It was a breezy evening along the coastline of the Arabian Sea. The air was tinged with a sense of nostalgia, infused with an electric buzz, as music-lovers of all ages assembled at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA). Long queues curved across the waiting areas, stretching all the way to the roads outside. Hundreds of twinkle-eyed ‘Rasiks’ eagerly waited to enter the auditorium. The inaugural concert of ‘Kaaljayi’, with an audience that comprised lay-listeners, classical connoisseurs and artistic stalwarts kickstarted the year-long celebration, and ended with thundering applause.
The Inaugural Function of Kaaljayi — Experimental Theater, NCPA. L to R — Prashant Pandav, Srijan Deshpande, Satyasheel Deshpande, Shashi Vyas, Shruti Sadolikar and Shama Bhate. Photo: Kumar Gandharva Pratishthan
In Japan, there exists a practice called ‘Shinrin-Yoku’ — ‘Forest Bathing’. In it, the tired and weary masses go to a forest, and engage in deep sensory absorption of nature’s sublime energies for therapeutic relaxation and spiritual upliftment.
Through his epic life of sixty-seven years, Kumar Gandharva created a staggeringly prolific body of work. It is akin to a thick dense musical forest, its canopy of ‘Swar’ providing soothing shade and safe shelter to all those who come to it. Millions continue to immerse and bathe in the playful lilt of his voice, finding deep resonance with their own emotions, across stages of their lives. And so it was on April 8, in the urban concrete jungle of Mumbai, where the evergreen ‘Sangeet-Vann’ of Kumar ji’s legacy was musically manifested.
At the center of the year-long celebrations were a series of concerts held across the nation in more than ten cities. These open and free concerts drew massive audiences in Pune, Kolhapur, Aurangabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Dewas, Varanasi and more. In addition to talks, lectures and symposiums, the festivities also featured the release of a series of essay books, children’s illustrated books, calendars and movie screenings, including a film on Kumar Gandharva by renowned auteur Amit Dutta. Across the year, over 5000 ‘Sangeet Shrotas’ from across India and abroad attended and took active part in remembering and rejoicing the music and life of the maestro.
Inaugural function of Kaaljayi at Tata Theatre, NCPA, Mumbai. Photo: Kumar Gandharva Pratishthan
The festival was spearheaded by Kumar Gandharva Pratishthan, based in Dewas. Sangeet Natak Akademi awardee Kalapini Komkali, daughter of Kumar Gandharva, had envisioned the festival three years ago. “Kumar ji’s persona was multi-hued, like a dazzling peacock plumage. Listening to his music is an ethereal experience, but to present it afresh was a formidable task. My vision was to weave together a musical garland of performers from across gharanas and traditions, and artists from across multiple genres and mediums.”
Padmashree Madhup Mudgal, head of the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya in Delhi shared insights from his intimate guru-shishya relationship with Kumar ji. He said, “A performer of Indian classical music can keep reproducing and repeating traditional compositions — it is a valuable skill to be treasured. But Kumar Gandharva was a fine artist who had deeply absorbed classical grammar, and also went above and beyond it . At the Deodhar School of Indian Music, he was blessed to have learnt from many gurus and over the years had amassed a treasure trove of rare compositions. And through this, he would give us a deep, immersive, microscopic view of the inner textures within a Raag.”
Pandit Bhuvanesh Komkali, recipient of Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar was the other force behind the massive festival. He spoke at Gagan Mandal, a symposium organised by Raza Foundation and IIC Delhi. Sharing warm, heartfelt memories of his childhood, Komkali spoke with affection and reverence about ‘Baba’, as he fondly calls his grandfather. “Kumar ji loved to eat ‘5-Star’ chocolate bars and would always keep one for me in his bag. Not many musicians can say they have had that honour!” he recalls jovially.
The passing of Kumar ji in the year 1992 was synchronous with a new zeitgeist of media consumption in India. As modes and mediums of digital media began to spread across the populace, so did the technology to convert vinyl records and cassettes into digital formats. It was this fortuitous transition that enabled the music of Kumar ji to thrive in improved formats of colour and sound for future generations to feast upon. By the year 2005, the vast plethora of audio and video resources found permanent places on the alleyways of the internet — posted on websites and forums. Full-length concerts and shorter clips of performances by Kumar ji are now omnipresent on Youtube, Facebook and Instagram, forwarded with great joy by listeners.
Over a decade ago, Bhuvanesh had also led the extensive digital archiving of Kumar ji’s prolific body of work — consisting of thousands of live and studio recordings. He shared his observations, “Amidst the perpetual debates on dwindling attention spans, it is also important to give due credit to young people for keeping classical music alive. I have been witness to how the work of Kumar ji has been shared by the youth, who upload, download, listen, forward and discuss his music with great zest and enthusiasm.”
Padma Shri Prahlad Singh Tipaniya performing at Dewas. Photo: Prriti Mann
Kumar ji’s own work in reviving old and forgotten compositions is remarked upon by his disciple, the eminent musician and musicologist Pandit Satyasheel Deshpande. “In his time, a stagnance had set into the world of classical music. He breathed new life into traditional compositions that had been buried in the sands of time. Keeping the grammar of the music and the purity of the Raag and Taal intact, he presented the raags innovatively. Merely adding a ‘teevra madhyam’ and a ‘nishad’ to Raag Bhopali will not make it ‘Shuddha Kalyan’. In Kumar ji’s renditions, each Raag’s personality shone through.”
Kumar ji’s renditions from the treasure trove of folk melodies — from Malwa Lok-geet to Surdas, from Meerabai to Tukaram have been cherished for decades. Prahlad Singh Tipaniya shared, “In 2003, when I visited America, I found legions of his admirers. I then discovered that the voice and memory of Kabir was kept alive and thriving among international audiences, through the work of Pandit Kumar Gandharva! I believe it was also the sheer simplicity of his personality that enabled his magic to reach the hearts of millions.”
Kumar ji’s life and work epitomises the true essence of music —as a living form, forever in alchemical transformation in the cauldron of time. The lush forest of his music continues to stay evergreen in the digital era, through his voice and the work of his disciples and grand-disciples. They are songs for all seasons, enabling new generations of forest-bathers to revel in it.
In ancient Sanskrit texts, two types of Victory are described: ‘Vijaya’, where there is a defeated and a defeater, representing earthly victories. Yet, the greater form of Victory is ‘Jaya’— where there is no defeated. For true victory lies in transcendence — of death, life and time itself — “Kaaljayi”, an epithet most apt for the music and persona, life and legacy of Pandit Kumar Gandharva.
