THANK YOU FOR THE MUSIC AND THE MEMORIES

By RAJEEV GUPTA

Pandit Jasraj’s recent demise after an 80-year music career left a huge void in the landscape of Indian classical music.

The doyen of the Mewati gharana, Pandit ji continued to perform at major festivals until his last days, most recently at the Dover Lane Music Festival in Kolkata in January.

My exposure to Indian classical music began during my early teens, when my ears picked out artistes in no particular order. Some were as old as Vidushi MS Subbulakshmi or Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, and some were as recent as Ustad Shujaat Hussain Khan or Ustad Rashid Khan.

However, even though I was vaguely aware of Pandit Jasraj through his daughter Durga Jasraj who hosted a television show called Antakshri, I hadn’t listened to Pandit ji’s music seriously until five years ago when I came across his several renditions of Mero Allah Meherbaan in raag Bhairav. 

I was so mesmerized with this colour of Bhairav that I foraged through YouTube for all renditions of this song. In this composition, he showed how music crosses the boundaries set up by religion and politics. He composed this in the 1960s when tensions between India and Pakistan were very high – a tribute to Allah in the raag Bhairav that was traditionally used for devotion to Shiva. Reportedly, when he sang this at a concert in Edmonton, he went into a trance. When he came to his senses, he realized he was singing “Allah-Om”, thus effacing any gaps between the two faiths. 

Born in January 1930, in Hisar district of Haryana, Jasraj ji belonged to a family of musicians. His father Pandit Motiram was a noted vocalist, as were his brothers Pandit Pratap Narayan and Pandit Maniram. The current generation of Pandit ji’s family includes his nephews Jatin-Lalit, the famous Bollywood composer duo. Jasraj ji was only four when his father passed away. He, along with his mother and brothers, moved to Hyderabad, where Pratap Narayan began teaching him the basics of the tabla. By the age of 11, Jasraj ji was accompanying his elder brother, famous vocalist Maniram, to concerts, helping the family make ends meet.

At 14, Jasraj ji gave up playing the tabla. “A very senior musician brought my relationship with my percussion instrument to an abrupt end by deriding me for beating a dead animal’s skin and therefore being utterly unqualified to talk about the finer points of music,” he mentioned in a Rajya Sabha TV interview. “I decided then that I would henceforth only sing.”

The early years of his singing career were spent on the radio; he later became well known as a stage performer. He is credited with popularizing Haveli sangeet, a form of devotional music dedicated to the Hindu god Krishna, traditionally sung in temples.

In 1946, he moved to Kolkata to work for Akashvani (All India Radio). As a radio-artiste Jasraj ji acquired a small circle of admirers due to his willingness to experiment. At a time when the gharana system was quite rigid, Jasraj ji incorporated elements from other gharanas into his music. For almost two decades, he faced criticism from all quarters on this account, until people began noticing the revolutionary sound. His pushing of boundaries in the complex and exacting world of classical music resulted in 300 bandishes, fixed compositions based on a specific raga, apart from compositions of ancient Sanskrit verses.

The foremost exponent of the Mewati gharana moved away from Dhrupad and brought an element of devotional singing to khayal by employing harkats and murkis that were associated with light classical music. His music was admired by all kinds of listeners – ordinary people, artistes, statesmen, and politicians such as India’s former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who gave him the title ‘Rasraj’ because all kinds of rasa were present in his music. Pandit ji was also known for bringing classical music to masses through devotional music like bhajans and chants, without compromising the quality and discipline of shastriya sangeet.

Pandit ji also gifted to listeners the unique performance concept of ‘Jasrangi’ – a jugalbandi of a male and female artistes, each singing different raag at the same time. An example was a concert of Vidushi Ashwini Bhide singing Abhogi and Pandit Sanjeev Abhyankar singing Kalavati.

It took time for the purists to compliment him, but connoisseurs couldn’t resist the charm of his Sanskrit stotras, his mastery over swaras and his ability to play light and heavy, and his embrace of popular and rare raags alike – raags like Durga, Jog and Abeer Todi.  One should not forget his sage-like stage presence which got somewhat dramatic in the latter part of his career.

In his long career, Pandit ji was honoured with numerous awards and officially recognized by Indian and foreign institutions and organizations. He was awarded Padma Shri in 1975, Padma Bhushan in 1990 and Padma Vibhushan in 2000.

Raag-Mala Toronto was fortunate to have its stage graced by Pandit Jasraj twice. Pandit ji first performed for us in 1984 and returned to the Raag-Mala stage a decade later in 1994, and gave an exemplary performance accompanied by Pandit Swapan Chaudhury on tabla and Kala Ramnath on violin.

The late Maganbhai Ambasana spoke of an instance when stage technicians failed to show up with the risers for one concert. When Panditji was informed that he would have to sit on the stage floor, he reassured Maganbhai with his characteristic humility, “with Ma Saraswati’s blessings it will all work out well”.

To everyone’s relief, the technicians brought the risers 10 minutes before the start of the concert.

Pandit ji leaves behind senior disciples like Vidushi Tripti Mukherjee, Pandit Sanjeev Abhyankar and many others to continue his legacy.  His music will be remembered by all who heard him in person and also by those, like me, who met him only on YouTube or Spotify.

His voice will stay in our hearts for ever.

• Rajeev Gupta is a member of the Raag-Mala Toronto team.