Rigid contours Can the causes of dhrupad's demise explain the decline and fall of kheyal as well?   By Sarwat Ali This was not Wasifuddin Dagar's first visit to Pakistan from India. He was here in his teens accompanying Zaheeruddin Dagar, more than a decade ago. In the concert held last week in Lahore he sang raags lalita gauri and bihag. He remained true to the basics of the form in maintaining a masculine quality by avoiding ornamental flourishes, graces and shakes. He also desisted from indulging in fanciful improvisation. Each note was struck individually and the composition was developed in correctness and purity. Traditionally, dhrupad composition has four sections -- aasthai, antara, sanchari and abhog -- and though all four are sung faithfully certain liberties have been taken in its revived form by playing around with the sections. The pakhawaj accompaniment of Mohan Shayam Sharma was superb. He has been learning the pakhawaj for more than 25 years and besides playing solo has accompanied the leading instrumentalists now for a few years. The Nathar Dawar School of pakhawaj, the baaj with its origins in Rajisthan, has been excelled by many, including his guru Pandit Tota Ram Sharma. The other two most famous baaj of the pakhawaj are Kodosingh and Nana Pan Sen. Pakhawaj, 'pucca awaj' or pure sound, is shaped like a barrel whose left head is a little smaller than the right one, over each of which is a goatskin shorn of its hair, fixed with the help of rings made from plaiting thin strips of leather. These two rings in return are again braced V-wise, with a leather strap across the barrel through which are passed small round blocks of wood. Wasifuddin Dagar comes from a very illustrious background and can trace the family history back to about 18 generations. The elder members of his family have been great musicians. Rahimuddin Dagar, Aminuddin Dagar and Mueenuddin Dagar have won laurels the most from practitioners and connoisseurs of music. The credit for the continuation of the dhrupad traditions rests squarely with the Dagar family. Despite all the odds they continued with their family tradition irrespective of reward and recognition and at times have even been content to sing only among themselves as there was no audience. The other musicians by inheritance had all switched to the kheyal, thumri dadara, ghazal and even film compositions, preferring lighters forms of music which had greater receptivity among the people at large. The revival of dhrupad, if the expression can be used, started not in India but in Paris where the foreign lovers of music besotted by the purity of the note made a dhrupad society and started to invite dhrupadias from across the globe. Obviously, for most in India living semi-retired existence, this was a window of opportunity. Like in many other classical forms and instruments the recognition from abroad, especially the West, created favourable conditions at home as well. Dhrupad was once the most significant form of music in the subcontinent. It is said that one of the creators of this form was Man Toomar, the raja of Gwalior and his court musician Bakshoo, and the greatest exponents were Baiju Bawara, Swami Haridas and reputedly the greatest musician ever born -- Mian Tansen. From the 15th century till end of the 19th century, dhrupad dominated classical music and was considered to be the major form of singing. The grandeur of the Mughal court in Delhi, Fatehpur Sikri, Agra or Lahore, wherever the capital was shifted was given final touches by this form of music. The provincial courts emulated the example established by the highest court of the land and most of the great names of our music are listed as performers in these courts. There must have been many more dhrupadias but their achievements have not been documented as the musical feats of these dhrupadias were documented not because their creative innovations were significant but the proceedings of the courts had to be recorded. During the course of its development it evolved four vanis (roughly translated as style), gaudi vani, khandar vani, nowhar vani and dagar vani. With the passage of time, the distinct features of each style were blurred and then started to run into each other. With the near demise of dhrupad it was very difficult to say which style was being followed as it is impossible to assess now how different this form of dhrupad is from the dhrupad as it existed in its heydays. Kheyal probably crawled and took its tentative first steps for a while only reaching adulthood as late as the reign of Muhammed Shah Rangeela in Delhi. This was the period of decline of the central empire in India and soon the patronage shifted to the autonomous and semi-autonomous states. Kheyal prospered when there was a weak central court and the courts thrived only at the provincial level. Ironically, it really flourished during the colonial rule when these princely courts had no real political autonomy. If battle of Plassey in the mid-18th century is taken as a cutoff date then the entire growth of kheyal took place in the lengthening shadow of the waning Muslim rule. The Muslims ruled India for about 800 years and dhrupad was the major and representative form of music for at least half that period. Probably the slackening of the rules and the liberties that can be taken when society is in turmoil and institutions are in decline with the consequent reviewing of the classical dos and dont's must have offered enough space for experimentation to facilitate the emergence of the new form called kheyal. These days as the kheyal is also on decline, can the causes for the decline of dhrupad, like formalism and rigidity of its structure, be applied to it as well? The state of decline is visible more in Pakistan than in India. But there are palpable fears that it might die off totally after losing acceptance of the elite in India which has promoted and patronised classical music in the past.