Golden Gauhar

One of the handsomest young Gujarati actors of Mumbai meets the most flamboyant tawaif of Kolkata at the turn of the 20th century. He is younger than her and much married. But they share a deep love for music and dance.

The two fall madly in love and the actor sets up home with her in Mumbai. The talented twosome spend days composing music and evenings taking a flutter in style at the Mahalaxmi Race Course. Their passionate affair becomes the talk of the town.

Two years later, all of Mumbai falls in love with her as she sings at the glittering Durbar Hall of the Asiatic Society. But as in all love stories there is a terrible tragedy lurking around the corner. The courtesan’s paramour dies of a heart attack.

Her true love lost to her, the courtesan’s life spins out of control and after a trail of affairs and scandals she dies a lone death at the court of the Mysore maharaja. But if you want a feel of the wonderful creative liaison between Gauhar Jaan and Amrit Keshav Nayak, all you have to do is listen to the beautiful music they made together.

First recording
Through the buzz and scratch of an ancient recording you can still hear the lyricism and heartache come through in Aan baan jiya main lagi (the arrows of love pierce my heart), the thumri Nayak composed and Gauhar sang. It is stored for posterity in a record that was among the first to be ever pressed in the country, around early 20th century.

Today, when any bathroom singer can attain posterity on YouTube, it may be difficult to imagine an age where recording a human voice was nothing short of a miracle of technology. And to Gauhar Jaan goes the credit of being the first such Indian voice to be pressed onto wax.

In his book My Name is Gauhar Jaan, Vikram Sampath brings alive an era which foreshadowed the technological revolution we are now seeing. Till recently, when Mumbai collector Suresh Chandvankar did a wonderful job of collating her recordings and playing them for music lovers, little was known of the trailblazing Gauhar Jaan outside the circle of dedicated connoisseurs.

But slowly musical circles around the country are waking up to the need to archive her life, times and music. Last week the IGNCA in Delhi hosted a whole series of talks and performances dedicated to the baijis who put their music on record. Gauhar, who had the honour of being the only Indian voice at a mujra during the Delhi Durbar, was of course the star of the show.

Tragedy and creativity
Sampath, who works for HP as a financial analyst but is also an ardent culture buff, says he was drawn to Gauhar’s tremendous grit. “There were tragedies lurking at every corner of her life. Everytime she hit a high she would be faced with some disaster: legal wrangles, treachery, embezzlement. But through it all, she kept her creative juices flowing,” he says.
The 30-year-old author, who is very much a part of the I-pod generation, says he never ceases to be amazed at how confidently she dealt with the recording technology. The khayal is a creative experience that is never tied down by minutes and hours unless it is adapted for a modern concert or the radio or television. In those days, to make a three minute musical précis of it for the records was an admirable achievement.

In an engaging chapter on the first recording, you watch the ancestor of the modern music clip take birth. “Sing into that horn as loud as you can. Don’t shake your head or your hands. It will spoil the quality of the recording. Also the timing…I hope you remember? It is not one of your soirees where you can develop your melodies for hours on end. Three minutes is all we have. Aah, a few seconds less than three minutes. Remember the announcement at the end…?” recording expert Frederick Gaisberg asks Gauhar peremptorily. He has been across the length of the country and is unimpressed by the musical talents living in its debauched gallis.

But Gauhar, Sampath finds in his research, is made of sterner stuff than most. She not only zips the khayal into a three minute capsule but does such a stirring job of it that she leaves the crabby Gaisberg stunned. They go on to produce many more records and Gauhar becomes the poster girl of the recording industry. Her haughty face is seen on album covers, posters and even match-boxes.

Gauhar is no tragic tawaif. Not for her the life of a woman on the fringes of society forever yearning for home and hearth. She was rich, gorgeous, talented and desirable and what is more, she knew it. There are few art-loving nabobs she did not make eyes at, few ustads she did not slay with her lethal wit.

But age and a series of personal disasters finally sapped her indomitable spirit. Her last refuge was the Mysore darbar where she remained a diva, at least in her own mind, to the last day of her life.

This is a painstakingly researched book that follows this great courtesan to every corner of the country, from Azamgarh and Varanasi to Mumbai and Mysore. Read it for an insight into the birth of recorded music as we know it now.