At her debut public performance in 1990, at the age of 17, Hindustani vocalist Apoorva Gokhale sang raag Bhairav Bahar. This raag belongs to a special category of raags called Jod, or paired, raags. A musician elaborating a jod raag must constantly alternate between the two constituents, which, in the above instance, are Bhairav and Bahar. According to conventional wisdom, only experienced singers are capable of such musical jugglery. So at the end of Apoorva’s recital, a listener came up to her and exclaimed, “Wow, you sang Bhairav Bahar!” He uttered the raag’s name with great emphasis to convey his awe. Apoorva’s uncle and guru, Madhukar Joshi, overheard him and took his niece aside.
“It is not Bhairav Bahar,” he said, imitating the listener’s stress on the raag’s name. “It is plain Bhairav Bahar. There is no need to make a big deal about it. It is as easy or difficult to present as Bhoop.” In contrast with Bhairav Bahar, Bhoop is widely thought of as a beginner’s raag. It is a pentatonic raag with the same notes as the Carnatic Mohanam.
But Madhubuwa, as he is known, overturned this conventional thinking because in the conception of his father and guru, Gajananbuwa Joshi, a colossus of 20th century Hindustani music, all raags fall within a narrow range of complexity. This is because Gajananbuwa conceived of all raags not as scales of notes, but as collections of carefully defined and linked phrases.
Crucially, these phrases have specific melodic and rhythmic attributes. For example, in every raag, there are rules for the speed at which each phrase must be sung and for how a note is to be rendered in each phrase — the length, embellishments and exact frequency of the same note, such as ‘ga,’ can vary from phrase to phrase.
Gajananbuwa (1911-1987) called this intricate grammar the chalan of a raag. In his approach, the chalans of Bhoop and Bhairav Bahar could be equally complex. Gajananbuwa’s ideas came out of long years of training with giants of three of Khayal music’s foundation gharanas — Gwalior, Agra and Jaipur. Following his training, Gajananbuwa synthesised his knowledge and developed his own gayaki, or personal style — one of both great scale and subtlety.
In Hindustani music, every artistically ambitious vocalist attempts to develop his or her own gayaki within the broader church of a gharana. This is partly why a Hindustani musician, on average, flowers much later than a Carnatic artiste — usually not before 40 years of age. In contemporary Hindustani vocal music, Gajananbuwa’s gayaki is among the most technically complex and aesthetically refined. This is the gayaki that Apoorva trained in for more than three decades. Then, about five years ago, almost like clockwork, when she turned 40, she entered the exciting phase of finding her own voice. Today, her creativity is in full bloom as she constantly pushes her own boundaries.
“Her music has the best attributes of a classical art form,” said Devina Dutt, co-founder of First Edition Arts, which is presenting Apoorva on November 17 as part of its Crossroads festival in Chennai. “It has structure, scale, abstraction and depth. At a time when so many Hindustani musicians are going light, I admire her seriousness,” she observed.
With total commitment
Apoorva stands out in the current landscape because of her total commitment to the khayal form. She does not sing a single light piece — the equivalent of a tukkada in Carantic music. No abhangs, bhajans or thumris — items that even some of the more dedicated Hindustani vocalists include in their concerts. As for a clutch of instrumentalists and vocalists now considered the stars of the Hindustani world, their performances are so shallow and devoid of taste that they can barely be classified as art. Ajay Ginde, the founder of Meera Music, which publishes rare recordings of old masters as well as serious contemporary musicians, admires Apoorva for the huge number of raags she can fluently perform. “She also regularly presents new compositions in each raag, which gives each rendition a different dimension,” said Ginde, who has released several of her CDs.
Uninitiated listeners tend to focus exclusively on the singer’s purity of sur, or pitch, and timbre of voice. On these counts too, Apoorva is excellent. The rhythmic charge of her gayaki can also potentially impress the neophyte rasika. Listeners should, for instance, look out for the thrilling approach to each sam (first note) of every avartan (rhythmic cycle) and the gradual and seamless increase in the laya (speed). Apoorva’s musical values are remarkable but not surprising. She was born in a house where classical music of the highest order was sung day and night.
Gajananbuwa was not only a great vocalist and self-taught violinist of a high calibre, but also a brilliant teacher. Apoorva sat in on her grandfather’s lessons and also got exclusive time with him. After Gajananbuwa passed away, she learnt for some time from her father, Manohar Joshi, who plays the violin. But it was her uncle, Madhubuwa, who did the heavy lifting, teaching her for 25 years — until 2012. Madhubuwa is among Hindustani music’s most successful gurus: he has trained a large number of promising young vocalists.
“I am what I am today because of my uncle,” Apoorva Gokhale said. “For years to come, I will continue to draw from his and my grandfather’s music.”
