My wife had once asked him the difference between dhrupad and khayal. He illustrated the difference very well by singing old dhrupads and khayals based on dhrupads. Layakari (playing with the rhythm) often becomes talkari (playing with the specific tala) and then the strokes become fossilised. Aesthetics is replaced by calculations. Gwalior gayaki (style of singing) did not disturb the basic discipline of the dhrupads; it elaborates the notes (swara vistar) freely with strong adherence to the principle of laya. The freedom in swara vistar is based on recognition of tala or laya. Free verse also has rhythm. This is similar to the situation that would obtain if the poem were to be granted freedom from the metre, in the sense that the relationship between the poetic element and rhythm remains, but it is freed from the calculations of the short and the long vowel. We find, in the Jaipur Atrauli gayaki, this freedom based on a happy acceptance of the constraints of rhythm. After all, the khayal is bound in a shape. And any shape or figure is necessarily bound by the balance between the different lines. Anna got this free-restraint in his singing from the jaipur Atrauli training. That is why he maintains the characteristic of the raga with extreme care. He chooses to elaborate on the right notes for a given raga. Whether he sings the cheez for five minutes or for half an hour, he presents the basic picture of the raga at the very beginning. When he sings joint ragas like Basanti Kedar or Bhairav Bahar, it doesn't appear that he has simply pasted two distinct ragas together. He is very reverential towards the tapasya (the relentless pursuit of music) of the ancient sage-like musicians who conceptualised ragas or bandishes through their first vision, as if they received a divine blessing. That is why he is angry at singers who, without proper training of ragas and cheezas, listen to a bandish once, write the notation down in a notebook and then immediately start singing in mehfils. Explaining why it is wrong to believe that one knows the raga simply through a bookish knowledge of its aaroh-avaroh (ascent-descent) and its pakad (characteristic phrase), he had said once, "not only each note of the raga, but even the first "sa" should stand dressed in the raga!"

Mallikarjun Mansur

The Man Who Resides in Music

Kishori Amonkar (1932-2017): The Intimate Singer