'Shantih koro borishono neerobo dhaare' Rabindra Sangeet

'His Peace He gives to us, His Peace He leaves with us...'

'Silent Night, Holy Night' Christmas Carol

Rabindranath Tagore and Classical Indian Ragas

(Article published under a different name in The Hindustan Times, 2015)

In his ground breaking work A Historical Study of Indian Music (1980) Swami Prajnanananda posits “Keshav Chandra and others established a new kind of Brahma Samaj, which brought some new cultural and religious revivals in the nineteenth century. There appeared many musicians and composers who enriched the domain of classical Bengali songs, composed on the image and idea of traditional Hindusthani music like dhruvapada, kheyal, thumri,tap kheyal, etc., known as brahma-samgita. The composers like Jyotirindranath, Satyendranath, Dvijendranath, Rabindranath and others of the memorable Tagore House as well as Sir Jatindra Mohan Tagore, Sir Sourindra Mohan Tagore, Ksetra Mohan Goswami and other inspired the music atmosphere of Bengal. …It is to note in this connection that Rabindranath Tagore created a separate class of song, samgita, though it was nourished by all types of  Indian classical and folk songs of Bengal and another places. … He was a man of rare genius and intellect and his musical compositions brought a renaissance in the field of music. His songs are divided into main six classes… puja, prakiti, prema,  anushthanika, swadesa, and vichitra (208—209).

In  Jyotirindranath Tagore’s Jivankatha, he refers to how his older brother Dwijendranath, would readily sit down to compose Brahma Sangeet, the minute he heard  interesting tunes, including classical bandishes, and how along with other brothers, Rabindranath and himself,  would  immediately follow suit (14). In Jivansmriti Rabindranath speaks of how  his older brother Jyotirindranath and he were once summoned by Debendranath to Chuchra (Hooghly district), where he had sung one of his own compositions (1886) noyon tomare pai na dekhite/ royeccho noyone noyone (although the eyes yearn to see you my Lord, you are in the very eyes), which pleased his father so greatly, that he gave  him a prize of 500 rupees. He also mentions how he would often sing for Debendranath in the evenings, while his father looked out into the garden of Jorasanko, and moonlight flooded the verandah. Rabindranath also refers to classical music sessions at his house, in which the famous Ustad Jadu Bhatta sang.

The poet himself received early training in Hindustani classical vocal music. One important fact that needs to be mentioned in this context however is that Rabindranath did not like the tāans or long intricate combinations of notes, that classical vocalists sing as part of the metrical extension of melody. Rather he imbibed the predominance of meend or elongated note exploration, which create the mood or rasa (aesthetic) of the rāga, in the alap portion of kheyal.  Many of Rabindranath’s rāag based songs, which are set to a leisurely tempo, have a rich focus on meend. A song like megher pore megh jomecche (1909) set to raga mishra Sahana, for instance, has a lot of meend work. Another  well known example among many others, is  “Ki dhoni baje, gahana chetana majhe” set to rāag  Purabi, and composed in 1931,  where the predominance of meend or elongated notes, gives the song  its searching quality as the poet  struggles to access and express the experience of primal melody.

 Rabindranath’s experimentation, adaptation, reinvention and recasting of classical melodies and bandishes, began from the 1890’s onwards. Some of the most memorable compositions from the early phase of his composition of rāag based songs are Ogo kangal amai kangal koreccho (1897), set to rāag Bhairavi and  memorably sung by Gita Ghatak in the 1980’s. Another song from the same time that has tested, challenged and repeatedly drawn artists for many years, and set to the South Indian rāag (Purna Swadaj), is  eki labonnye purna prana. Composed in 1893 and derived from a hymn composed by Tyagaraja, it is a short, sustained lyric of astounding maturity, which magically explores the rāga, and requires technical dexterity over short tāans and the ability to produce cascading melody, involving many swaras or musical notes.

This great tradition of the performance of Rabindrasangeet based on Hindustani classical rāgas  begins  with Sahana Devi, Amiya Thakur and Menoka Thakur (at the time that Rabindranath was  still alive), and  includes among many others, canonical singers Ramesh Bandopadhyay, Shailojaranjan Mazumdar, Shantidev Ghosh,  Kanika Bandyopadhyay, Nilima Sen, Gita Ghatak, Rajeshwari Dutta, Chitralekha Choudhury, Subinoy Ray, Maya Sen, Bibha Sengupta and many others. Among more recent and distinguished singers (starting with the 70’s and  80’s) are  Ritu Guha Thakurata, Swagatalakhsmi Dasgupta, the enormously versatile Mohan Singh, Supratik Das, Srikanto Acharya and Apala Basu. Promising among young singers are Sounak Chattopadhyay, Shreya Guhathakurata, Kamalini Mukhopadhyay, Sasha Ghoshal and Iman Chakravarty. Raag based songs have also been sung by Rashid Khan, Ajoy Chakravarty, Jayita Chakrvarty and Lopamudra Mitra.

Rabindranath was especially fond of the rāgas, Behag and  Bhairavi, having countless songs set to them. One canonical song, set to rāga Behag, and modeled on the dhamar, is Jāge Natho Jocchona Rāte (The Lord Rises on this moonlit night), and composed in 1910. The song demands consummate mastery over classical tāal in order  for it to be adequately performed.  Rāag Behag is an evening rāga, generally embodying joy, and several Brahmo upasana songs were set to this rāga. Rabindranath’s lyricist contemporaries, Atul Prasad Sen and Rajantikanto Sen, also frequently used this rāga in many of their compositions. Within the fourteen beat structure of the song, Rabindranath introduces significant intricacies, sometimes elongating a word, like “Natho”  for five beats, sometimes allowing certain beats to elapse between words,  where the singer must be mindful of the tāal,  even if there are no words accompanying it. Among other widely known songs set to rāag Behag, are megh bolecche jabo jabo and bhara thak smriti sudhai, set to completely different tāals. Memorable songs in Bhairavi are swarthaka janam amar and tui phele eshechish kaare. Morning, evening and night ragas in which Rabindranath composed include Bhairav, Pilu,  Desh, Bageshree, Malkauns, Sree, and Kannada, and many others.  Some of his songs use combinations of notes from more than one rāga,  and are known as mishra rāga,   songs.

The archival relevance and significance of this tradition is attested to by the many CD’s brought out by RPG, Bhavna and P&M records, in which Rabindranath’s “bhanga gaan” (derived songs) are highlighted.  RPG’s Roopantari, is an early and definitive one.

Kumortuli Adventures...

Had gone in search of a new topic. The way artists scout around for new subjects to paint. Heard the story of mud. How expensive it was. How it came from Uluberia and Diamond Harbour. How boatsmen went into the heart of the Ganges to dredge this profound offering of the earth. One person told me, 'earth/mud is the price of gold'. Apparently, just a ball is close to a 150.

The mud comes in boats to the Kumortuli Ghat. Did not know that such a ghat existed. The mud had to be prepared for image making by putting in it the husks of grain ( tush). This was done to harden the mud.

There were two kinds of mud: Bele mati and Entel Mati. The images were nade from both. The steps were that you first created a structure on which the image would stand and a bamboo back rest or support . Then you created the image with straw. And then you moulded the image with mud. And then the dressing after two weeks.

                                   

My pictures show you the arrival of the boats with the mud 2) the straw Saraswati 3) the partially ready Saraswatis without clothes and finally a medley of images. One could get to see Rabindranath, Sister Nivedita, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Sri Ramakrishna, Swamiji and Sri Sarada Devi. And Ganesh of course. Some people just love to make Ganesh.

For me personally, Belur Math is one of the most beloved and beautiful places in the world. I always feel an enormous charge of beauty, air, color, light and water, which come together with a magnificent coalescence, making it hard to distinguish whether Nature (in its special combinations at Belur Math) is more compelling or Thakur’s temple. Belur Math is more Thakur and Swamiji’s place, than Mother’s. Years ago, Swami Tathagatananda had said to me however, that I should always pay respect to Mother, before entering the Math. As Swami Gambhirananda’s book on Mother quotes, “Anonto Radhar kotha kahane na jai.” However, i will once again say, that it is a challenge to work out the various relationships and interrelationships between Thakur/Ma and particularly Mother Kali. I expect that this challenge will always remain.

The Ramakrishna Mission as National Heritage and Heritage of Bengal

Article written for the Hindustan Times in August, 20133, with the title, "The best of Ram and Krishna".

The Ramakrishna Math and Mission were established by Swami Vivekananda at Balaram Mandir in Bagbazar on May Ist, 1897, four years after Swamiji’s spectacular success at the Parliament of Religions at Chicago, where he spoke on Hinduism. Before its present location at Belur where the land was bought by Swamijji in March 1898, the Ramakrishna movement was housed at the Baranagore monastery (1887-1892), Alambazar monastery (1892--1898), Nilambar Mukherjee’s garden house ( 1898), before permanently moving into its present 7 acre grounds on January 2, 1899. It is to be remembered in this context that Ms. Henrietta Mueller contributed the entire money for the purchase of the land (39,000) and Mrs. Sarah Bull, an American devotee of Swamiji, contributed one lakh rupees towards the building of Sri Ramakrishna’s temple. 

Swamiji’s decision to found an organization which would jointly promote the ideal of sannyas or renunciation and service to mankind may be summed up in his own words and which serves as the motto of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission today: Atmano mokshartham Jagaddhitaya cha which means “for one’s own salvation and for the welfare of the world.” The twin concepts of service and renunciation are perhaps directly derived from Sri Ramakrishna’s emphatic dismissal of the practice of compassion (daya) to one’s fellow human beings, arguing that human beings should be served with veneration instead of compassion alone: “Bolo shivajnane jeebo sheba” (Kathamrita). Along with this was Sri Ramakrishna’s emphatic assertion of sannyas as one of the highest ideals of human life. This union of the ascetic principle as a path to self-realization derived from Vedanta and welding it to a principle of service to humanity is what Swamiji called Practical Vedanta. Sri Sarada Devi, Sri Ramakrishna’s consort is also considered to be one of the prime inspirational sources of the Math and Mission, the precincts of Belur Math opening with the Saradapith, which is a temple to Sri Sarada Devi.

The foundation stone for the present temple was laid by Swami Shivananda, the second President of the Order, on 16th May, 1935, and the temple was consecrated on Makar Sankranti, January 14th, 1938. The temple amalgamates structural and stylistic motifs from Christian, Buddhist, Islamic and Rajput temple and secular architecture, carrying to fruition many of Swami Vivekananda’s artistic visions of a temple for Sri Ramakrishna who stood for the universality and oneness of all religions. Swami Vijanananda, Swami Vivekananda’s brother disciple and a structural engineer in his pre-monastic life designed the temple, Gopeshwar Pal sculpted Sri Ramakrishna’s statue and Nandalal Bose “conceived” of the temple decorations. 

Today, the Ramakrishna Math and Mission has 176 centers in all, 128 in India and several centers abroad, 13 in the U.S.A., where Swamiji actually began his work on the spreading of Vedantic ideals, in Brazil, Argentina, England, France, Germany, Holland and Russia, Australia, Fiji, Mauritius, Malayasia, Singapore, Japan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and South Africa .The accent in centers abroad is perhaps more on the spread of Vedantic philosophy, while in India the emphasis is jointly on the dissemination of Ramakrishna/Vivekananda philosophy and service of humanity through exemplary educational institutions, building of hospitals, child and adult uplifting in poverty ruled areas, famine, flood and other disaster relief work. Some of its most outstanding educational institutions in Bengal include Belur Vidyamandir (autonomous), Narendrapur school and college (autonomous), Rahara Ramkrishna Mission and Deoghar Vidyapeeth, in neighboring Jharkand. Some of its most active centers of research are RMIC Golpark, which as its Secretary, Swami Sarvabhutananda said, was a centre “for cultural dialogue and philanthropic activities,” and Vivekananda University (Belur). Swamiji’s House, restored in 2004 and declared a National Heritage site, already nurtures the youth of North Kolkata with many value education programs, and facilities for computer and English language literacy.

In the opinion of Swami Bodhasarananda, “The Ramakrishna Movement is a force to be reckoned with all over the world today” and Swami Suparnananda stressed how the Math and Mission tried to bring a worship of the “divine” into all its activities. One must remember Sister Nivedita’s words regarding Swamiji in the introduction to his Complete Works (1907) in this context: “Had he not lived, texts that today will carry the bread of life to thousands might have remained the obscure disputes of scholars…For he himself had plunged to the depths of the realization which he reached, and he came back, like Ramanuja, only to tell its secrets to the pariah, the outcast, and the foreigner. “

Important Dates:

• 1836: Birth of Sri Ramakrishna

• 1856: Sri Ramakrishna becomes pujari or temple priest at the Kali temple at Dakshineshwar

• 1859: Marriage to Sri Sarada Devi

• 1861—1865: Period of intense sadhana

• 1863: Birth of Narendranath Dutta, later Swami Vivekananda

• 1881 (November): Meeting with Sri Ramakrishna

• 1886 (August) : Passing away of Sri Ramakrishna

• 1886 (December 24th) Vivekananda’s vow of sannyas and adoption of name Bibidishananda (January 1887), later changed to Vivekananda by Maharaja of Khetri

• 1893: Parliament of Religions at Chicago

• 1899: Belur Math

• 1901: Ramakrishna Math and Mission becomes a trusteeship

• 2012—2013: Vivekananda Centenary Year

Please see my video on Kumortuli where Durga images and images of all other Gods and Goddesses of metropolitan Kolkata are made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akOG6eJtBMk&feature=youtu.be

Sri Sarada Devi as powerful narrative center of Sister Nivedita’s semi biography The Master As I Saw Him

( part of a published article)

 The Master As I Saw Him (1910) is no ordinary biography or hagiography. It is not even a biography, but a semi biography that contains powerful reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda, at pivotal junctures of his historic role as one of the most important makers of modern India.  In comparison to the many noteworthy  biographies written on the Swami, by latter day scholars like Satyendranath Mazumdar (1919), Shankari Prasad  Basu (1975 onwards) , Swami  Jitatmananda (date not available), Chaturvedi Badrinath (2006) and  Amiya Sen (2013), Nivedita’s is the earliest one of its kind, and the only one written by a woman. Years later, another Western woman devotee, Marie Louise Burke or Sister Gargi, wrote Swami Vivekananda in the West: New Discoveries, first published in two volumes in 1957, and then in six volumes between 1983—1987. An interesting work from Swamiji’s time, is Sarat Chandra Chakrabarty’s Swami Sishya Sambad (1908) which is not a biography, but a record of conversations that Sarat Chandra, Vivekananda’s disciple, had with the Swami. Other significant essays published within the first three decades of the twentieth century, were by renowned intellectuals like Surendranath Dasgupta (1918) and  Khagendranath Mitra (1927), whose articles on Swamiji, appeared in the journal Bharat Barsha Patrika. These essays have been recently republished by Sutradhar, in Volume 4, of their Vivekananda Anudhyan Granthamala Series.   

Sister Nivedita’s biography veers towards hagiography at certain moments, when the magnitude of Swami Vivekananda’s personality comes across as operating far beyond the scope of human powers, but it is also an extremely vital text culturally and historically. It carries lively social observation, lived historical moments and contexts and varied textures of women’s lives, and thereby possesses a materiality and specificity that are remarkable.

It will be impossible for me to attempt a comprehensive analysis of the above mentioned text, within the short purview of this essay. However, what struck me as most singular in a quick review of The Master As I Saw Him, is Nivedita’s portrayal of Sri Sarada Devi, in the chapter ‘Calcutta and the Holy Women’. Sarada Devi represents both a centripetal and centrifugal center, drawing in many of the other characters that Nivedita speaks of, including Swami Vivekananda, and she also provides a framework of standards, within which the moral and spiritual excellence of other personalities mentioned in this text, may be measured.  After all, as Nivedita herself claims, ‘So deeply is she reverenced by all about her, that there is no one of the who would, for instance, occupy a railway berth above her, when travelling with her. Her very presence is to them a consecration’(122). Of course, Nivedita devotes several more pages on the Swami than she does on the Holy Mother, but the concentrated force of her observations on Sri Sarada Devi, and the intense love and reverence with which she speaks of her, creates a powerful biographical/ hagiographical, documented, yet myth making, moment, within her biographical reminiscences of Swami Vivekananda