'We didn’t want a biography but a free-flowing lyricism in the film'

Debapriya Adhikary and Samanwaya Sarkar reveal how their National Award winning documentary on Girija Devi came into being

ODE TO A LEGEND Debapriya Adhikary and Samanwaya Sarkar with their Guru, Girija Devi

Hindustani classical vocalist Debapriya Adhikary and sitarist Samanwaya Sarkar have been endowed by nature with a gift for expression, musical sensitivity and technical brilliance. With strong musical family background, Samanwaya started learning sitar at four while Debapriya began singing at six. After training under different gurus, they were under the tutelage of the legendary vocalist Girija Devi for10 years as gandabandh disciples. In their late thirties, the two young musicians have swept first positions in almost all competitions and have performed extensively in prestigious venues at home and abroad. Samanwaya has to his credit what his Guruma always appreciated. “Yeh pahela bachha hain Hindustan mein joki seekh ke tappa baaja raha hain” (being first sitarist of the country who is playing the tappa after learning the proper intricacies of the form), she had said.

Having recently won the 65th National Award for the Best Documentary on Art and Culture for their maiden film, “Girija: A Lifetime in Music”, the two have moved into filmmaking. Sankalp Meshram was the co-director and editor of the documentary. It received another award in the same category at the Los Angeles Independent Music Festival earlier. In an interaction they talk about their film.

Tell us about your transition from music to filmmaking

Debapriya : We were learning from Appaji at an advanced level and during the process we tried to observe and comprehend the imagery and intense philosophical aspect behind her music and understand the artist in her in totality. She was capable of visualising her renditions and look beyond and tried to impart that to us. So we felt that why can’t we take this meaningful experience to the people? This was always at the back of our mind but we wondered how. Our producer Madhu Chandra was a great admirer of Girija Devi’s music but regretted not meeting her. She got acquainted with us after hearing our recitals at the Learnquest Music Festival, Boston in 2010. Later she called us to express her desire to do something for the cause of music. Then my mother suggested that since we have been aspiring for doing something involving Appaji’s music why not make a film on her as a tribute to our legendary Guru. We told Madhuji about it and she agreed. It was very difficult convincing Appaji initially as she felt our learning would suffer tremendously. Somehow we managed through her daughter Munnidi (Sudha Dutta) to convince her. So this was the initiation. It took us three-and-a-half years to complete the film.

Debapriya Adhikary and Samanwaya Sarkar

Share with us the process of making the film

Samanwaya : We sat with Madhuji and decided that we would go candid, without a script as lots of surprising facts would come to the fore which even Appaji would not be expecting. We didn’t want a biography but a free-flowing lyricism in the film. We contacted our friends, took help of Facebook, etc. to build a technical team and got acquainted with a cameraman and sound engineer to begin recording the interviews. Our team comprised fresh pass-outs from FTII.

How did you get Pandit Ravi Shankar?

In Delhi. It was perhaps his last interview! By 2012, we had finished all the interviews and had a lot of material which needed to be given a shape. We looked for an editor and went to Jabeen Merchant. He was famous mostly for political documentaries and recommended Sankalp Meshram who went through our footage and discovered that none of the shots were more than 7 or 10 seconds. And this was due to the over confidence of our cameraman as a result of which we lost some precious interviews.

Tell us about your hands-on experience of learning filmmaking

Debapriya: We were looking for an editor and went to Jabeen Merchant who recommended Sankalp Meshram. Sankalp who went through our footage, discovered that none of the shots were more than 10 seconds and suggested cinematographer Naiyer Gufran Mallik. We asked Sankalp what more should we learn about filmmaking from him. He mentioned, “since you understand and perform music, learning filmmaking will be no problem for you as film is music. Music gives you the idea to visualise things and look beyond.”

Samanwaya: Sankalp is not only a music lover but understands it also. We finally had a good team and Sankalp came to Benaras during the shoot and executed the whole process and taught us how to take visuals — what to shoot and what to discard. We really didn’t know all that but proceeded the rest of the shooting with what he had taught us. The credit for the play of light and shade, effect of the shadows with changing phase of life goes to Naiyer.

How many songs are there in the documentary?

Debapriya: In all there are 12. All of them are Appaji’s songs in different genres.