Spotlight on gharanas with Manjari Chaturvedi’s latest project

Classical music, as we know it today in North India, would not have existed without the patronage of the princely states. Musicians attached to the court were given salaries and allowed to pursue the arts without the fear of the future. This resulted in the development of gharanas or styles of music belonging to one family of musicians. Though now this is more relevant to vocal traditions, instrumental gharanas flourished too, more famously the Maihar, Etawah, Vishnupur and Shahjahanpur gharanas.

Kathak dancer Manjari Chaturvedi is known for her innovations in art. For the past 25 years, she has meticulously crafted novel shows, focusing on personalities as diverse as Bulleh Shah and Mirza Ghalib. Over the course of time, she realised that the stories linked with gharanas were slowly being forgotten and decided to recapture this history through storytelling, dance and music. As she says: “Gharanas or styles are getting mixed, and artistes are presenting consolidated performances. This is happening in music and kathak as well; obviously, this is the way forward. But the exponents who have worked all their lives to maintain styles and carefully pass them on are being forgotten. I felt it was important to remember those masters.”

Manjari says the patrons of today, the corporates, think that only Bollywood concerts sell. But ‘Gwalior: A Royal Darbar’ belied this erroneous impression. The Delhi show was sold out.

The first in the series appropriately focused on Gwalior gharana, the seniormost gharana of khayal gayaki. Gwalior, incidentally, is recognised as a centre of the arts by UNESCO. For the history of the gharana, Manjari relied on the memories of fifth generation exponent Pt Lakshman Krishnarao Shankar Pandit, whose family had migrated to Gwalior from Maharashtra over a century ago, to serve at the Scindia darbar. He is a rare musician alive today who has not only seen but participated in the concerts held at the darbar. Four successive rulers of Gwalior hugely maintained the tradition of unparalleled patronage. Musicians in Gwalior were respected and had an enviable status in society.

The singer was sixth-generation artiste Meeta Pandit, accompanied by her team. Manjari interspersed the show with anecdotes and history of the musical tradition of Gwalior, predating the Scindias too. Apart from essaying the role of the ‘sutradhar’ (narrator), Manjari danced to two thumris, recreating the style of dance in a court.

Manjari’s strong aesthetic visual sense recreated the ambience of the court with chandeliers and diyas, and haze simulating an earlier time. The costumes of the exponents were carefully chosen. Nine-yard saris, nose rings for Manjari and vocalist Meeta Pandit, male accompanists wearing Marathi ‘safas’ (turbans) and ‘parnas’ on the left shoulder — all added to the overall experience.

The music was carefully chosen by Meeta. No piece was longer than 10-15 minutes, thus keeping the audience interest intact. The lyrics were picked for their ease of comprehension; thus, there was ‘Saiyyan re’ in Raga Gaur Malhar, followed by a traditional thumri talking about the fear of the singer at separation from her ‘piya’ in Raga Des. Since these compositions were created in the court, these dealt with everyday relatable incidents. Some were even more specific; Meeta sang a composition that spoke of Madhav Rao Scindia (the 1st) going abroad for the first time, ‘Gaye Madho saiyyan vides’.

The performance was replete with anecdotes. Ustad Nissar Hussain Khan, one of the leading exponents of Gwalior gharana, loved train travel. He wove the lyrics ‘Mere dil ka station’ into a ‘tarana’ in Raga Alhaiya Bilawal and sang it for the Viceroy after requesting him for a free train pass. Meeta’s presentation of this unusual composition was a delight.

Stories of the concerts at Gorkhi temple, how ragas were left as mortgage by musicians in debt, and then redeemed and rendered when the debt was paid off, made for a fascinating evening. Meeta says: “Narrating on stage the stories that I have heard since my childhood days about my family’s musical link with Gwalior gave me goosebumps. I have written a book on this and could see history literally came alive on stage.”

‘Gwalior — A Royal Darbar’ would be presented at the Shimla Classical Music Festival later this month, followed by an event in Mumbai, and various other cities.

— The writer specialises in music