gharana

With Ali Zaki Hader, a Musical Tradition Dies

The adopted son of the late Rudra veena maestro Ustad Asad Ali Khan was the only recognised performer of the Khandahar bani of the Jaipur beenkar gharana, a tradition within the Dhrupad genre.

The hall of the India International Centre’s Terrace Pergola was hushed on October 8 as a handful of folks arrived early to pay their homage to Ustad Ali Zaki Hader, the Rudra veena exponent who breathed his last exactly a month earlier in New Delhi’s Jamia Nagar.

Ali Zaki Hader was the adopted son of the late Rudra veena maestro Ustad Asad Ali Khan, who trained him from childhood in this difficult discipline. The young ustad, who turned 50 on April 18 this year, was the only recognised performer of the Khandahar bani of the Jaipur beenkar gharana, a tradition within the Dhrupad genre. His demise marks the end of a tradition. But that searing truth became an indelible image when his disciples and family brought in his veena and placed it carefully behind the photo of the late Zaki Hader. Reverently, they garlanded the photo of their beloved ustad, and they garlanded his beloved veena, custom-made decades earlier just for him. There could not have been a more telling realisation of the fact that his instrument would resonate no more.

Shashi Bhushan opened the sombre gathering, after which Ustad Bahuddin Dagar, young Rudra veena representative of the famed Dagarvani, who has been a pillar of support for the Hader family, also spoke briefly. His words were quiet and sorrowful, not only for the departed but for the musical lineage that had been allowed to evaporate. “In a way, we all failed him,” he said. He then played for a short while, accompanied on the pakhawaj by Ustad Mohan Shyam Sharma.

Photo: By arrangement

The sadness of the occasion, heightened by the solemnity of the raga alaap, resonated in the hearts of the listeners, who included young and old friends, and students of music. Bahauddin’s strings seemed to sing quietly of the subtle truths that can be felt but not verbalised. The music of the Rudra veena is perhaps as close as one could imagine to the concept of anhad naad (the unheard cosmic sound). Music critic Manjari Sinha, remarking how Asad Ali Khan used to liken the subtleness of a musical note to a wafting perfume, said that Zaki’s life had ended just as he was ready to take musical flight. If India’s classical arts require years of sadhana, penance, then the Rudra veena exacts the most trying sadhana of all.

This is perhaps why this music is too difficult, meditative, and demanding of total presence by both exponent and listener, to be widely popular. But these qualities, in a country that prides itself as the ground where the Vedas originated, should make it all the more precious. Its practitioners, as reservoirs of an ephemeral oral tradition, surely deserve more support than the thousands of other artists who practise more robust traditions in today’s superficial times. It is a knowledge source to be particularly protected by those empowered to promote the arts.

Bahauddin and others including Shashi reminded the audience that though the worst neglect had happened to bring Zaki Hader’s life and lineage to an end, we should all be mindful as a society that the same mistake not be repeated with other artists. Shashi in particular delivered an impassioned plea towards the close of the proceedings. Artists can be found on nearly every corner and side street, he noted, and supporting one’s local artists by taking lessons or seeing to their needs would only bring immense satisfaction, not monetary loss, to ordinary citizens. Not everyone can or needs to be a successful performer, but music in itself is a great healer, he emphasised.

To many readers, the mention of the loss of a tradition may be just words with little significance, because most people don’t know what a musical gharana is, or what a Rudra veena is for that matter. However, even an ordinary, musically untrained person understands what it means to be in need of shelter and the most basic human necessities. The painful lack of these necessities shadowed not just the last days but the last years of Zaki Hader’s life.

Behind the death of the Khandahar bani and its last living representative lies a story of neglect and a strangely duplicitous culture. As a country, we officially project on the world stage an exalted image of a living ancient civilisation that has seamlessly evolved into modern times. In reality, the genuine representatives of that ancient culture – the beenkars, the handloom weavers, the potters and the carpet knotters to name just a few – are relegated to dark corners of the collective psyche or to incidental videos shared on social media.

After Ali Zaki Hader died suddenly on September 8, 2023, his three disciples, Prasad, Shashi Bhushan and Yogesh, fulfilled their duties to their guru in full measure. They participated in the funeral preparations, helped carry him on his final journey, and importantly, were constantly by the side of his bereaved sister Shazia. In his lifetime also, these disciples helped him with financial, practical and moral support, through the daily challenges of life in urban India. Rent, paperwork, groceries, utility bills – these mundane requirements pave a thorny path to the stage.

There were also other people from various walks of life who despite having no relationship with the musical world, helped. There was the advocate who filed appeals on behalf of Hader when he was requesting to be allowed to continue residence in Khel Gaon under the artists’ quota, in the flat that had been allotted to his deceased guru. Lawyers are not known for attachment to their clients, or for being overly reverent. But this young man, having lost the case after years of effort, was present like a son of the family at the last rites. For the rest, there were neighbours and a few distant relatives.

The apartment into which Ali Zaki Hader and his sister moved after vacating the Khel Gaon flat was minuscule. Located on the ground floor of a multistorey building among the lanes of Jamia Nagar, it is an example of the many constructions carved up into tiny flats that serve as income generators for their owners in a market where the supplier has the upper hand.

Ali Zaki Hader. Photo: By arrangement

The Jamia Nagar residence provided barely enough space for the ustad and his sister — two small rooms within which to practise, teach, live, eat and sleep. Therefore, some of Hader’s heirloom instruments had been stored on his request in locations where they would be willingly and carefully looked after until his situation stabilised — a hope that was belied. The mythological grandeur of the Rudra veena’s history dwarfs such quarters.

Again and again, the same questions arise. What do we mean as a nation when we refer to our ‘rich culture’ and the soul-cleansing power of our arts, yet allow our greatest artists to languish in indigence? For what do our cultural institutions exist, if they are helpless in the face of an artist’s struggle to keep body and soul together? The Sangeet Natak Akademi, All India Radio, Doordarshan, numerous regional bodies representing the map of the country, the state Akademies and departments – the list is extensive – are publicly funded bodies. Do their officials have no duty to reach out to, or even search for, if they profess ignorance, highly qualified artists in need of financial support? To help keep alive a tradition bombastically described as ‘ancient’, ‘sacred’ and ‘profound’, are they incapable of doing even as much as three or four dazed young men and a bunch of sorrowing neighbours did?

In the manuscript of his forthcoming book, Glimpses of 20th Century Hindustani Music, well-known author and musicologist Deepak Raja states:

“The Rudra Veena is irreversibly headed for the museums, with a steadily depleting reservoir of musicianship. The first half of the 20th century saw the departure of twenty-one significant Beenkars. In the latter half of the 20th century, ten significant Beenkars departed from the scene. And the first decade of the 21st century witnessed the demise of two significant beenkars.”

The text was written in June 2020.

Ali Zaki Hader’s name can now be included in those dismal numbers. How many more valuable specimens of our intangible heritage will we lose before a healthy collaboration is created between government bodies, artists, the wealthy corporate sector (that has influence in health, insurance, and housing) and civil society?

Such a collaboration, shorn of political expediency and executed by knowledgeable as well as objective stewards, could repair our damaged cultural scene. It could be the only real tribute to Ali Zaki Hader, a musician who was forced to put his heirloom instruments on sale to meet his mortal needs. No one bought them. No one, it seems, noticed.

Anjana Rajan has been writing on the arts, literature and society for nearly 20 years. She is a former deputy editor of The Hindu, a dance exponent and theatre practitioner.

Pandit Rajan Mishra: A ‘Sahaj’ From the Banaras Gharana

Over a career spanning more than five decades, Rajan and Sajan Mishra crafted a unique form of sahgayan, something which went beyond jugalbandi that truly represented a confluence.

Born on Hanuman Jayanti in 1951 into a family of musicians from Varanasi, Pandit Rajan Mishra inherited the rich tradition of the Banaras gharana of Hindustani music. Along with his younger brother Pandit Sajan Mishra, he debuted on the stage in 1967 at Sankatmochan Mandir. Over a career spanning more than five decades, they crafted a unique form of sahgayan, something which went beyond jugalbandi in the sense that it truly represented a confluence rather than just duet singing.

Rajan Mishra was initiated into ta’lim by his grandfather’s brother, Gayanacharya Bade Ramdas Mishra and was subsequently under the rigorous tutelage of his father Pandit Hanuman Prasad Mishra and uncle Pandit Gopal Mishra. With a tremendous resolve for riyaz combined with reflection, he was able to mould his voice into a rich and sonorous whole, capable of conveying command on his art along with an aesthetic sensibility reflective of bhava, that ever so fleeting notion in Indian art forms.

According to his own admission, “One of the best things about their teaching was that it helped broaden our perspective about music right from our childhood. They told us that we ought to listen to Ustads from different gharanas, and try to learn good things from them.”

Eminent music critic S. Kalidas reminisces, “I first met Rajan bhai in 1972 at Siddheshwari Deviji’s house and heard him and Sajan bhai on stage a little later. Rajan bhai was a formidable musician and had a wide repertoire. Over the decades, he imbibed elements from Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Amir Khan and Pandit Bhimsen Joshi as well. In a way, one can say that the uniqueness of his repertoire was the uniqueness of Banaras itself in the sense that the city was a melting pot of influences and the sources of knowledge were also multifarious.”

Representatives of the sixth generation of musicians within a family that has been serving Hindustani music for over 300 years, Rajan Mishra and Sajan Mishra benefitted tremendously from the presence of stalwart musicians in Varanasi as well as through witnessing performances of and interacting with legendary Ustads who would visit the city to regale discerning audiences. The intense self-reflection and meditative approach that goes hand-in-hand with Khayal singing was indeed a part of Rajan Mishra who was a treasure-trove on ragas and compositions reflecting the entire gamut of the rasa theory of Indian music.

The beautiful relationship between the brothers always came across on stage as well as in interviews, personal interactions and light moments. Rajan Mishra said that “it is this affection which gets reflected in our singing…”, while expressing warmth towards his younger brother who, by his own admission, moved behind him as his elder brother’s shadow, complementing his thought process and adding an evocative echo, as well as a seamless expression of a synchronised thought process.

Spirituality occupied an important place in the life of Rajan Mishra, not merely by virtue of the fact that he was born and raised in the city of Lord Vishwanath. It was the Namdhari Satguru Jagjit Singh Maharaj who guided him to adopt music full-time and offered patronage during the nascent stages of the career of Mishra Bandhu. Their lifelong bond is on display in one of the finest renditions of Raga Chhayanat, followed by the rare Raga Kusum Kedar in the presence of Aftab-e-Sitar Ustad Vilayat Khan in this recording from 1999 at Sri Bhaini Sahib.

At the same time, it is noteworthy that Rajan Mishra studied Osho with rapt engagement and often meditated on aspects of his teachings. During an audience, Osho asked Rajan Mishra what he thinks is the counterpoint to “swara” (musical note) and it became a lifelong quest for reflection when he received the answer as being “silence”. This makes so much more sense to this author as he reminisces their concerts he attended since the late 1990s and used to get struck by the pauses between a seamless thought process flowing from Rajan Mishra to Sajan Mishra and vice versa.

Rajan Mishra had a charming personality and was renowned for his sense of humour. Along with his younger brother, he would have people in splits narrating instances from their childhood, Varanasi, and their shared passion for wrestling, cricket and films. Perhaps it was this joviality in Rajan Mishra’s nature that kept the tradition of joint family alive from his father’s and uncle’s generation to his own and to his sons and their children who continue to share the same roof and eat food cooked in the same kitchen. The brothers realised a lifelong dream with the establishment of “Viram – The Gurukul” outside of Dehradun and it is noteworthy that their home in Delhi’s Ramesh Nagar is named “Swarangan”. Two bodies, one soul – with the departure of one’s body, one just hopes that the merged soul continues to sing through the body of Sajan Mishra and the family legacy continues richly through their sons Ritesh, Rajnish and Swaransh Mishra.

Irfan Zuberi is a student of Hindustani music and an audiovisual archivist.

Once Upon a Time in Bollywood: The Death of Sushant Singh Rajput

A sociologist investigates the peculiar features of this Bollywood tragedy.

There have been more than 40 days of public mourning, protests, anger, political accusations and investigation demands following the actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death on June 14, 2020. This is indeed unusual.

In the void left behind by Sushant, the ‘Experts’ have moved in – psychiatrists, doctors, policemen and their forensic teams, with their examinations and procedures and tight lips. A popular political and legal analysis too is coming from well-wishers on social media, focusing largely on the injustice of Sushant’s case. An overpowering polemic of assigning blame is emerging and will most likely stamp me as well. But for the record, I write here consciously as a sociologist, to investigate the peculiar features of this Bollywood tragedy.

Sushant’s death is far removed of course from the suicides that more routinely exercise the sociologist, even the economist, involving the poor farmer, the failed JEE aspirant, the rape victim and battered wife. Indeed, for their own part, adoring fans are not concerned with the public intellectual or human rights activist at all. Instead, they are lobbying the CBI for an investigation into the film industry which ‘condemned’ Sushant to a guiltless death. His ‘crime’, fans accuse, was simply being himself – an outsider to Bollywood, comfortably middle class yet uncomfortably successful, threatening industry insiders sufficiently to turn against him.

Sushant Singh Rajput, one could argue, died of a “cytokine storm” of a social kind, where his abundant immunity from the disease of failure ultimately consumed him. Sushant had it all – youth, talent, celebrity, education, good looks, a girlfriend, a bank balance and even a telescope to look at the stars and not one but more ‘hits’ – the latest being Chhichhore (2019). So, what happened?

Sushant Singh Rajput. Photo: Facebook

A sociologist’s response

Taking a cue from the public’s agitation, let me respond to this consuming question—but as a sociologist. Sushant’s death, I stubbornly maintain, over and above its dismaying marks of personal pain, depression, panic and fear, cannot be reduced to a tragic act of individual volition, moral failure or bodily pathology alone. Rather, it serves to expose a submerged social context, a milieu, and work organisation rarely before accessible to the public gaze.

Whatever the truth of the accusations being levelled against Bollywood today, the vocal expression of grievance and injustice against it is very real and very new and has thrown up questions of industry regulation for the very first time indeed.

Concern over the growing incidence of suicide in modern industrial society is not recent. Emile Durkheim a pioneering sociologist, looked for explanations in European police records and came to some astonishing conclusions in his classic Le Suicide (1897).

The average proportion of deaths by one’s own hand to the population under study he found, tended to stay constant over the years and was different for different cultures, nations and social milieus. If periods of economic depression saw more citizens kill themselves, then equally and less believably, they did so even in periods of sudden economic affluence.

Indeed, quite counterintuitively, poverty appeared to give immunity from the risk of suicide. The successful pursuit of personal happiness in modern market economies did not necessarily immunise against acts of self-violence. Indeed, in the absence of social regulation he cautioned, greater political freedom and riches actually put the individual at risk.

The pressure of bearing sole responsibility for one’s successes or failures without integration into a group also put one at risk. At the same time, over-regulation was not to be prescribed nor even desirable. In traditional societies, it led to unholy outcomes – the upper caste widow and sati, the dishonoured Japanese samurai and harakiri and today one could add, the brain-washed suicide bomber and jihad. Are these murders or suicides? As symptoms of the social acting on the individual’s ego to the point of its extinction, it hardly makes a difference.

The culture of ragging

In my early years at the IIT Delhi, before ragging was officially banned, I learnt that the overt intent of this college custom was to “socialise” outsiders. The freshers or facchas I was told, needed to be integrated and initiated into the power hierarchy of the group. But apart from a few instances of pure physical torture, most ragging mechanisms usually defined as just “having some fun”, were really subtle weapons of cruelty. These included public ridicule, social boycott, threats of exposure, slanderous gossip, sleep denial, running chores or ‘fagging’, instilling self-doubt about everything and nothing, performing obscene sex in word and deed and the like.

The instilling of mindless loyalty to power in an overall egalitarian but competitive campus environment was meant to toughen the newcomer. Just as surrendering to all unrealistic expectations of seniors was meant to eventually win you their acceptance and ‘help’; which then again it might not. A few suicide deaths and culpable homicide cases and a changed human rights environment later, the system was banned by law in 2007.

The IIT Delhi director said he has not been informed about the cancellation. Courtesy: IIT Delhi website

In IIT Delhi, I learnt that the overt intent of ragging was to “socialise” outsiders. Photo: IIT Delhi website

Bollywood and ragging

As scores of young ‘strugglers’ and Sushant fans are today testifying, entry into the microcosm that is Bollywood, is somewhat akin to a prolonged and insidious period of ragging where you have to constantly be seen to be loyal to your new ‘friends’, those who promote you and invest in you. If you display signs that you can make it on your own, you are in fact targeted more. You are constantly put to the test, your talent, your looks, your sex, your X factor, the limits you are willing to go to on all these battlefronts.

Unlike other cadre-based services like the civil services and the military, where strong codes of dress, etiquette, written rules of behaviour, official privileges and the like keep the system hierarchically integrated – in the film world, the intra-group ethos is superficially very egalitarian and chains of obedience and command are not laid out in clear terms. But they are nonetheless present and all the more oppressive for being subtle and based on informal sanctions of social control, increasingly legally perceived today as “harassment”.

Ultimately it is for Bollywood to choose. Does it genuinely want to emerge as a globalising industry or merely revert to a new version 2.0 of the gharana tradition, where gurus never gave the shishya – the talented outsider – the chances that their own sons enjoyed? Where the gurus’ punishing regimen and labour extraction and monetary hold over student earnings reached such a low point that the system imploded; and all with the best intentions imaginable of shaping and identifying new talent with the gharana, in order to keep it alive.

Not only are a gharana's singers not located in the supposed place of origin, but a huge abyss (somewhat larger and deeper that that line on the map) separates them from the place after which the gharana is named. Credit: Mathers Museum of World Cultures/Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0

In the gharana tradition, gurus never gave the shishya the chances that their own sons enjoyed. Photo: Mathers Museum of World Cultures/Flickr CC BY-NC 2.0

Given the way Sushant’s death is playing out in the media, Bollywood perhaps has no choice. The globalisation of its industry is inexorable. The cautionary tale of Harvey Weinstein and his ilk must be paid heed to. Careless behaviour is “bad for business”. Reputations matter. The system is increasingly going to take the side of the weak. By dying, Sushant has killed the latter’s aspirations, their hopes for the future. They will not forgive Bollywood easily.

Amrit Srinivasan is a sociologist. She has earlier served as a professor at the IIT Delhi.

If you know someone – friend or family member – at risk of suicide, please reach out to them. The Suicide Prevention India Foundation maintains a list of telephone numbers (www.spif.in/seek-help/) they can call to speak in confidence. You could also refer them to the nearest hospital.