SOUNDS LIKE SPRING!

By RAJEEV GUPTA

Spring or Basant is an inspiring time for music in communities around the world with various forms of music celebrating its arrival in unique ways.

In India, spring is followed by the scorching heat of summer, therefore the enjoyment of the temperate climate is celebrated with relish.

While in Western classical music there is Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, we have Basant, Bahar, and Hindol, the raags of spring. The raags,  and the combination – Basant-Bahar – are generally performed at concerts during February and March. Basant and Bahar are respectively Sanskrit and Persian words, both indicating spring. No wonder raag Basant-Bahar is widely used in compositions extolling the beauty of the season.

But celebration is not limited to Khayal gayaki. The glory of spring raags reaches another level as they step out of the strict restrictions of Khayal music and move closer to light classical forms like Hori – the collection of songs enjoyed during the festival of colours in spring.

Typically, such songs are about Krishna playing Holi with Radha and Gopis in the form of Radha-Krishna Leela. Horis originated in the regions of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and are in the languages of Braj and Bhojpuri. Often these are sung in Dhamar taal.

The stories told in Horis are often quite amusing. In one, a girl insists she would play Hori with only her lover. Shobha Gurtuji immortalized this sentiment in the thumri Main to khelungi un sang Hori guiyan. Then there’s Mira longing for the arrival of Krishna to play Holi with her in Lata Mangeshkar’s Yaman- based Meera bhajan, Kenu sang khelu Hori, piya taj gaye hain akeli.  Or Pandit Jasraj’s Behag-based Falgun maas aayo ri sakhiya, Hori khelen aaye re rasiya.

The songs invariably have the mention of abir, gulal, pichkari, referring to the multi-coloured powders used during Holi.

Interestingly, we also have Horis where the singer is complaining about Krishna bothering her, requesting him to stop! Girija Devi sang Aisi Hori na khelo, Kanhai re in raag Pilu. Complaining of the pichkari colouring her clothes and making them wet, she sang, Hamaar angiyan rang deeni, bhigo deeni.

Basant starts with the month of Falgun (February-March) and continues into the month of Chait (March-April). Countless folk songs called Chaiti are enjoyed during that time, often based on raag Mishra Pahadi. Chait maas bole re koyaliya more angana is a well-known Chaiti sung by many artistes, including Girija Devi and Ustad Shujat Khan.

I remember a spring time concert by Shubha Mudgal that I attended at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi with my parents a few years ago. It was on the evening of Holi, after we had played and celebrated Holi during the day.

After cleaning ourselves up, we went to this concert where she sang beautiful Horis with a live dramatic presentation of Krishna Leela. The organizers made the experience interactive and distributed flowers to the audience to come forward and dance with the artistes and shower the petals of tesu and marigold on the dancing Krishna and Radha, as Shubha Ji sang some of the finest Horis.

For those of us living in big cities like Delhi, this was the closest we could get to the traditional Holi celebration in villages like Mathura or the Kumaon Hills of Uttarakhand.

Moving towards the valley of Kashmir, how can you not think of spring in the valley through the raag Jhinjhoti-based ghazal by Faiz Ahmed Faiz and sung by Mehdi Hasan? 

Gulon mein rang bhare,

baad-i nau-bahaar chale

Chale bhi aao, ke

gulshan ka kaar-o-baar chale

This is purely about romance, the blooming of flowers and spring breeze. Flowers and colours do have a strong connection with Spring. Villagers make coloured water by boiling flowers for hours.

Qawwals added their own flavour through compositions:

Kheliye dhamaal hajarat khaaja sang

Arab yaa tero basant banaayo

Rakhiyo jagat men laal gulal

Hajarat khaaja sang kheliye dhamaal

On hearing them, one cannot help but contemplate how centuries of tradition, faith and history have helped shape this musical and philosophical depth.

The Indian subcontinent is so vast that it is impossible to know the length and breadth of music celebration of spring in every region. Uttara-khand has songs that encourage visitors to visit Garhwal Himalayas during spring because the hills are adorned with the flowers of rhododendrons or buraansh. Mera gaan ka danda, basant ritu maa jaiyee. Surely West Bengal and Assam have their own bouquets of songs for this beautiful season.

This music can be sung, performed and enjoyed at any time of the year, but the movement of the raags themselves – their characteristic phrases and the way these are linked to each other – are thought to melodically evoke images of freshness, colour and joy, all aspects of spring.

• Rajeev Gupta is on the Raag-Mala Toronto Team.