Mumbai’s tryst with classical music

“The agitation ended in 1955 and a settlement was reached. The audition policy was altered to incorporate a screening process, which was not demeaning to performers,” wrote music scholar and tabla player Aneesh Pradhan in his book, Chasing the Raag Dream.

This story, parts of which are likely apocryphal, showcases how Mumbai functioned as the beating heart of classical music in the country – since the 19th century. Among the brightest stars of that tradition, Ustad Zakir Hussain, died earlier this week. Hussain, born in Mumbai’s Mahim, was the son of Ustad Alla Rakha Khan, a tabla virtuoso, who accompanied sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar. Simla House, Hussain’s home in Mumbai, was witness to over 50 years of this history.

The city’s imprintPandit Amarendra Dhaneshwar, born shortly after independence in 1951, said the city had a lot to offer to the music lover — film music, bhajans, stage songs and bhavgeet. Dadar was home to some of the leading vocalists of Hindustani classical music such as Vidushi Kesarbai Kerkar, Pandit Sharadchandra Arolkar, Vidushi Prabha Atre, Pandit Yeshwantbuwa Joshi and Pandit Jasraj, among others.

“Once when we were playing street cricket, one boy refused to accept that he was out. A man with curly hair who was passing by, raised his finger and declared, ‘out’. It was Pandit Jasraj,” said Dhaneshwar, describing the Mewati gharana vocalist who died during the Covid pandemic in 2020.

Dhaneshwar, a disciple of Vidushi Neela Bhagwat, recalled visiting Rang Bhavan, an open-to-air concert hall in Mumbai’s Dhobi Talao area, where classical musicians would sing till 3am, and then waiting at Churchgate station for an hour to take the first train of the day back home. “I once saw Pandit Ravi Shankar perform starting late at night and carrying on till the next night, ending with raag Bhairav. It was magical.”

Rang Bhavan, which later gained popularity as the venue for international jazz festivals and a rock festival, is no longer in use but other concert halls, including the Shanmukhnanda Hall, opened first in 1963 with a capacity of 3,000 people, remain popular venues for classical performances.

A storied historyThe history of Hindustani Classical music and Mumbai goes back to at least 1848, when the Students’ Literary and Scientific Society (SLSS) was set up to promote scientific temper and vernacular languages. Music, particularly classical music, was one of the subjects, wrote Tejaswini Niranjana, author of Musicophilia in Mumbai: Performing Subjects and the Metropolitan Unconscious.

Dadabhai Naoroji, a leading nationalist leader and founder of SLSS, was also president of Parsi Gayan Uttejak Mandali (GUM), a music club established in 1870. In the early 1930s, as the freedom movement intensified, classical music aficionados formed music circles and the Bombay Music Circle was one of the first. From the turn of the century, schools such as Vishnu Digambar Paluskar’s Gandharva Mahavidyalaya (1908), VN Bhatkhande’s Sharda Sangeet Mandal (1917), Abdul Karim Khan’s Arya Sangeet Vidyalaya (1918) and BR Deodhar’s School of Indian Music (1925) also sprang up in Mumbai for a new generation of singers not affiliated to hereditary musical lineages.

The Marathi and Kannada stage attracted singers who later became famous, including Sawai Gandharva, his student (and later Pandit) Bhimsen Joshi, and Mallikarjun Mansur, while courtesans and songstresses migrated to Mumbai where they lived and performed with renowned accompanists. According to music historian Michael Rosse, by the late 1930s, there were already 34 institutions in Mumbai for performers, singers, and accompanists.

“New kinds of listening experience were made possible in a growing number of public spaces — the Parsi theater and the Marathi sangeet natak or musical play, the music circle, the music school, the baithak or performance in a wealthy patron’s home, the music conference, the concert stage…,” Niranjana wrote.

Concerts took place all over Mumbai – from venues such as the Brahman Sabha, Trinity Club and Muzaffarabad Hall to the courtyards of chawls in Girgaum, and the municipal gardens at Rani Baug and Malabar Hills, where radio performances were often relayed over wireless amplifiers.

Impact on film industryMumbai’s film industry offered a regular source of income to many. Some, such as Ali Akbar Khansahib, achieved renown. The sarod musician employed in the court of Hanwant Singh moved to Mumbai after the erstwhile ruler of Jodhpur died in 1952. Jaidev, a popular music composer, introduced him to director Chetan Anand (actor Dev Anand’s brother), and Ali Akbar was able to not only compose music for films but also play in the background scores.

Another success story was Pandit Ram Narayan. The world-renowned sarangi player who passed away last month, worked in films such as Mughal-e-Azam and Pakeezah. Classical musicians Hariprasad Chaurasia (flautist) and Shivkumar Sharma (sarod player) teamed up to direct the music for films such as Silsila, Chandni and Lamhe, among others.

Ustad Alla Rakha himself composed music for films from the 1940s. He collaborated with artists such as Buddy Rich among others, and together with Pandit Ravi Shankar, he performed around the world, including at Woodstock in 1969. His son followed in his footsteps, and went on to form Shakti with John McLaughlin. Unlike his purist father, Hussain forayed into fusion, a genre that gained popularity as the West began to institutionalise its interest.

This is not to say that all musicians found enough work, or patronage. “Efforts have been made in Mumbai to discuss ways in which the performance situation for Hindustani and Carnatic music can be improved. This has been attempted under the banner of Music Forum, collective of office bearers from music circles, a few performers and representatives of Akashvani, Doordarshan and other bodies which have been involved in distributing music — a brainchild of businessman and senior sitar player Arvind Parikh,” Pradhan wrote.

A successful businessman, Parikh (who was joint secretary of the Sangit Mandal that sought a better audition process by AIR) played a significant role in developing the Music Forum. Author and critic Shanta Gokhale was the first chairperson of the Forum when it was formed in the early 1990s. “It was a platform for discussion of all issues pertaining to classical music and had representatives from the different fora where music was performed: radio, television, cultural centres like the National Centre for Performing Arts, music circles such as the Dadar Matunga cultural centre, music organisers, music critics writing for newspapers, musicians, and connoisseurs who attended every single programme in the city. In the first decade, we had around 20 members. One of the programmes we conducted was to help promising young musicians find a stage to perform on, we also held seminars on different issues,” Gokhale said.

By this time, the Hindustani classical music scene had vastly changed. While festivals and clubs continued to platform performers, many found work in television programmes and even advertising.

Jayanthi Nayak, a Hindustani classical vocalist who trained under Pandit Yashwantbuwa Joshi, experienced first-hand the changing milieu of Mumbai. Born in the late 1960s, Nayak learnt Carnatic music as a child all the way through her school years. She studied Hindustani classical music in Mumbai University, and began training as a vocalist under the Gwalior Gharana doyen from 24 for 18 years. Thus, Nayak is familiar with both pedagogies — the guru-shishya parampara, as well as the government-certified, institutionally notified musical one.

“We need to demystify classical music, and we need to do that by sharing music in ways that are relevant to the learner,” she said. In the early 2000s, Nayak was a part of Sabrang, a programme started by artistes Parag and Mandakini Trivedi to conduct workshops with people to introduce them to classical art forms.

“Where are we creating rasikas (connoisseurs),”asked Nayak, pointing to the need to renew a new generation’s interest in Hindustani classical music.