Duality doesn’t belong to duets. It sometimes becomes the soul of a lone voice, like Kalapini Komkali’s.
Duality is distinct, and less of an illusion in a duet where often, two voices of two different people become one, distorting individuality and notions of singularity, going purposefully in one direction to merge and blend. They are born and groomed to be the ‘singular’ voice .
But in a solo, duality lies distributed in the texture of singing and the musical “thought.” It doesn’t come to a single throat, unless you are Kalapini, daughter of the world-renowned vocalist Pandit Kumar Gandharva and Vansundhara Komakali. At a performance at Bhakti Sangeet, a festival held in the Capital this month, Kalapini proved yet again that when a vocalist is made and trained by two gurus who perform and live as a duet, their texture and the forceful musical thought seep into her style and singing, and become her voice. This duality in Kalapini’s voice falls easily, only upon the trained ears.
In Kalapini, you hear the voices—of her father, her mother, of their duet singing and her own. Kalapini, who has performed duets with her mother in the thematic Sahgaan concerts, is a bridge between two very surreal worlds—of the duets of Pandit Kumar Gandharva and Vasundhara Komakali, and her duets with the mother.
“That’s a great observation and I unravel this factor every day in my singing. I have seen the most beautiful realms of the duets of Kumarji and Tai. I would never join my mother as a voice, but I would sing with them as the third voice. The most fascinating part about my mother singing with Kumarji was that she could sing in all octaves with him. Today, woman accompanists can sing with their gurus only to join them in the taar saptak, whereas Tai could easily sing in the mandra saptak, the madhya and the taar saptak with Kumarji. This quality is exceptional and rare. She could meet his pitch, his thought and even ideas. I unconsciously imbibed these qualities from their duets.”
At the festival, Kalapini performed the chaupais of Tulsidas. “Singing Tulsidas chaupais on the day of Ram Navami has a spiritual context. Though the organisers were forcing me to sing nirgun bhajans, I put my foot down and said that I would mark the day by singing the chaupais that introduce an artist to the different moods, contexts and traits of the great Tulsidas in Ram Charit Manas, the Vinay Patrika, Geetawali and Dohawali. I am usually stubborn when it comes to performing what I want to,” she laughs.
Doing “justice to inheritance” was never a problem. Kalapini trusts her artistic instincts and judgement. She adds, “I let my own thought flourish within what I have inherited from my parents. There are times when I sing only sagun bhajans. There are times when I sing only khayal. Rasiks have the right to make requests and likewise I have the choice to decide. Performance is sacrosanct. My mother and I performed the vilambhit khayal in Sahgaan but it would never extend to 45 minutes of singing. Yet, it is the vilambhit khayal in form and mood. There are times when I do not repeat a thematic concert in a year’s time. My duet concerts with Bhuvanesh (her nephew and son of Pandit Mukul Shivputra) happen twice a year. And we are practically not repeating those compositions anywhere else.”
Kalapani doesn’t burden herself with the motive of performing new. “It’s in the old I discover the new. And this new out of the existing and old comes out so differently each time.”