Bombay Jayasree-‘I DON’T LOVE GOD MORE THAN I LOVE MUSIC’

‘I DON’T LOVE GOD MORE THAN I LOVE MUSIC’

Bombay Jayashri offers an intriguing take on the notion of bhakti in Carnatic music. Oh, and she talks about Vaseegara too.

SEP 17, 2006 - AS I NEAR THE ONE-HOUR CAP of my interview with Bombay Jayashri at a cozy little coffee shop by the Besant Nagar beach, I’m getting a bit fidgety. She’s told me a lot of fine things, a lot of solid things about her background, her career, her passions, her training – but I still haven’t gotten near that certain something that makes this superstar singer different from the next superstar singer. After all, everyone talks about the contribution of their guru, the endless hours they put in for practice, the way they structure their concerts, the day they got their first big break. And then, as if divining my dilemma, Jayashri begins talking about a chamber concert she presented in Melbourne recently. “After I sang Krishna nee begane, a lady came up and commented that my favourite deity would have to be Krishna. She said I must have been thinking of Him when I sang; there could be no other explanation for the way the song touched her heart and made her visualise Krishna. But I said no. I wasn’t thinking of Krishna. I was thinking about Yaman Kalyani, about the way the raga is styled in the composition, about the way I was presenting it. The song may be about the composer’s love for Krishna, but we are not so emotional about Krishna. My feeling, my love is for the raga, not for Krishna.‿

There. That’s an entry point to what Bombay Jayashri is about, because with that one instance, she has essentially offered a look at Carnatic music from an excitingly new perspective. Because down the ages, we’ve had it drummed into our heads that the essence of Hindustani music is shringara, love, while Carnatic compositions are capsules of bhakti, or devotion. And here’s Jayashri, implying otherwise. Or is she, really? “This is bhakti, but to the music – not to Krishna,‿ she says. “We’re not in an era where we’re into that kind of bhakti. Because if it’s just bhakti, and if it’s just about Krishna or Rama, why would I – someone who doesn’t come from a very religious or ritualistic background – revel in it? I don’t think I love God more than I love music. Why would a European sitting there, who doesn’t know the difference between Krishna and Rama, listen to this music for two hours? Why are instrumental concerts so popular? Do we know if the performer is playing a kriti in Kannada or Telugu, or if thatkriti is talking about this lord or that deity? Our music is not about religion.‿ She repeats, “It’s about bhakti to the music. If I do my music well, I feel one with whatever we call divinity or spirituality – much more than if I sit and read the Lalita Sahasranamam for twenty minutes.‿

Now I’m wondering if the great saint-composers actually thought that way. After all, they were saints before they were composers. “Yes,‿ says Jayashri, “but though their lyrics talk about divine figures, it’s essentially a dialogue of love – and without the music it has no meaning. If there was no Bhairavi, Amba Kamakshi has no meaning. You can go on mouthing the words, Amba Kamakshi, and yes, the lyrics talk about a deity, but the music is much more supreme and superior. Do we really believe there was a Krishna or a Rama? We have our doubts. But we still have them in our puja rooms, as a vehicle for meditation or prayer. Similarly, to the composers, the deity was a skeletal concept that helped them express their mastery of music.‿ Whatever Jayashri does or does not believe in, I can sense she believes in her art – wholeheartedly, passionately. I believe her when she says, “Music, to me, is a very emotional experience. It’s not just about technique or the voice traversing octaves or shruti perfection or good coordination with your co-artists. It’s much more. When I sing, I go into a realm that’s much more emotional. That’s what my listeners sense.‿ And that’s why, I presume, that lady in Melbourne said what she said.

BUT there was a time this passion didn’t exist. It was Jayashri’s mother’s dream that her daughter become a singer, and Jayashri says, “So when I was in school and college, she used to try and bring me here every December – to the Music Academy competitions, many of which I won. She kept telling me that this is what I must do.‿ But then children have a way of not doing what they are told they must do, and Jayashri remembers being a rebel. “My mother used to force me to wake up early and practice, even when all my friends were playing or reading. She would not entertain friends coming home because she thought it was a waste of time. So I used to rebel a lot. But now, when I look back, I see that it was the only way it could be done – and I respect her for having that kind of focus and making me do what I am doing today.‿ Then again, Jayashri says her early singing bore little resemblance to her performances today. “When I came from Bombay, I was this child forced into singing. I wasn’t good at anything else, so I did this for self-esteem. Sometimes you just sing because you can repeat things easily – and after 15 years of learning, you know about 10 kritis in every raga. But is one kriti different from another when I present it? Do I really understand how to develop a raga? Can I do anything beyond singing the phrases that come from just the kriti? And can I think of an eleventh kriti which I have not learnt but which I can develop and present by simply looking at the notation?‿

Those are the things she learnt from her guru, the violin maestro Lalgudi Jayaraman. “When I came to him to learn, I was performing ignorantly, thinking I knew what I was doing. But I soon saw that I didn’t know the technique, I didn’t know the subject, there was a lot more I didn’t know than what I thought I knew,‿ she says. “Earlier, I had the attitude that if I could perform five concerts a month – one in Music Academy, Madras, one in Shanmukhananda Hall, Bombay, and so on – that would be really good. But he told me it wasn’t about the concerts. ‘Concerts will happen anyway. The audience will support you anyway. But concentrate on your art and your audience will love you for a longer time.’ He made me love the art. He made me have a passion for it, to the extent that today I cannot think of doing anything else.‿ This learning, naturally, necessitated a lot of unlearning. “I took a sabbatical for three or four years. I didn’t perform outside, much to a lot of people’s disbelief and annoyance, and only when he thought I was ready did I start performing again. In 1992 I got my first major break when I sang in the Spirit of Unity concert that was televised all over India. That was a huge success, and it was just before the December festival.‿ After that, everything just fell in place, she says, acknowledging that, “I belong to a generation where opportunities are as abundant as talent.‿

Such segues into self-deprecation aren’t unusual with Jayashri, I discover, when I ask her if what she’s told me about her training – about learning to befriend the swaras, about wanting to cajole them – translate to the audience. I remark that if she simply sang a solid alapana in Bhairavi, for instance, and followed it up with the beloved Yaaro ivar yaaro, wouldn’t the audience go home a satisfied lot? Jayashri agrees. “80 per cent of the crowd is going to be happy because they identify with it, but there could be 20 per cent going, ‘Not again! I wish she’d sung something new.’ Besides, as I’m singing, another Yaaro ivar yaaro is happening in their minds – from what they’ve heard before. So how do I deliver the piece in a way that makes it fresh, in a way that makes it mine, so that when they hear it next, they will think of Jayashri? That’s the challenge, and that comes only because I know the Bhairavi very well and I can add my own fragrance to it. Otherwise, what am I doing? I have a good voice, okay. I can sing in shruti, my tala is perfect – that’s all a given. But what is that extra thing I put in there? It could be a combination of my voice, my style, how I emote, how I think, how I perform. (Slowly? Plaintively? Peacefully?) Even within the question marks, there are so many questions. That’s the path to reaching from good to excellent, and that’s what my guru taught me.‿

JAYASHRI was born in Calcutta, but that prefix to her name came because she grew up in Bombay. That’s where she began learning music, from first her parents – both Carnatic music teachers – and then TR Balamani, who, she says, “is a very reputed teacher, though not a known performer as such.‿ But alongside, there were the film songs of Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle and Mohammad Rafi, the ghazals of Mehdi Hassan, and there was Hindustani music. “I learnt the ghazal, the bhajan, everything that Bombay had to offer,‿ says Jayashri, who then decides to get into a bit of rapture about those modes of music. “I love Hindustani music. I love the aesthetics, the way they develop the voice. I wanted to learn the system at least to acquaint myself with their raga nomenclature, their elaborate raga singing, their phraseology, their training. And that has helped my music – my tuning, my pitch perfection, my breath control.‿ She quickly adds, “I do believe that Carnatic music is much more superior to any other music. Our tradition is a combination of the lyrical value, the spiritual value, the number of compositions in a number of languages (not just Hindi) – and we concentrate more on the laya aspect; there’s more complexity in our talas, for instance.‿

But the Hindustani influence remains. “Aesthetically, I would like to impart the peace-giving aspect of Hindustani music through our music. A lot of people tell me my music is very soothing, and I’m sure it all comes from my Hindustani background. The purpose of any music, despite all the rigour that goes into the presentation, is to soothe the listener. What is the point in doing something very intelligent or extremely complicated if you’re going to stress out the listener?‿ If that sounds somewhat New Agey, it may not be altogether accidental. Jayashri quotes from Eckhart Tolle, whose Stillness Speaks says that the beauty of anything lies in the space within – between two sounds, in the silence. “That’s true even in music, especially for music. That silence is very important.‿ She demonstrates this by dwelling on a progression from ga to ma in the raga Begada. “There’s a silence between the notes. Yet, there’s music there. There’s so much to think about there, and each one can go into their own realm of thinking. This I learnt from Eckhart Tolle, and this I do while performing. I try to incorporate new ideas in my singing. It keeps my singing fresh – otherwise, if I’m singing Endhuku peddala day after day, what would keep me interested?‿

Then there’s the task of keeping the fans interested – the world over. Jayashri tours a lot, especially in the US and Australia, and she says, “The concerts there are longer than the concerts in Chennai. They want a compulsory three hours, preferably with aragam-thanam-pallavi.‿ But in Europe, her concerts are shorter, an hour-and-a-half to two hours. “Because here, it’s a mostly European audience (unlike in the US or Australia, where it’s mostly Indians). Still, I try to depict different facets of music. For example, recently in France, I told them that we look at our music as a mode to salvation, and I sang Mokshamu galada – and I sang a stretch of Saramathi raga depicting that mood. In Chennai, I would sing Saramathi differently, because here everyone knows Mokshamu galada, so that extra elaboration isn’t necessary. “Then,‿ she says, “I told them that Subhapantuvarali is a late night melody and I presented the raga.‿ But she wouldn’t do that in a concert in North India, “because our Subhapantuvarali is their Todi. I’d rather give them something more Carnatic, like Kurinji. It’s important to tell them where we come from, that’s why they are calling us.‿

THIS chatting about audiences has begun to remind me of the time I pushed and shoved and ended up with the last two tickets for a sold-out December-season Bombay Jayashri concert at Mylapore Fine Arts. The auditorium was so packed, they made us sit on the wings of the stage. That’s when she performed a ragam-thanam-pallavi in the raga Paavani. If you haven’t heard ofthe raga, I don’t blame you, for the only reference point appears to be a film song, Ilayaraja’s Paartha vizhi from Guna. And there she was, going ahead with what is possibly the most demanding aspect of a concert presentation, both for the performer and the listener. I wonder why she didn’t pick a Todi or a Sankarabharanam for the exercise – instead of making her listeners work hard with her in trying to appreciate (leave alone enjoy) a familiar form with such unfamiliar content – and she says, “I’m a huge Ilayaraja fan. This Paartha vizhi has been running in the back of my mind since I saw Guna. When we look at December, when we do something from 7 to 10 concerts, I am bored of constantly singing Todi or Sankarabharanam. I imagined the audience would be bored too. So I tried to do a pallavi with the word Paavani. It was very challenging and new for me and for my co-artists. That’s about it.‿ She adds that she might tackle an RTP in Ragavardhini someday. Why? Because that’s the ragathat another Ilayaraja favourite is based on, Chinna Thayaval from Thalapathy.

But Ilayaraja isn’t the music director you’d associate Jayashri with; that would be Harris Jayaraj. His Vaseegara, from Minnalé, became what could euphemistically be termed a superhit, and Jayashri is the first to agree. “I knew it was a highly hummable tune. I remember calling my brother on the way back from the studio, after the recording, and humming the tune. We agreed that it was nothing very great, but it was very pleasant. Then, suddenly, I turned around, and Vaseegara was everywhere. Suddenly, the istri guy was ironing my clothes better, the department store began delivering provisions on time, even the TT on the train was nicer to me. What 25 years of Bhairavi and Todi couldn’t do, a Vaseegara did overnight, because the media is like that today.‿ That song fetched her a whole lot of fans, but does that bother her, that people who wouldn’t otherwise attend Carnatic concerts now come to hers because she’s The One Who Sang That Megahit Film Song? But all she’ll say is, “I’m very happy that a Vaseegara could bring a lot of people in. But that’s all it can do: bring people in. If they have to stay, which they have, then it’s the power of our Carnatic music, so what brings them in doesn’t matter.‿ Then a bit of self-deprecation again. “People say I’m very choosy about film songs, but to this date, whatever I’ve got I’ve sung and whatever I’ve not sung I’ve not got.‿

Then there are the non-film albums. There’s Vatsalyam, a compilation of lullabies that’s become such a success that Jayashri says, “It’s become the gift that many parents give their daughter when she’s expecting a baby.‿ There’s Atma, a collection of songs by the Tamil poet Subrahmanya Bharathi, and this came about because Jayashri was upset by the fact that compositions of the Mahakavi would get pushed to the tail-end of a concert. “Then too, we’d hear the same songs over and over – a Theeradha vilayattu pillai or a Chinnanjiru kiliye. It just becomes one more tukkada. I wanted to present his poetry with the necessary poignancy, the way he’s written it.‿ But the project she talks about at great length is Silappadhigaram, a two-hour condensation of one of the great epics of Tamil literature. It was her first opportunity to compose for a dance drama, and she also did the singing for the role of Kannagi. “It was a challenge. While singing, suppose I were to present the raga Atana, I would just sing the alapana to suit the kriti. But here, I had to see if it suits the mood, and even within the mood there are shades. If there’s a mood of sadness, what is this sadness about? Is it sadness over a death, the sadness that follows the happiness after someone you love has come and departed, or the sadness of finding out you’ve been cheated? How do I present this? Suppose it’s an American audience – they don’t know Kannagi, but the music should convey this feeling.‿ After hearing out Jayashri for this long, I get a feeling it did.

(This is from "Blogical Conclusion" an interview of Bombay Jayasree..which is a copyright of The New Sunday Express)