My name is Gauhar Jaan by Vikram Sampath, now into its fifth print run, crowned with the Sahitya Academy’s first Yuva Puraskar and translated into four Indian languages, will soon be on celluloid. Bollywood director Ashutosh Gowarikar, known for Lagaan , Jodhaa Akbar and films, announced on Twitter his excitement on having acquired the rights to the book, which is about the ‘first gramophone celebrity of India’ — singer and dancer Gauhar Jaan.
The Bengaluru-based author spoke to The Hindu on the journey of the book.
Why Gauhar Jaan?
I stumbled upon Gauhar Jaan while researching for my earlier book ‘Splendours of Royal Mysore’ on the history of the Wadiyars in the palace archives. I came across a box file full of letters of Gauhar Jaan, who was a visiting musician at Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar's court from 1928 to 1930. The letters were filled with pathos, depicting the story of a diva being hounded by court cases, ill health and dwindling finances, even as she beseeched the Maharaja and Sir Mirza Ismail for help. I decided on an impulse that her story needed to be told. The description of her as the ‘First Gramophone Celebrity of India’ and her lineage of being an Armenian Christian from Azamgarh who migrated to Benaras, converted to Islam, became a tawaif along with her mother Badi Malka Jaan and a courtesan in Kolkata intrigued me.
How did you go about recording her story?
It was like searching for a needle in a haystack. Being a tawaif , she had no known legal heirs or students that I could reach out to for information. Over four long years, it meant researching the story of her life across the length and breadth of India — from Azamgarh, Benaras, Rampur, Darbhanga to Kolkata, Mysuru, Chennai and Mumbai, apart from Berlin and London to piece the information together.
How do you feel about Ashutosh Gowarikar making a film on her?
It is the ultimate dream come true. Somehow, when I thought of a cinematic adaptation of the book, I fervently wished for Ashutosh to take it up. In Bollywood, it is easy to misrepresent performing women such as Gauhar Jaan and I certainly wanted her to be portrayed in the right way.
I will be assisting Ashutosh as a music and period consultant. I am sure Ashutosh is equipped with the sensibilities to retain the historical facts. We have been talking about how best to incorporate Gauhar’s original gramophone recordings, which I have as part of my Archive of Indian Music (AIM) and my research work.
Gauhar Jaan's contribution to culture became known mostly through your book.
Gauhar Jaan was the first artist of the sub-continent to record her voice commercially on a gramophone shellac disc in 1902 with the London-based Gramophone Company and its German recording agent Frederick William Gaisberg. The primitive acoustic technology necessitated the singers to scream into horns, which were connected to the recording equipment with discs that were only of three-minute duration. This was a challenge. Gauhar created a template, which was later adapted and improvised by other singers, largely women who took to recording. Male artists kept away from recording due to taboos and superstition.
