Yesterday afternoon, I went to an event to commemorate Bapi Dadu's music, a belated birthday programme of sorts. Dida had been asked to be the Chief Guest, and she asked me to go along with her. At first, I was skeptical, not because I don't enjoy my grandfather's music, but rather because I enjoy it too much. I was afraid of being subjected to a group of amateur singers slaughtering my favourite songs, not because they had bad voices, but because the vast majority of Bapi's songs, with their constantly meandering scales and elaborate choral harmonies, are brutally hard to sing. I'm not just saying that either - Kishore Kumar, in a famous interview, said that when Bapi had first played the tune of "Guzar Jaye Din Din" from
Annadata to him, Kishore, who had been standing, first leaned against the wall, then sat on a chair, and finally slumped on to the floor as the intricacy of the melody sank in. The next morning he said he had had a dream in which he fled, screaming, "I can't do it! It's too difficult!" while Bapi supposedly chased him with a stick, saying, "Oh yes you will!" And so he did.
But I digress.
Being the Chief Guest and the Grand-daughter of the Chief Guest, the two of us got the most outstanding treatment. We got picked up from Dida's house; we got dropped back home too. The attention lavished upon us was not only entirely unexpected by me, but also extreme to the point of being utterly embarassing. People were quite literally queueing up to touch Dida's feet, while assailing me with a barrage of questions and comments ranging from the obvious but annoying, (
Acha, bolo, tumhi gaan koro? Eh ma! Kano?/ So, tell me, do you sing? Oh God! Why not?!)), the deliberately obnoxious (So how are you related to Antara?) and the downright absurd (Have you ever met your grandfather?). I also got told I had a "million dollar smile!" just like "your Dadu!"
It was a pleasant surprise to me that his music would be honoured not by live singers but by playing recorded music, which would be supplemented by anecdotal, technical and gushing commentary. The programme started off with an ultra-rare recording of Bapi singing "Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke" at a rehearsal - apparently he was singing it for Lata at the time. The recording gave me a severe case of goosebumps as it is not only my favourite of Bapi's Hindi film songs, but also hearing it rendered in his voice - so rich, honest, effortless - was something I never thought I'd be lucky enough to hear. They followed it with the
Do Bigha Zameen version of the song, but not before they informed us that the introduction to the song was taken from a Soviet marching tune (no prizes for guessing Bapi's political affiliations) and the rest of the tune was based on the indigenous music of the Hazaribagh area, on the border of Bihar and Bengal.
I also learned that Bapi recieved Bimal Roy's telegram asking him to come to Bombay to do the music for
Do Bigha Zameen on his wedding night. While he was initially hesitant, Dida being as genuinely altruistic as she is, insisted that they should go as this was the chance of a lifetime. Later, when they played "Na Jeyo Na.." cleverly spliced with its Hindi equivalent "O Sajana Barkha Bahar Ayi," the compere narrated a story that Dida had shared with him earlier. Apparently, one day, Dida was cooking in the kitchen when Bapi called her frantically, urging her to drop whatever it was she was doing. I can only imagine the panic in Dida's mind as she did as her husband asked, and rushed to the room where he was. He hummed the tune of "Na Jeyo Na.." for her - he had just come up with it - and asked her what she thought of it. She replied that she thought it was brilliant, but as it turned out, no one else agreed. The recordists and musicians thought it would never do well, but on the encouragement of Lata (who later named it one of her top 10 songs) and Dida, he went ahead and recorded it first in Bangla, and then in Hindi for
Parakh. Both versions were huge successes both commercially and critically, garnering attention for the impossibly complicated orchestration.
It was after hearing these two anecdotes that I realised that I never really think of Bapi and Dida's relationship. I tend to forget that before all the hurt and abandonment and bitterness and inexplicable betrayals, there was a couple - an artist and a musician - who loved and valued each other. Bapi was more than the father of my mother and her sisters, more than our grandfather, more than an occasional visitor at 16, Hill Crest - Bapi was also Dida's
husband. Dida was with him when started getting politically active, when he escaped British raids through toilets, when he wrote his anti-establishment songs, when he joined the Communist Party, when he was with IPTA, when he made it big in Bombay....
I heard Dida sniffling a couple of times, but her eyes seemed as dry as land. But when she, a person not prone to sudden displays of emotion or affection, suddenly grabbed my hand and said,
Mon ta kharap hoye gache, I knew she didn't just have the sniffles. At one point, she was forced to say a few words, and Dida - the strongest, most loving, most stoic person I know - broke down, her voice cracking, her eyes brimming with tears. At once I understood why she never speaks about him or their life together; I understood why, while growing up, we didn't really listen to Bapi's music. I understood why she made me switch off "Anand" once when I was watching it on TV. For the first time, I took the trouble of understanding just how much this music meant to her. *I* know how music can serve as the ultimate reservoir of memories, how it is the ultimate time-travelling machine. Even stepping into her shoes for a few seconds while "Ja Re Ude Ja Re Pakhi" played was enough to move me to tears.
I even understood the emotion of the organizers and the audience - they all seemed enraptured, bursting into smiles at certain interludes, moving their hands as if to conduct the orchestras, pointing out the nuances that only the finest ears
can hear. I understood that the outpouring of love and reverence for Dida and me was an extension of the love for the music and all the intangible emotions and bittersweet memories they undoubtedly associated with it. I understood that I would have behaved in the same way had I had the opportunity to meet Sean Lennon.
Chaklu, Poochie, Bo - I missed you all desperately. I wish you all could have been there to share both the glory and the embarassment. I thought of you guys through out - Poo, remember how we used to record our voices singing "Bagh Mein Kali Khili" and "Dharti Kahe Pukar Ke" on your computer?
Dida once said that are some people you know all your life who give you nothing to remember them by, and then there are others who might lavish their love on you for a mere fifteen minutes, but its intensity is enough to last you a lifetime. And that was what Bapi had given to her.
Sometimes we forget just how lucky we are.
