Monday, August 07, 2000
Janmasthami Offering
Rajan P.
ParrikarRajan P. Parrikar is a recognized expert on Indian Classical
music and
shares his knowledge freely with those interested in the subject.
He has
written a
series of articles on Classical Indian Music some of which have been archived
on Sawf. Click
here to read Rajan's earlier articles. |
 |
Rajan P. Parrikar with Kishore Kumar (Goa, 1986).
Namashkar.
Of all the divinities surveying India's religious compass none is more
present or more
beloved to the Indian imagination than the figure of Lord Krishna. In the
exalted pantheon
of gods and goddesses personifying the ethos of our civilization, He is
considered primus
inter pares. His deeds and exploits are inscribed in our collective memory.
And
ineluctable is the influence of His ecumenical, numinous personality to those
bred in the
land. In this offering to Him on the upcoming occasion of Janmasthami, we
retail an episode
where He plays a seminal role and wrap up the observance with musical clips -
classical and
'light', cheek by jowl - centred on the Krishna motif.
In her book In the Dark of the Heart: Songs of Meera
(HarperCollins), Shama Futehally introduces Sri Krishna:
"Krishna is the eight incarnation or avatar of the god Vishnu, the
preserver. He is
the most intimate of gods, one who is wont to stray out of the area demarcated
"worship" and
steal into our everyday lives. He appears in our kitchens, our courtyards, at
our
washing-wells; there he is, eavesdropping upon a conversation between
girlfriends; and when
we are lulling a baby to sleep we might find, for one radiant moment, that we
are lulling
the baby Krishna. He is everywhere; he is impossible, incorrigible,
unpunishable. Finally,
he is love itself and the Indian soul is butter in his mischievous hands...
According to the myth proper, Krishna appeared on the earth to kill
Kamsa, the wicked
king of the Yadavas. He was born as the eighth child to Devaki, a sister of
Kamsa. It had
been prophesied to Kamsa that one of Devaki's children would kill him, so he
had the first
seven
babies put to death as soon as each was born. When Krishna was born, he was,
with the help
of divine intervention, smuggled out by his father and carried across the River
Jumna to his
foster parents, Nanda and Yashoda, the cowherds. It was a stormy night, and as
the child was
being carried across, the waters of the river rose and threatened to drown them
both. The
baby put out his foot and touched the flood, whereupon it receded. Krishna's
foster home was
in the district of Braj, around Mathura, a region of rich pastureland still
associated with
the worship of Krishna.
For the first seven years of his life, he lived in the village of Gokul,
then moved to
Brindavan. Braj, the pastoral paradise where Krishna was brought up among cows
and cowherd
girls, is the eternally peaceful landscape of the heart. The figure of the baby
Krishna
gives to the Indian people what every baby gives to its parents at least once
in their
lives: an understanding that, at the very centre of life, there is joy. Stories
about this
enchanting child, "Nandalal" or "the Darling of Nanda", form an entire corpus
of poetry,
song, dance, drama and painting throughout India.
There is no end to Krishna's pranks and ploys to torment his adoring
mother, Yashoda.
In one well-known story he refuses to go to sleep until she has brought him the
moon to play
with. And his stealing of butter is as much a part of our lives as the exploits
of our own
children. With his friends in tow, Krishna goes from lane to lane, stealing
butter from all
the housewives of Braj, till in desperation the women take to hanging it high
from the
ceiling. Krishna and his
friends then set about making human pyramids to reach the pots. This is a
tableau which is
still enacted amidst much noise and hilarity during the annual festival which
celebrates
Krishna's birth...Many stories about Krishna's childhood contain images which
stretch like
elastic into the order of infinity. There is, for instance, a story which tells
how Yashoda
looked into her son's open mouth when he had eaten mud and saw - the
universe.
When Krishna becomes a youth, he is, naturally, beauty personified. He
is called by
names such as Madan, the Intoxicator, or Mohan, the Charming One. In colour, he
is dark as a
rain-cloud, which gives him another of his many names, Shyam, or The Dark One.
He wears a
saffron tilak mark on his forehead, and is dressed in a yellow dhoti (cloth
draped from the
waist). On his head he wears a peacock plume, and a long necklace swings from
his neck. His
ear-rings are in the shape of crocodiles. His eyes are as beautiful as lotus
petals and he
holds a flute which gives him the name of Muralidhara, or Holder of the Flute.
The gopis,
one and all, are madly in love with him, and his unending dalliance with them
gives him the
title Gopinath, or Lord of
the Gopis..."
Pandit Ramashreya Jha "Ramrang" -->
We inaugurate the first of the two musical segments. The birth of Sri
Krishna is
celebrated in song in an adorable composition of Ramashreya Jha "Ramrang" set
in Raga
Nand:
Nanda ghara Ananda ki badhA'i bAje
Yashoda tihAre Aja bhAga-rAga jAge-jAge
aiso lAla pAyo ri jaiso ko'u pAve nAhiN
'rAmrang' nayana mero darasa dAna mANge-mANge
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/jha_nand_druta2.ram
Jha-sahab next sings of the baby Krishna playing about the courtyard under
the loving
and admiring gaze of Jashoda and the rest of the household. A delightful
composition this,
in Raga
Kedar:
paiNjani bAje jhanana jhanana
kaTi bajata madhura mrudu kinkina
nirakhata chhabi janani balihAri
kilakata bolata hasata mana harata
'rAmrang' Nanda ajira viharata mohata nara-nAri
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/jha_kedar_druta.ram
<-- Ramashreya Jha "Ramrang" in an intense mood
Among Jha-sahab's personal favourites is his suite of magnificent
compositions in
Raga Tilak Kamod. The prasang in the text is the singular episode in the
Mahabharata:
Draupadi's vastraharaNa (disrobing).
The vilambit roopak composition expresses, with striking economy of verse
and melody,
Draupadi's predicament and her call to the Lord, stunned that she is at the
sight of her
supine, helpless husbands and other apathetic elders in the face of
Duhshasana's
iniquitous conduct -
mero pata rAkho Murari
Bheesham-Drona baiThe pANwara vhai
soora sabhA saba kroora vhai baiThe
'rAmrang' baiThe pati Parath pAthara vhai
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/jha_tilakkamod_vil.ram
Sri Krishna responds with alacrity -
begi-begi Aye Hari
Arata suni bAni DhAye paga ughAre
deenAnAtha anAtha ki pata rAkhi
'rAmrang' jana hita basana-roopa dhAre
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/jha_tilakkamod_druta.ram
The Author with Ramashreya Jha "Ramrang" (Allahabad, Feb 1999) -->
Jha-sahab's bandish in Raga Hem Nat conjures up an image of the Lord at play
with the
gopis, gamboling by the banks of the river Jamuna. Hem Nat is a hybrid formed
by a
judicious amalgam of Ragas Hem and Nat. It is a regular fixture on the Agra and
Atrauli-Jaipur
roster. The essence of Hem lives in the following tonal
clusters (M = shuddha madhyam):
P' D' P' S; S-->P' (the S-P-S coupling is vital);
S, M G P, GMP G M R S (the latter half is
Kamod-like);
P D P S", S" R" S", D P, D P G M R S
To the above are joined sanchAris of Nat in the poorvAnga region:
S, S R, R G, G M, S G G M
S, RGMP, G M R S R, S
<-- Mallikarjun Mansur in a performance
Jha-sahab's bandish reveals his acumen as a composer. The
lakshaNAs of the rAga are judiciously apprehended in the opening line itself.
The words are so chosen as to create a mild staccato effect to accord to
Hem's catch phrase P' D' P' S (Tabla: Tulsidas
Navelkar, Harmonium: Rajan P. Parrikar): rAsa rachi Jamuna ke taTa Hari
-
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/jha_hemnat_druta.ram
Next, a gently rolling Pahadi by Mohammad Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar for MISS
MARY
(1957), composed by Hemant Kumar: Brindavana kA Krishana-kanhaiyyA -
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/missmary.ram
Krishna's rambunctious merriment is lustily brought to life by Pandit
Kishore Kumar,
musician extraordinaire and founder of the now defunct Khandwa Gharana.
Panditji is assisted
here by Lata
Mangeshkar. The film is KHUDDAR and the composer, Rajesh Roshan -
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/khuddar.ram
Salil Chowdhary, regarded as a great Bong (remember that a 'great Bong' is
a Bong no
longer), created
this superb Durga-based number for JAWAHAR (1960). Lata is equal to the
occasion: jAgiye
Gopala-lAla -
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/jawahar.ram
The songstress of yesteryear, Juthika Roy, gives her all to Krishna.
Considerable
controversy prevails on just what language she is singing in. Some experts are
of the
opinion that it lies someplace in between Hindi and Bongspeak -
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/juthikaroy.ram
pA'oN paDuN tore Shyam, Brija meN lauT chalo, entreats Mohammad
Rafi in this
gem composed by Khaiyyam. With so much fervour poured into the supplication,
does
the Lord
have the heart to refuse?
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/rafi_bhajan.ram
To conclude the first segment, Shankar-Jaikishan's classic from SEEMA
(1955), in Raga
Jaijaivanti: manamohanA baDe jhooThe -
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/seema.ram
The Mahabharata has often been likened to a "moral minefield," where the
'good' fellows
don't always play fair and the 'bad' fellows sometimes surpass themselves. The
poet's prism
spreads before us a full panoply of emotions and desires afflicting the human
soul. The
exigencies of the 'here and now' are juxtaposed with glimpses of the
transcendental. The
apotheosis of Sri Krishna's character is one of the highlights of the Great
Epic. At the
centre of this 'minefield' he stands wielding the fulcrum of Dharma. The
slaying of
Dronacharya, initiated by him, affords a sense of the dilemma and drama of
Dharma. We relive
the episode through C. Rajagopalachari's Mahabharata
(Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan):
" 'O Arjuna,' said Krishna, 'there is none that can defeat this Drona,
fighting
according to the strict rules of war. We cannot cope with him unless dharma is
discarded. We
have no
other way open. There is but one thing that will make him desist from fighting.
If he hears
that Aswatthama is dead, Drona will lose all interest in life and throw down
his weapons.
Someone
must therefore tell Drona that Aswatthama has been slain.' Arjuna shrank in
horror at the
proposal as he could not bring himself to tell a lie. Those who were nearby
with him also
rejected the idea, for no one was minded to be a party to deceit. Yudhishthira
stood for a
while reflecting deeply. 'I shall bear the burden of this sin,' he said and
resolved the
deadlock!
...Bhima lifted his iron mace and brought it down on the, head of a huge
elephant called
Aswatthama and it fell dead. After killing the elephant Aswatthama, Bhimasena
went near the
division commanded by Drona and roared so that all might hear. 'I have killed
Aswatthama!'
Bhimasena who, until then, had never done or even contemplated an ignoble act,
was, as he
uttered these words, greatly ashamed.
They knocked against his very heart - but could they be true? Drona heard
these words
as he was in the act of discharging a brahmastra. 'Yudhishthira, is it true my
son has been
slain?' Dronacharya asked addressing Dharmaputra. The acharya thought that
Yudhishthira
would not utter an untruth, even for the kingship of the three worlds.
When Drona asked thus, Krishna was terribly perturbed. 'If Yudhishthira
fails us now
and shrinks from uttering an untruth, we are lost. Drona's brahmastra is of
unquenchable
potency and the Pandavas will be destroyed,' he said. And Yudhishthira himself
stood
trembling in horror of
what he was about to do, but within him also was the desire to win. 'Let it be
my sin,' he
said to himself and hardened his heart, and said aloud: 'Yes, it is true that
Aswatthama has
been killed.' But, as he was saying it, he felt again the disgrace of it and
added in a low
and tremulous voice, 'Aswatthama, the elephant' - words which were however
drowned in the
din and were not heard by Drona.
'O king, thus was a great sin committed,' said Sanjaya to the blind
Dhritarashtra,
while relating the events of the battle to him.
When the words of untruth came out of Yudhishthira's mouth, the wheels of
his chariot,
which until then always stood and moved four inches above the ground and never
touched it,
at once came down and touched the earth. Yudhishthira, who till then had stood
apart from
the world so full of untruth, suddenly became of the earth, earthy. He too
desired victory
and slipped into the way of untruth and so his chariot came down to the common
road of
mankind.
When Drona heard that his beloved son had been slain, all his attachment
to life
snapped, and desire vanished as if it had never been there...He threw his
weapons away and
sat down in yoga on the floor of his chariot and was soon in a trance. At this
moment
Dhrishtadyumna, with drawn sword, came and climbed in to the chariot and
heedless of cries
of horror and deprecation from all around he fulfilled his destiny as the
slayer of Drona by
sweeping off the old warrior's head..."
What are we to make of Sri Krishna's skulduggery, his seeming incitement of
the virtuous
to run afoul of Dharma? Although the topic is rich, its development will not be
attempted
here.
The following extract of Prof. R.C. Zaehner's commentary, taken from his
concise work Hinduism (Oxford University Press), amplifies on a
related theme:
"The hero, Yudhishthira, the dharma-raja or, 'King of Righteousness',
and thus the
very embodiment of dharma, represents the human conscience at its best: he
hungers and
thirsts after righteousness, and his high sanctity is recognized by all. At the
same time he
has complete faith and trust in Krishna, the incarnate God; yet Krishna is
always forcing
him and his to do actions that are contrary not only to dharma as interpreted
by the
Brahmans, but also to the dharma that the King of Righteousness himself
embodies and which
the common conscience of the human race acknowledges to be true. For Krishna is
God, the
highest Brahman in personal form, and therefore beyond all the pairs of
opposites, beyond
good and evil. And so it is that after the most sanguinary battle in all
literature in which
more than a billion men have been slain in order that Yudhishthira may enter
into his
rightful kingdom which he was, in any case, quite content to leave in the
usurper's hands,
Yudhishthira asks Krishna to instruct him in dharma, but Krishna declines to do
so and
delegates the task to the dying Bhishma who is the common 'grandsire' to the
two parties to
the war...
...Bhishma can tell him all there is to be known about moksha and,
following a
tradition that is more common in opera than in epic, he does so at enormous
length though he
is in his death throes, lying impaled on a bed of arrows. Krishna, however,
who is a mere
spectator at this scene, remains silent, though he holds the secret not only of
moksha but
also of the love of God for man that the liberated soul may enjoy if God so
wills. Instead
he imparts this saving knowledge to Yudhishthira's younger brother, Arjuna,
whom he loves as
dearly as himself, before the great battle begins, and his words on this
occasion form the
text of Hinduism's best-loved scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. But so little did
these sublime
words, which have moved the hearts of millions both inside and outside India,
impress
themselves on Arjuna that when the battle is over and won, he asks Krishna
whether he would
be good enough to repeat them since their purport has clean gone out of his
head! Why, one
wonders, did the Incarnate God elect to waste his words on Arjuna rather than
on
Yudhishthira who was athirst to hear them? The easy answer would be that
Krishna and Arjuna
were linked together by eternal bonds, for they were incarnations of the
eternal sages Nara
and Narayana who, either together or in the person of Narayana alone, were a
manifestation of the Supreme Being. This, however, obscures the real issue.
Yudhishthira's
karma has not yet worked itself out: he must wait for it to 'ripen' and only
then will he
attain to
moksha. To tell him the great secret prematurely would be to violate dharma
itself, for the
law of karma is inseparable from the eternal dharma and not even God can break
it - let
alone Yudhishthira who, embodiment of dharma though he is, might have been
tempted to throw
off the chains of karma and therefore of dharma before his time, thereby
entering into the
pleasure of his Lord. For the last words of Krishna to Arjuna in the
Bhagavad-Gita were:
'Give up the things of dharma, turn to me only as thy refuge. I will deliver
thee from all
evil. Have no care' (BG, 18.66). To this temptation Yudhishthira might have
succumbed, but
his time had not yet come."
The final chapter, "Yudhisthira Returns," in Prof. Zaehner's book is an
essay on Mahatma Gandhi where the author draws parallels and argues that
Gandhi is the Yudhisthira of our time.
We resume the second and final musical segment. The threads are picked up
by M.S.
Subbalakshmi who has had an intimate association with Meera going back several
decades: maiN Hari charanana ki dAsi -
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/mss_meerabhajan.ram
Amir Khan -->
A breathtaking rendition of a Naushad composition in Raga Multani by Amir
Khan for the
movie SHABAB (1954). Men like Amir Khan, who could say so much in so less,
don't come by
very often. We are all familiar with the term 'digital compression.' To listen
to this clip
is to know at once what is 'Raga compression': dayA karo he Giridhara Gopal
-
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/amirkhan_shabab.ram
 <-- Mallikarjun Mansur with his wife Gangamma
Mallikarjun Mansur takes off his Atrauli-Jaipur hat for a frolic through
this traditional
"Sadarang" composition in Raga Chhayanat: bansi ke bajaiyyA -
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/mansur_chhayanat.ram
Lakshmi Shankar sings a Khamaj thumri in this 1995 chamber concert
recording (Tabla: Pranesh Khan, Harmonium: Rajan P. Parrikar). We pick
up the proceedings in the final moments: aba nA bajA'o Shyam baNsuriyA -
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/ls_khamaj.ram
Bade Ghulam Ali Khan -->
A must in any Krishna catalogue is Bade Ghulam Ali Khan's perennial
favourite, the
Pahadi-based
bhajan: Hari Om Tatsat -
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/bgak_hariom.ram
The curtain falls with a Soordas pada grounded in Bhairavi and delivered
by the finest exponent of that rAga - K.L. Saigal - in the film BHAKTA SOORDAS
(1942), with music by Gyan Dutt: Madhukar Shyam hamAre chor -
http://www.sawf.org/audio/janmasthami/bhaktsoordas.ram
Acknowledgements:
The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Sir Vish Krishnan in
the
above compilation. Anita Thakur is the driving force behind this entire
effort.
Glossary
 Start a discussion on this article
|
