For some of us, the weekend morning concert is a favourite music event. It’s not often that we get to go to one, but smaller organisers, house concert hosts, and other home-grown music spaces do arrange them, and reassuring numbers of aficionados attend.
Most denizens of our wannabe-smart cities are usually taking it easy during this time, so for music lovers to get to some place on time and without aggravation is not a challenge. Returning home after the programme is not hard either. In fact, the whole day following the concert is then imbued with the magic of morning ragas that you get to hear, whatever the commitments and compulsions of the day after that.
Logistics apart, attending a morning presentation means that you get to hear a slew of ragas that are not usually presented in the regular evening and night concerts. Morning ragas have that pristine, new-page, new-petal quality. This comes either intrinsically, by virtue of the notes and structures, or by your own aural associations that come from film music (both songs and background scores), devotional music, and baithaks. The wordings of the compositions in morning ragas Bhairav and Bhoopali, Abhogi, Jogia... are often meant to rouse the gods themselves, or describe Shiva in all his rough-hewn glory, or to offer gratitude for the passing of the night and the coming of another dawn. A Lalit bandish will sometimes walk that thin line between morning devotion and a yearning for the liaison of the previous night! Jaunpuri, Asawari, Bhatiyar are some of the other treats in store for the early morning concert-goer.
If the concert begins mid-morning and moves towards early afternoon, you could well be bathed in a Bilawal or a Deshkar, or even a Bhimpalasi. In recent times, I have been completely captivated by a raga that sometimes appears later in a morning concert. It is the curiously named Basant Mukhari. ‘Curiously’, because no one seems to quite know why the word Basant is in there or why Mukhari, as it has nothing to do with the raga Basant.
Shadow and light
It has origins in the Persian Hijaz and is the Hindustani adaptation of the Carnatic raga Vakulabharanam. Perhaps, like the once wrongly labelled bird ‘ashy wren warbler’ that was later more accurately renamed the ‘ashy prinia’, this raga too could do with a renaming. With its dhoop-chaaon play of shadow and light between Bhairav and Bhairavi, the raga seems to manifest itself differently with every rendering and every performer.
Deepak S. Raja has explored the raga and its naming in a chapter in his book, The Raga-Ness of Ragas: Ragas Beyond the Grammar, and says, “Some of the greatest musical minds of the country have, in recent years, worked on giving the raga a Hindustani personality. Despite this, the raga remains, to this day, subject to a considerable diversity in treatment.” And so, a Malini Rajurkar will take listeners on a rapid ascent within the first few seconds of her vilambit gat. Ravi Shankar has played the raga many times from the late 50s, and many recordings are available online, including this early piece that has his signature all over it.
Till you run into a bit of good fortune and attend a morning concert where this raga is sung or played live, some of the must-listen Basant Mukharis are all over YouTube, including ones by Ali Akbar Khan, Amir Khan and by sarangi player Abdul Lateef Khan. Shubha Mudgal’s rendition, also available online, is a contemporary gem.
The raga’s enigmatic charm lies in its ‘gambhirya’ or seriousness, along with the counterweight of pure longing or ‘viraha’ that it conveys.
Perhaps the following Hindi film songs too will work their magic in helping listeners ‘get a fix’ on the poise and poignancy that is Basant Mukhari: ‘Chalo Sajna Jahaan Tak Ghata Chale’, ‘O Basanti Pawan Pagal’, ‘Andhe Jahan Ke Andhe Raaste’, ‘Wada Karle Sajna’.
The novelist, counsellor and music lover takes readers on a ramble through the Aladdin’s cave of Indian music.