Lost world of Hindustani music
Kumar Prasad Mukherji opens with a striking image: Ustad Abdul Karim Khan singing a bhajan before the saint Tajuddin Baba, so movingly that the holy man broke into dance. It's the kind of moment that sets the tone for everything that follows. This book is a farewell letter to a golden age of Hindustani music, one that has quietly slipped beyond living memory. Mukherji peoples these pages with ustads and pandits, wealthy patrons and wandering saints, the devout and the dissolute. Short, vivid scenes accumulate into something much larger: a portrait of a whole world. He traces musical lineages from rural folk traditions through the grand courts of emperors, right down to the ankle-bells of nautch girls. He also touches on the moment written notation entered classical music, scandalising masters who had always prized spontaneity and improvisation, while quietly acknowledging that this same notation saved certain ragas from disappearing entirely. What keeps the book from becoming a mere catalogue of greatness is Mukherji's honesty. His beloved Khansahebs, Panditjis, and Buwas were inspired performers, yes, but they were also thoroughly human: petty at times, rivalrous, funny, contradictory. Drawing on personal recollection as much as historical legend, he gives these figures real weight and texture. The humour scattered throughout is a genuine pleasure, and several characters lodge themselves in the imagination long after the final page.
- Author: Kumar Prasad Mukherji
- Publisher: Penguin India
- Genre: Music
- ISBN: 978-0762461608
- Pages: 354 pages