Wax cylinders were the first devices on which sound was recorded and reproduced on a commercial, mass scale. Vinyl records, which we're more familiar with, came much later. Invented by Thomas Alva Edison in 1877, cylinders were widespread in India by the 1890s, reveal newspapers and memoirs of the time. There was a thriving market, mostly made up of the British and rich Indians, for cylinders – called churis because they resembled bangles – serviced by European companies, which sold recorded cylinders of Indian artists in shops in the major metros. However, none of these cylinders are known to exist in India today, at least in the public domain (The only ones are in institutions abroad such as The Berlin Phonogram-Archiv, National Sound Archive, Library of Congress, etc.) Or so scholars believed.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

But now, AN Sharma, a retired IRS officer and collector of old Indian records, has unearthed several early wax cylinders, with recordings of early Indian classical musicians – among them many that scholars thought never existed. Sharma's findings, published in The Wonder That Was The Cylinder (a follow-up to Baajanama (2012), which was about early vinyls), have pushed back what we know about early Indian recordings by several decades and filled gaps about what's known on the subject.

It all began in a kabaadi shop. The Sharmas have a thing for kabaadi shops. It was at one such kabaadi shop on Strand Road, Calcutta (as it was then called), that Sharma had discovered a single-side gramophone record of Master Mohan in 1992, setting him off on his life obsession. So, when the Sharmas came across a dilapidated kabaadi shop on a driving trip south of Mumbai, they stopped to look. Browsing through, his wife Abha saw five dusty cartons in a corner. "What's in there?" she asked the owner. "Oh, nothing! Just some textile machinery," he replied. Clearly, he had no idea for, when Abha went closer to check, she found that the cartons contained 200 cylinders.

Sharma had hit pay dirt and picked up the treasure trove dirt cheap as the kabaadi shop owner had little idea of their worth. Unfortunately, several of these Abha cylinders, as Sharma christened them, were badly damaged and infected by fungus. Only 40 were in playing condition. Many had details such as the name of the artist and recording date written on the surface. One of these, a song called Aye Pyare Mohammed, was recorded on May 26, 1899, making it the oldest recorded Indian cylinder in the world.

Besides the Abha cylinders, Sharma reports the discovery of other gems that scholars and collectors had considered lost. One of these is an H.Bose-Pathé record of a Calcutta singer called Peara Saheb. Few outside academic musicologist circles today know of H Bose, or Hemendra Mohan Bose, the first Indian to manufacture and market cylindrical records. The scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose's nephew, Bose had recorded several leading nationalists and cultural icons of Calcutta in the early 20th century: his uncle, Rabindranath Tagore, Prafulla Chandra Roy, Lal Chand Boral, Dwijendralal Roy, nautch girls Gauhar Jaan, Sushila, Neroda Bai, Purna Kumari and Miss Basanta. A staunch nationalist – Bose released several versions of Bande Mataram, including one by Tagore – his recordings were considered vastly superior to the foreign brands. Unfortunately, it is this nationalist spirit which led to his downfall. In 1908, his offices were raided by the British police, and nearly all records destroyed.

Among the other gems that Sharma has found is a cylinder with a recording by Bhaurao Kolhatkar, the legendary actor singer of the Kirloskar Natak Mandali (d. 1901) of a devotional song from his blockbuster play Sangeet Shakuntala.

Alladiya Khansaheb, the doyen of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana, it was believed, had left no recording – scholars attributed it to Indian musicians' suspicion of mechanical reproduction. So music lovers will be thrilled to know that Sharma has found a Beka Grand record of the great khayal singer singing a tappa thumri and a privately-recorded cylinder of the ustaad, identified by an announcement of his name before the rendition of Raag Nanda.

Similar evidence has helped Sharma report the discovery of an Edison wax cylinder with a rendition of Raag Bhairavi by Bhaskarbua Bakhale, another great singer thought to have left no recording. Sharma has also found two brown wax cylinders of Vishnu Digambar Paluskar, founder of Gandharva Mahavindyalaya.

Then there is a cylinder in which Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema, gives a short speech on Raja Harishchandra. "By making this cinema, I, Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, want to render my services to the Indian masses, so that they can have an opportunity to watch this film... I also wish that Indian cinema should travel globally and, in the future, be well received throughout the world."

Breaching the silence of more than a century the voice, sonorous even now, sounds almost prophetic.