by B.N. Goswamy
Scribes and their prayers
WHEN one copied some text or words exactly — I remember from my childhood days — especially with little understanding of its contents, one was reminded sharply by the teacher that doing this amounted to "makkhi pe makkhi maarna” [squashing one fly upon another]. There was no doubt in our minds about the import of these dreaded words, but what the reference to flies was became clear to me only years later.

Limelight beckons again
By Nonika Singh
FLASHBACK to year 1989: Release of “Maine Pyar Kiya”. Cash registers just can’t stop ringing. A new superstar Salman Khan is born. His leading lady love — Bhagyashree — who steals Salman’s heart in the film replicates the feat in real life by capturing the hearts of millions. A dream debut! But the young debutant chucks away her golden chance. Instead, she seeks conjugal bliss in the arms of the man in her life.

Landscapes on canvas
By Krishan Gopal
IN the first week of August, the University of Horticulture and Forestry at Nauni (Solan), which is nestling in the lush green hills, had another kind of landscapes to show — landscapes on canvas. It was an exhibition of beautiful water colour paintings by Chaman Sharma, a 30-year-old Dhami (HP)-born artist who has done about 900 paintings so far.

Upcoming tabla star
By Ramesh K Dhiman
On the colossus city musical canvas, the vivid image of Amit Sachdeva, a bright tabla virtuoso, flashes across one’s mind and evokes instant admiration. An icon for the city tabla aficionados, smart and stoutly-built Amit was born and bred in Chandigarh, a city with a rich musical background.

The Jogiya Khalli Balli sardar
By Sonoo Singh

WHAT do you make of a man who while dressed in a multi-coloured turban and flashy and loud outfits, romps and stomps on the stage to belt out fast and popular tracks and even makes a fashion statement out of this all? And of course, add to this a bevy of beautiful lassies dancing around him! But before you can even start to form an opinion of a colourful signing-dancing sardar, (who obviously reminds you of the pasha of Punjabi pop — Daler Mehndi. Ouch?), Bhupinder Chawla, popularly called the “Jogiya Khalli Balli Man” after his maiden hit album, comes across as your friendly neighbour-next-door. Agreeably affectionate, Bhupi loves to talk about his music, his “styles” and his audience.

But first to set the record straight about him “copying” Daler, he says, “Just because two sardars, with turbans, appeared almost simultaneously on the stage to sing, people have started comparing us. The good thing is that this way people at least remember us. But I think that I’ll have to bring a third sardar on to the scene to make people say — ‘He’s like Bhupi’.”

“Also both of us belong to the same music company, Magnasound, have the same musician and even share the same choreographer the same video director”, he adds.

Belonging to the Rampur gharana, Bhupi is still under training from his guru Mohammed Tahir. “I try and do ‘riyaaz’ everyday for two to three hours because it is only on the classical based and the knowledge of ‘surs,’ that ‘gayaki’ is made easier”, he explains.

It was some seven years ago that Bhupi who first wanted to be a hockey player and then even started “fruit business” for a while, formed a musical band “Sartaj” and started doing private musical shows and then television shows, before finally being discovered by Magnasound.

It was actually Jwahar Wattal, the “music-man” given the credit for the success stories of Daler Mehndi, Shubha Mudgal, and Shweta Shetty, who first heard Bhupi and made Magnasound listen to his recorded cassette. Little wonder that Wattal has become Bhupi’s friend and mentor, and is referred to as his “most admired man”.

Commenting on his “non-stop” musical shows Bhupi says, “People today want ‘masala’. They want someone who will make them dance the most.”

Is that why techno-music, which is loud and ear-splitting, justified? To make people dance, even if the lyrics are senseless? “Till the time a beat does not produce ‘dhak-dhak’; audiences don’t seem to enjoy music today. So there is a need to stress more and more on sound. But that makes the task more difficult also for the singer, because the singer also then needs to sing that much higher.

“These days ghazal singers have also started using electronics instruments. This means that pop artistes need to use much more than that. So we also have dancers on the stage. As far as the lyrics are concerned, people like to hear ‘tukhbandi’ and that is provided to them. But I personally like to sing meaningful lyrics”, Bhupi answers.

His group, Sartaj, includes his elder brother G.S. Chawla who writes the lyrics and also accompanies him on the stage, while singing. The lyrics of the album “Jogiya Khalli Balli” have been penned by G.S. Chawla.

For now Bhupi has his eyes were set on the silver screen, where he would like to lip-synch his own songs. “Singers like Gurdas Mann and Altaf Raja have done it. Why not me?” he queries.

What about Daler Mehndi? “Even if different models of Maruti car are available in the market, they are still referred to as Maruti only. The same is with us two sardars,” quips a now-exasperated Bhupi, at the mention of the “other sardar”.

Moving on to more “colourful pastures”, we now start talking of his popular colourful turban. With a twinkle in his eyes Bhupi says, “Just like there are different colours on my turban, in the same manner I would like to believe that different people can live and love together. I would want people to emulate the varied hues of colours and live in peace and harmony. By the way the ‘Bhupi-style turban’ is also the latest rage in turbans going around these days. Especially in Delhi”.

Is a new road, to peace and harmony, being paved by this Jogiya Khalli Balli man? By the way, if you did not know what this phrase meant hear it from the man himself — “Happy and carefree soul.”

by B.N. Goswamy
Scribes and their prayers

WHEN one copied some text or words exactly — I remember from my childhood days — especially with little understanding of its contents, one was reminded sharply by the teacher that doing this amounted to makkhi pe makkhi maarna [squashing one fly upon another]." There was no doubt in our minds about the import of these dreaded words, but what the reference to flies was became clear to me only years later. This, when I chanced upon the Mughal chronicler, Badauni’s caustic comments upon some of the Sanskrit texts that he — much against his orthodox Islamic bent of mind — had to turn to under Imperial orders. These “wretched texts,” he wrote with some bigotry, were replete with errors, having been copied from generation to generation: if there was fly-excrement on a folio of the original, the scribes could be trusted to copy it exactly on to their own page.

Despite all these broadsides from the likes of Badauni, all the calumny heaped upon them, however, scribes and copyists have always interested me. For here were these countless men, unnamed for the most part and almost always unsung, who carried on with their work in those laborious days of writing everything with hand, poring over texts night after night, copying works that they often understood very little of, all for a mere pittance. Unlike calligraphers who were often made much of, especially in the Islamic world, they were treated as mere hired hands — whether katibs or kayasths — held in poor esteem, taken for granted, alike by princes and prelates. All errors in texts were routinely attributed to them: their brush with literature was considered an accident, very little if any of the prestige, or sacredness, of the texts they copied from, rubbed off upon them. They were the whipping boys of the world of learning.

Factually, one knows very little about the scribes themselves. There are colourful oral accounts of Kashmiri scribes going around the countryside in groups, hawking their skills about of copying from old manuscripts, in scripts ranging from Sharada and Devanagari to Persian and Gurmukhi. There are also references to tightly organised Kayastha families of scribes who remained active for centuries, from Bengal to Gujarat. But all this does not really amount to much. And whatever one gets is tucked away in brief colophons. These being short passages brought in at the end of manuscripts in which facts relevant to production are given, one can glean much from them: thus, the name of the patron for whom the text was written down or copied, sometimes its date with the exact day and time of its completion. But only on occasions does one get the name of the scribe or the copyist. The information thus remains truly sketchy.

What the scribes often say, in such colophons as have survived, is however always of interest. There is an awareness in these passages of the significance of the task just finished, for the task was often part of a sacred, dedicatory act that earned the patron merit in the ‘two worlds’: that of getting a scripture copied for presentation to the guru or to the faith’s repository of sacred texts. As in the case of Jaina or Buddhist texts. Consider this colophon from an 11th century palm-leaf manuscript copy of a celebrated Buddhist text from Bihar:

“This is the pious gift of Ramajiva, who is from Nepal and who is a devout follower of the excellent Mahayana. Whatever merit there is in this gift, let it accrue to his teacher, to his parents, to all his ancestors, as well as all sentient beings. Completed on the 13th day of Phalguna, of the year 14 of the victorious reign of Sri Nayapaladeva, ... the great king of kings.” And then follows the cryptic information: “The scribe Svameswara of Nalanda copied it.”

There is always some blessing, some auspiciousness, invoked upon the head of the reader of the present and the future by the scribe. The future always interested the scribes, aware and hopeful of the fact as they were that the work would long outlast them on this earth. “May peace come to all”; “May welfare be the reader’s and the writer’s” are the commonest of such invocations. But other formulas were worked out and there are some that one comes upon again and again. An especially delightful one is a prayer that is placed in the mouth of the book itself, the manuscript just finished. “Jalat rakshe, tailat rakshe...,” and so on, it runs in indifferent Sanskrit. “May I be protected, so speaks this book, from water; may I be protected from oil; may I be protected from defective tying; may I always be protected from falling into the wrong hands.”

Aware also of the fact of how much blame is placed upon them, the scribes would often add a disclaimer, again in barely literate Sanskrit: “Yadrisham pustakam drishta ...”,meaning: “I have copied this book exactly as I found it; errors or not, please (dear reader) blame me not!” The concern was shared by Persian scribes equally, for often one would find in the colophons verses such as “Qariya bar makun chandin ‘atab ... (Do not, O reader, be angry with me for any errors that you come upon. Blame me not for them. And correct them yourself, thus earning merit.).”

But this was all in the days gone by when auspiciousness was associated with the written word, and errors were still things that one had to feel contrite about.

Modern prayers
All the time that I was working on the above piece, I was wondering what kind of a prayer would be suitable for the scribes of today to send up. There aren’t many left in this day of printing and proof-reading, but one can think of those who still write with their lotus-hands on files, sitting in sarkari offices. Others may have their own ideas, but I think it may not be inappropriate for our babus, high or low, to add: “May this file remain buried forever; may these words reach no one; may no one be able to decipher the intent with which I write them; may all the harm that accrues from them be noiselessly passed on to others, past and future!”

Limelight beckons again
By Nonika Singh

FLASHBACK to year 1989: Release of “Maine Pyar Kiya”. Cash registers just can’t stop ringing. A new superstar Salman Khan is born. His leading lady love — Bhagyashree — who steals Salman’s heart in the film replicates the feat in real life by capturing the hearts of millions. A dream debut! Her contemporaries would have given more than a right arm to be in her shoes. But the young debutant chucks away her golden chance to take a crack at the title of “queen bee of Bollywood”. Instead, she seeks conjugal bliss in the arms of the man in her life.

Nearly a decade later, unravaged by imprints of time — lovely and petite as ever — the hazel-eyed woman reflects, “Bowing out was a conscious decision not forced upon me by external constraints. Besides the stupendous success of the film simply paled in comparison to joys of motherhood”. But as the cliche goes — once an actress, always an actress — she relaunched herself and today in her new avtaar, she is making waves on the boobtube in a teleserial “Jaan”.

Switchover from larger-than-life screen to the small screen which most actors dismiss condescendingly has been smooth and immensely satisfying for her. Bhagyashree states, “Of course television in India is still in its budding stage and has yet to throw up its genre of stars. Still it provides a platform for talented actors”.

It isn’t as if ‘matlabi filmi duniya’ had unceremoniously dumped her. Only the roles coming her way were not quite in consonance with her temperament and demeanour. Micro-minis, bikinis, reveal-all cleavages and décolleté topped with lovey-dovey physically intimate scenes — thank you, but no thank you” was her refrain.

“Sapnon ki nagri” Bhagyashree admits unabashedly is not exactly a safe haven for nice girls. She elucidates, “Perhaps, sexual exploitation is the order of the day even outside tinsel town. But here the fairer sex is more susceptible and vulnerable as there is greater accessibility and room for physical contact”. So she agrees that the casting couch, torrid affairs, sleeping your way up for that handful of stardust are all hideous, but inextricable dimension of Bollywood.

But throw the ball in her court. Question her about possible romantic liaisons, the rumours trailing her “happily married” front and the reply is an emphatic “No”. She says, “On my priority agenda, marriage and my two children figure prominently high.”

So what’s a family-oriented person with roots steeped in conservative Maharashtrian background doing in mad bad Bollywood? Films just happened. A quirk of fate. Amol Palekar’s “Kachhi Dhoop” came about when the actual heroine did a vanishing trick and Bhagyashree couldn’t quite say “no” to a family friend in distress. “Maine Pyar Kiya” was born out of director Sooraj Barjatya’s persistent insistence.

Pray, whatever cajoled her into “Qaid Main Hai Bulbul” wherein hubby dearest tried to fly high on borrowed feathers — her starry wings actually?

Dismissing her filmi misadventure with Himalaya as a “roller coaster ride” and not a Himalayan blunder, however her affair with cinema is far from over. In recent times she has acted in three films down South, including “Amma Var Ganda” (henpecked husband) which fared reasonably well.

Plus there is an Indo-Bangladeshi venture, a two-film project. For television besides “Jaan”, she plays a pivotal character, a young girl forced to marry a bigamist to fulfil her brother’s avarice in Ravinder Peepat’s forthcoming tele-serial “Na Jaiyo Pardes”. In yet another television soap she etches out the part of a business tycoon.

Though directors would love to typecast her in the “seedhi saadhi” girl nextdoor mould, Bhagyashree would like to test different waters. She avers, “The most fascinating aspect of this make believe world is the opportunity to live several lives in just one lifetime. By donning the mask and persona of others, by getting under the skin of different characters, one gains an insight into other’s psyche and also enables you to empathise.”

Any role she is dying to play? Pat comes the answer — a devious scheming killer. Gosh! Strange vicarious delight. Especially for someone who claims that her biggest failing as an actress is her inability to hone the “killer instinct”. But then who cares? For this Piscean had traded off ephemeral tryst with stardom for solid everlasting happiness which incidentally is writ all over glowing face.

Landscapes on canvas
By Krishan Gopal

IN the first week of August, the University of Horticulture and Forestry at Nauni (Solan), which is nestling in the lush green hills, had another kind of landscapes to show — landscapes on canvas. It was an exhibition of beautiful water colour paintings by Chaman Sharma, a 30-year-old Dhami (HP)-born artist who has done about 900 paintings so far.

After driving 11 km from Solan to Nauni recently, this author breathed in the freshness of colour-combination emanating from 20 odd paintings which were on display at this one-man exhibition, the second one by this artist. “Although I can freely work in any medium — water-colour, oil, acrylic mixed etc — yet I have chosen the toughest one, water colour,” he explains to me with bubbling confidence.

A disciple of Dr Ram Viranjan of Kurukshetra University under whose guidance he has recently completed his master’s degree in fine arts, Chaman humbly acknowledges the fundamental influence of his teacher as reflected in his creations. He also professes to have been influenced by Rembrandt among the great masters.

Although this exhibition was totally of landscape paintings, Chaman is a portrait painter as well. His beautiful portraits of Dr YS Parmar and Mahatma Gandhi are lifelike and have been bought by the UHF, Nauni, and the Airport Authority of India, Shimla, respectively. Rural life, its narrow streets and sometimes even crumbling facades are an obsession for the artist.

Although most of the pieces, he claims, are inspired by the actual sights of nature, yet he throws on them a colouring of the imagination. And most of the spectators rightly admired the independent strokes and the freedom evident in the paintings.

Chaman tries to dabble in creative and experimental paintings as well. “Journey of Life”, “Conversation”, “Melody” and “Marine Life” are some of the thematic paintings which are interesting.

All this is no mean achievement for an artist who has been represented in about a dozen exhibitions all over India and who has also participated in many workshops.

Working as a clerk in the UHF, Nauni, Chaman’s head droops a little when he is asked how he manages the finances. He naturally looks forward to the government, particularly the HP Academy of Arts, Culture and Languages to patronise art in a big way. “Caught in financial straits, is it improper for an artist to bear the incense for the goddess of commercial art ?” he asks with a wistful look. One cannot help but agree with this budding artist, who has plentiful of zest to last him during the miles and miles of journey ahead him.

Upcoming tabla star
By Ramesh K Dhiman

What blood is to human body, music is to human soul. Mythology has it that when Lord Krishna used to play on his legendary flute, besides the love-lorn “gopis”, wayfarers, birds, wild animals and even trees would be lured to savour the soulful renderings of the divine musical instrument. The eerie silence that pervaded all around would flee by miles in a flash of seconds. One would watch in sheer wonderment the inanimate environs changing colours and reverberating with mystifying music and melody. This sums up the popular belief that the human existence, bereft of music and melody is dull, drab and despicable.

On the colossus city musical canvas, the vivid image of Amit Sachdeva, a bright tabla virtuoso, flashes across one’s mind and evokes instant admiration. An icon for the city tabla aficionadoes, smart and stoutly-built Amit was born and bred in Chandigarh, a city with a rich musical background.

Amit, now 20, developed a keen interest for tabla playing at a tender age. He is determined to pursue the passion heart and soul and blaze a new trail in the world of instrumental music, tabla playing to be more precise. Committed to the cause, the serious instrumentalist is pursuing the passion with a well-defined purpose.

Fierce fascination for classical instrumental music, especially tabla playing, seems to have born with Amit. His undying penchant for this genre of music came to the fore when appreciation and accolades for his magical fingers weaving a web of classical music on the tabla started trickling in, steadily from a motley crowd of tabla fans. “It was indeed a pat on the back for me,” says Amit.

Learning the rudimentary of tabla playing from established tabla maestro Ustad Gopalji, who chiselled him into a fine tabla player, Amit shells out three hours daily for “riaz”. It was like accomplishing a targeted task for the upcoming tabla star when he presented a solo to a select, foot-tapping tabla buffs at a school soiree, which won him the first prize.

Amit’s unyielding urge to reach out to the soaring heights of tabla playing and become a torch-bearer brought him to Delhi. During his short sojourn in the Capital, Amit came in contact with Pt Manmohan Singh, a music don of Delhi, who spotted a powerful spark of talent in the promising Chandigarh lad. Turning a little too indulgent in the case of this tabla prodigy, Singh helped Amit get a break at the Delhi station of All India Radio. This proved a blessing in disguise for Amit, who presented a powerful solo concert, reflecting his unfaltering command over the subtlest of subtle “taals”. He was awarded a merit certificate for his memorable performance.

This is how Amit’s untiring odyssey ended up in his becoming a registered tabla player at the Delhi station of AIR. There has been no looking back for him since then. He has been invariably performing under the popular Yuva Vani Service slot.

Wedded to tabla playing since the childhood, Amit is a rare reservoir of energy and enterprise. He has already been featured on the city cable TV. In the T-Series audio cassettes of bhajans, ghazals and shabads, Amit has given accompaniment. His umpteen solo concerts in and around Delhi, include some impressive tabla recitals at the Delhi Sahitya Kala Parishad’s musical soirees.

Notwithstanding earning name and fame, Amit’s passion to discover new horizons in the field of instrumental music remains unfulfilled as yet. He intends to do something which may be termed as epoch-making.

Presently under the protective patronage of the Ajrada gharana chief Habib Ullah Khan, Amit is poised to make it to the chosen mission by dint of talent and, of course, tireless endeavours.

Amit, who at present is busy girding up his loins to take part in the much-awaited annual Harballabh Sangeet Sammelan to be held shortly at Jalandhar, laments at the massive mess-up of the ancient Indian classical music and the Western pop. “We all are morally responsible for this devastating denigration of our ethos,” maintains Amit.