Opinion Classicist till the end

It was a propitious move initiated by a chance meeting with the founder of the Kirana gharana,Ustad Abdul Karim Khan,who identified in the young girl the makings of a future musical genius. This was to result in a long and sustained training for little Gangubai who would travel the thirty kilometres between Hubli and Kundagol by train for thirteen years before she was permitted to come out on stage. It was propitious for her that her “gurubhai” happened to be Pandit Bhimsen Joshi,eight years her junior,who was given the responsibility of escorting Gangubai back to the station every evening. The story goes that Bhimsen Joshi would ask her to repeat what she learnt that day from the master and then sing it back to her as a special form of his own riyaaz.

Gangubai Hanagal’s autobiography in Kannada Nanna Badukina Haadu (The Song of My Life),published in 2004 and later translated into English,gives some extraordinary insight into this reticent and withdrawing personality who had a continuous performing life of almost seventy years without a single reported instance of any tantrums or publicity-seeking stunts. The autobiography contains a mild social rebuke at the situation of the music world where she says that male musicians go on to become “ustaads” if they are Muslim or “pandits” if they are Hindu,but “women like us remain mere ‘bais’”. For example,Kesarbai or Mugubai.

She also made the out-of-the-box suggestion in her book that it is really not possible to produce good music or learn new things when one is disturbed or unhappy. She has written that the whole concept of getting lost in music and forgetting the world around is merely a myth created by musicians. Gangubai also revealed in her autobiography that during the early years of her musical training she did not receive support outside of her own family and discusses how even urchins sitting on the road would throw cow dung at her or abuse her as “gaane wali” and how neighbours would bang metal pots and create a din to disturb her riyaaz.

Despite the limitations imposed by her social context,Gangubai represents an interesting community of women musicians who burst into the male bastion of classical music in the 1930s and 1940s and gave an entirely new twist to the cultural contributions towards nation-building — musicians like Veena Dhanammal,Sidheshwari Devi,Kesarbai Kerkar,M.S. Subbulakshmi,M.L. Vasanthakumari,D.K. Pattammal,Begum Akhtar and so on.

All her life,Gangubai remained an uncompromising traditionalist sticking to the khayal form with no concessions to any kind of light music like bhajans or thumris or abhangs. Gangubai is known best for her rendition of ragas like Bhairav,Asvari,Todi,Bhimpalas,Poorya,Dhanashri,Marwa,Kedar and Chandrakauns. Later female classicists like Kishori Amonkar or Prabha Atre or even Lata Mangeshkar were to revere the contributions of Gangubai Hanagal which,in fact,converted the act of listening itself into an art.

Gangubai Hanagal received some of the top-most honours like the Padma Bhushan,Padma Vibhushan,Sangeet Natak Akademi award,etc,during her long career. Gangubai remained tied to her roots. She received the first Sawai Gandharva Memorial National Award at a function at Kundagol in Dharwad district. There are many musicians who might,however,feel that nothing short of a Bharat Ratna would have sufficed.

The 96-year-old developed cardiac and respiratory problems and was hospitalised in Hubli in a critical condition last week. When she died on Tuesday,close family members,including her two sons and grand-daughters,were by her side. Her passing away today represents the curtain call of an entire epoch of music-making that brought a new meaning to the idea of the nation as a cultural entity.

The writer is a Chennai-based cultural critic express@expressindia.com