Mahendra Toke - Raga Bhatiyar (1/3)

Recorded at Doordarshan Kendra, Ahmedabad on 12 March 2007

Tabla: Nakul Mishra
Harmonium: Kishore Kunte
Tanpura: Praveena Bhojak, Maalavi Chaudhary

Sh Mahendra Toke ranks among the finest present-day interpreters of Ustad Amir Khan's style, i.e. the Indore Gharana. He is currently a staff artiste at AIR Ahmedabad. He studied under his father Sh D P Toke, a career civil servant, a distinguished vocalist/musicologist, and a close disciple and associate of the Khansahib himself.

The three videos in this series comprise a rendition of the Raga Bhatiyar, conventionally associated with the pre-dawn hours. This clip and the next constitute a madhyalaya (medium-tempo) khayal set to the ten-beat Jhaptaal. The bandish is credited to V N Bhatkhande. Ustad Amir Khan made marginal modifications to it and added it to his own repertoire. Movie buffs will recognise it from the opening sequence of the file "Goonj Uthi Shehnai", where it was rendered as a vocal-Shehnai duet of sorts by the maestros Amir Khan and Bismillah Khan.

[NB: While splitting the original video into three segments, care was taken to maintain frame-to-frame contiguity. As a result, these uploaded videos together cotain every single frame of the original recording]

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Indian
• hindustani
• classical
• shastriya
• mahendra
• toke
• bhatiyar
• amir
• khan

[Gyangosai]

A wonderful Bhatiar in three parts. It's a shame there isn't more of this artist available in the public domain.

[abhikmaj]

Thanks for the comment. And we intend to upload more of his stuff very soon, so do stay tuned :)

[wannakuwatta69]

very deeply classical. He has the essence of Great Ustad Amir Khan. thanks.

[saibbilaval]

Wonderful piece of recording. Toke Sb. should have better visibility on YouTube. I am sure Abhik, you could help in this.

[dkmkartha]

Very very impressive singing! Thank you for sharing this. I only wish there was sarangi accompaniment. Shri Mahendraji Toke's magnificent voice and Kirana gharana kind of very melodic singing needs a Sarangi. No offense meant here toward the harmonium. The harmonium player is wonderful, but a Sarangi would have done greater justice. Thanks to the uploader too. Mohan Kartha

[ribandarcho]

Hopefully, the claim is not far fetched if I say that his voice and style of singing reminds me a bit of the great Ustad Amir Khan.

[shailpur2]

Sh Mahendra Toke ..is he from Nanded ?