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BOOKS
Her
Majesty's Voice
A valuable
introduction to India's women musicians
By
Shubha
Mudgal
THE
SINGER & THE SONG
By C.S. LAKSHMI
KALI FOR WOMEN
Rs. 400
Pages: 383 |
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In
the arid, parched landscape of contemporary Indian writing on the performing
arts, pitifully few books are written by Indian authors. Those that do
see the light of publication often lack the proper focus, analysis and
organisation that goes beyond flowery and semantic jugglery. In this ambiance
of scarcity emerges The Singer & the Song by C.S. Lakshmi. The volume
is the first of a series of three, and is a compilation of 16 interviews
intended to form individual historical portraits described as Conversations
with Women Musicians.
The book
opens with a brilliantly written introduction that explains the direction
in which Lakshmi steers her study involving exhaustive interviews with
50 female artistes. Interviews with musicians are ordinarily accessible
only through newspapers and magazines, and remain virtually impossible
to locate once they are archived. In this respect, the book is welcome
for its vicarious peek into the lives of women music makers, as told by
the worthy ladies themselves through their replies to the author's questions.
In addition,
most reportage concerning the performing arts in the print media revolves
around a particular event or happening, and therefore tends to evaluate
a work, a concert, an album or a project in isolation. It is almost never,
or only on rare occasions, that an artiste's work is viewed holistically.
So while we read the occasional artiste profile-when Gangubai Hangal turns
a significant 80 years of age, the information provided is usually both
hopelessly inadequate and unable to provide an analytic, perceptive account
of her life, musical journey and artistic convictions.
Each conversation
starts with the author eliciting information regarding the formative years
of the artiste's life, and later coaxing and probing the interviewee for
as complete a picture of her life and work as possible. Each interview
thus serves as valuable documentation for students and lovers of music.
But then,
as Lakshmi herself acknowledges, despite her intention to study each artiste
in the greatest detail, "there will always be something hidden and
something revealed". Her intention to "see the politics of hiding
and revealing ..." is where the cavity is most visible in the book.
Despite the introduction that speaks analytically on the issues of the
devadasi and tawaif traditions, the anti-nautch movement, and warped views
of respectability and morality, Lakshmi chooses to refrain from assessing
and analysing the conversations, leaving the "Demons of Art"
who come disguised as "tradition, love, affection, propriety, advice
and grammar" to lurk slyly behind the sometimes candid, sometimes
veiled references made to them. The conversations, despite having tremendous
potential, offer only limited value.
One cannot
also help but notice certain inaccuracies that the author seems to have
ignored despite the fact that she had almost a decade-from January 1991
when the first interview took place to 2000 when the conversations were
published-to weed them out. A photograph of Sadhona Bose, for example,
is mistakenly identified as a portrait of her sister Naina Devi, whose
interview has been included in the book. This when the photograph bears
the inscription "To Nilu... (Nilina Sen alias Naina Devi)... and
Rip" (Ripjit Singh, Naina Devi's husband), from Bose. Similarly,
describing Sadarang and Adarang as "flute players" suggests
either the author's confusion in translating the term "been"
or a major lacuna in her knowledge of north Indian classical music.
But typographical
errors and inaccuracies apart, The Singer & the Song is a valuable
addition to the library of all those who care for music and the arts.
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