Remembering Gangubai

Whenever I have to talk about music, I mean talk and not write, I am rather wary of being indiscreet in giving in to or being carried away by a kind of “emotional” streak which I generally steer clear of in my more self-conscious writing.  I know that I don’t mind falling for that emotional streak or vein in expressing myself when it comes to music. Not that there is anything elusive or enigmatic or inscrutable about the core of musical aesthetics though all this may be there in the personal experience of music in varying measures. In this I may be aligning myself with or attaching myself to a certain legacy of a particular tradition and in the process, partaking of the whole gamut of its significations on its own terms. I know that words like legacy and ethos are imprecise and wishy-washy in themselves but then, no less so are words like tradition and worldview, for that matter. There are certain things which if reduced to their mere socio-empirical base can no better be understood than as a databank  with a depleted experiential and perceptual dimension the multiple significations of which we live by in order for us to let things fall in place. Music is a case in point. Unless one can have an inkling of the many-splendoured legacy of Gangubai Hangal against the historical tradition of Indian classical music, one may not fully realise what we have lost by her death. On a different level, understanding the patterns of enculturation of musical creativity vis-à-vis the practices and institutions of music-making and music-consumption in a society, is also to understand the singularity of individual achievement in its culture-specific discursive context.

Hailing from a socially under-privileged community of fishermen and boatmen by hereditary occupation, called Gangamat from Dharwar in North Karnataka, her life, put in modest terms, was a saga of self-discovery. It was a common custom those days for married men from upper castes to take a second wife called upapatni which was like a mistress of sorts from a lower caste and Ambabai, Gangubai’s mother was in like manner married to Chikkurao Nadgir, a Brahmin landlord from Rane Binnur.  Ambabai was an accomplished Carnatic vocalist who used to be invited for concerts in the neighbouring region. Once it was decided that her daughter should take to the Hindustani idiom which was more prevalent in the region, Ambabai gave up her concert engagements lest the young Gangu bai should be distracted by a different style. But of course the music in the family stood her in good stead and she benefited much from her early exposure particularly to swara singing (sargam) of the Carnatic system (which interestingly she did not use later in her evolved style of Hindustani). Her formal education ended at the fifth level when learning music got the priority. Mother and child moved to Hubli to learn music under one Krishtacharya who was a disciple of Ustad Abdul Karim Khan. But in about a year’s time she fell out with the teacher because of his routine teaching grinds by rote and both mother and child returned to Dharwar looking for a genuine guru.

In the meantime as she has not found a guru yet even after a good two years, the young Gangubai took lessons in Kathak dance which she gave up shortly at the suggestion that it may have an adverse effect on her dam sans which was needed for the ability to sing the ascending and descending scales in a single breath many times over. Her mother also put her through the paces in the Carnatic system by teaching her several compositions of Tyagaraja. But what they looked forward to was the pursuit of the Hindustani system in a more in-depth and consistently creative manner.

This came about through the well-meaning efforts of a friend and benefactor in Hubli where they were back by then, Dattopant Desai. As for the ideal kind of mentor and guide they had been looking for, there could have been none better than Ramabhau Kundgolkar, better known by his conferred title Sawai Gandharva. A leading disciple of Ustad Abdul Karim Khan, Sawai Gandharva was as much an acclaimed concert artiste as an applauded actor-singer in the Marathi musical theatre both of which kept his schedules busy. Finding it difficult to teach someone in Hubli on practical grounds as his visits to Hubli were rather infrequent and not for longer stays, Sawai Gandharva was initially reluctant. But finally the enthusiasm and perseverance of the mother and child prevailed over him and he agreed to teach the young Gangubai whenever he came to Hubli. Sawai Gandharava for his part as a teacher was a demanding taskmaster who would entertain no waywardliness or shortcuts on the part of his students. Thus the training went on in a fitful and sporadic manner, though kept up by untiring practice sessions, until 1937 when the maestro called it a day and returned to Kundgol. It was also around the same time that Pt. Bhimsen Joshi enrolled himself as a student of Sawai Gandharva. Accompanied by her uncle Ramanna, Gangubai would travel between Hubli and Kundgol on her way to learn from the guru and back home – a daily practice that went on for close to four years. She remembers the kind of snide remarks and sly comments she had to face on her mile-long walk from Kundgol station to her master’s home, referring to the attitude to women and worse, if she happens to be a singer. Talking of the plight of women, she remembers how alarmed she was at the prospect of having to sit together and eat in the company of the local aristocrats in Belgaum after she rendered the inaugural song for the Belgaum Congress session of 1924. It was so different from the conditions of her immediate milieu in Dharwar where even after the concert in some upper-caste local worthy’s house attended by friends, she would be invited for dinner, but only to be served at a distance from the other guests, in the verandah which will be ritually cleaned by sprinkling cow-dung when she finishes.  Even such remembered experiences had a lasting impact on her and would probably have added up to her creative acumen and attitude to life.

Sawai Gandharva’s teaching was extensive, rigorous and meticulous and his insistence on the particular Kirana identity of each raga was almost obsessive. It is said that while a disciple is introduced to a new raga, the master would discreetly withhold the name of the raga being taught until he has mastered it.  He also nurtured in her a keen sense of critical evaluation of the style of other musicians.  Gangubai reminisces somewhere how her gurubhai Bhimsen Joshi, younger to her by several years, would accompany her holding a lantern, all the way from the guru’s house to the nearest railway station to see her off after the classes. It is interesting to note how these two contemporaries belonging to the same gharana and learned under the same guru, interpret the tradition each in his/her way. While Gangubai stood her Kirana ground firmly and held her own, Bhimsen is more eclectic in his style without losing the austere marks of his gayaki. If Gangubai is pensive and sombre, her gurubhai is dramatic and charged. But the vocal quality of both irrespective of the male/female difference, has a strikingly common complexion, evidently related to the characteristic practices of voice culture and the allied values of vocalism they imbibed in common. Her hefty yet full-throated baritone which has nothing of the so-called feminine grace about it, has endeared her to her admiring listeners as Gangubuwa, implying the Marathi honorific of a male musician. It is perhaps this that lends the shrieking angst of her tar shadaj its peculiar rebellious power. Rebellious – could she have been? As a coincidence the word brings to mind an interesting incident involving Gangubai that Pt. Rajshekhar Mansur has noted elsewhere. In fact, Pt. Mallikarjun Mansur along with Gangubai Hangal and other artists of Dharwar, Hubli and Belgaum organised a peaceful hartal to protest against the discriminatory policies of the AIR sometime in 1953. She used to cherish the memory of picketing the AIR along with Mallikarjunji. Sounds strange to a present-day music enthusiast, let alone a musician!

I still remember vividly the only occasion I’ve had to meet her though I have heard her several times and that was in 1987 or so in Mysore. She was invited to the Fine Arts college where I was teaching then as she was in the city on some personal visit. She promptly turned up and sat among us and talked in a casual manner. There was no music as it would amount to temerity to ask her for it. Our dean, Prof. Vishwa Mohan Sholapurkar who was an ardent admirer of hers, got her to plant a sapling in the campus. My colleagues then included the noted young artists like N. Pushpamala, Sheela Gowda, and the dear departed Ashokan Poduval, Rasna Bhushan et al.  She was genial and affable, mild-mannered and soft-spoken and looked rather a mismatch of her own celebrity image in the public realm. She narrated an incident that took place the previous day. The Administrative Training Institute in Mysore that grooms the career bureaucrats in the offing had felicitated her the other day and as she was talking casually to her enlightened audience, someone asked in all seriousness what the tall thing was that is held behind musicians when they sing, obviously referring to the tanpura. She laughed good-humouredly without the least trace of insinuation or disdain.

I also cherish the memory of an unforgettable concert of hers which I attended those days along with my colleagues somewhere in a remote temple an hour and a half drive from the Mysore city. It didn’t look like any festival occasion and she sat outside facing the sanctum with daughter Krishna. The audience was meagre and there was no mike or illumination. But the Puria she sang in the twilight hours infused an air of serenity that was almost tangible in the embalmed darkness around.

[I owe most of the biographical details of Gangubai’s life to a two-part essay by Vijay Mulay.]