Khajuraho to don new look
By Arindam Dasgupta
Khajuraho — the “village” city — famous largely for its erotic sculptures, is all set to receive a facelift — new roads, rail tracks besides a “world-class” museum — to increase the tourist flow from all over the world.

SIGHT & SOUND

AUDIOSCAN

Kaushik returns to first love
After 17 long years, film director-comedian Satish Kaushik returns to his first love — the stage for a cause.

Qawwali struggling to retain form
By Deepika Vij

FROM God’s messenger to a Bollywood prop to a mere curiosity — the once-popular qawwali sung to the simple beat of hand-clapping has few takers today.

Faced with poor demand, qawwals, who originally sang devotional music at dargahs and Urs festivals, are today forced to take up just about anything — from love and nature to social issues — in their music.

“There are hardly any real qawwal artistes today. A qawwal is only meant to sing songs in praise of God to bring the devotee near the Creator — something akin to the Hindu Bhakti tradition, says Rais Mirza a senior Urdu journalist.

While the decline of qawwali had started in the post-Independent period, it has today become cheap, including songs on vulgar themes, which is an insult to the tradition, says Mirza.

Qawwali as shown in Bollywood is only a degraded version of the music of the Sufis, the singers say.

“The Muqabla-e-Qawwali (qawwalis showing competition between men and women) is essentially a gift of the world of films and has nothing to do with tradition.

“When I started as qawwal artiste, I was taken in more as a prop and as the trend caught on, the films used the form to depict the battle of sexes and it stuck on,” says Prabha Bharti, one of the first woman qawwal artistes.

Other women qawwal artistes also say that “in Hindi movies there is made no distinction between nautch girls and qawwals,while the fact is that qawwals never dance and only perform in the sitting position.”

But Aslam Sabri, another qawwal artiste, who has sung for Hindi movies, says in a commercial medium, one has to be prepared to accept some changes.

“The only connection today’s qawwali has with its erstwhile form is that it retains the original tempo and the beat,” says Mirza, who has been comparing qawwali programmes for the past 40 years.

Concedes qawwal Mehmood Nizami, “There are only 1 per cent qawwals in both India and Pakistan who have stuck to the classical base and sing only the lyrics conceived by Amir Khusro, who originally bound the words of seers into rhythm.

“Faced with financial constraints we had no other option but to deviate from the original theme,” he says.

“For those belonging to the dargah artistes community, it is all the more painful to switch themes and language,” says Nizami, who sings at the mosque of Hazrat Nizammudin in the Capital.

“Is any club or stage audience prepared to hear devotional music?” he asks.

Explaining the origin of qawwali, Mirza says, “Ajmer Sharif and other Sufi seers realised that just reading the Quran did not have the desired effect on devotees so a more interactive medium — the Hindu kirtan tradition was adapted whereby a group eight to 10 devotees would sing together and pass the message of God.”

“It’s heartening to see that at the Urs festival, all the qawwals come together at Ajmer Sharif to sing in a united form and also maintain all traditional facets of the music form,” he says.

“In the ‘70s, most artistes were still singing only in the darghas and the themes which made it to the stage were based on love.

“But love had two connotations — it could be love for the Divine or the beloved. Thus, the detraction was not so marked,” says Prabha Bharti.

To illustrate her point, Bharti says the couplet Na mankabat marfat

kalam saki tere dum se abad hai yeh maikhana... could mean either that all creatures exist and breathe due to God’s grace or that for the poet, the world exists because of the grace of his beloved.

But while the transition was very subtle initially, the themes changed rapidly to include songs on alcohol, drugs and now the despair prevailing in the society.

“In order to suit the preference of the audience, we keep on changing themes. And to keep going, we take on the current rage,” says Chanchal Bharti, a qawwali artiste.

“As the demand for qawwali has decreased, the artistes are always in search of new methods to capture the audience but we have tried to maintain the classical base,” says Bharti.

“As the demand for qawwali has decreased, the artistes are always in search of new methods to capture the audience but we have tried to maintain the classical base,” says Bharti.

Though qawwals in the metropolitan cities are earning their living thanks to clubs, hotels and other cultural festivals, in small cities they can hardly make both ends meet, says Bharti.

Besides the subject, even the language of qawwali, which originally had words from Urdu, Sanskrit, Persian, Avadhi and Arabic language has also now undergone a transformation.

Most of the new generation qawwals cannot understand Arabic or Persian and have switched to the lyrics of modern-day poets, written in easily understandable Urdu.

“Original qawwali language is the mixture of so many languages but as I don’t understand it, I just mug up the words,” says Prabha Bharti, adding that she prefers mixing contemporary Indian languages to cater to her varied audience.

Hazi Aslam Sabri, winner of the President’s Award for qawwali in 1996 says that “though there is nothing wrong in communicating in an easy language, at least qawwals should understand the words or the form would be lost entirely.”

Most of the qawwali lyrics are being taken from contemporary poets which is a mixture of many local languages like Telugu, Avadhi, Urdu and Hindi.

Though qawwals have accepted the change, they crave for some ‘real’ performances where both the singer and listener can understand the significance of qawwali. — PTI

Khajuraho to don new look
By Arindam Dasgupta

Khajuraho — the “village” city — famous largely for its erotic sculptures, is all set to receive a facelift — new roads, rail tracks besides a “world-class” museum — to increase the tourist flow from all over the world.

“We felt a need to develop Khajuraho and to improve the infrastructure to make it more attractive to the tourists. Hence these additions”, says Kanti Poddar, coordinator, Khajuraho Millennium Committee, which is overseeing the millennium celebrations.

Keeping in mind the changing tourist preferences and interests, new additions have been made to the list of tourist attractions in and around Khajuraho.

Among the recent additions are a Sound and Light show at the western group of temples, an ayurvedic health spa being run by Kairali Ayurvedic Health Resorts Pvt Ltd and a tribal arts museum.

“Earlier the tourists used to complain about a dearth of places to visit in and around Khajuraho. They used to say, there’s little else to see apart from the temples. We hope that these additions will help attract more tourists to this place.”

In fact, the health spa has turned out to be a popular destination for foreign tourists.

A local driver Param Lal said foreigners often asked him to take them there. “Just last week I took a group of six Spanish tourists to the spa.”

The recent discovery and the subsequent excavation of the ruins of a temple is also proving to be a big draw for the tourists, say locals.

Situated close to the airport, the site has acquired almost a religious importance for the visiting tourists. People can be seen loitering around the site at almost any time of the day.

In fact, there ought to be some sort of a barricade to prevent people from moving around the site, locals say.

Since the launch of the “Khajuraho Millennium” celebrations in March last year, this sleepy town of about 12,000 residents has witnessed a surge in the arrival of tourists, says Poddar.

“Tourist arrivals have increased by at least 6-7 per cent, after the launch of the celebrations”, he says.

In fact, he says the idea behind organising the millennium celebrations was to “give a peg to our tourism representatives abroad to talk about”.

Another reason was to use it as an excuse to improve the infrastructural facilities at Khajuraho.

Consequently, the roads and other amenities have undergone a sea change over the past few months. Efforts are already on to connect Khajuraho through a rail link.

“The foundation stone for the same has already been laid”, he says.

As part of these efforts, two water reservoirs — Shivsagar and Premsagar — and the village at Khajuraho have been cleaned up. 

Also, a lot of plantation work is being done in and around Khajuraho. A Millennium Plantation Park has been established where visitors plant a sapling and get a certificate signed by the Chief Minister Digvijay Singh, against a payment of Rs 200. The money thus collected is further used for further plantation in the area.

The focus is now going to be on domestic tourists. And the efforts have begun paying off.

Khajuraho has emerged as a popular destination for weddings amongst Indian families.

The trend was started by two NRI families (from the UK), who celebrated their children’s weddings here in November 1998. Recently two more weddings were held here.

Sanjay Majumdar, General Manager, Hotel Chandela, says, “We have built 10 ‘designer’ bullock carts to ferry the ‘baraatis’. And they have proved to be very popular”. — PTI

Sight and Sound
by Amita Malik
Chandrababu Naidu dot com

ALTHOUGH Chandrababu Naidu has created waves abroad and even Clinton is giving him special treatment, he is not exactly a TV star at home, in the way that Pramod Mahajan, for instance, tries to be. He is not very articulate, mumbles frequently and sometimes scowls at the camera.

So it was a very good idea on the part of Prannoy Roy to have him as a panellist in BBC’s Question Time India. Also on the panel was Sheila Dixit, who is not exactly the sweet innocent granny she looks. Her answers were quite sophisticated and politically savvy. Naidu’s chief adversary was Communist leader A.B. Bardhan who used classic Communist arguments to demolish Naidu’s 21st century ones, but did not really succeed. And Roy’s chairing was one of his best and drew out Naidu from his shell with a mixture of teasing and admiration. What impressed one most about Naidu was his obvious dedication and the fierce passion with which he pursues his ideas. As he explained how his computer-based programmes had helped abolish middlemen, get a fair deal for farmers and cut out red tape and bureaucratic sloth in matters like land records, one could see why he had drawn so much attention abroad. For Indians, it was refreshing to see a comparatively young politician and one who is a doer, instead of picking up hearsay from abroad. Bravo Chandrababu.com.I am sure this programme has done for you in India what the media has done for you abroad, and about time. First, the elections. Both Star and Zee have their old trusted anchors, the Prannoy Roy-Vinod Dua team now partitioned and I think to the advantage of viewers.The only thing new was the test flight of DD’s new anchors upgraded from innocuous anchoring and newsreading to DD-appointed stars. Mrinal Pande, her usual comfortable matronly self, smiled her way through the election maze in the same way as she does through women’s programmes and cultural interviews, proving that one can smile and smile and try to be a political anchor too. Rahul Dev, on the other hand, is a genuine, experienced political commentator and a different person from the one who tried to succeed S.P.Singh as newscaster and fell flat on his face. Suneet Tandon, as ever the gentleman, was clearly at sea and not at all comfortable switching over from impersonal apolitical newscaster to griller of politicians, but retained his modesty throughout. Navin Kohli (he of tablew tablew, plattew, plattew fame for tableau and plateau) put on a lot of dog and tried to play political pundit with bravura. But, his inexperience and nervousness peeped out nevertheless. DD, obviously suffering from lack of foresight then left the stage. Having done their bit the first evening, there was no follow-through, the whole panel vanished from sight and we saw a women’s programme and film scene on DD news, while Star and Zee not only kept up their expert coverage for the better part of the night but also carried on next morning.

The budget also saw the usual line-up. Star had a formidable roomful of captains of industry and their trusted economic pundits. Meanwhile, the Finance Minister, ex-finance ministers and India’s economic experts travelled from channel to channel at record speed, were sometimes seen on two channels at the same time (you never know on which channel Onkar Goswami and Co.will bob up next) DD, as usual, did not caption its speakers and kept us guessing but a good time was had by all participants. When Zee nipped over to Silicon Valley (I mean the original American one and not the one in Bangalore) and talked to an NRI whiz-kid, he unconsciously slipped back into an American accent, while Vinod Dua’s insistence on Hindi led Nafisa Ali to say:”It is not necessary to speak Hindi in India” and a woman commentator, like several others, came up with phrases like: “Unlogo ne budget ko politically sell karenge”. And in the men’s fashion show, the Oscar goes to N.K.Singh and Mankad, whose suits and ties could have enlivened any catwalk.

TAIL-PIECE: In my pronunciation rap this week, I am surprised that CIPLA, in their ad.for an inhaler for asthma, makes every patient and even the screen doctor pronounce it as “Ass-tha-ma” when any dictionary will tell you that the tha is silent and it is pronounced as azz-maa.Shame on you, CIPLA.

Audioscan by ASC
A glowing tribute to Ghalib

GHALIB (Times Music): Saying anything about Ghalib’s poetry is a redundant exercise. He has been the yardstick by which every shair has been measured in the past century and a half. Tastes and favourites change but there comes a stage in the life of every poetry lover when he succumbs to the timeless charm of Asadullah Khan.

To appreciate it fully, its rendition also has to be flawless. Many attempts have been made, with uneven success. Here is the latest, which is worthwhile indeed.

The two-cassette album features Shumona Roy Biswas in the first and Somesh Kumar in the second. Both of them have done full justice to the philosophy of Ghalib. Shumona comes from a well-known family of musicians.

Her long stay in Lucknow helped her in imbibing the nuances of Urdu language under the tutelage of her father, Vinod Kumar Chatterjee. It was a brief formal training under Begum Akhtar which helped her hone her talent further. Earlier, she learnt thumri, dadra and ghazal gayaki from Pt. Birju Maharaj.

Here she sings Baskey Dushwar hai..., Ibn-ey-maryam huya kare koi..., Ishrat-e-quatraa..., Zikr us parivash ka..., Dil hi to hai... and Dil-e-nadan tujhe huya kya hai.... There is an innovative use of guitar in these ghazals.

Somesh Kumar is a promising singer of the present generation. He is not in the same league as Shumona as yet, but his voice is far more mature than his years. Music has also been composed and arranged by him. He is at his best in Main unhe chedun.... The other ghazals rendered by him are Dil-e-nadan tujhe hua kya hai..., Sab Kahan..., Dard minnat kashe dawa no hua..., Jor se baaz aye..., Koi umeed bur..., Ibn-ey-maryam hua kare koi....

Many of these ghazals have been used in films. It must have been quite an effort to keep that influence totally out. The recording quality is superb. The jackets give meanings of many difficult words figuring in the album.

Intoxicating Hariharan (Magnasound): As the name suggests, the album comprises ghazals dedicated to saaki and sharaab. These have been culled from his previous albums like In Concert, Ghazals, Halka Nasha and Hazir. Hariharan is such a consummate artiste, but ghazal-singing is not his forte. One enjoys his renderings but does not really connect. Nor are the lyrics chosen by him exceptional, with a few exceptions like Ahde masti hai... by Adam. The canned ‘‘wah-wah’’ jars in place of enhancing the effect.

The jindwa (Royal Music): It is difficult to find a Punjabi singer who does not have pretensions of being a pop singer. Manjeet Money has a robust voice, but he too has swayed to the western beats. It takes quite a bit of effort to reconcile to the ‘‘pop’’ style singing of traditional songs like Hakim Tarachand...

Music has been performed and composed by Jeetu ‘‘G’’. Lyrics are by Rana and D.D. Bakshi.

Kaushik returns to first love

After 17 long years, film director-comedian Satish Kaushik returns to his first love — the stage for a cause.

Kaushik plays the tragic protagonist’s role in “Salesman Ramlal “ an adaptation of the Arthur Miller classic “Death of a Salesman” by noted theatre director Feroz Khan, which will be staged in the Capital later this month in aid of Orissa cyclone victims.

All proceeds of the play, which will see Kaushik in a role far removed from his portly comedian image of the silver screen, will be donated to the rehabilltation programme for cyclone victims carried out by the National Foundation for India (NFI), it was announced at a press conference here recently.

“It will see the serious actor in Satish Kaushik. It is a dream come true for me and also a coming back to roots’’, says Kaushik, an alumni of the National School of Drama, known more as a master comedian of Bollywood and director of recent blockbuster “Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hain.”

The play from the stable of Khan, whose earlier plays like “Mahatma Vs Gandhi”, “Tumhari Amrita” and Saalgirah” are considered landmarks of modern Indian theatre, will be presented by the newly-formed Old World Culture from January 21 to 23 at Habitat World, India Habitat Centre.

Khan, who expressed keen interest in staging plays in aid of social causes, said the classic play, premiered recently in Mumbai, had been adapted to suit an Indian mileu.

“It is far more relevant to the India of present than when it was written originally, especially with recent technological innovations slowly making many professions redundant ,” he said.

“You can see Ramlals all around you, people for whom space is shrinking in the society....In fact, we already have many housing societies displaying boards that ‘salesmen and hawkers not allowed’,” he explains.

Kaushik, excited at getting to enact the lead role in a classic play to mark his return to stage, hoped it would lead to a new phase in his life as an actor.

“After playing salesman Ramlal, I no more want to go back to doing those comedy roles. This is the dearest thing that has happened to me as an actor. I hope somebody would offer me a serious role now on the big screen, seeing my capabilities as an actor, not just a comedian,”he said. — PTI