Padmashri #ShobhaDeepakSingh’s book launch “Musicscapes” (The Multiple Emotions of Indian Music) Curated by Dr. Alka Pande

On Apr 10, 2016

Padmashri Shobha Deepak Singh’s book launch

“Musicscapes” (The Multiple Emotions of Indian Music)

Curated by Dr. Alka Pande

at 7pm on Friday, April 8th, 2016 and exhibition until April 14th, 2016

at Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.”

– Ludwig van Beethoven

Indeed the mediator between the spiritual and sensual life stand poignantly captured by Padmashri Shobha Deepak Singh’s lens eye in her spectacular coffee table book compilation, ‘Musicscapes’, a rare anthology of 250 photographs of the great Indian music maestros, emoting the multiple emotions of Indian music. ‘Musicscapes’ follows close on the heels of Mrs. Shobha Deepak Singh’s Theatrescapes (2014) and Dancescapes (2013). In this final trilogy she turns her unerring eye to the world of music, a world that is very dear to her heart.

What gives Mrs. Shobha Deepak Singh’s endeavours a winning edge are primarily her injecting her compilations with the passion of a firsthand exposure to the finer nuances of the subject she elects to present. Her mastery over the medium of photography, proximity to the cultural maestros of the country and her complete fearlessness around technology endow her creations with a distinct character. Growing up in a family, that gave passionate patronage to the arts, she found boundless joy in performances by eminent musicians, hosted in her very own home, even benefitting from lessons from some of the masters. Thus, ‘Musicscapes’ becomes a homage to her deepest and most long engaging love, her passion for music.

The stalwarts, who find pride of pride of place in Mrs. Shobha Deepak Singh’s, ‘Musicscapes’ include Abdul Rashid Khan, Ajoy Chakrabarty, Ali Akbar Khan, Amjad Ali Khan, Anoushka Shankar, Ashwini Bhide, Ayaan Ali Khan, Balasaheb Poonchwale, Bhimsen Joshi, Bhuvanesh Komkali, Bismillah Khan, Biswajit Roy Chowdhury, Chhannulal Mishra, Gangubai Hangal, Girija Devi, Umakant and Ramakant, Gundecha, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Jasraj, Kaushiki Chakraborty, Kishori Amonkar, Kumar Gandharva, Mallikarjun Mansur, Manjiri Asnare, Mukul Shivputra, Purbayan Chatterjee, Rahul Sharma, Rajan and Sajan Misra, Rakesh Chaurasia, Rashid Khan, Ravi Shankar, Ronu Majumdar, Shahid Parvez, Shanti Sharma, Shivkumar Sharma, Shubha Mudgal, Shujaat Khan, Sultan Khan, Uday Bhawalkar, Ulhas Kashalkar, Veena Sahasrabuddhe, Vilayat Khan, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and Zakir Hussain, panning a quarter of a century, capturing myriad moments.

‘Musicscapes’ published by Roli Books, was launched by Smt. Shiela Dixit and Sh. Shekhar Sen, Chairman, Sangeet Natak Akademi, at Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. An exhibition of 60 photographs of the country’s music luminaries, put up by the curatorial expertise of Dr. Alka Pande, will be on until April 14th, 2016.

Mrs. Shobha Deepak Singh reflects, “I realised that though the musical notes are the same, Indian music is unique because it is evolved, sophisticated and the melodies are improvised.” She continues, “When I did my first two books ‘Dancescapes’ and ‘Theatrescapes’, I thought I covered the canvas of emotion and motion. But as I looked through many of these photos, I realised that there was SO much-unsung emotion that I thought I was singing with them as I went through these photos. But what classical music does best and continues to do, is to show a kind of transformation of moods, to show a very wide psychological voyage. And I think that’s something that classical musicians have done in an exemplary way.”

Says Dr. Alka Pande the illustrious curator of the ‘Musicscapes’ exhibition, “Just as Shobha Deepak Singh has painstakingly documented them, I have painstakingly selected 43 of these great legends who are resplendent in the images for the purpose of this show. Among them the brightest jewels are Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Pandit Kumarjee, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Anoushka Shanker and Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur, all of whom have contributed magnificently to the vocal and instrumental musicscape of India. This is a survey of her work as she captures moments, iconic and unusual, greats rubbing shoulders with greats, candids and portraits. Shobha Deepak Singh, is one of those rare individuals, a consummate artist, whose love for music began even as she was in the womb. It was in her bloodstream even before she was born.

Growing up in a deeply musical family she took great joy in the performances by eminent musicians hosted in their very home, even benefitting from lessons from some of the masters. Thus, Musicscapes becomes a homage to her deepest and most long engaging loves, her love for the arts.”

Musical compositions in the Hindustani tradition are associated with a prevailing mood or emotion. Specific times of day are assigned to specific pieces of music to create the appropriate atmosphere, for example the playing of ragas Bilawal and Kalyan during the night to saturate the mind with the shringara or erotic rasa. The prahar classification divides the day into eight three hour-long divisions, four belonging to the day and four belonging to the night. Our visual journey begins with the first prahar at the brahma-mutra, the vedic start of day, and carries forward the spectator through the various divisions whilst experiencing the stimulating ragas associated with them.”

Says Shanta Serbjeet Singh, “What seems to me to be the most difficult to shoot is the art of the dancer, the musician and the actor. Its fragility and fleeting quality brooks no repetition, no intrusion, no second and third takes, certainly no press of the ‘back’ button to recover that image, so heart achingly beautiful, so profound but now gone forever…

It is this art in which Shobha has specialised, taking pictures that help you recover the magic of that special, solitary live moment when you and the artist were one. In her entirely self-taught journey she has, no doubt, stepped on many toes, some of them acclaimed such as those of Ebrahim Alkazi who presents her current show.”

Quite like Henry Ward Beecher, Padmashri Shobha Deepak Singh through ‘Musicscapes’ emotes, “Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself.”

For more information on Padmashri Shobha Deepak Singh, please visit : www.shobhadeepaksingh.in;

My Music My Scapes – by Padmashri Shobha Deepak Singh

I believe music was in my DNA even before I was born-for the music in our home flowed into my psyche- while eminent musicians performed at our home. As children we were taken to music concerts and as we fell asleep curled up on wooden chairs, the music entered my system in a silent way-to blossom decades later in to my deep appreciation of the wonderful world of classical Indian music- where there were myriads ofragas– connected with different times of the day and year.

In childhood, we were sent to learn classical music from the senior Dagar Ustad Aminudin Dagar-brothers. As we sang the Sargam, he told us to ‘sing’ from the gut. I commenced to learn dance. But music was an integral part of our being – whether it was at Curzon Road or Sardar Patel Marg, our present home.

At our home, Deepak and I have had the pleasure of hosting concerts by Amjad Ali Khan, Harji Prased Chaurasia, Zakir Hussain and Mallikarjun Mansur.

At the age of thirty five, when I was compelled to give up my dance classes I commenced learning sarod from Biswajeet Roy Chowdry He taught brilliantlly. In about three months, I began playing Raag Bhopali and Malkans-viambit, Madhya and Drut laya. Later I went on to study from Amjad Ali Khan. But due to our converse time schedules, I could not pursue sarod seriously and returned to studying this from Biswajeet.

But the turning point came when I was introduced to Mallikarjun Mansur. I realised that vocal classical had much more to offer than instrumental. And Mansur himself was a great mentor. I sat for hours listening to his music and understanding the Jaipur Atrauli gharanas. I had the good fortune of having Mansur sing at our home-morning ragas once and afternoon ragas at another.

I realised that though the musical notes are the same, Indian music is unique because it is evolved, sophisticated and the melodies are improvised.

For the last three decades, I have had the good fortune of dealing with the SSLMF artists on a personal basis. Today, the reason why we can have a good line up is certainly because of the special rapport I have made with the musicians on a very personal basis. Being a voracious documenter, from the moment I began to record music, I have a vast collection of music that I have built up over the years. Presently, I am attempting to digitize the music.

The pursuit of classical music for me is to liberate me and it leads me to a state where I feel I am truly elevated. I have learnt from life and through music, I try to give back to life, -whether it’s the raag, the bandish. For me, there is no day or night for music. I often work through the night – without phone calls disturbing me. I continue to learn more about music – it’s an ocean, and I can never really say that you know everything. I’m grateful that I’m listening to music by the greats.
While photographing, I have at times had the privilege of interacting in a personal way with three generations of musicians-almost on a daily basis such as Kumar Gandharva, Mukul Shiv Putra and Bhuvanesh. At other times, there have been artists who have performed in their tender youth, but now have grown up to be mature artists ; stepping into their horizons for a bigger tomorrow

Being a child of the digital age, a person who spontaneously took to a wide range of technology in the 1990’s, when it initially made aggressive inroads into the Indian market. I believe I was one of the first persons of my generation who had an ‘I’ phone, a Mac computer; thereafter all manner of cameras as also having all kinds of mobile recording devices which ran on batteries. These ranged from A Sony recording walkman, discman and Datman. In photographing, I have never used a tripod or a flash and almost always an analogue film.

I have most frequently, attempted to capture the light source on the performer. It resulted in interesting photos. Likewise, I have never shied from crawling behind the performer and getting a profile shot.

Unlike many of the other women, I had absolutely no fear of ‘buttons’, which I would touch warily, lest I ruin whatever gadget or tape I was using!!! In fact my playful abandon in this cyber world was enviable! It is this same spirit of zestful abandon that is reflected in my approach to shooting photographs of the music dance or theatre.

It was not by study or design that I came to photography. Around the same time I began experimenting with the newly acquired gadgetry, I decided to enroll as a student of Ebrahim Alkazi in 1991. Though I was not interested in becoming a singer, I indeed was keen to gain an insight into musical intricacies as a whole-a knowledge of which I felt I could apply to improve to the music of the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra productions.

When I did my first two books-Dancescapes and Musicscapes, I thought I covered the canvas of emotion and motion. But as I looked through many of these photos, I realised that there was SO much-unsung emotion that I thought I was singing with them as I went through these photos.

But what classical music does best and continues to do is to show a kind of transformation of moods, to show a very wide psychological voyage. And think that’s something that classical musicians have done in an exemplary way.

Alka Pande’s Article

Shobha Deepak Singh, is one of those rare individuals, a consummate artist, whose love for music began even as she was in the womb. It was in her bloodstream even before she was born.

Growing up in a deeply musical family she took great joy in the performances by eminent musicians hosted their very home, even benefitting from lessons from some of the masters. Thus, Musicscapes becomes a homage to her deepest and most long engaging loves, her love for the arts.

Within the trinity of performing arts, consisting of music, dance and theatre, music is certainly able to reach the highest form of abstraction. Delving back into time, the Natya Shastra (the 4th century text on dramaturgy) is the mother of all texts to fully approach the innate understanding of Indian aesthetic theory. The emergence of the ‘rasa’ theory becomes the root from which emerges the transference of ‘rasa’ to ‘bhava’ or emotion, to the myriad jewels which make the exquisite garland of music.

The highest level of abstraction, that very point of ‘ananda’ in the ‘advaita’ philosophy of the union of atma and parmatma is often experienced both by the producer/musician and the consumer/audience. In her work, Shobha Deepak Singh straddles both these worlds as, through her images, she also forms a link, a connecting cord between the two.

The origins of Indian classical music can be traced back even to the Vedic times thousands of years ago. The Vedas can be considered a musical text, written as they are with an ear for musicality, especially the Sama Veda which speaks of the relationship between accents and musical notes.

To develop a deeper understanding of ancient traditional music, one needs to reflect on the deep entrenchment of performing arts in the Indian aesthetics. Its earliest theoretical evidence can be found in the Natya Shastra, by Bharata Muni1. Bharata is therefore considered as the father of Indian theatrical art forms and he covered an enormous scope of topics in this text.

In the Indian school of thought, each sound we hear is said to be a naad or ‘sound’ or ‘tone’ and each and every sound can be a naad brahmaor ‘heavenly sound.’ The naad brahma is said to be the first sound of truth and is believed to have been central to the creation of life, the universe and everything. Simultaneously, according to the Vedantic philosophy, the shabda brahma, or the word of God, the divine oral expression is another facet of the naad brahma. Within the context of Indian philosophical thought, the origin of the cosmos is believed to have been in the primordial sound Om. Om is supposed to have led to the creation of the universe from nothing. It is said to be at once shabda andnaad. Thus sound is at the heart and at the root of everything; God is sound and sound is God.

Various vibrant myths and legends make it apparent that the Gods gave themselves over to spontaneous overflow of artistic expression through the medium of music. While Goddess Saraswati is most often depicted with a veena, Lord Krishna is the divine flautist and Shiva, the Destroyer, is armed with a damroo. It becomes abundantly clear that ancient Indian philosophy gives much significance to sounds. Even the blowing of the conch is considered auspicious and even today a conch is blown during ceremonies.

One could say, the rasa theory finds its musical complement or analogy in the system of the raga, or, at any rate, that ragas are intimately connected with the rasa. Raga could be translated as ‘colour’ or ‘hue.’’2 They act as a foundation on which each classical Indian composition is built upon. But raga is much more than that: it is the personality of a piece of music, its aesthetic essence.

The raga theory dates back to the musicologist Pandit Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande (1860 – 1939) around the second last turn of the century. He classified the ragas under 10 Thaats. 3 The idea of ragas having a personality can be first found around 200 BCE in the Raga Sagara of the sage Dattila. There he also proclaimed the idea of nadopasana, the worship of sound that raised the intense involvement with and practice of the raga to a form of meditation.

The fundamental experience of music is the gentle interplay between the three key elements; svara/tone, laya/rhythm and rupa/form. The skilful interaction of these factors pulls the listener into various states or moods and these elements are then played upon further with embellishments such as lyrics and musical flourishes.

The literature provides differing datings, an exact historical classification proves to be difficult.

Musical compositions in the Indian tradition are associated with a prevailing mood or emotion. Specific times of day are assigned to specific pieces of music to create the appropriate atmosphere, for example the playing of ragas Bilawal and Kalyan during the night to saturate the mind with the shringara or erotic rasa. Each of the major ragas are associated with one of the six seasons vasant (spring), grishma (summer),varsha (monsoon), sharad (autumn), hemant (pre-winter) and shishir (winter).

Bharata classified bahavas or moods/emotions into eight types and asserted that they were spread across the seven notes – sa, re, ga, ma, pa, de, ni – of the octave. While there is a vast difference between the styles of Northern and Southern classical Indian music, they find a confluence at Odisha. The musical landscape of the subcontinent encompasses varied gharanas or styles of Hindustani classical music. While there are a number of basic gharanas, innovators like Ustad Amjad Ali Khan (one of the masters featured in the book) have experimented to innovate and conjure their own creations, leaving their mark. Most purists have however left the sanctity of the medium intact.

When I survey Indian classical music, the genre of the drupad is extremely integral to this particular art. I would go so far as to term it the mother of all North Indian classical music traditions, patronised by Mughal and Rajput monarchs. The drupad is an age old vocal styling, often accepted the oldest in the sphere of Hindustani classical music. It can be classed into four further styles Gauhar, Dagur, Nauhar and Khandharand fundamental to its practice is the principle of the nada or sound. Drupad is said to have its roots in the chanting of Vedic hymns and has gone on to develop a complex grammar of its own.

In Indian religious practice, dance and music become the two arms of ‘bhakti’ or devotion. There are examples of this strewn throughout the history of the subcontinent. One significant illustration of this is Jayadeva, the great poet, who is fabled to have composed his musical Gita Govinda as his temple dancer wife danced, all in the name of ‘bhakti.’

The relationship between art and music was also symbiotic throughout history. The medieval Ragamala miniature paintings by Rajasthani artists drew their inspiration from the ragas and raginis, the former having being considered male and the latter female. Each ragamalaaddresses itself to a particular raga and depicts it as an actual person using the full potential of the art of painting such as form and colour to characterize it. In this context a whole mythical genealogy of the ragas arose, while the six major ragas hindol, deepak, megha, bhairava, malkauns and shri were declared to be the male or parent raga, others were related to these as wives, sons and daughters in law.

The give and take between art forms is therefore visible across the length and breadth of history, something that is ever present in the works of Shobha Deepak Singh. As a great connoisseur of classical Hindustani music and a dear friend to some of the greatest interpreters of our time, Shobha Deepak Singh has, for decades, played the part of an impresario and recorder during innumerable concerts and theatrical performances. In all this years this multi-faceted woman froze in time these cultural highlights with her camera.

Therefore, her oeuvre cab be understood as a photographical diary of her life-long passion and dedicated experience, as an invitation for the reader, the viewer and the audience to indulge in the richness of the musical sphere. Her images capture the majestic performances of great musicians such as Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Zakir Hussain and Abdul Rashid Khan just to name a few.

It is in this manner that Shobha Deepak Singh herself becomes a conduit for the theory, representation and experience of the Indian musical traditions. The people she has photographed over the last thirty years form a survey of the different genres, the different gharanas, the differentgayakis. Every one of the performers are culture bearers of particular styles, genres, gharana, moods/rasa. Each portrait she has created becomes a metaphor or an emblem or an allegory.

Just as Shobha Deepak Singh has painstakingly documented them, I have painstakingly selected 43 of these great legends who are resplendent in the images for the purpose of this show. Among them the brightest jewels are Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Pandit Kumarjee, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Anoushka Shanker and Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur, all of whom have contributed magnificently to the vocal and instrumental musicscape of India. This is a survey of her work as she captures moments, iconic and unusual, greats rubbing shoulders with greats, candids and portraits. As per the Indian tradition, unlike its western musical counterpart, the performer at once takes on the additional role of the composer as well, employing breath, volume and intonation for every raga. It can then be concluded that Shobha Deepak Singh is something of a maestro, as she uses her artistry and depth of wisdom and passion about musicality to capture the works that take the audience across the entire scale of musical performance, creating through each image a veritable musicscape.

In fact, the immortal bard, William Shakespeare might have written the following words for her when he said, “If music be the food of love, play on.”

TAKING GREAT PICTURES….STRICTLY IMHO

By Shanta Serbjeet Singh

In net parlance ‘IMHO’ means “in my humble opinion”. I am using it to qualify what I am writing below as I am not a trained photographer nor an expert in the technology of the art of photography. I look at photographs, however, with an eye trained in the aesthetics of the arts both visual and, in the case of the work of Shobha Deepak Singh, more importantly, the performing arts.

Yet what seems to me to be the most difficult to shoot is the art of the dancer, the musician and the actor. Its fragility and fleeting quality brooks no repetition, no intrusion, no second and third takes, certainly no press of the ‘back’ button to recover that image, so heart achingly beautiful, so profound but now gone forever…

But always the drishta, not just the bhokta, always the supremely objective artist who can step out of his own space and see the validity of the moment captured by Shobha, Alkazi Saheb makes his approval of her work abundantly apparent by mounting that significant first show and now another.

Shobha’s interest is in both the public and the private world of the dancer, the actor, the musician. She wants to, nay needs to record the life and art of those whose work she values. As such she follows a traditional documentary philosophy that emphasizes intensive observation and a non-intrusive approach. She is not your classical fly-on-the-wall photographer but at performances it is clear that the LAST thing she wants is to be the center of attention, or to create a ‘photo session’ atmosphere;

In performances, of course, the action is literally choreographed for her. Here her solid training in Kathak, with many years of sessions with Pandit Birju Maharaj or Kumudini Lakhia, intimate knowledge of music by learning to play the sarod under Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and above all a fully rounded, indefatigable grind with the Shri Ram Bharatiya Kala Kendra’s repertory’s round-the-clock, year in, year out production schedules have given her reflexes immense experience in seizing the definitive moment of the action and taking some memorable pictures.

For Shobha Deepak Singh the performing arts are in themselves such an engrossing activity, demanding concentration of such a high degree that she obviously finds it a great challenge to focus on and usually find that blissful moment when the dancer has become the dance, the performers have forgotten about her and are devoting their entire attention to doing what they would have done if she weren’t there at all And the key motif she seems to us is: Keep It Simple.

By virtue of having spent a lifetime with performing artistes of all kinds, from famous classical dancers and musicians to simple folk actors and groups, these choices and compromises seem to come naturally to her. Whatever she photographs, then, is instantly both a record and a revelation, a work of art in itself and a piece of documentary evidence of something that occurred, created Rasa and, like any other particle or neuron, vanished into the void of creative consciousness.

IMHO… Shobha Deepak Singh has found her creative metier in the art of photography and the world of Indian performing arts has gained a lot because of this discovery.

Padmashri #ShobhaDeepakSingh’s book launch “Musicscapes” (The Multiple Emotions of Indian Music) Curated by Dr. Alka Pande