Shruti Sadolikar Katkar is a leading exponent of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana. She is also known for her Thumri, Dadra, Tappa, Bhajan, Haveli Sangeet and Marathi Natyasangeet. Shruti is an 'A' Grade artist of Akashvani and Doordarshan. She is also a visiting guru at ITC Sangeet Research Academy in Kolkata and a Professor of music at SNDT College, Mumbai. She has received the 'Shanmukha Sangeet Shiromoni' title, Kesarbai Kerkar Fellowship, the Homi Bhabha Fellowship of the NCPA and the Bhaskarbuwa Bakhle prize for her music. Shruti has performed widely in India and abroad, and has innumerable albums to her credit, including the reference work "Gayaki Raga and Tala" and the "The Raga Guide".

Concert Review by Vaishampayana

It was with some sense of anticipation that the reviewer attended Smt. Shruti Sadolikar-Katkar's recital at the Music Building at the University of Washington on July 14, 2007. The auditorium, a stuffy, over-baked space, suffering from a lack of much needed ventilation, nevertheless provided an intimate setting in which to listen to music. Shruti, in the present situation accompanied by Mangesh Mulye on the Tabla and the venerable Pt. Anant Kunte on the Sarangi, sat patiently as she and her accompanists were introduced to the audience. My anticipation, which I am sure was mirrored by the internal thoughts of others in the audience, arose out of a curiosity to see how well Shruti had maintained the tradition of her Atrauli-Jaipur Gharana. Maudlin performances, some by musicians of her gharana, have not been an uncommon phenomenon in our city in recent times. Would Shruti prove to be different, one wondered.

The Atrauli-Jaipur Gharana is known for a steady, unchanging laya, maintained with pristine precision, against which the most difficult, vakra ragas are sung, laden with incredibly complex taans that spiral inwards and outwards over several avartans. The style requires an understanding of rhythm at a level deeper than just control over tala, and it requires just as much knowledge, if not more, of the most complex ragas. The voice has to be powerful, yet extremely supple. The taans often move at the pace of the laya. Hence, the musician's control over his or her voice has to be thoroughly developed. For, the musician must sing complex taans in the slowest of tempi with as much aplomb as in the fastest speeds. Needless to say, when a musician is billed as being of the Atrauli-Jaipur Gharana, a lot should be expected. I arrived with commensurately high expectations. I was not disappointed.

Shruti Sadolikar opened her recital with Raga Purvi, choosing the well-known vilambit bandish “Charana Parasata” in Teental. Shruti's voice required a few minutes to warm up, but it was easy to tell that the evening promised to be a well-spent one. I would point out that it would have behooved her to utilize a slightly reduced tempo in this opening piece. As she sang, something in my mind harkened back to Kesarbai's full-throated aakaar-laden vistar. However this faint echo never materialized into full realization because the Tabla's tempo appeared a bit faster than what would have been appropriate in this piece. The vilambit vistar itself was architected along more conventional lines than what I had expected. The Jaipur penchant for quickly sketching the bandish and then filling in the details with vistar driven by the curves of the raga was missing. In its place was a more conventional treatment of constructing a series of phrases centered on a particular note, progressing from the madhya saptak to the taar saptak, with an initial dalliance in the mandra saptak. In recent times, a great majority of vocalists seem to use this approach, one that we might even refer to as the contemporary approach to Khayal singing.

My initial disappointment in this aspect of her performance was alleviated by two significant factors. First, the culture and quality of her voice differentiated her as a serious musician. Her voice was broad and strong, and if not sweet, rather charming in its slightly rustic quality. The sound seemed to hover in the air and then float into every corner of the auditorium. The second factor that was decidedly in her favor was her treatment of the notes. Shruti spent a good amount of time emphasizing intervallic consonances in her phraseology. Her treatment of Gandhar was in conjunction with several visits to mandra Nishadh, and the reverse was true as well. Soaring movements towards Nishadh were coupled with graceful descents towards the Gandhar, with a touch of Shuddh Madhyam inserted gently to keep the character of the raga vibrant. Listening to Shruti hitting the taar Sa is a very moving experience. Her directness, sincerity and power all combine for a sublime release of tension. In a raga like Purvi, wherein the tensions created by the presence of the strong vishranti on Nishadh are palpable, the release at Sa is even more powerful. The post-antara portion of the vilambit khayal was unusual in the extended engagement of the vocalist with the Tabla player in layakari. Although this sort of layakari is not usual in Jaipur gayaki, it is very much a part of the contemporary model I have sketched out above. Clearly Shruti was not presenting something conventional in her style.

It was this realization that helped me to understand the overall conception of what was being presented. The performance before us was a syncretic approach to khayal. The musician had remained true to her tradition in her voice culture and production, in her approach to the aesthetics of ornamentation, both in vistar and taan. But the structure being unfolded before us was distinctly modern, including as it did the statement of the sthayi, followed by a systematic note-by-note development of the vistar, followed by the stating of the antara, further vistar in the taar, followed by layakari on the return to sthayi, followed by taans. And thus, the Khayal being presented was a composite piece, structurally contemporary, but aesthetically from the traditional Jaipur gayaki.

The succeeding Dhrut Khayal, an Ektal bandish “Nai Re Lagan Mori Lagi” demonstrated another significant departure from the Jaipur gayaki. The use of Ektal by musicians of the gharana is itself an innovation, albeit one that finds wide currency in modern times. Starkly obvious and problematic in some sense in this rendition however was the close link between the avartan and the vocalist's taans. There were perhaps a handful of occasions on which the taan taken did not finish within one avartan. The long, spiraling taans of the gharana that spanned several avartans before coming to the mukhda only to launch into another set of long taans was completely missing from Shruti's singing. Shruti settled into a pattern of virtuosic taans, with sudden, unpredictable pauses on notes, very much of the gharana, albeit much shorter in duration. Also, uncharacteristically for the gharana, Shruti spent a few moments exploring the words of the bandish. A laudable amendment to the gharana's gayaki, it illustrated the interpretive powers of the musician.

The Purvi that Shruti rendered was unquestionably a very beautiful piece of music. There are however a few aspects of the performance that ought to be pointed out. In developing the raga, the movement towards the taar Shadja from Pancham was often incomplete. The Dhaivat was often either intoned slightly, or not at all. And on one or two occasions, the Dhaivat appeared much higher than would be acceptable in this raga. Anant Kunte's playing was adequate, although he too suffered from intonation problems on many occasions, and showed hesitation in his accompaniment. A word about proper balance has to be added here. The very senior musician Pandit Kunte was miked at a much lower level than Mangesh Mulye. As an audience member, I must say I was at somewhat of a loss to hear what Anant-ji was playing. At the same time, by a combination of factors, both technical and artistic, Mangesh Mulye's playing often felt intrusive to Shruti's music. I believe the organizers should do a better job of balancing the equipment for such fine concerts. And the onus should be on the main musician, in this case Shruti, to rein in the antics of accompanists.

The succeeding Yaman Kalyan was a revelation of the musical acumen of the musician. She opened with the bandish “Salona Re” in madhya vilambit Jhoomra. The overall approach to badhat was essentially the same as the previous Purvi, with the exception that whereas the badhat in Purvi had focused on the consonant intervals of the raga, here that approach was not as prevalent. Shruti did however correctly emphasize the Shadja-Pancham bhava in the raga. With phrases that ended in Shadja she often followed up with phrases that began in Rishabh or Gandhar. This often resulted in sequences that moved in strange ways: Sa Re Ga, or Sa Ga. Although this might have been jarring in a performance by a lesser artist, Shruti was able to introduce this phrasing in sufficiently contextualized forms, so that they appeared to be integral parts of the raga. Even more startling was her use of the Shuddh Madhyam. For many singers Yaman Kalyan is just Yaman, with Ga-Shuddha Ma-Ga added in occasionally. That was not the case here at all. The Shuddh Madhyam was made an integral part of the phraseology. It also struck me that the raga being presented wasn't so different from Purvi. While definitely, the Rishabh and Dhaivata were different, structurally what was being presented were twin ragas, especially in their treatment of the Madhyams. The mood and feel of the ragas is completely different, yet the process of raga delineation indicated they were much closer than expected.

I was initially disappointed that Shruti presented another ektal dhrut bandish, “Jaare Badara More Pyaare Jina Chuo” But in this case, instead of presenting a surfeit of taans, she filled her badhat with a series of beautiful behelav. The taans did eventually arrive, but were interspersed with thoughtful, ras-laden phrasing, and never did one feel that the exercise had become technical and academic rather than emotional and melodic. Unfortunately, Mangesh Mulye at one point interjected a solo effort of a few avartans. Thankfully this only happened once. I believe he would be better served to actually listen to the music he is accompanying. A question of appropriateness is involved in such distractions.

The third and final item of the first half was an adaptation of a devotional composition from the Pushtimarga tradition, in Raga Kafi, “Sneha Lagyo Mo So Shyaam Sundara Son.” Shruti indicated before starting that this was a great favorite of her guru's guru, Ustad Manji Khan. The composition has been adapted into a Deepchandi Thumri format. Shruti showed some of her abilities at extemporaneous interpretation of the words of a composition in the Yaman Kalyan khayal. But she was at her best in this dimension of singing in this piece. And where words were not service-worthy, aakar was pressed into service to connote the deep sense of longing in the piece. Shruti's treatment brought out the deep strains of shringar ras in this composition. Listening to her, one was able to get a few glimpses of how devotion and eroticism can come together in a single thread of worship. Her voice, especially in the higher portions, evokes a sense of longing (pukaar), captured by a slight, but regular and rapid undulation, that is rare in modern-day musicians. This pukaar truly served her well in this piece. Anant Kunte shone in several parts of this piece, in his interpretation of the ras of the composition. Mangesh Mulye was louder than necessary, and was not able to convey the gentleness of the piece. He did however play a well-constructed laggi to finish the piece.

Whereas the first half of Shruti's concert deviated in some significant ways from her gharana's tradition, the second half of her concert presented traditional pieces from the Atrauli-Jaipur Gharana. She opened the second half with two pieces in Tilak Kamod, the Jhaptal bandish “Sakala Dukha Harana Sadanand” and the Roopak bandish “Sura Sangat Raga Vidya.” The good news for the audience was that the mike for Anant Kunte had been raised, and for some reason, not only was Mangesh Mulye's volume lower, his playing too was restrained. A well-delineated badhat of the first bandish in aakar exclusively, gave way to traditional Jaipuri taans in both aakar as well as boltaans. And although Anant Kunte couldn't quite keep up, he made a good show of it, and raised the musical quality of what was being presented. In the second bandish, Shruti spent a good deal of time playing with the words “Sura Sangat”, placing them in differently timed patterns against taans, and in doing bolbant with the words. In this bandish, she spent a lot of time exploring the words, giving them various musical interpretations. The bandish, which describes what defines a true musician, is beautiful. However, coming next to the Jhaptala bandish, somehow it didn't quite fit what the audience was expecting. The strong aakar based vistaar and the powerful taans that followed in the previous bandish, set an expectation that more of the same would be coming. Instead, the development of “Sura Sangat”, with its gentle emphases on the words and their meanings felt musically like one had stepped off of a cliff. There was nothing wrong with the music being presented. It was only that the sequencing of pieces had resulted in a sudden drop in musical energy. In a different context, this same bandish rendered in this same manner would have been a highly aesthetic experience.

The highlight of the evening was the succeeding Nat Kamod, in which Shruti rendered the bandishes “Nevara Bajo Re” and “Ata Mana Bhayi.” The beauty of the Jaipur gayaki shone through in a completely unadulterated form. What makes the gayaki particularly amazing for me is the fact that the requirements of the raga, in the form of its vakra characteristics, or the requirements of the bandish, in the form of its musical shape are what drive badhat. Because it is the peculiarity of each raga and each composition that determines musical movement, the boredom that can set in with a methodical one-note-at-a-time development pattern is absent. And such indeed was the case with Shruti's Nat Kamod. One went from a journey along the trajectory of Nat into a journey along the trajectory of Kamod, often completely seamlessly. Shruti has a propensity to make her music within one avartan. While there was less of this in Nat Kamod, it still seemed like ideas that could have stretched over multiple avartans were forced into the box of an avartan. This was the only issue that seemed to stunt the piece somewhat. The dhrut was rendered competently, with many difficult taans showing the two faces and the merged areas of the raga. But by far, the most beautiful aspect of the evening, at least for this reviewer, was “Nevara Bajo.”

A request from an audience member led to a subsequent Basanti Kedar, which I felt was rendered somewhat half-heartedly. There appeared to be much more of Basant in it than Kedar. It wasn't badly done, but after the vibrant colors of Nat Kamod, it seemed a faded second. The concert ended with a piece in Bhairavi.

Shruti Sadolikar's concert is without question, one of the more delightful vocal concerts of North Indian music in recent times in our area. The music was indeed brilliant. But what shone almost equally was the thoughtful design of the program. The first half presented innovative music. An old raga like Yaman Kalyan was given new life, thanks to a radical departure in treatment of the Shuddha Madhyam. New aspects, such as Pushtimarga sangeet and its incorporation into Hindustani music were presented. And an old standard like Purvi was presented in a contemporary structure with a very strong Jaipur flavor. The second half showcased tradition. Traditional bandishes like those sung in Tilak Kamod, were performed next to gharana specialties like Nat Kamod and Basanti Kedar. It appears to me that Shruti Sadolikar is well on her way to helping move the hoary tradition of Atrauli-Jaipur into a contemporary setting.