In Omkarnath Havaldar’s case it can be safely said music is genetic. It’s not always so, it has escaped the progeny of legends too. The young Hindustani musician trained by his father -- the renowned classical vocalist Pt. Nagarajrao Havaldar – has established himself as a promising artiste. Bubbling with enthusiasm and ideas, Omkarnath, has performed in various places across the globe apart from being a graded artiste of All India Radio.
Recognized as a musician whose pursuit of music is serious and committed, Omkar has been in news of late with his music video, One Khayal: Many Voices . The 16-minute video is a music performance of Raga Bhairav by his students. Though it is a musical performance, it is more than a conventional live music performance – for, it is choreographed, designed and pre-planned. In a way, it is staged music. The video makes the whole presentation attractive, and charming. While one misses out on intuition and spontaneity -- the core strengths of classical music renditions, this does serve the purpose of showcasing. Omkar doesn’t disagree, because he set out with definite purpose, which was to steer the young listening brigade towards classical music.
Excerpts from an interview:
The idea of an ensemble is rare. Even when musicians have wanted to do something to win the attention of youngsters, it is usually fusion, jugalbandi etc. There have been exceptions like Sharang Dev who have imagined orchestras on a magnificent scale. Why did you want to do ensemble?
As the name itself suggests, One Khayal Many Voices , I wanted to do something other than the popular jugalbandi format. Jugalbandi has worked in several combinations – father-son, guru-shishya etc. And it has stayed in practice in for several years now. I wanted to try if I can use several voices and move in the direction of one common thought. How can four people elaborate a raga and make it sound like it is part of one imaginative process? This was my basic idea.
Co-ordination and uniformity is hard to achieve in Indian classical forms. By very nature they are highly creative and intuitive too. How did you negotiate with this problem?
No two minds can work similarly. My first idea was to take up Rag Yaman. But my personal favourite is Bhairav. So I decided to go with Bhairav. I knew it was extremely difficult and challenging. Take for instance, the bandish “Nainan Mein Aan Baan” in Multani, I myself know four different ways of singing it. When this is the case of a fixed bandish, it is highly difficult in creative portions like alaap and swar vistar. So I decided to have a composed piece where everything from alaap to tarana was pre-planned. Unless your group comprises stalwarts, and they can match each other’s wavelength such an experiment doesn’t work. My group of six singers are all my students who are still learning. Hence I decided to make it pre-composed. A form that is conducive to group singing.
Is that why you have chose to keep group singing portions in the tarana?
That’s right. It is easier to execute the tarana in a group more than the alaap. So you will see we do tihaais and taans in a group. It also helped that they were my students, I know their strengths and weaknesses. It was useful in planning.
Barring the instrumentalists, all your singers are women. Was this a conscious decision so that you could resolve the problem of shruti?
Shruti was an important issue, yes. But also, among my 40 students, 35 are women. Also, I find women more committed to learning music. Nevertheless, I do want to compose for a mixed group in the future. It is different in the case of film songs where duet rendition is a common thing. Though, even there, a composition is planned keeping the male pitch as reference, it is just for one or two minutes that a woman playback singer has to cope. But here it is for longer, and hence tougher.
Was there a particular reason in choosing Rag Bhairav?
As I said, Yaman was my first choice. Though I am very fond of Bhairav, a lot of people dismiss it as a beginner’s raga. I wanted to convey the devotion and meditativeness of this raga. If Bhairav is serious and pensive, can it appeal to listeners? How many people can relate to it? These were some of the questions in my mind, but I felt I should try it out.
Had I tried a raga like Dhani or Bhupali it would have fetched a lot more views. Much more than the 1,15,000 views that we have now. I even contemplated the vilambit pace that we begin with. Will anyone watch it? I asked myself.
But even with all these questions I felt I must not move away from the seriousness I believe in. The response that has come my way has been very gratifying. A lot of musicians have told me that I have made Bhairav attractive.
Do you personally believe that ensembles have a special power? Many musicians like Ilaiyaraja believe in the format of the ensemble. Many years ago, Pt. Ravi Shankar had also tried one at the India-Russia festival at Moscow, of course, they were all at a very large scale.
Raga is a created imagination, and so is tala. I wanted to get creative with it, and hence chose the ensemble. Most importantly I wanted to capture the attention of youngsters. How much creative freedom is possible in an ensemble without taking away the value of khayal music? This is what I have tried to explore.
