Heir Gloom

Take GangubaiHangal, in her 90s and ailing, who took the gayaki of the famed Kirana gharana to great heights. After the death of her daughter Krishna Hangal, there is no musical successor in sight. Her unique musical tradition, perfected through years of rigorous riyaaz, could be lost forever.

Fellow Kirana gharana vocalist Pandit Bhimsen Joshi has no torchbearer to carry forward his lineage either. Already pushing 84, he has been in poor health for some years now and, after the demise of his wife last year, has hardly performed in public. His son Srinivas, who studied textile engineering at iit Delhi, is still finding his feet in the music fraternity. His most prominent disciple, Madhav Gudi, shows considerable promise, but is yet to make it big on the national music scene. There seems no one in sight then who can ensure that Bhimsen Joshi's unmatched style, which enthralled audiences for over four decades, lives on.

There are several other ageing musical legends who have no one to inherit their mantle, among them vocalists KishoriAmonkar, GirijaDevi, Pandit Jasraj and sitar maestro Ustad Abdul Haleem Jafar Khan. They either have no disciples at all or none that are outstanding. Even among those musical geniuses who do have hundreds of promising and talented disciples across the world, like Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ustad Ali AkbarKhan, there is no clear-cut successor who can easily step into their illustrious shoes.

Already, many of the musical styles the great masters of yesteryear developed are close to extinction. Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan of the Patiala gharana did have son and disciple Munawar Ali Khan carrying on his legacy for a while, but after Munawar Ali's death, that gharana is almost gone. Although Munawar's disciple Ajoy Chakraborty has come up as an acclaimed singer in his own right, he is not a patch on Bade Ghulam Ali—making do with mere attempts at faithful reproduction than anything else. It's the same with sitar great Ustad VilayatKhan, who died in 2004. His son Shujaat lacks his father's genius, and younger son Hedayat is yet to make his mark. Ditto for Nikhil Banerjee, considered by some connoisseurs as the greatest sitar player ever. The Delhi and Rampur gharanas which once boasted greats like Nasir Ahmed Khan and Mushtaq Husain Khan, are—save Rashid Khan in the latter case—now practically extinct. Sadly, the list is endless.

What is it that the current generation lacks which prevents them from reaching the heights the old masters did? Talent, discipline and dedication. "Aaj ki hawa hi kharaab hai," says octogenarian thumri and dadra singer Girija Devi, whose own daughter did not choose music as a serious career. "Frustration is pushing young people away. There is no money in this line and the younger generation has to look for other means of living," she says.

Flautist Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia has a similar view: "Many promising students have to kill their talent because they have to earn a living from fields other than music." Agrees Dr Kiran Seth, founder and chairperson of Spic-Macay, which has been promoting classical music among young people for three decades: "Aspiring young musicians require a safety net, so they look for alternate careers. In earlier times, the safety net was provided by royal patronage which took care not only of the musician and his family but also his disciples."

It is also true that few in the current crop are willing to undergo the years of practice and hours of service to their guru that the old masters used to demand of their disciples. As Ustad Vilayat Khan recalled in a conversation with this correspondent a few months before he died: "We used to do riyaaz of a particular taan, counting not by the hours, but by the number of candles burning down. We would aspire to be a paanch-mombatti riyaazi. That spirit is missing today."

The decline in musical standards, say many virtuosos, is also because many in the new generation are getting exposure on the public stage without first attaining the necessary level of perfection or maturity. Says sarod maestro Pandit Buddhadev Dasgupta: "There is a terrific lack of patience amongst the new generation, who want to hit the stage after just 2-3 years of learning. In our times, even after 15-20 years of rigorous taleem, gurus didn't find students fit to perform in public." Sitar maestro Debu Chaudhury points to another dimension. "Audiences aren't discerning any more either. Earlier, they would pick out even a single note which went awry. Today, there are several top musicians, many of them performing round the year in India and abroad, who break the rules (of raga and tala) and no one even notices."

It's also an era of stage-managed success where professional agencies are roped in to "manage" the public image of star children and disciples. Says Chaudhury: "There are artistes who spend up to Rs 5 lakh a year to promote themselves and their children. Musical reputation is no longer the result of hard work, but of PR hype."

A few leading musical savants blame some gurus themselves for not having been able to prepare worthy shishyas. Says Girija Devi: "Bismillah Khan went on performing even in his old age. Why didn't he push his disciples forward? Why didn't Gangubai let her disciples come up with her?" Agrees Chaurasia: "There is a lack of proper taleem because a lot of today's gurus are top performers and have one foot in India and the other in the US all the time. When will they teach?"

Santoor exponent Shiv Kumar Sharma, however, thinks otherwise. Defending the seniors, Sharma, who has already found a capable heir in his younger son Rahul and also has prominent disciples, says: "Just like it is rare to get a good guru, it is equally rare for gurus to get a good disciple. Every performer is not an able guru and vice-versa. Not everyone has the kind of patience required for teaching."

Is there anything at all then that can be done to preserve and perpetuate our great musical traditions and build upon them? Former Union minister and music aficionado Vasant Sathe believes there must be an equivalent of the royal patronage that produced the great ustads, and the government should step in not just with monetary help but also by providing opportunities and rewards. Says he: "New channels are being opened everyday for news and entertainment. Why isn't there one exclusive Doordarshan channel for classical music that can act as a platform for artistes?" Agrees Girija Devi: "Crores of rupees are being pumped by companies into cricket. How many people does that benefit and what tradition is it keeping alive? Even if a fraction of that came to music, we would see a better tomorrow."

Others have come up with proposals to involve the corporate sector in this area. Spic-Macay, for instance, has gone to NRIs and corporate leaders like Mukesh Ambani to develop a corpus fund which can support musicians and their chosen disciples. Yet others, like Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, are trying to revive the residential guru-shishya parampara of teaching. He has started a Vrindavan Gurukul in Mumbai which cherrypicks promising young musicians and puts them through a proper training regime where they don't have to worry about making an alternative living and can concentrate exclusively on music.

So, is there hope yet? Yes, believe many musicians. Despite the decline of the gharana system and the pressure to look for alternate sources of livelihood, there are a few brilliant younger musicians who have proved themselves worthy of inheriting the mantle of the greats, even if many of them do not come from illustrious musical dynasties. Star progeny like Mukul Shivputra (Kumar Gandharva's son), Ashish Khan (Ustad Ali Akbar Khan's son), Anoushka Shankar, Aman and Ayaan Ali have met more than their match in vocalists like Veena Sahasrabuddhe and Shruti Shadolikar, sitar players Shahid Parvez and Purvayan Chatterjee, and sarod player Parthosarathi. They inspire hope that Hindustani classical music can be brought back from today's chicken run to what it should be—an ibadat, a prayer.