My Name is Gauhar Jaan! -
The Life and Times of a Musician
Excerpts
Calcutta, November 1902 A. D
Gaisberg eagerly waited for the morning of 11 November, when the
woman he was besotted with would arrive at the makeshift studio.
Gauhar’s entry into the studio on that Tuesday morning in
Calcutta was to place her forever in the annals of world musical
history. Her imposing persona and her flair in dress and manner
had captivated Gaisberg completely.
While the accompanists tuned their sarangi, tabla and harmonium,
a self assured Gauhar sauntered around the room and investigated
the strange device with a huge horn that was fitted on the wall.
Amused by the contraption, Gauhar asked the recording expert,
‘Am I to sing into this, Mr Gaisberg?’ ‘Yes madam’ was
Gaisberg’s brief reply. He was busy fixing the recording
equipment. At the narrow end of that long horn a diaphragm
fitted with a needle was connected to the recording machinery
which consisted of a needle placed on a thick wax master on a
rotating turntable. Finally, when it was all in place, Gaisberg
walked up to Gauhar Jaan and said ‘We are done. Are you ready
too?’ She smiled, nodded and walked up to the horn. Gaisberg
cautioned her, ‘I hope you remember all that I told you? Sing
out into that horn as loud as you can. Don’t shake your head or
your hands. It will spoil the quality of the recording. Also the
timing… I hope you remember? It is not one of your soirees where
you can develop your melodies for hours on end. Three minutes is
all we have. Aah, a few seconds less than three minutes.
Remember the announcement at the end which is for….’ Gauhar
stopped him politely and asked, ‘Shall we start, Mr Gaisberg?’
It seemed as if this lady was born to record her voice on these
discs, thought Gaisberg. He was amazed at the quiet confidence
she demonstrated during a process which had daunted many an
accomplished musician before her.
As the first strains of her high pitched, cultured and
captivating voice were etched on the grooves of Gaisberg’s
shellac, Indian classical music took a giant leap forward. From
the confines of the courtesans’ salons and the rich man’s
soirees, it was catapulted right into the homes of the common
people. In the process it underwent a major transformation in
its content, structure and style of presentation.
A feature of most of the recordings of that early era was the
musician screaming her or his name at the end of each recording.
Gauhar had to do it too. This announcement was necessary since
the wax masters were sent to Hanover for pressing the records
and the technicians there would be at a loss to identify the
musicians before making the labels. So they would listen
attentively to these ‘signature’ announcements at the end of the
three minute performance and label the record. Gauhar’s thin,
child-like and playful announcement of her name, ‘My name is
Gauhar Jaan’ in fluent English pierces through all these early
recordings. It reflects the great mirth and enjoyment she
possibly experienced during the entire tiresome process. Some of
the records have extended announcements as well. At the end of a
melodious Sohini thumri, Gauhar even managed to say that it was
a composition by her guru Bhaiya Ganpatrao.
Gauhar makes a three-lined announcement at the end of one of her
songs labelled ‘Arabic song,’ ‘Aliya habibu aana garibun’ in
Raga Jogia: ‘This is an Arabic song; my name is Gauhar Jaan; you
have liked the song’--- the statement ‘You have liked the song’
sounding more like a command rather than as a question!
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Mysore, August 1928 A. D.
The benign presence of the picturesque Chamundi Hills,
overlooking the well-planned and beautiful city of Mysore,
seemed reassuring to its people. Nestled in the idyllic and
serene surroundings of the Hills, Dil Kush Cottage was true to
its name - an abode of happiness. The cottage was not a
sprawling bungalow, but its appearance seemed to guarantee to
its inmate everything that was required for a comfortable and
even a fairly luxurious life.
A horse-driven carriage drove up the road leading to Dil Kush; a
road that had a stunning canopy of bougainvillea bushes in full
bloom. The carriage stopped right in front of the cottage. The
gandabherunda symbol, the mythical two-headed bird that was the
royal insignia of Mysore’s ruling house, on the carriage implied
that it carried a royal guest. It did. From the carriage emerged
a stout, slightly hunched and bespectacled lady in her fifties,
supported by two of her companions. One was a young woman and
the other a bearded gentleman in a skull-cap. The man quickly
got into action and started directing the movement of the
luggage into the cottage. ‘Rahman Miya! Please handle the
packages carefully, they carry some fragile and precious
porcelain crockery,’ the old lady instructed.
The old woman looked around, thrilled by the scenic beauty
around this little cottage and stood there appreciating the
loveliness of the surroundings and listening to the chirping of
the singing birds in the garden. Closing her eyes, she puffed
out her nostrils and took a deep breath, filling herself with
the fragrance of the jasmines that Mysore was so famous for.
Involuntarily, she muttered a prayer, ‘Allah! Make this my last
destination. I can not travel any more. I need rest, I need
shelter, and I need your mercy!’ With slow faltering steps she
entered the house with the help of the young woman.
The inside of the cottage was already done up. Huge chandeliers
hung from the ceilings, expensive carpets, large teak and
rosewood chests with mirrors, exquisite paintings, delicate
furniture, a writing desk and a majestic Victorian table on
which stood a stately gramophone with a gleaming horn adorned
the room. She suddenly realized that she had not yet read the
memo that had been handed over to her, by the Palace Durbar
Bakshi Mr. Urs, a little while ago. She opened her purse, took
out the memo and adjusted her gold-rimmed reading glasses to
read it. Her gaze fixed on one of the lines which read
‘….appointed a Palace musician on a pay of Rs. 500/- per mensem
(inclusive of salaries of her musicians and accompaniments) with
effect from the 1st August 1928.’
The tranquil expression on her face changed and she turned livid
with rage. Throwing away the memo she snapped, ‘Five hundred
rupees? What do they take me for? A whore? Oh, Sheriffen! Do you
know what my income used to be in my heydays?’ The young woman
muttered a barely audible retort accompanied by a cynical smirk.
The man was too busy shifting and assembling the trunks that
were part of the vast amount of baggage, to pay any attention.
In fact both of them were accustomed to these swinging moods of
the ageing woman to pay them any heed. Their indifference
annoyed the old lady even more and she screamed, ‘Ya Allah! Am I
to live with these ghosts in this huge house, who don’t even
bother to talk to me?’
Suddenly her eyes caught the mirror and she was aghast at what
she saw there. Getting closer she sat down in front of it, and
looked closely at the dishevelled self staring back at her. The
wrinkled face, greying hair, dark circles around blank and
expressionless eyes, the streaks of grey in those curved, arched
eyebrows that joined each other on a broad, fair forehead,
shocked her. ‘Is this really me?’ She was unrecognizable even to
herself. Even as she continued to examine her face, her thoughts
were interrupted by a sudden thud from inside.
‘You wretched fiend, what have you dropped?’ she screamed and
hobbled inside. In her excitement to set up things quickly, the
maid had dropped a package of gramophone records that now lay
scattered on the floor. The old lady’s face turned red with
rage. ‘La Haul Vilaquwwat! You despicable, art-less woman, do
you even realize what you have dropped? They are the sum total
of my entire life and whatever it is worth. ….’ Hurling a string
of abuses on the hapless maid, she picked up the package and
caressed them like a child. She pulled herself to the other room
to check if they had been damaged in the course of her long
journey to the city and this careless act of her maid. She
randomly picked a record and played it on the gramophone that
rested so majestically in the drawing room. As the needle moved
on the grooves of the disc, a young, sultry, melodious and
piercing voice struggled through:
The sweet dadra in Raga Gara turned a tome inside her. Her eyes
welled up. The fragrance and the embrace of Amrit Keshav Nayak
and those heady days at the Mahalakshmi racecourse in Bombay
swirled in her mind’s eyes. She hugged herself in a tight
embrace.
As the record drew to a close there emerged a shrill and
flirtatious voice dipped in child-like mirth that proudly
announced ‘My name is Gauhar Jaan!’
Envy of the care-freeness of that voice and the memories of the
past made her break down completely. The dam that held back her
tears just burst open. Sobbing loudly and inconsolably, even as
the surprised maid and steward stood frozen in their positions,
she fell on her knees lamenting ‘Oh! Gauhar! Oh Gauhar! What
have you done to yourself?’
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