SOUVIK CHAKRABORT Y
Forgotten Music Of India
O
ur musical tastes have evolved over the
years from the spiritual to the personal
and intimate space. It is fitting that our
music has now been punctuated with a bigger
arc of infusions and amalgamations of various
cultures and sounds. Though, it is needless to
say that we must not ever forget the rich history
that we boast of as a nation old strong roots.
Thumri is a semi classical genre which finds its
origins from the sensuality and cadence of the
evocative love poetry and folk songs of Uttar
Pradesh. Besides, thumri is in turn a reflection of
the dancing steps that let the dancer's ankle bells
tinkle as she sways around gracefully. Thumri
evolved in the court of the nawaab, Wajid Ali Shah
and saw its impeccable transformations throughout
the 19th century. Unfortunately, despite the various
gharanas and variations in the thumri style. It is
now reduced to an appendage which is sung only at
the end of khayal concerts as a concluding piece.
Lori music in India surfaced in the mainstream
music scene through an overdose of lullaby music
in the 80s and the 70s. The loris of India disappeared
altogether later on in Bollywood. Except for some
irregular spurts from the likes of AR Rahman
and certain other musicians, loris could not
ever be resuscitated back to life. It is sad that the
modern gadgets have totally replaced the chance
for a mother to pacify her kid with a lullaby.
Vrindavani Raag music which was literally the
pulp of the Northern classical music has gradually
withered away from the mainstream music.
This is owing to the fact that Bollywood has
shifted its attention from movies with devotional
subjects. The Vrindavani raag had the essence
of an afternoon breeze gently steaming with the
incense of the devotee at the altar of his lord.
Such pure music hardly materializes again on
a popular platter in India anymore because this
kind of music has been sidelined to the effect that
it is almost forgotten to the present generation.
It is perhaps natural that the prakruti of the raag
is neither deep nor playful. There are various
bandishes written describing lord krishna's
beauty and composed with vrindavani sarang.
Folk music of India in the movies of pre
independence era has been represented better than
the movies in an era where where regionalism
has been difficult to infuse on a larger than life
canvas. The fusion that was propagated from
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the dawn of the milennium still persists but
sadly at a marginal level. There seems to be no
affinity towards bringing mainstream content
near the remotest sounds of the regions, rather
the intention is to bring foreign intervention in
everything regional and infuse the hybridity to
gather eyeballs with all the glams and the gitz.
Indian music has missed out on introspection so the
influences of western music mainly jazz, hip hop or
anything that was alien to its culture has crumbled
down to an independent music genre where rappers
and hipsters are throwing diss numbers against
each other in a bait to be relevant against an
industry which has hardly acknowledged the fact
that the indie music artistes matter and exist to be
counted as an appendage to be taken further into
the making of the wholesome music of the country.
The mainstream movies music boasts largely with
the rehash of the hit numbers from yesteryear
classics. This does not result in an amalgamation
of a cross nation good quality music rather it
dissipates an energy of rebellion in musicians for
setting up their own name in submerged stones
in a mucky old water riddled with sharks.