in 2006 article The greatest Indians :
"The association of Dharwad with music is, at first sight, a puzzle. For one thing, it is in south India, yet it became a home of north Indian classical music. For another, the great gharanas are usually associated with towns that were centres of royalty or commerce. However, Dharwad was a little place with no administrative or political significance and very few wealthy people either. In other words, there was no scope here for the patronage without which great art can scarcely flourish. How then did it become a centre of such ineffably good music?"
In 2011 article MUSIC, FOREVER- Musicians of genius belong to the ages, and to the world :
"How and why Dharwad became a nucleus of shastriya sangeet awaits explanation. It was part of the Bombay Presidency, and thus subject to influences from those two great musical centres, Pune and Mumbai. Even closer were the towns of Kolhapur and Miraj, where some famous (Muslim) teachers of music had settled, at the invitation of princes who were patrons of culture. Since Dharwad falls broadly in the region known as ‘South’ India, perhaps these vocalists also drew to some extent on the Carnatic style of music. We do know for certain that they were deeply influenced by folk traditions and by medieval saints. Both Bhimsen and Mallikarjun liked to sing songs composed by Purandaradasa, whereas Kumar Gandharva reinterpreted Kabir with great feeling and sensitivity for a 20th-century audience."
Many interesting observations in both. From the first article:
"Some years ago, in an interview to this newspaper, the novelist Amitav Ghosh observed (and I quote here from memory) that "classical musicians are the only people in India who strive for perfection, and achieve it." I think the qualifier is crucial — it is not only that they seek perfection, but that they achieve it. Most Indians in public life, and many in business, set their standards very low — one is not certain that they even know what "perfection" means. Indians who are sportsmen, or writers or craftsmen, do seek to attain higher standards of quality and proficiency. However, their respective arts, although difficult to master, are yet not of the order of refinement as classical music. Amitav Ghosh is right — our classical musicians are simply the greatest of Indians."
P.S. See also the discussion in Churumuri How did Dharwad become ground zero of music?
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7 comments:
It is possible that it is traceable to a small number of specific people or events at some point in time. Suppose we look at similar questions... Why did TIFR become an important center of Mathematics and not other institutions that did have the financial wherewithal to support it? Why did Calcutta and Mysore (not Bangalore!) in their times produce creative work far out of proportion to their sizes?
I would look for two things. Some institutional support and some very small number of extraordinary individuals.
With all due respect, I do not think that TIFR did that well. May be ok by Indian standards bu seems omparable to a good but not top American university. I think that ISI did much better; even now names like Mahalanobis, R.C. Bose, c>R. Rao, Basu etc seem to be basic names in many areas. In addition, they had National Sample Survey and in the Planning area they had people like Mahalanobis and Minhas. But that too ossified with in 50 years or so. I do not know about other institutes like the agricultural institute headed by M.S. Swaminathan. I am not sure whether it is the lack of talent or some sort of ossification which leads to the decine of the institutes. I think that some of the students and seniors rejected by TIFR did quite well in other places. I do not know much about music but Guha suggests that Indians excelled in it compared to other areas. Could it be a combination of rigorous training and also some of the freedom that an artist has in each tradition. Coming back to Dharwad, it seems to have lasted longer than the above institutes, though Guha worries that it may nor last. It also does not seem to have the patronage that other places had. It would be good to try to figure out the cultural, economic reasons apart from some talented individuals (who seem to be plenty in India) for the success so that the possible decline that Guha forsees can perhaps be prevented.
Perhaps TIFR is not an ideal example, though I have heard from someone who was at Cambridge and at TIFR in the seventies as a student that the quality of students at TIFR was "better". Actually, I had IITs in mind and not ISI when I was thinking of institutions that had the capacity to support good departments.
As for Dharawad, it looks like there were people and institutions that came up from contact with British education, and this came from the North. This would account for a Marathi influence in literature and a Hindustani influence in music.
G. Venkatasubbaiah (who should know; he is something like 98 years old now and amazingly active still!) in his presidential speech of the annual Kannada Sahitya Sammelana that is on now, recalls that R. H. Despande who got an M.A. from Bombay University established an institution called "Vidya Vardhaka Sangha" that played an important role in the literary renaissance of Kannada. (The other centers of that time were Mangalore which had a Madras connection, being in Madras presidency and Mysore, where support came from the royal court.
Specifics like this are perhaps harder to come by for someone like Guha who does not appear to have a vernacular background.
Turanga,
Thanks for the input. In these days information deluge, we seem to be able to touch every topic but not go in to these in any depth. Perhaps Guha is more knowledgeable than many and writes on a lot of topics but even for him I assume it must be difficult to more than scrap the surface on some topics. But it may lead to more search from others.
I can understand the difficulty of choosing what to pursue. In my 5 years in Bombay, I learned shamefully little Marathi and Marathi culture.
But then, the inferences drawn by such writers would be suspect, since they would not be based on a reasonable amount of knowledge of the area they are writing about. For example, we have:
When I visited Dharwad some years ago, I was too shy to make contact with M. Venkatesh Kumar, who is now the best known, certainly the most gifted, and (although it pains me to say this) just possibly the last representative of the Dharwad tradition. (Readers of this column may associate me with certitude, even arrogance, but when it comes to meeting with or speaking to classical musicians I am timid beyond words, for I know them to be immeasurably greater than even the best writer can ever be.) Some years ago, I stood next to the contemporary singer I most admire, Ulhas Kashalkar, at the check-in counter of the India International Centre in New Delhi. I was struck silent, when I should really have (a) obtained his autograph; (b) at least told him how much I admired his music.
I would be very wary of making a statement of this sort, if my universe of writers(I include poets here) included someone like da. rA. bEMdre, a product of the same Darwad milieu. And beNdre is just one example, an outstanding example, among writers from Dharwad, just as Bhimsen Joshi is among musicians.
Incidentally, musicians and writers from Dharwad and other parts of Karnataka have had interesting interactions. Rajiv Taranath, the sarodist, was a close friend of the writer Purnachandra Tejaswi. Going South, Veena Doreswami Iyengar, set poet Pu. ti. na.'s dance-dramas to music, in close collaboration with the poet himself.
Guha and Amitav Ghosh "classical musicians are the only people in India who strive for perfection, and achieve it."
Turanga "I know them to be immeasurably greater than even the best writer can ever be."
I tend to agree though I do not have much expertise in either. I wonder what the reasons are.
I was not probably clear!
When I said, For example we have: etc., I was quoting a paragraph from Guha's article in one of the links you provided.
My view that starts from, "I would be very wary of making a statement..." is that if Guha's universe of writers included people like Bendre, what is in the quoted paragraph is wrong.
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