court in Madhya Pradesh. He concentrated on sitar learning from a very exacting guru. His guru Allauddin’s son, Ali Akbar Khan who went on to became a famous sarod player, became his close friend. Ravi Shankar fell in love with his guru’s daughter Roshanara (b.1927) who was becoming a fine surbahar (bass sitar) player. They got married in 1941 when Ravi Shankar was 21 years old and Roshanara was 14 years old. The Maihar Raja named Roshanara as Annapurna Devi and she became a Hindu convert! In 1944, Ravi Shankar shifted to Bombay.

   Annapurna Devi/Roshanara

We shall leave aside the story of his rise to international status and deal with his love life. There are people who would like to ignore it on the ground that we have to look at his achievements only. There are, however, others who expect celebrities to set a good example in personal life too.

A male child was born to Annapurna Devi in 1942 when she was barely 15! Ravi Shankar and Annapurna’s relationship came under strain in due course of years. She on her own became a great surbahar player. It is said that from the late 1940s, Ravi Shankar began an affair with dancer Kamala Shastri which lasted up to 1981. I could not get much information about her. He also had an affair with Sue Jones, a New York concert producer, and the now famous Norah Jones was born to them in 1981. He went on to live with Sue Jones till 1986.

Meanwhile, in 1972, Sukanya Rajan who was 18 years old appeared in his life as a tanpura player. In 1978 they became lovers although she too was married. In 1981, they had a child who is the now famous sitarist Anoushka Shankar. In 1989 Ravi Shankar married Sukanya.

 Ravi Shankar and Sukanya Rajan

But women were always at his disposal as he was so greatly admired by them. Ravi Shankar has himself admitted that he had found it hard to say ‘no’ to free love!

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