How it all Began

They say babies hear sounds even when they are in their mother's womb. For me that is when the journey must have started. My mother always made sure I listened to 'good' music - there was such a profusion of it at home. Our record player was hardly ever switched off! Even when it was switched off, the radio would take over. Those were the days of 78 rpm records and medium wave radio. (How different life would have been without them!) There were also of course the music sessions that began whenever friends or relatives came over or when my mother felt like singing - which was pretty regularly especially when Dad wasn't in town. Over the years I have come to the conclusion that if you get something without having to work too hard for it, you take it all for granted. It's only when it isn't there, that you miss it! (For me that happened when I moved out.)

A century back, thanks to good old male chauvinistic society, a woman's life was pretty much overridden by what elders thought was 'good for her'. Most women generally moved out of their father's home to their husband's - where they were expected to spend the rest of their lives looking after his wants & those of his family. Pretty soon the children would come along & the woman wasn't supposed to have much of an opinion - if she did, she had to make sure that she kept on the right side of the patriarch/ matriarch or whoever had the say. Half a century back it hadn't changed much & those who decided to lead independent lives were few and far between. One such unique example was my dear mother. She must have spent several agonising years growing up till she gave it all a miss & exhibited a mind of her own! After graduating, she left the family nest & went off to England - on a Government scholarship, mind you, to study (of all unlikely things) nursing! Returning as a State Registered Nurse, she joined as Matron of one of the best hospitals in Calcutta. Little did she know that her life would change so dramatically in such a short while. Prince Charming soon came riding by & that was the end of her nursing career! You may well ask - what does this have to do with the music of India? The answer is - everything - if you are tuned to the right frequency!

Our music tells our stories - the stories of our daily lives, our joys, our sorrows, our celebrations and our sombre moments - that is its greatness. There's a song for each one of us - you just have to look for it. So here was this trained nurse who was crazy about music, running a home - and how do you think she did it? With the same dedication & discipline as she would have, if she were working! The children came soon enough; they went through a rigid discipline that was unheard of at the time. You must remember that most of the other housewives had been convinced by 'the elders' that they could relax and be dependent on their husbands for all their needs. Since my dear mother had few elders to convince her otherwise, she ended up doing duty as cook, nursemaid, driver et al - much to the distaste of neighbours who never stopped wondering why she worked so hard. Used to the stern discipline of Guy's Hospital, my mother drew up a routine wherein housework was completed pretty early and my hyperactive mother began to spend several hours on her first love , music - learning, listening, attending concerts & what-have-you. The responsibilities were very definitely allotted - my father brought home the bacon while my mother cooked and cleaned! This was alright for a time. But children have this amazing way of growing up & going to school - so what did she do then? She did a Montessori Teachers' Training Course and began teaching in one of the better-known schools of Kolkata. Again the nagging question - where was the music? Well, I would imagine everywhere, because she also continued learning music. Life was very serenely beautiful - the music of Bengal was on a high - Bhishmadev Chatterjee, Jnanendra Prasad Goswami, Tarapada Chakrabarty were the better-known classical singers of the time, while there were a host of others who sang Bengali light music, including Rabindranath Tagore's compositions as well as those of his contemporaries. 

By this time, the children were into music classes - there was the violin teacher who was pretty intent on teaching Western classical music - which the children were taught because it was 'the right thing to do', and there was the mother who was hell-bent on ensuring that her children learn the correct nuances of Bengali songs (classical music training wasn't supposed to be for toddlers!) and so I spent two evenings a week learning Tagore songs at one of the better-known institutions of the time. The gramophone & the radio provided background music for the rest of the days. 

Photo Courtesy: www.dakshinee.co.on

It was fine while it lasted - then all hell broke loose when Dad was transferred to Bombay. That was a trying time for the family. My mother had settled down to wonderful domesticity in Calcutta, the children were growing up with the son being the really serious student - who always topped his class (I never understood how he did it, though!). The daughter on the other hand was the public relations manager of the family - encouraged to be an extrovert, she ended up with experiences that most boy children had - including climbing trees, flying kites, making crackers for Kali Puja as well as singing, dancing, acting and generally being the 'performing artiste' of the family. That was fine in Calcutta with its profusion of 'musical evenings', but faced with the new influences in an alien city, my mother began thinking that she had not been providing the right environment. Besides, by this time the 'artiste' of the family had already shown signs of musical talent, so it couldn't be ignored. The voice had to be trained, so an Ustad had to be brought in. While untiring & rather unsuccessful efforts were made at inducting me into the world of Hindustani Raga Sangeet, I am not ashamed to admit that I failed to be inspired while my mother took even more strongly to music in frustration! 

There was of course light at the end of the tunnel - in those days Krishna Chatterjee was making waves in the world of Bengali music. Her speciality was the music composed by Atulprosad Sen, Rajanikanto Sen, D.L.Roy and others. Her father had been a good friend of my father & within a short while I found myself being tested & found fit to learn from her. So, from Tagore I turned to Tagore's contemporaries. Let me hasten to add - later on in life I sang them well enough to have some commercial releases in that genre. 

Krishna Chattopadhyay  

 Photo courtesy Bikramjit Ray

Attempts at inducting me into voice training were still proving unsatisfactory, especially since I had settled down into the habit of running away to Krishnadi's house when I heard about any serious musician's arrival. I must however credit an aunt of mine with providing a music teacher I didn't quite run away from. He tried desperately to put me through scales and the like - but eventually I ended up learning ghazals and bhajans, since these were decidedly more exciting & could be sung to a captive audience at school!