Dhondutai Kulkarni, the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana stalwart, refused to flow with the tide of populism, and consolidated her position as a zealous custodian of the gharana’s musical assets. This meant accepting a marginal presence on the concert platform, a life devoted to teaching, and an ascetic lifestyle.
Sushri
Dhondutai Kulkarni, the last exponent of orthodox Jaipur-Atrauli Khayal
vocalism, breathed her last on May 31, 2014. In the music community, she was known
primarily as the sole disciple of the legendary Kesarbai Kerkar (1890-1977). This
was factually correct, but only partially descriptive of her musical persona. Dhondutai
was groomed by three other exponents of the style evolved by Ustad Alladiya
Khan (1855-1946) Natthan Khan, Bhurji Khan, and Lakshmibai Jadhav – before she
came under Kesarbai’s tutelage, and Azizuddin Khan thereafter. In Dhondutai’s own assessment, Bhurji Khan was
her primary trainer who had coached her to the level of a performing musician,
and Kesarbai had been more like a sparring-mate polishing up her impact on the
concert platform.
Against this
background, with three of her five mentors being members of the founding family
of the lineage, Dhondutai had the maximum imaginable access to the accumulated
musical wisdom of her Gharana, as variously reflected in the musical
temperaments of her mentors. From these mutually compatible influences, she forged
an original musical statement and remained, after Kesarbai’s retirement, the
most authoritative interpreter of the stylistic lineage.
The
recognition of Dhondutai’s style as “orthodox” Jaipur Atrauli is important
because, during Dhondutai’s own lifetime, Kishori Amonkar, her junior by a few
years, and a product of the same lineage, had launched a revisionist
interpretation of Jaipur Atrauli vocalism, which took female vocalism by storm.
While orthodox Jaipur-Atrauli vocalism emphasized the majestic aloofness of its
Dhrupad-Dhamar inspiration, its revisionist offshoot went headlong into a
solicitous, endearing romanticism, inspired by the stylistics of the Thumree
and popular genres. Amonkar replaced the elitist stance of orthodox
Jaipur-Atrauli with a markedly populist stance and, not surprisingly, left the
orthodoxy gasping for breath. Dhondutai refused to flow with the tide of populism,
and consolidated her position as a zealous custodian of the gharana’s musical
assets. This meant accepting a marginal
presence on the concert platform, a life devoted to teaching, and an ascetic
lifestyle.
The hallmark
of Dhondutai’s Jaipur-Atrauli legacy was a distinctive voice culture, which
ensured continuity of the musical experience across the entire melodic canvas,
and subtlety and complexity in all departments. Her treasure of Raga-s included
a host of melodic entities which are rare. Many of these were compound Raga-s,
whose names were familiar, but their melodic engineering was unique to the
Jaipur-Atrauli lineage. Even in the performance of common Raga-s, her
interpretation had the oblique – sometimes intriguing and even baffling -- quality
typical of the lineage. Her melodic contours were devoid of angularities, and
distinctive for their curvilinear form, moving in loops and spirals. In her musical
expression, melody wrapped itself around the beats of the rhythmic cycle,
giving it a subtle swing, which never became an explicit pulsation. The result
was often an unexpected emphasis or elongation of some notes, which enhanced
the enigmatic quality of the Raga form. The internal structure of each movement
in her renditions kept changing all the time, thus avoiding repetitiveness and
monotony.
Because of
these features, orthodox Jaipur-Atrauli vocalism was considered highbrow. Elitism
and aloofness embedded themselves as second nature in the conduct of Jaipur
Atrauli musicians. An extreme manifestation of this was the musical persona of
Kesarbai Kerkar. Its reflection in the persona of Dhondutai Kulkarni, however, never
approached Kesarbai’s abrasiveness. As a
performing musician, Dhondutai would not bring her music down to the
appreciation levels of her audiences; but she would make every effort to raise
the level of appreciation of the audiences. In every concert I have heard, she
would certainly include a rare or a compound raga, painstakingly explain its
melodic structure, preface the Khayal rendition with an abnormally long alap,
and ensure that the musical content of her performances was not met with
bewilderment.
Through her broadcasts
on All India Radio, Dhondutai enjoyed national stature as a vocalist for almost
half a century. In the last two decades that I have known Dhondutai, her stage performances
were infrequent. But, whenever they were held, every connoisseur in the city
made sure that he was present. She was invited to perform and receive awards by
some of the most influential cultural organizations in the country. Amongst her
many awards were the Mallikarjun Mansur Award, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award,
and the Maharashtra Gaurav award.
Teaching
provided her a livelihood; but her approach to it was missionary, and totally
lacking the
commercialism of present-day musicians. She had benefitted from
Kesarbai’s totally non-commercial decision to bequeath the lineage’s musical
assets to her. Dhondutai was motivated
likewise to bequeath those assets to as many worthy recipients as possible. To
her students, she often pointed out that they (her disciples) were fortunate
that she had remained unmarried. Had she had her own children, she would have
taught them – rather than her disciples – the crucial secrets of her art. She also believed that, had she decided to
start a family, she would never have been able to acquire the musical assets
that she could accumulate by remaining a spinster. But, clearly, there was in
her persona also a mother who could never be. To her disciples, tough and
demanding as she could be as a teacher, she was everybody’s idea of a mother.
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| Dhondutai Kulkarni with the author (2003) |
Dhondutai’s
legacy of commercially distributed recordings is meager. There exists a modest unpublished archive of
her concert recordings, which awaits processing and dissemination. Her
accomplishments as a Guru are more evident. The finest living products of her
grooming are Manjari Vaishampayan, who performs and teaches in the US; Namita
Devidayal, author of the celebrated book “The Music Room”, who unfortunately
does not perform; and two youngsters who are currently making waves on the
concert platform – Aditya Khandwe and Rutuja Lad.
Dhondutai
bequeathed a substantial part of the lineage’s musical wisdom to a few
recipients. Her training will remain the foundation of their musicianship. But,
the music they sing will inevitably be shaped by their interaction with today’s
audiences. Their talent and ingenuity will decide whether orthodox
Jaipur-Atrauli vocalism survives Dhondutai, or gets swamped by the romanticist
Tsunami that hit the Khayal coastline about four decades ago.
