CHENNAI: As a young girl of eight, she would be happily humming all the songs that her sister learnt from their neighbour Padma Narasimhan, who later on became her first guru. Born and raised in Kolkata, Lalita Sharma, who later moved to Chennai in 2013, has been performing and teaching Hindustani music. A disciple of VR Krishnan and Pandit Jasraj, she has trained in the Mewati gharana of Hindustani music. The vocalist took time off her schedule to talk to CE about being married to music, the shift from Carnatic to Hindustani and training under Pandit Jasraj.
How did you know you wanted to shift to Hindustani?
My initial years of training in Carnatic were in Kolkata, after which I came to Chennai and enrolled at the Government Music College and finished my BA in music. I went back to Kolkata but back then, one could not flourish as a south Indian classical vocalist there. So I listened to a lot of Hindustani music, and I liked it. At that time, my mother fell ill and other things happened too, and Hindustani music came to me as a boon. It was calm, and meditative. That’s one of the main reasons why I shifted.
What’s common between the two genres?
The ragas...many are common; the way it is presented is different. The main thing, however, is connecting the notes. It can be sung in different ways — called gamakas. I grasped the differences and the general flavour of the music quickly. After that, it was easy to demarcate the two. Generally, when you learn something new, you tend to go back to your comfort zone. And sometimes the brain doesn’t register the differences, but I never had that problem. The language was comfortable, it was a bit of Hindi, Sanskrit, Braj Basha, Awadhi, Marwadi, etc.
Tell us about your guru Pandit Jasraj.
Once, I unknowingly heard him and was so mesmerised by his voice that I kept tuning the radio to listen to him. It was then that a friend gave me a cassette and I linked that voice to him. Also, at a music concert in Kolkata, all these artists performed and there, I heard him for the first time in person. And when I went to take his blessings, he told me to sing. I sang one of his songs and then he told me to sing Carnatic as well. That is how it started. He is so humble. He doesn’t charge you anything. He says ‘long after I am gone, I will live through you’. He is fun while having fun, but when he sits to teach he is different person. Even during our camps, he would sit and have lunch with us. He used to give us lots of chances to sing on stage, unlike many other teachers.
What are the common themes in Hindustani music?
The compositions are called bandish, meaning baandhna (tie); it is tied to rhythmic second. When you do an aalaap, it is free form and there is no taal. And when it is with lyrics, it becomes a composition; it has a taal, a structure so it becomes a bandish. So these are vehicles for improvisations. These bandishes are only about four lines, and allow for a lot of improvisation. So it is 85% improvisation and 15% song. One sthai and one antara is all that the song is.
During earlier years, a lot of the Muslim musicians like Tansen would use Urdu words and sing in praise of the king or motivate him to go fight the war. So those compositions are there. However, during that time and later, 70% of the bandishes were on Radha-Krishna, but these would talk about happiness, sadness, jealousy, separation, etc.
Can you tell us a bit about the Mewati Gharana style of Hindustani music?
It is basically a style of singing, the differences of combinations of the notes and so on. We have what is called an aakaar and sargam (swaras), so in some gharana, the sargams will be more and aakaar will be less or vice versa. Then there is bhol aalaap, where you take a song and improvise it with the words. These things are exclusive to the Mewati gharana.
Lalita Sharma will perform today from 7 pm onwards at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. For details
call: 24643420