[Posted on
RMIC by Rajan Parrikar as part of Great Masters Series]
Namashkar!
Einstein once wrote,
"I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are mere details." He was
speaking of the physical universe. In the universe of the swara,
Khansaheb Abdul Karim Khan could well have echoed similar sentiments.
For in Khansaheb's music, it was the swara, its shades and aesthetic,
that was paramount. The following feature on this MahaRishi is eloquent
enough.
Khuda Hafiz,
Rajan Parrikar
Ustad
Abdul Karim Khan
by Smt.
Susheela Misra
(From: "Great Masters of Hindustani Music"
by Smt. Susheela Misra.)
In
the early decades of this century, Khan Saheb Abdul Karim Khan dominated
the world of Hindustani music for well over a generation, and he
was a trend setter in this world in more than one sense. He created
a new style or gharaana and gave an elan to the history of Hindustani
music. He has been acclaimed as the "maestro who conceived, evolved,
and popularised the Kirana gharana", and in fact, he changed the
entire mood of Khayal and Thumri-singing. Dr.
S.N. Ratanjankar wrote to me once about him: "In the late Ustad
Abdul Karim Khan Saheb's sweet, tender, and tuneful voice, the Hindustani
melodies appeared in a role and mood quite different from those
in which they presented themselves in other voices...It was like
a walk in a cool, moon-lit garden of sweet-smelling flowers that
one felt when listening to the perfectly tuneful, and dreamy cadences
of Khan Saheb's music One was lifted up into a dream land. The dream
haunted the mind long after the music had ceased. The Khan Saheb
never sang a raga, but was in holy communion with it. It was the
very divine world, as it were, which made you forget the opposites,
and led you to the perfect unity with the Supreme spirit".
Those who have been able
to hear the Ustad's music only through his gramophone records, become
aware of many shortcomings in his style such as the nasal twang
in the voice produced through "a deliberately constricted throat",
lack of bol-alaaps, bol-tans, rhythmic play, variety and grandeur.
But, his contemporaries who had the good fortune to hear him in
person were completely hypnotised by the sweetness of his music
and his aesthetic emotion-filled rendering of ragas. Late Prof.
D.P. Mukherji who was a reputed music connoisseur, wrote: "Abdul
Karim Khan would invite us to enter into the sanctum of music where
he was the high priest. He was not an orthodox singer. He would
not even sing a composition through. His asthayi was not always
true to form. He would make unexpected permutations and combinations.
. . . . , But who cared when Abdul Karim Khan was on the dais !
This unorthodox man was a genius. ...Some of the finest exponents
of Khayal today are either his pupils or his pupil`s pupils. "
His shishya-parampura includes
a long array of celebrities such as Sawai
Gandharva, Baharebuwa, Sureshbabu Mane, Balakrishnabuwa Kapileswari,
Dasarathbuwa Muley, Roshanara Begum; Hirabai
Barodekar and many others who in their turn, have groomed another
generation of reputed singers like Bhimsen
Joshi, Feroz Dastur, Gangubai
Hangal, Manik Verma, Saraswati Rane, Prabha Atre and others.
Abdul Karim Khan was born
in 1872 in Kirana near Kurukshetra in the Punjab. Subsequently the
style or Gharana that he evolved was named after his birth place,
Kiraana. In his perceptive book, "Indian Musical Traditions", Sri
Vamanrao Deshpande rightly says that "each gharana has its origin
in the distinctive quality of the voice of its founder and it is
this quality which broadly determines his style." To this I would
also add that the temperament of the founder also plays a considerable
role in moulding the style of the gharana.
Abdul Karim Khan was perhaps
the first North Indian musician to study Karnatic ragas and incorporate
several of them into Hindustani music. His records of songs in "Kharaharapriya",
"Saaweri", "Hamsadhwani", "Abhogi" etc. as well as his style of
sargam-singing are proofs of his great admiration and love for Karnatic
music. Perhaps no single classical musician in those days did so
much for the promotion of mutual understanding between Hindustani
and Karnatic music as the late Khan Saheb did. The greatest quality
of his music was "emotion par excellence", and that was the reason
why his classical music was able to move audiences everywhere, whether
in the North or South of India. I know of many young men and women
in South India who took to Hindustani music, charmed by the spell
of Khan Saheb's music. The ecstatic tributes of a discerning western
musician and critic after hearing the Ustad, prove how really exalted
music overleaps all barriers and transports listeners into a transcendental
world.
The critic writes: "I heard
him melt half and quarter tones into one another with the effect
of magic--- He was a conjurer of sounds...Who that has heard him
can forget him. . . ! He not only sang sounds but he became every
turn and twist in the song. The atmosphere became surcharged with
a musical magic I have contacted nowhere else!".
The Kirana musical lineage
came mostly from instrumentalists--chiefly Sarangiyas. After receiving
his training from Kale Khan and Abdulla Khan, Khan Saheb went over
to Baroda where he was appointed as a court-musician because of
his great merit. After some years, he left Baroda for Bombay, and
then went to Miraj. Wherever he went, his sweet voice and captivating
style of singing won for him numerous admirers. From there, he proceeded
to Hubli and Dharwar and stayed with his brother Abdul Haq. The
two brothers often used to sing together. A notable pupil he acquired
at this time was Rambhau or Sawai Gandharwa who later on, became
one of his best disciples by sheer dint of practice. The Ustad was
very punctilious about his early-morning daily practice, and Rambhau
unfailingly practised with his conscientious guru every morning.
A true "pilgrim of melody engaged in his eternal quest of swaras",
Khan Saheb was constantly on the move. When he went to Patna, Roshanara's
mother became his pupil.
In 1913 Abdul Karim Khan
founded the Arya Sangeet Vidyalaya in Poona. It was a unique institution
because the Ustad not only imparted whole-hearted musical training,
but himself supported numerous poor and deserving students, took
them on tours to give musical variety shows, and trained them up
to play on various musical instruments. The ustad was an expert
on many musical instruments, especially the Veena and the Sarangi.
An expert in repairing musical instruments, he carried with him
his set of tools for repairs everywhere because tuning the Tanpuras
and perfecting their "Jawaaris" was almost an art in itself with
him. The famous Sitar and Tanpura makers of Miraj revered him and
looked up to his opinions for guidance.
A branch of this magnanimous
institution was founded in Bombay in 1917, but it throve for only
2 or 3 years. When the School had to be closed down, Khan Saheb
migrated to Miraj where he built a house of his own, and settled
down at last. Though Miraj became the centre of his activities,
he continued his musical tours all over the North and even into
the far South. During his stay in Hyderabad and the Madras Presidency,
his list of admirers and disciples in South India swelled and his
popularity grew so much that whichever town he visited, people garlanded
him and took him in a grand procession like a king. The ustad was
greatly drawn to the music loving people of the South, and he was
one of the early Hindustani musicians to kindle a great love for
Hindustani music in the people of the South. He had, and still has,
hundreds of admirers in the South. In spite of all the fame and
adulation that he received, Abdul Karim Khan always lived frugally
like a Sadhu, and like the Rishis of yore, Khan Saheb trained his
disciples under the Gurukula system. He not only trained them thoroughly
in music, but also bore the entire cost for feeding and clothing
them out of his own earnings from concerts! Though a devout Muslim,
and a devotee of Pir Sayyid Shamma Mira, a mystic saint (whose dargah
is famous in Miraj), Khan Saheb was, like Kabir, a devout Hindu
too, it is said. In his musical works he used to write '"OM TATSAT
SAMAVEDAYA NAMAHA". Although born in a musical Muslim family (on
1lth Nov.1872), Abdul Karim took pride in his Hindu ancestors like
Nayak DHONDU, a court-musician of Raja Man Singh of Gwalior (1486-1516
A.D). His first public concert was at the age of 11 (in 1893). Besides
being such a great vocalist, Khan Saheb had also an amazing mastery
over such varied instruments as Been, Sarangi, Jaltarang and Tabla.
In Maharashtra great men like Lokamanya Tilak and Gopalakrishna
Gokhale were drawn to his music. In the South, he became a favourite
musician in the Mysore darbar, and his music was highly appreciated
by great Karnatak musicians like Tiger Varadacharier, Muthiah Bhagawatar
and Veena Dhanammal. He also created a stir by advancing the "Shruti
Samvad" theory in collaboration with the British musicologist Mr.
E. Clements, and is said to bave given a fine demonstration of 22
Shrutis (micro-tonal distances) with the help of 2 Veenas at a public
function' presided over by Dr. C.V. Raman.
One of the most melodious
classical musicians we have had, Abdul Karim Khan's music always
created a sublime atmosphere. The soothing quality of his specially
cultivated voice, and his reposeful style of singing were such that
the singer as well as his listeners forgot themselves in a sort
of "trance". Many of his musical heirs have surpassed him in technical
virtuosity, but few have achieved "that degree of hypnotic effect"
through music. Not only did he develop his own "Kirana" style of
Khayal-badhut, but in his voice even the Thumri "shed its gossamer
erotic undertones" and assumed instead "the character of a sad,
pensive, and devout supplication". Many reputed musicians of today
refer to Abdul Karim Khan Saheb as "Sachche swaron ke devata" (the
master who sang perfect notes). He had cultivated a special way
of voice production so that his sweet and melodious voice mingled
indistinguishably with the drone of the Tanpura strings. This was
acquired by him through years of strenuous "Mandra-sadhana", early
morning practice for several hours in the lower notes. He stressed
on voice culture in his pupils also; and even when he was at the
zenith of fame, he never gave up this daily "mandra sadhana". Another
outstanding quality of his music was its emotional element. Whatever
he rendered, whether a Khayal, Thumri, Hori or Bhajan; the rendition
"mirrored his whole inward being". While singing Khayals, he concentrated
mostly on "ALAPI", and avoided "layakari", "boltans" etc, probably
because he felt these might spoil the emotional atmosphere built
up by him. Kans (grace-notes), and "gamakas" as in the Sarangi,
and beautiful long unbroken "meends" (glides) as in the Veena, were
some of the chief embellishments of his music. These and the emotion
which he poured into his Thumris were so moving that often huge
audiences wept when he sang some of his famous Thumris surcharged
with feeling. The Gramaphone Company has done a great service by
re-issuing many of his short items on a long-playing disc and striving
to give us glimpses into his impassioned outpourings. Through these
records of songs like "Jamuna ke Teer", "Piya Bina Nahi Awat Chain",
"Gopala, Karuna kyon nahi--", "Piya ke milan ki aas" and "Naina
raseeli", we can but have just flashes of those unforgettable hours
a Khan Saheb Abdul Karim Khan transported his hypnotised audiences
into a world of pure, sheer melody. On inspired days, he is said
to have elaborated one Raga or a single Thumri for hours, and kept
his audience spell-bound throughout. Being fond of Alap-ang, Abdul
Karim Khan always preferred to sing expansive ragas like Lalit,
Jaunpuri, Marwa, Malkauns, Todi, Darbari and so on. Among his chief
disciples, Pdt. Balkrishnabuwa Kapileswari deserves special praise
for running a school, "Shree Saraswati Sangeet Vidyalaya" carrying
on the traditions of his great Ustad. In 1963 he published SHRUTIDARSHAN,
a valuable research-work in music incorporating the findings of
his guru and his own. The book won for him 2 important awards.
The traditions of generosity
and hospitality that Abdul Karim Khan set up at the munificent annual
"Urus" of Mirasaheb in Miraj (where he used to feed hundreds of
fakirs and encourage musicians lavishly) have been kept up by his
devoted widow BANUBAI, and disciples like Hirabai. Numerous were
the poor music-students whom Khan Saheb had supported and trained
in music. Another example of his generosity is that during his musical
tours, he always took his accompanists also with him in the same
compartment.
Although frail-looking,
Khan Saheb maintained excellent health through regular exercises,
disciplined habits, and frugal living. His photographs show him
as a tall, slim person dressed immaculately in a black achkan, a
cane in hand, a typical moustache and a red gold-bordered turban,
and most striking of all, his dreamy eyes about which Mr K. Subbarayan
narrates an interesting little anecdote in the Bhavan's Journal
(1972):
Mystified by the dreamy
eyes of the Khansaheb, Mrs Annie Besant had once discreetly enquired
of a disciple whether the master was addicted to any drug. "Indeed",
came the reply, "He is very much addicted to the intoxication of
music!".
In 1937 Khan Saheb went
down to South India to give music soirees in various parts of the
Madras Presidency. A huge crowd of admirers saw him off at the Madras
Station and nearly smothered him with garlands. He was on his way
to Pondicherry with some friends. Feeling very unwell and restless,
he detrained at one of the intermediate stations to take some rest.
Before lying down, he sang his prayers set in Rag Darbari and then
lay down to sleep for ever! It was a most unexpected end and yet
so like this great and good artiste to round off his earthly existence
with a tuneful bhajan! At the loving insistence of his admirers,
his body was taken in a special car to Madras, and thence to Miraj,
crowds paying their last homage to the departed singer through out
the journey. At Miraj, Banubai gave him a magnificent funeral. Memorial
programmes to this great musician are held every year in the month
of August.
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