| As Rajeev Nair puts it in his book, “Many twentieth century singers of this style trace their origin back to the legendary beenkaar Bande Ali Khan. Yet another stream of the gharana claim to belong to the Dhrupadic line of Naik Gopal, a singer in the Mughal Court, who later embraced Islam and settled down in a village near Saharanpur. The Kirana gayaki assumed the status of a gharana, for the most part, after Ustad Abdul Karim Khan (1872-1937) and Abdul Waheed Khan (d. 1949) claimed to belong to it. They were both born in a village ‘Kairana’ near Kurukshetra in Haryana. The ancestors of Abdul Kareem and Abdul Waheed were sarangi players. Their singing style bears, according to some music scholars like Van Meer, the strong imprint of the instrument.”
Kirana gharana has been made famous by stalwarts such as Ustad Abdul Karim Khan and Ustad Abdul Waheed Khan, Suresh Babu Mane, Hiranai Barodekar, Pt. Sawai Gandharva, and in later days by Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Pt. Basavaraj Rajguru, Begum Parween Sultana, Dr. Gangubai Hangal and Pt. Firoz Dastur.
Stylistic features
The style of Kirana is distinctive with its evocative element that stresses on tonal nuances, gives the raga elaboration an emotive appeal as each swara is approached and dealt with its special bhaava; melodic ideas paint a picture of the raga mood as seen by the artiste himself. The badhat is not so much filled with layakari as with alaap(aakar or bol), sargam and taan.
Melodious, soothing, touching and other such adjectives are used to describe the impact created by musicians of the gharana.
The bada Khayal is usually taken in a slow tempo and the elaboration is leisurely and goes step by step dealing with melodic phrases around a particular note. Kirana gharana favourite ragas would be Kalyan, Pooriya, Lalat, Darbari, Miyan Ki Todi, Abhogi Kanada, and the like. Aesthetics, emotionality, govern the rendition rather than a lot of layakari or lightening taans. The usually employed taal for bada khyal: ektala and jhumra.
Rajeev Nair, lists the features as:
- “Extreme tunefulness accomplished through the prominence given to individual swaras. This extreme focus on notes gives their alaaps a soothing emotional sonorousness, which, as it were, squeezes various hues of emotions out of the ripened swaras. The best samples of the gayaki are evinced when the singers elaborate alaap-yogya ragas like Todi, Bhimpalas, Multani, Poorya, Shudh Kalyan, Yaman and Darbari in which the lower register predominates.
- Use of bol-alaaps, or using the words in the song-text to develop melodic ideas in the place of aakaar singing.
- Kirana singers often emphasize swara at the expense of tala and laya. Owing to this, many Kirana singers excel best in their vilambits as opposed to singers from more rhythm-bound styles.
- Use of raaga badhat in a highly evocative manner. Badhat is the art of elaborating and developing the raaga note-by-note in an ascending and progressive fashion in a very slow tempo. To execute this, a singer must possess a good command over the notes. The badhat, in the hands of virtuoso singers, takes on a meditative quality.
- Well-known exponents often treat the sthayi and antara of a composition cursorily. The bandish does not often get the kind of meticulous attention it does in the Gwalior and Agra styles.”
Kirana gharana bears a huge influence on any vocalist of North Karnataka, which has seen greats like Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Pt. Mallikarjun Mansur, Pt. Kumar Gandharva, Pt. Basvaraj Rajguru and Dr.Gangubai Hangal.
Jaipur Gharana
Describing Jaipur-gharana’s signature style as “Ras (eloquence) and Kas (concise/precise gist)”, my guru Dr. Alka Deo Marulkar enumerates Jaipur gharana’s salient features as singing Jod-raga (double raga), serpentine taan, projection of the space between two beats of the rhythm (taal), singing equivalent vakra taans for vakra ragas (if a raga doesn’t have a straight forward ascending/descending scale, then how can a taan be straight forward she questions), bandish that is tautly wound around the cycle of beats. “In this gayaki, the raga can be seen objectively without the influence of the personality rendering it”, adds this sought after artiste. She adds, “we sing the bandish as it was composed, and elaboration is done with the help of note-phrases rather than plain sustained notes”. Differentiating Jaipur gharana from others, she feels that laya is dealt with in ‘a subtle way, with a meandering of notes’ and is ‘somewhere in between a more relaxed Kirana/Patiala gharana (with respect to laya), and a more laya focused Agra gharana’.
My guru parampara
My guru Late Shri P.R Bhagwat hailed from Gokarna and had been tutored by his guru at Ichalkaranji, in Kirana Gharana style.
Late Pt. Arjunsa Nakod learnt from the legendary Ganayogi Pt. Panchakshari Gawai – who was not just a great musician but is revered to this day as a Saint of Gadag. His Veereshwar Punyashram – a residential institution where blind/orphaned children are taught music along with their regular education, stands testimony to his dedication and divinity. Pt. Panchakshari Gawai has been trained under Gadagiappa Gawai Shiralkoppa, Neelkanth Bua, Ustad Abdul Waheed Khan, Baburao Rane and Pt. Ramkrishan Bua Vaze. He learnt violin from Mysore Venkataram Rao and Tabla from one of his own disciples. Pt. Panchakshari Gawai also taught Pt. Basavaraj Rajguru (who also learnt from Ustad Abdul Waheed Khan).
Pt. Bhalachandra Nakod is the son and disciple of Pt. Arjunsa Nakod.
Late Pt. Rajabhau Sontakke, however was a disciple of the legendary Sangeet Martand Pt. Omkarnath Thakur of Gwalior Gharana.
My guru "Gaan Saraswati" "Sangeet Kaumudi" Dr. Alka Deo Marulkar is a doyen of the Jaipur-Kirana gharana is known for her blend of aesthetics with intellectually stimulating novel approaches to explore ragas.
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