2006:08:21 Update: Ustad Bismillah Khan passed away today. :(

... 2006.06.08

Earlier today to give me company as I worked, I turned to good ol Bollywood music, with which I have been completely out of touch in the recent months. Yes, kind readers, the making of a 'firagni' goes like this. Anyway, I started looking under the list of music directors over at Music India Online (a site I heavily use for their excellent collection of Indian classical music) for A.R. Rahman, whose beat* infused music usually seems to do the trick of keeping me awake without distracting me too much.

I saw that Rahman Baba has been chugging along busily, and since I remembered something or the other said about "Swades " on a blog a while back, I decided to give this soundtrack a twirl, with only one of my ears in attendance. The music, well, was a mix of the usual Rahman's motifs. All this, till this instrumental track (wrong song title over here me thinks) smacked me on the side of the my head. Pure shehnai power doesn't get better than this, maccha. And also the seamless fashion in which the tabla, the guitar, and the vocal harmonies weave in and out the shehnai - perfect! With tracks like these, I suppose, Rahman Baba can lay claim to be the chief shaper of the post license raj (> 1990, and also post beloved Illu-Illayaraja) desi filmic soundscape.

I tried to find out who did the playing on this track. And I could only google-up only one reference to B. Madan on the shehnai, Prasad on the dholak, and Neelakantan on the tabla. Names should be named, especially in Bollywood, where musicians who play the instruments are no better than ghosts.

...

Now, since I grandoisely titled this post 'Of Shehnais', I am going to spout off on this topic. However since my ignorance in the technical matters of music remains collosal, I will merely channel others on the subject of shehnai's history and the place in Indian music:

"The Sahnai is a double-reed instrument membranophone that belongs to the shawm (or oboe) family that spread from western Europe all the way to the suona in China. One of the earliest pictorial representations of this instrument is found in gandhara bas-reliefs (northwest Pakistan) from about the beginning of the Christian Era, where a straight blown instrument having a flaring bell is depicted with the player's fingers clearly splayed to stop holes on the instrument.

The penetrating sound of the sahnai is regarded as being auspicious, thus the instrument is associated with temples and shrines as well as with such occasions as weddings and festivals. Only in the last seventy years or so has the instrument been adapted to classical and light classical music.

In the past 70 years, the shehnai has made its way from the villages to the concert stage due to the sole efforts of Ustad Bismillah Khan (b.1916). At this writing he is still performing and has performed with many other luminaries in Hindustani classical music. Other noted performers of today are: Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, Ali Ahmed Hussein and Pandit Anant Lal.

...

I personally associate the sound of shehnai, and also that of its sibling nadaswaram (I suppose this is the case with most desis) with weddings. Yes, "shaadi" (and the barbaadi that ensues) is ushered in on the soulful tunes of shehani. Also in my younger days, I have had the opportunity to see Ustad Bismillah Khan play in a very intimate concert. Actually, since he was already too old to play the entire concert by himself, his troupe had to do quite a bit of the heavy lifting. But when he came in, you could see how sometimes a musician and his choice/method (in this case shehnai) of making music can reach a state of perfect congurence. This is one reason that Octavio Paz, in his book of essays "The Double Flame", claims can potentially make typewriting monkeys like me potentially jealous of musicians and music.

As another aside, me thinks, Vikram Seth in his elephantine novel 'A Suitable Boy' best delinates a Hindustani Classical musician, i.e., a ustad in the character of Ustad Majeed Khan. Afterall, Vikram Seth can supposedly sing a mean khayal, and afterwards play mean Bach on a cello. Ah! sweet jealousy, please go away.

...

Another image that comes to my mind when I think of this 'sannai'/ nadaswaram music is that of 'gangireddulavallu', i.e., the dancing bull folk (all politicians are closely related to them; they are dancing bushit folk!). These people used to come around my childhood neighbourhood with their colorfully decorated bull, playing a tune or two on the shehnai, make the bull do tricks such as shake its head in yes or no, Indian style, as they posed questions such as "Is the master of this house a good man, Basavanna?" There was an additonal incentive for me to like these colorful Basavannas because the bulls, especially the Mysore variety (here you can see a white brother ride a cart pulled by these Mysore bulls), that my maternal farmer grandfather used in his farm work were notriously bad tempered with a dangerous rear kick. This article in Hindu has a photo. It also, sadly, decribes how this tradition too, like many others, is slowly becoming extinct. This is a really cute photograph of a small boy and Basavanna. And in this Basavanna is performing a cool trick.

*Courtesy of that genius mad drum guru Sivamani, who lays down percussion lines four or five beats deep; listen to the sound track of 'Taal' colsely, try to discern how many of those instruments are producing some kind of a beat, and you will know what I am raving about here.