 As I sing this tumri in Bhairavi, an evocative haunting melody that is usually sung at the conclusion of a concert, but in the grammar of North Indian classical music, is also sung in the early hours of the morning. I do wonder, am I looking at the end of an era, or an end which led to the beginning of a new dawn. I think of my privileges, of being a performer in 21st century India. I get on to the stage and perform what I have got from my gurus with gratitude. I sing to all kinds of audiences, from very diverse backgrounds. But the truth is, some of this music comes from a considered social baggage. This, including the music of the robust, entertaining courtesans. I even wonder if they had the privilege to enjoy it, as much as I can afford to. If pleasure was an agency they felt they had a right to. This is a time long before gramophone was invented. Music was savoured by the nobility in the grandeur of the magnificent dancing halls. The Jalsa Gharas as they were popularly known. Here, the courtesans trained in singing and dancing arts by the Ustads and performed in the Mahifuls for their wealthy patrons. Here we are talking about an art form. Evolution of art forms of different kinds in music. And the vehicles that take these art forms to the audience. Let us say during the time of Mahadosha Zafar for instance. They would have been all court musicians. But eventually when they started to crumble, they had to find their own kind of places to reside. And one of the most important places to reside were in Kothas. And therefore that tradition was continued. Mujra was more in the kind of Daira of Tahizib, you know what I mean? It is like paying your respect to the audience, you know what I mean? First you elevate the audience on a kind of, you honour the audience. That's what Mujra means, you know. You just... You mean you are presenting your kheeraj in front of the audience. And then after that you are dealing with them on a kind of an intellectual level. And then slowly slowly you can take them to any level. When I asked my mother where Mujra went, she said, Mujra came to this place. So Mujra was the word. We remember that Ram was the one who sat in front of the audience. He was the one who gave power to the audience. So Ram was the one who sat in front of the audience. That means attendance. That means attendance. So I bring Mujra in front of the audience. It was a very pure word. It was a very fancy word. But it was the old word of that time. Known as Baiji's, their music now found admiring listeners throughout the country. The popularity of the gramophone foresaw how people shall consume music a few decades later. Fred Gaysberg was the principal recording engineer of the Gramophone and Typewriters Limited. He arrived in Kolkata in 1902 to set up a recording studio and soon realised the difficulty of the task that lay ahead. Though a foreigner of means, even Gaysberg knew that with little knowledge of India's diverse music culture, finding talented singers is not going to be easy. The Gramophone Company started spreading its recording endeavours deep into the country. From north to south, the agents went from one major city to another, setting up new studios and recruiting fresh talent for the recordings. The people from the Gramophone Company didn't have very much. So they set up an office here and looked for people. They got couple of things. The first thing was they went to the theatres. The theatres were places where music was being produced commercially as it were. People went, bought tickets, listened to music or listened to theatres or theatre, whatever. So they went there and they got two theatre artists the first day to record. That was the first recording made. Actually the first recording made was of an Englishman, a resident who recorded for them. The second lot was these women who recorded and few days later they got hold of Gauharjan and they never looked back as you might say. Gauharjan remained a main stay of their recording endeavour. The first commercial recording took place in Kolkata in the year 1902. The singer was Gauharjan. Abhayji widely acclaimed for her singing, no less than a diva. Failed as Kolkata's first dancing star by the Gramophone Company, Gauharjan earned fame and fortune far beyond the reach of any other artist of her day through her recordings. Already thrilled at having discovered the country's thriving Kotha culture, Gazeberg's awe and admiration knew no bounds when he met Gauharjan. He writes of her in his memoirs. An Armenian Jewess, hers were among the 600 records which proved a firm foundation for our new enterprise. Every time she came to record, she amazed us by appearing in a new gown. Each one more elaborate than the last. Gauhar's life from her mother's time gives you the entire, because she is the transitional figure, because she is the bridge between the past of the Kothas of Lucknow and the UP and Delhi and then the future which became, you know, seeing us, seeing professionally and making records and doing all sorts of things and finally in the cinema. I think she was, she is a very interesting transitional figure, Gauhar, and that part and what really was the catalyst for that change was the Gramophone Company. Because without the Gramophone, none of these things would have actually happened. One might wonder what really goes into the making of a performer, of a star, of a diva the audience just loves and absolutely adores. There are two constants in the world of music, Lali or training and Riaz or practice. These Riaz and Riaz or practice. These really set the standards for performance. Stories and anecdotes abound just on what it takes an artist to get to that level of perfection. Months of training and years of rigor. In the world of Baiji's, these two parameters became even more complex. How did knowledge come to them? In our celebrated oral tradition, this knowledge came to them differently. Perhaps not in the same manner in which their Ustad trained their male students. The talim or training of the Baiji's proceeded on different assumptions. Exchange of knowledge was thought of also as a monetary exchange. There is little evidence that they were taught traditional bandishes or compositions. There was also little enthusiasm in classifying them as gharanidar singers or torch-bearers of tradition. I find that the male Ustads seem to have been extremely, extremely negligent and extremely careless and perhaps miserly in training women Ustads. But the interesting point is that women paid the male Ustads. Kenya informs us that Janki Bai paid Hasukhan 2,000 rupees a month in the 1880s, which must have been something like 2 lakhs. Who knows even more? And what did she train her? Because Janki Bai recorded of all the recordings that we have some 200 recordings perhaps she made. There is one, there are actually two khayals which I have been able to identify in our recording. And both are mislabeled and the bandishes not properly taught. And if an artist of Janki Bai's caliber to pick up something would have been nothing at all. But it seems to me that there must have been some kind of intentional, as it were, misinformation from the male Ustads. But again, I'm saying that it's the women artists that in many ways were financing bank-rolling the male Ustads. A very large number of women artists were recording. The venturing into commercial recording was indeed a proof of the enterprising nature and talent of the Baiji's. But it was also the result of the peculiar social customs of the time and prejudices about this new technology. Many great musicians refused to record. Some as a matter of prestige and some others owing to their reservations about the new technology. Even some of the women singers like Kesar Bai Kerkar, the doyen of Jaipur Gharana and Babli Bai Salgaonkar, the illustrious court singer of Bhavnagar recorded very little because they found it beneath their artistic aspirations. The singer of that time, strangely enough, did not want to sing because they felt that the power that they had would disappear, would be taken away by some machine. You know, they'd lose their talent by singing into a megaphone. These reservations however disappeared over the following years as the recordings found popularity in major cities. The reason why Kolkata and Bombay were important centers for the wives is because these were places where there were lots of people and there were potentially large audiences because you will find that unlike male Ustads who are identified by Gharana, women Ustads are identified by places of residence. Most of these places you will see are what we used to call in Bangla Gonju, places of trade and it is there that they had their quotas. They identified themselves on the recording companies by saying that Amir Jan of Panipat Sachin Sach of Merat Sachin Sach of... So that seems to me to be a reasonable idea. As Gazeberg recalls, women singers were certainly a better choice than their male counterparts. Performing in major cities across the country, their mastery of classical genres was non-parrel. It was through them that the semi-classical genres like Thumri scale new heights of popularity and found mainstream acceptance. The very large body of music that would include forms like the Thumri, the Dadra, the Kajri, the Chaiti and the numerous forms that are related to these. Many of the names of these forms we no longer see in the songs of Gazeberg, Gazeberg, Gazeberg, the names of these forms we no longer use or no longer familiar with but they were forms some were seasonal, some were related to social rites and rituals and women were the custodians of these forms. Thumri is put into many small rags. For example, when the evening comes, I put it on the outside I can put it on the floor I can put it on the outside so many rags are mixed and that's why it's mixed and mixed. So when the mood changes when some hope goes down, it goes down, it goes down it doesn't go up, it goes down so it goes down or if it's empty, then the drunkard comes. At the end of the Thumri we have to tell Sabera how it happened. That's why it's mixed. I was a little concerned about Shastri but Thumri took Shastri because it mixed the mixed rags. In 1908, the first manufacturing plant was set up in Sialda near Kolkata. The Indians working there called it the Baja Khana. Sometimes the machine was even referred to as Chudi Ka Baja meaning the Bangal machine. By that time, the gramophone recordings had become hugely popular among the Indian masses. There was an increasing interest in the records. They sold a great deal. People were very interested in buying them, taking them home, listening to them. They could be carried from one village to the next. It was almost like a ritual that perhaps one day a week it was played and everybody gathered around to listen to it. The involvement of the Baiji's in gramophone recording marked the beginning of a new era of music consumption in India. Years after Gohar Jaan's first commercial recording in 1902, names like Jaan Ki Bai Chappan Chori, Chunni Bai, Shamsad Begum, Asgari Jaan, Miss Fani Bala, Miss Godavari, Jadumani Dasi, Miss Mumtaz Jaan, Kali Tara and several others rang out in the industry corridors and among the music lovers of the country. As a singer myself, I am struck by their versatility. The many languages they recorded in, the large repertoire of genres like Drupad, Dhammar, Sadra, Khyal, Chaturang, Tarana, Bhav Geet, Lakshan Geet and Tumri, all that they had mastered despite several odds. By 1910, the gramophone industry was formidable. A staggering 2,000 regional songs had been recorded in languages including Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Urdu and Marathi stage songs as well. In no time, these women singers whose voices helped preserve the nuances of singing became a household name. The 3-minute recording rule brought unforeseen changes to production. Baiji's had to adapt in terms of pitch and speed to adapt to the technology which at that point of time was rather crude. In this regard, Zohra Bai Agraewali really took on technology perhaps like no other Bai did. In North Indian classical music, Khyal is the most evolved form. An elaborate genre with complex elements, she adapted it beautifully into the 3-minute format of the 78s. Saringi artists were trainers and you have the name of Siaji Maharaj for instance in Banaras who trained the whole host generations of women artists and I don't know for what reason he was trusted. The other thing which might be interesting about Saringi players of course Saringi players are when the Ustads try to reserve their material for their Garana, for their students, for their disciples for their Gandhaban shaggads and family and whatever. But it is the Saringi Ustad who is in some sense that the person who might pick up it becomes a kind of mobility of knowledge through the Saringi Ustad which I find interesting. The year 1931 Mark The year 1931 marked the beginning of sound films in India and interestingly, some of the songs actually recorded for the gramophone became popular and then found their way into films. Few people for instance know that Mohippan Ghatpe, the delightful Dadra that became famous after the magnum opus Mughalaiyazam, was originally sung by Indubala who in turn was a contemporary of the likes of Kamla Jharia, the famous Ghazal Queen of the 40s. Gifted singers, talented performers and engaging entertainers, many turned into legends by sheer virtue of their work. Popularized through their recordings, many of these singers also began a simultaneous career working for the prominent theatre companies of that time. Famous Nojrul singer Angur Bala began her career with a stage performance for Cornwallis Theatre in Kolkata. She performed in numerous stage plays and when the talkies arrived in 30s, she along with many other Baiji's, found her way into the magical world of cinema. Juddhan Bai, the mother of the famous actress Nargis, was noticed by the legendary K.L. Saigal who brought her into cinema. From a successful gramophone singer, Juddhan went on to become an actress, a music director, a producer and even founded the Sangit movie tone. People who are in the entertainment business in India have never been given any kind of normal reputation. They've always been considered as somehow a little less low-peat who can be hired. If you think of somebody like Shanta Abte, nobody thought Shanta Abte in her time that she was somebody who you would have, you would be absolutely seventh heaven because she came to visit you. You wouldn't feel like that. You would in fact try not tell anybody. The situation has changed. A, because you know the evaluation, the value, the kind of value that you place on them, even monetary value, that has changed. Because you see, the technologies also helped, cinema and television have made them all household figures. This didn't happen at that time. Right at the beginning during Dadasar Falke's time, nobody, no woman wanted to act in films. So he had to make do with men doing women's role. So that was a different time. But after that also, the films were not considered a very good profession. It was frowned upon. And we were the first generation of working women. And then working, per se, working was bad enough. And working in films was very, very bad. The Riaquate was the very first person who came from what one might call a regular, educated, middle class background. And she made use for doing that. And she shocked her peers by becoming an actress. But she let the way. Because if it wasn't for her, it wouldn't have happened so easily, as it did eventually. Because you know, she, on her own terms, she came. And then nobody ever pointed fingers at her. And after her, nobody's pointed fingers at any artist. With sound coming into films, the recording industry went through a massive change. Most of the recorded repertoire was now supposed to consist of film songs. It is important to mention here Saraswati Devi or Khurshid Homji, who was said to be the first female music composer in the industry. Beginning her career with Himanshu Rai's Javani Ki Hava, she later became a pioneer of the playback technique with films like Achyut Kanya, where she lent her voice to Devi Karani, one of the celebrated actors of the black and white era. This concept of the song being part of your performance, that you are being the character and acting, I think it's, you have to get into that mode of it. It's a different genre. It's a different concept. It's not realistic as such. You don't break into a song when you're talking to somebody, but you just have to accept it. It's again a part of storytelling. It's part of Hindi films. That's how Hindi films are made. Many popular names of that time include Ms. Indubala, Shamshad Begum, Ameer Bhai Karnataki, Zohra Bhai Ambalewali. And this list can go on and on with names of these singers who breathed life into playback singing in the early years of Indian cinema. Some even turned into successful producers like the Bengali singer Kanan Bala, who, beginning with a small role for Madan theatres and after working for numerous films with Radha films and new theatres, set up her own banner called Shreemati films. Cinema by now was a lucrative option. Women were much more adept at negotiating early technology including film. That is why I think that the continuity from gramophone records to film is actually a continuous and unbroken thing because they are negotiating these new spaces fearlessly almost. They are facing the challenges of these new technologies and facing them and coming to what you might say rational and practical pragmatic answers to it. However, let's also remember that this was the time when the independence movement was at a feverish pace and needless to say several of the baijis became a part of it. Financial contributions to political parties, singing and writing songs of freedom, wearing and spinning khadi in the spirit of Swadeshi, much was also being done by the baijis for the nationalist movement and the ongoing social reforms. Hailing from a community of Goan temple singers called the Kalaavans, Anjanibai Malpekar worked fervently to improve their social standing. Kanan Bala founded the Mahila Shilpi Mahal to help the Bengali female artists and Jaddan bai supported the Progressive Writers Association. Committed to the national cause, Siddheshwari Devi, the queen of tumri who hailed from Varanasi, was known to end all her musical sworeys, singing Vande Mataram. It's rather ironic that it is this very nationalist movement that combines with the loss of royal patronage leading to the decline of this culture. Many chose a different line of work, some even a different life altogether. A community endowed with charm, charisma and talent, but criticism and antipathy shadowed this legacy. Mired in curiosity and controversy, will we really ever get to know the lives of the Indian women on record? Several stories about their interesting liaison with patrons do make for lively, anecdotal banter. Perhaps also a very important aspect of Indian music. But I do wonder, how this perception, a sort of public pressure, this constant need to prove, not just musically, but even socially, affected their creative approach to life. Actually, the wife really brought a lot of intellect to art, which was there in Avadh. But I think what had happened was after 1857, that whole institution began to get degraded, you know, Victorian values set in. And I think the kind of patronage they used to get to become artists, that was lost. And the reason to become artists was lost till maybe the era of the gramophone and the revival of going into a broader market, you know. So, when I was in Lucknow, I mean obviously in my early childhood, I met Begum Akhtar also in the house. And there were a lot of other singers of that kind. And I had a huge collection of records and we used to listen to all these women. And it worked on my mind. And that period of upward was also going through a kind of a depression, you know. This was in the mid-50s, after the abolition of the Zimidari, that was the last nail in the coffin as far as this culture is concerned. Indian music, as we practice it today, has stayed with us for centuries. It's evolved and adapted. It has even seen the rise and fall of kingdoms. But with its sheer resilience, it continues to exist, even thrive in 21st century India. We celebrate it, we question it, whatever the challenges we reinvented, but it stays with us. The music of the Baiji's came out of the salon and entered the studio, making history, creating forays even in other worlds, literally, with K. Sarvai's voice soaring in space in the year 1977. History might have tussled with these women, pushed them to the margins, forgotten about most of them, taken them off the record. But the fact is that here we are, in the 21st century India, still reminiscing, enjoying and wallowing in a 100-year-old history, one can only feel inspired.