What is it about Shyam Malhar?
Fifty-six-years ago. April 12, 1968.
Laxman Singh Bahadur, the Maharaja of Dungarpur, visited the home of Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar at 'Rukmini', in Chembur, Bombay on April 12, 1968. The Ustad along with his brother Fariduddin performed on the rudra veena and sang for over an hour, some of which were described as 'puraani bandish hai'. They told stories about the songs, and one such song is in the raag Suha in Jhaptaal, 'Shubh mahurat', which is a coronation song. The story goes -- Akbar called out to Tansen, 'Arre Tansen', in an informal register, and Tansen got miffed. They both were intellectual peers, and so Tansen declared, if you call me 're' once, I'll say 're' four times, and you can listen to the song, hear the story, and count the number of 'res' here:
The person on the album cover here is Maharaja of Udaipur, Bhupal Singh, in whose court Ustad Ziauddin Dagar, the father of Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, used to perform, more than a hundred years ago.
That's why when Ustad Zia Mohiuddin said 'puraani bandish hai', I began to wonder about what is it about the charm of such compositions. If we take the literal meaning of the word bandish, it is a 'binding together', say, a binding together of the raag, the rasa, the lyrics, and rhythm, and I think the charm is in all these elements coming together, saturated with all that beauty. It is like in writing you come across those gems when the mood, scene, characters, dialogue, setting, intent, and all those other layers come together, and you know you have connected at this complex, human level through the complications of this particular medium. Such a binding takes time; you need to experiment, break, fail, and then try again, and over so many hundred years, I think people crack it, and that's the charm of such 'puraani bandish'. Here's one from the album, 'Sakhi thaado' in Desi, where the way they play with the first two words is delightful, and where they also sing to show you how it is sung nowadays, denuded of that binding charm, and saying how the 'original cheez ko bigaad diya'.
It is an album of many delights, from the compositions to the banter (whenever he says 'Dum laao' to the tabla player, I always smile), but the one piece that has completely caught me in its grip is the one on Shyam Malhar. That raag has both the 'ma', and the way it weaves two completely different moods is something I do not have words for; it feels like something magical, something that escapes whatever description I try to bind it by, any analysis, or articulation.