DELHI BY HEART

by Raza Rumi

  Arman’s ustad, Mustafa Husain, hails from Daryaganj in Old Delhi and complains that, ‘people are ignoring classical music and pop music is the order of the day.’ He adds, ‘we have to rediscover our traditions.’ The families now survive on individual patrons such as Arman’s family. Classical music is not easy to learn, and requires patience and a lifetime of dedication. It needs patronage to survive as a continuously evolving art form. Corporate groups now support classical music concerts in various parts of Delhi as well as outside. But still, many musicians resort to doing ‘popular’ concerts at weddings and elite parties to make a living.

  Daryaganj and its alleyways are choked with foodstalls, auto-rickshaws and motorbikes. I wanted to visit the area since I had heard such legendary tales about this locality. However, walking there amidst the dense housing and layouts was a struggle. There are people everywhere, but this area of Shahjahanabad, or Old Delhi, is as forlorn as the musicians who live there. It is clear that no one really cares for the value and symbolism of this place.

  Musicians have lived here for centuries. There is a sense of rootedness and bonding which keeps these families here. As I stroll through the musicians’ lane I hear sweet music and, the frenetic pace of the street notwithstanding, these are moments of sheer magic. One shopkeeper tells me that there is a continuous sound of singing or instruments wafting from a window or balcony. Despite the abysmal conditions, it is impressive that they manage to keep Delhi’s fading traditional music alive.

  In Nizamuddin Basti too, traditional qawwals flourish against all odds. Ustad Meraj Ahmed, a direct descendant of Ustad Tanras Khan, who was a royal singer at the court of the Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, is perhaps the greatest qawwal living here. His troupe was asked by Deepa Mehta to sing a qawwali for her film, Fire. They were paid well but were shocked when they finally saw the film—they just had a two-minute appearance and the film was about a homosexual relationship between two women! Tauba tauba! It is interesting to note here that these qawwals also sing bhajans for Hindu festivities like Devi jagarans (singing all night and keeping vigil in honour of the mother goddess) and are also hired to sing at cocktail parties.

  The advent of Islam gradually influenced ancient ragas and talas, and generated newer musical genres and instruments.15 For instance, since the nineteenth century, Indian classical music has seen the flourishing of the khayal genre that embodies the culmination of this syncretic process which has existed for nearly seven centuries.16 Khayal entails a repertoire of short bandishey where the vocalist employs a few lines of poetry as a means of impromptu yet rule-based improvisation. The singing is accompanied by the tabla and often a harmonium, sarangi, violin or dilruba. Khayal’s basic components are rooted in the religious, folk and theatrical music of India, but its present-day form has its roots in the musical renditions at Persian courts and Sufi khanqahs in India.

  Linear versions of history hold that Indian music, a monolith since Vedic times, was interrupted by Muslim influences on the shuddha ‘Marga’ tradition. However, this is too simplistic an analysis as the complex bundle of traditions, collectively known as ‘Indian classical music’, evolved through different ages and accepted several influences such as the developments of the Gupta period and then of Buddhism. However, musicologists note that from the twelfth century onwards, Islamic elements started merging into the diverse streams of existing north Indian music making it a rich mosaic of multiple traditions. It should be clarified that the classical music of peninsular India, Carnatic music, remains largely un-influenced by Muslim traditions. Khusrau was a pioneer of this merger, and created the ‘Hindustani’ (North Indian) musical tradition which was a fusion of Indo-Islamic elements, both musical and linguistic. This tradition came to inform the devotional and court-centred cultural developments in medieval India.

  During the later Sultanate period, from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, classical music was patronized by and shaped in regional kingdoms such as Jaunpur, Gwalior and Bijapur, reaching its pinnacle in the succeeding Mughal courts.17 Akbar’s Court, for example, saw the ascendancy of dhrupad. Originating as devotional singing at Hindu temples, dhrupad’s ancestry can be traced back to the Vedas. The name is derived from dhruva-pada or refrain, and refers to both a poetic form and a musical style. Unlike its successor, the khayal, dhrupad is more austere without too many minute embellishments. However, like the khayal, it is modal, employing a single melodic line in one particular raga or formalized framework of melodic rules.

  The maturity of Indian classical music during Akbar’s reign coincided with the increased use of regional dialects, which was a legacy of Bhakti poetry and songs. Myriad forms entered Mughal music, which included the Arab, Persian and Khurasani musical styles; it also included the various qawwali styles and ghazals. Devotional Hindu temple music and regional influences—all converged into the hybrid known as ‘Hindustani classical music.’

  As music evolved during the medieval era, hierarchies emerged among masters and disciples. At the top were the kalawants and baykars;18 qawwals and dhadhis fell into the second category. These hierarchies were not fixed, but shifted constantly as and when they attained mastery over certain forms. Qawwali was popular as was dhrupad. However, by the eighteenth century, khayal assumed the status of high culture.

  A chance meeting with musicologist Lakshmi Subramanian in a restaurant on the India International Centre’s rooftop was enlightening. She and her co-author, Jon Barlow, write:

  In instrumental music, as in vocal music, the advent of the Muslims brought about profound and far-reaching changes. Muslim musicians brought with them Persian and Khurasani instruments; the chang, a harp/zither, the rabab and barbat, respectively skin–covered and wooden topped lutes, the tambur or the long-necked lute with a wooden sound-board that would later be hybridised with the been to become the Indian tanpura. They had various forms of fiddles including a bowed rabab, a prototype of the early sarangi.19

  As I dug deeper into this musical kaleidoscope thanks to Lakshmi’s enduring research, and the anecdotes I had picked up from my father and a music-obsessed friend in Pakistan, the little pieces started to connect. Attending concerts in Delhi and listening to the music teacher at Sadia’s house, I was amazed at how these ancient and medieval musical notes had pervaded centuries of conflict, confluence and generations of co-existence.

  Tansen, that most well known of Mughal maestros, taught his disciples a dhrupad-inspired method of playing the rabab. His talented son-in-law, Naubat Khan, revolutionized Indian instrumental music by experimenting with string instruments and introducing complex, innovative melodies that were also assimilative of different local traditions. Within the span of a few centuries, the simple melodies of the Nizamuddin Basti had evolved into a high art form at the splendid Mughal Court. However, with the decline of the sultans and the Mughal preference for Agra and Lahore, it was not until the reign of Shah Jahan that Delhi once again became the musical capital of northern India.

  After Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb’s period again saw a dwindling of music in Delhi, during which time regional kingdoms filled the gap. But for most of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Delhi was the crucible of experimentation, expanding the contours of artistic and cultural endeavours. After the ravaging of the city in the late eighteenth century and the decline of the Mughal court, patronage was shared by regional and local nobles and other influential people. But until the time of Bahadur Shah Zafar, classical music, qawwali and other forms continued to evolve in Delhi.

  Historical accounts suggest that Aurangzeb wanted to bury music deep under the earth so that no echo of it would rise again. Following this stern diktat, his withdrawal of patronage of music in 166720 lasted almost thirty years. A crisis was triggered that forced the high musicians to look for alternative patronage. During this time, the kalawant musicians or leading artists, started to imbibe the stylistic features of the qawwals.21

  For a long time, Delhi remained unaffected by the decline of
the Mughal Empire as its rich trader-merchant class and nobles continued to patronize the arts. The mystical spaces of Delhi, such as dargahs and khanqahs, contributed to the augmentation and sustenance of music. During the eighteenth century, the Chishti Sufi school underwent a revival under Shaikh Kalim Ullah (1650-1729) and his successors, notably Shah Fakhruddin, who converted Delhi once again to be the focal point for Chishti Sufi practices including Sema (the ceremony of the whirling dance) and qawwali. The Naqshbandi22 order also was undergoing a shift under scholars such as Shah Waliullah (1703-63), and the Delhi-based Sufi, Mazhar Jan-e-Janaan. Celebrations of Sufi saints in Delhi increased during this time23 and eyewitness accounts bear testimony to this trend.24 Delhi’s musical culture was complex; the wealthy displayed extravagance in musical practices while the shrines and khanqahs promoted music with simplicity and austerity.

  But it was under Muhammad Shah Rangeela (1719-48), buried in the Hazrat Nizamuddin dargah complex, that Delhi became the epicentre of musical experimentation and the refinement of the khayal. During this time, Niamat Khan, the celebrated kalawant, improvised on original compositions of the khayal and took conventional dhrupad to new heights. Working under the nom de plume ‘Sadarang’ (ever colourful), these compositions found wide appeal in Delhi. Noting this person’s genius, Mohammad Shah Rangeela, who had expelled him earlier, had to recall him to the court and accept his creativity which exalted his beenkari to the status of the singing of dhrupad.25 As learned musicologists have noted, ‘It also marked the entry of khayal, albeit via the zenana (through the mad-hatter queen, Lal Kunwar, wife of one of Aurangzeb’s grandsons), into the domain of court music, an important step on its route to becoming the dominant secular form.’26

  Dhrupad became the core and the been, ‘ang’, a vital component of Niamat Khan’s rendition of the khayal and of his innovation, the bara khayal, which was a slower and more intense version of the fast-tempo original.

  Niamat Khan ‘Sadarang’ and his disciples added many rich layers to vocal music and endowed a high stature to instruments such as the sitar, sarod, surbahar, sarangi and tabla. Music historians also attribute the expanded range and greater tonal variety of instruments to him. Feroze Khan, the talented nephew of Niamat, was a sitar maestro and improvised on new ways of playing it.27 All these elements also led to the evolution of the alaap—‘the deep sustained resonance that could convey the calm, reflective dignity of the dhrupad ang.’28 Since then, the solo alaap form emerged as a major musical form in India.29 Alaap—an integral component of khayal rendition—also found its way into mainstream Indian and later Pakistani film music with Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammad Rafi and Noor Jehan rendering its populist versions.

  By the time the Mughal glory had dwindled, the khayal was so well-formed and developed that it survived and transformed through the creativity of Niamat Sadarang30 to rise as the major musical tradition of North India, inspired by Sema and later enriching musical activity at the Sufi centres of Delhi. It was to flourish for many centuries to come. Delhi was acknowledged as the fountainhead of innovations.

  These intimate little tributaries flowing from the river of the Hazrat Nizamuddin dargah and basti watered the music of Delhi. The unearthing of the music of Delhi remains one of the most fascinating discoveries of my inner eye.

  However, Delhi’s tragedy was not just the decay of the government of the day but also the city’s fabled wealth and splendour which made it a ripe victim for the foreign invasions of Nadir Shah and Abdali. Towards the end of the 1700s, artists, poets and musicians left the city one by one and found homes elsewhere in the regional centres of power and patronage. Lucknow, the capital of the independent kingdom of Awadh, was a favourite destination. Under Asaf-ud-Daula’s rule, which ended in 1797, Lucknow emerged as the cultural hub of India. Earlier, Nawab Shuja-ud-daula (1754-75) had also promoted famous Delhi artists such as the khayal gurus, Jani, Ghulam Rasul, Chajju Khan and Jivan Khan, who were leading dhrupad singers and players of the rabab. By the nineteenth century, the music of Delhi had found safety and financial security at the court of Lucknow.31

  Other venues for migration from Delhi were Jaipur, Gwalior (that was later to become a khayal planet), Benares, Bettiah, Rewa, Darbhanga and Banda. Music was an exalted symbol of the court and the stature of a kingdom, and Delhi provided that extra bit of glory by exporting its individuals and musical streams. This search for glory and grandeur partly explains why Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Lucknow patronized music and poetry during his rule in the mid-nineteenth century. Music was not just a pastime but a symbol of public aesthetics of the court and its nobility.

  The emptying out of Delhi in these fractured times did not mean that music disappeared from the streets and havelis of Shahjahanabad. The qawwals at the dargahs continued to embrace new artists and followers, including India-inspired Europeans such as Antoine Polier32 who provided employment to qawwals as teachers. Delhi earned the reputation of being the leading centre for the sitar. Masit Khan,33 in the early nineteenth century, was the most well-known sitar player in Delhi and took the instrument to new dimensions. At the same time, the tabla was also undergoing a metamorphosis, and acquired an elevated status as an integral accompaniment to khayal singing.

  Tanras Khan was a celebrated khayal expert who was central to the court of Bahadur Shah Zafar up to the year 1857. Ghalib was a frequent visitor to regional patrons such as the Nawab of Rampur. Mir too had taken shelter in the regional courts.

  Mughal Delhi’s formal death in 1857 was transformational for the Empire as well as for classical Hindustani music. The central court had already become impoverished and the most talented artists had left the city. However, after the British took over, they completely withdrew official patronage to the tradition and within decades, the world of music and, musicians had shrunk into the streets of Daryaganj.

  One of the reactions to this changing environment, especially after the disruption and dislocation caused in 1857, was the desperate endeavour of musicians to organize themselves into music gharanas or family based schools, which allowed their survival and continuity in uncertain times. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Hindustani music culture moved even farther from Delhi and its surroundings to wealthy urban centres such as Lahore, Calcutta and Bombay.

  The gharanas were integrated with the Qawwal Bachhe Gharana and the inheritors of the Sadarang style of music rendition and singing. For instance, the Patiala Gharana, a substantial part of which moved to Pakistan after the Partition, was historically under the tutelage of Tanras Khan (Qawwal Bachhe) of Delhi and other disciples from Gwalior. Qawwal Bachhe Gharana remained the source of musical lineage, textual documentation and innovation through the centuries. All the families known to have been singing the khayal were at one point initiated into music through the Qawwal Bachhe ancestry.

  The ‘nautch’ as a form of entertainment found an audience and patrons in kothas. Nautch performances were devoid of its spatial connection with the court, the spiritual intersection with the dargah and, of course, the financial patronage of the Empire. The degenerate Mughal nobility and princes such as Mirza Jahangir, son of Emperor Akbar II (1806-1837), became notorious patrons of nautch into which was packaged paid sex. Similar trends were brewing in regional centres, most notably Lucknow, which gave rise to the famous and somewhat tragic tale of Umrao Jan Ada. Nevertheless, courtesans played a huge role in keeping Indian classical music, particularly thumris, a lighter classical form, alive.

  The post-Mutiny years ushered in modernity and this had a far-reaching effect on the music of Delhi. From having to face the politics of empires, it now had to contend with forces of modernity—‘new’ sensibilities and cosmopolitanism. The elites were learning English and adopting different ways; this spelt inevitable doom for the tradition of classical music. Social and economic shifts after 1857 brought in a different milieu for entertainment and a new definition of ‘performance’ and ‘concert’. In this changed milieu of the late nineteenth and early twentieth ce
nturies, Muslim musicians struggled with an ‘orientalized’ nationalism that emphasized a reinvented (and glorious) Hindu past, and the new emphasis on ‘formal’ education as opposed to the guru-disciple traditions of transmitting music.

  A millennia had been ruptured, never to recover and only to flow into another phase of India that began with a westernized, English-speaking elite which embraced modernity, democracy, and the ‘futility’ of the Muslim past; perhaps not in that order.

  6

  Lover’s Heart

  Delhi was once a paradise,

  Where love held sway and reigned;

  But its charm lies ravished now

  And only ruins remain.

  No tears were shed when shroudless, they

  Were laid in common graves;

  No prayers were read for the noble dead,

  Unmarked remain their graves.

  But things cannot remain, O Zafar,

  Thus, for who can tell?

  Through God’s great mercy and the Prophet

  All may yet be well.

  Bahadur Shah Zafar1

  S

  hahjahanabad, or Old Delhi, was built by Emperor Shah Jahan. The work started in 1639. Seventeen years of labour and design resulted in a city without parallel. In terms of architectural grandeur and significance, Shah Jahan’s court was rivalled only by that of the Ming emperors, and Shahjahanabad, as the capital city, had to be a suitable setting for this jewel. The court, a locus of splendour, existed around the majestic Lal Qila, the Red Fort complex. This royal inner sanctum, with multiple pavilions, palaces, gardens and halls of audience, remained the Mughal seat of power until 1857, when the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was deposed following the tumultuous events of the Mutiny and its aftermath. This was the end of Delhi’s status as the capital city, at least for the next fifty-four years, as the seat of government had shifted to modern, thriving Calcutta in the East. The British took control of India and, in the early twentieth century, built New Delhi by moving the capital once again to this historical power saddle. Delhi was only to regain its position as the fulcrum of power when the British shifted the capital from Calcutta in 1911. Since then, Delhi has remained the capital of India. The Red Fort, quite befittingly, became the symbol of independent India after 1947.