The stories of Rajabhau Deo and his daughter Alka Deo Marulkar are a reminder of how packed the lives of Indian classical musicians have always been behind the façade of the steady, apparently uneventful pursuit of an all-consuming art form.
Rajabhau Deo’s frequent travels, trials and displacements over the last century offer rare glimpses of not only the study and performance of Hindustani music but also of key moments in the subcontinent’s political and social history. That is evident from his spirited autobiography Gaan Ramayya (Lost in Music), a string of anecdotes from his life dictated to his daughter Alka Deo Marulkar over a two-year period. It was released in Marathi on his 75th birthday in 1992.
Rajabhau Deo died in 2008
In the stories, which Marulkar and I plan to translate into Hindi and English, we see diverse communities across undivided India with a lens that seems to change its magnification at will, highlighting snatches of conversations between musicians at a soiree in Lahore, negotiating concert rates with a hard-nosed organiser in Jalandhar before dwelling on a precious memory of the revered Alauddin Khan hugging Rajabhau Deo after hearing him at a recording session for All India Radio in Reva in 1943 and hailing him as “Chota Bhaskar” (after the renowned musician Bhaskar Bua Bakhle).
We find ourselves in stately but stuffy palace concerts in Patiala and Kashmir where Marulkar’s non-conformist father is expected to adhere to a strict dress code. Then, there is a collage of images of Partition and the growing violence that trapped a group of artists who shared deep friendships at a music conference at the Durgyana Mandir in Amritsar in August 1947. In Deo’s accounts, historical events acquire colour and vitality.
In his long and adventure-filled life, travel was a constant. Following in the traditions of generations of nomadic musicians, Deo left his home in Pune at 14.
As a bright student in Pune, his middle-class family had a lot of hopes for him. But a chance singing opportunity at a Ganpati mandal as a teenager and praise from Bapurao Ketkar, a student of Bhaskar Bua Bakhle, turned his mind irrevocably to Hindustani music.
Those were the heady days of the natya sangeet form of musical drama in Maharashtra and in Deo’s native Pune, artists such as Dinanath Mangeshkar and Bal Gandharva attracted enthusiastic audiences. Annoyed by his family’s hostility to music and the arts, the teenager decided it was time to leave and seek a guru.
His first stop was at Pandharpur, where he aimed to learn music from Jagannathbuwa Pandharpurkar. But after staying with Pandharpurkar for four years and serving him and his household as was the tradition of that time, Deo realised that his guru was more invested in teaching Shanta Apte, who would go on to become a renowned Marathi stage and film actor.
It was in Gwalior where Deo spent about six years in utter poverty that he was able to learn consistently from the great Raja Bhaiyya Poonchwale. “My father could not afford the monthly fees of Rs 5 at the local music school Madhav Sangeet Vidyalay, so his guru taught him at night,” said Marulkar.
His first public concert in 1939 was for All India Radio in Delhi. Soon after he found himself at the cusp of an important historical and cultural moment when he moved to Lahore where Vishnu Digambar Paluskar had set up the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, a music school established with public donations and open to all.
In Lahore, Deo built friendships with musicians such as Barkat Ali Khan, the younger brother of Bade Ghulam Ali, who taught the young musician special thumris that he was to pass on to his daughter a few decades later.
When Siddheshwari Devi, one of the greatest thumri exponents dropped in to their home in Ranchi, Marulkar remembers singing with her, at ease with this semi-classical genre of music too, thanks to Deo’s carefully planned music curriculum.
Hard times
Later, in post-Partition India, Deo’s travels continued – but with a family to look after, he reinvented himself. He now worked as a music supervisor at All India Radio (which in 1956 was renamed Akashvani), first in Nagpur, then Ranchi and Benares. But it was never a life of routine comfort. Following a misunderstanding about a job offered to him by the musician and scholar BR Deodhar at Benares Hindu University, Deo and his young family found themselves without any income or a home.
A contrite Deodhar promised to help but for a couple of years the family had only an open hall on the Benares ghats partitioned into rooms by curtains to call their home and music tuition fees to survive on.
But the music and a study of the art form as well as the desire to shape his children into complete knowledge-seeking musicians continued. Marulkar recalls that after long days of teaching students and his children, Deo would read out Marathi translations of Tolstoy and Gorky deep into the night.
By this time, he had also acquired degrees in musicology. His last long academic stint was at the women’s university in Vanasthali near Jaipur. In an uncanny way, the life and ruminations of Rajabahu Deo are visited in his daughter’s life too.
Marulkar proved to be an outstanding student of music, literature and the visual arts and enrolled herself in an art college in Ajmer. But when she discovered to her dismay that she did not have any time to do her daily riyaaz or practice, she came back home to her father and a life in music.
It was father’s artistic instincts that allowed him to synthesise the various styles of music he had received from teachers after his initial training in the Gwalior style, Marulkar says. The Kirana gharana came to him thanks to his proximity to Kirana gharana stalwarts Suresh Babu Mane, for whom he often played the harmonium at concerts, and Rajab Ali Khan. Later, Deo also received training from his close friend, Jaipur gharana musician Madhusudan Kanetkar.
A life lived adventurously moulded him into an open-minded teacher at a time when inflexibility on gharana allegiance was the norm. At this stage in his life, he went back to reflect on the music and aesthetics of his first musical idol, Bhaskar Bua Bakhle.
“He knew his music was a rich amalgam of styles,” Marulkar said. “He started thinking of the three gharanas [Gwalior, Kirana and Jaipur] as a synthesis of the best features of each. He believed that the greatest musicians have always mixed and synthesised.” Marulkar herself who was trained in the Gwalior gharana in the beginning and subsequently in Kirana and Jaipur aesthetics.
She recalled, “My father would often point out that Bakhle Bua would sing the aalaap [the wordless opening section of a song] in the Gwalior style but take pleasure in notes and laykari [rhythmic play] like an Agra musician.”
Today Alka Deo Marulkar is a highly-regarded performing artist, a teacher as well as an able arts administrator.
Working with Alka Deo to document her father’s compositions I can sense that her equanimity towards her artistic choices derives from her rich memories of her guru. She is happy to train a few serious musicians and continue to study and practice music with steady, unshowy dedication.
Devina Dutt is the co-founder of First Edition Arts and Kishima Arts Foundation.
Alka Deo Marulkar will present a concert at Mumbai’s G5A on December 18 at 7 pm.
