Pandit Mallikarjun Mansoor: A Man who discovered a Deeper and More Meaningful Dimension of Music
“My mind had begun to drift towards the thought of God. And I found that prayer and music were so much alike that I could concentrate on music with even greater intensity’. These are the words of Pandit Mallikarjun Mansoor who was an excellent vocalist in Hindustani Classical Khyal style. For him music is everything. Once he said that there is no hardship in music but only pleasure and he was proud of it. He developed his own Gharana by achieving mastery of Gwalior Gharana and by blending it beautifully with Jaipur-Atrauli Gharana. Well known multifaceted and humorist, P L Deshpande has given tribute to him in his Marathi book Gun Gain Avade. In this book, he said that PT. Mallikarjun Mansoor is the man who resides in music. He further said that his postal address is “Mrityunjay Bungalow, Dharwar”. “But he actually inhabits the world of music. In the Morning he lives in Todi-Asawari. Afternoons are spent in the shadow of Sarang. He sits under the canopy of Puriya-Marwa in the evening, and spends the nights in the palaces of Yaman-Bhup-Bageshri. This is rightly applicable to PT. Mallikarjun Mansoor for whom music is religion itself.
From Yogesh Gogwekar
PT Mallikarjun Mansoor was born on 31st December 1910 in the village Mansoor in Dharwar District Karnataka on non-moon day and also when Mula constellation was in ascendency. During this period the birth of a child has been considered inauspicious and ominous. Therefore, parents decided to dedicate this boy to God and went to nearby Math. After understanding the feeling of his mother, the monk of the math allowed the child to be kept with his mother. Actually, PT Mallikarjun Mansoor was not Mansoor. His family originally from another village Pecchapur and their surname was Erihakkal. Meaning of Eri in Kannada is black and the meaning of Hakkal is a field from which the ripe grain is removed. His father Bhirayyappa was fond of music and theater and fascinated by local folk Dodatta in the Dharwar region.
After recognising the talent of PT Mallikarjun Mansoor, his father allowed him to join Yakshagana Kannada Theatre Troupe. After listening to his voice, the owner of the theater encouraged him to sing different types of compositions during the drama performances. During these performances, he was spotted by Appaya Swamy and Mansoor started learning Carnatic classical music from him. PT Mallikarjun Mansoor was not interested in acting but in music. Therefore, he decided to learn more music and left the company in 1922 and settled down in Miraj at the age of 11 to learn the music from Pandit Neelkanthbua Mirajkar who taught him Gwalior Tradition of Hindustani Classical Music. After completing his learning from Neelkanthbua in 1929, he returned back to the theater to compose the music. He did for the play Abhimanyu by composing songs in Raag Des and Kamod.
Yakshagana Theater was not allowing him to learn music from Pandit Neelkanthbua Mirajkar; therefore he decided to leave this theater to concentrate on music. Later on he joined Vaanivilas Natak Company because they agreed to pay his music learning expenses from Pandit Neelkanthbua Mirajkar. In 1932, he started performing in concert in Mumbai. The Mumbai Music Circle started showering him with invitation. In Mumbai, during Ganesh festival, he sang for six hours at a stretch. According to him, it was the biggest concert of all. In 1933, he made his first recording with HMV for raag Gaur Makhar. Unfortunately, he lost his Guru Pandit Neelkanthbua Mirajkar in 1934 and PT Mallikarjun Mansoor was under deep sorrow for a long time.
In 1935, he became a well-known vocalist. He continued his recording. And in the same year, he started learning the music from the Ustad Manji Khan who was the son of Alladiya Khan. It is the fact that Ustad Manji Khan introduced him to Jaipur Gharana; but Ustad himself used to sing through the methods of Jaipur with difference. This helped PT Mansoor very much and he started performing concerts by creating a special place for himself as a music-maker. After the death of Manji Khan, he continued to learn music from his brother Ustad Bhoorji Khan who was staying in Kolhapur. From him, he learnt the way of improving and also creation of music. After this, his music hardly remained in presentation form and became the creator of new explorations. In 1950, he composed the music composition for traditional devotion in Kannada and also started earning the knowledge from different plaudits and performed the same in a simple way to the listeners. He continued this till his death.
The main important feature of his music was felt in his voice. His voice was thin, light and inclined towards high pitch. It is true that his voice was thin but with hard work and continuous practice helped to employ his voice in all octaves. His intonation was effortless and one can sense the deliberate application of strength. Thus, his music was marked by sustained vocalizing quality and never suffered from unwanted breaks. His singing did not suffer due to his voice and everyone found that after a stable intonation of notes in his music. PT Mallikarjun Mansoor music dominates the Jaipur-Atrauli repertoire. He frequently presented the Ragas like Todi, Multan, Yaman, Jaijaiwanti, Nayaki Kannada, Kafi Kannada and verities of Bilawal. He always used to render both sthayi and antara while presenting the raaga. At the time of exploring the raaga in the aalap-phase, he accustomed to repeatedly sing the sthayi.
Just to keep the fashion of Gharana, his taans were complex and wide in range. Whatever the medium of tempo of the Taal, finally they were in definite relationship with the overall tempo of his taans which became multi-layered. Therefore, Kishori Amonkar described his singing as divine bliss. According to P L Deshpande, Mallikarjun Mansoor is one such great singer who can put the listeners in his debt just with the first note. He further said that he was very particular about preserving the grammar of classical music and believes in purity of music. He always used to observe the unusual spots in the old bandishes and had the ability to spot hidden beauty of it and to present it and bring to the fore.
Such a great singer died on 12th September 1992 at the age of 82. When one listens to his music, he can feel that his music has no age, no winkles, and no jagged bones. It had the feeling of a life force with no beginning and no end. P L Deshpande rightly said that,” As the steamboat recedes from the coast; the coastal world becomes more and more distant. Exactly the same way, the world outside the room became more and more distant. In the inside world were us, that singing man, and that vast ocean of Yaman”.
Renowned Kannada philosopher has rightly said that PT. Mallikarjun Mansoor is known for rendering rare ragas. But even when he renders an ordinary raaga he puts his own stamp on it. Ragas like Bihag, Maro Bihag, Asawari, Gaur Malhar flow from him as effortlessly as a waterfall. He was never impressed with young musicians who were performing classical music. According to Mansoor, they are technically perfect but not carrying weight because of lacking of hard work and making music commercialized.
PT. Mallikarjun Mansoor was honoured with Padma Shri in 1970, Padma Bhushan in 1976 and Padma Vibhushan in 1992. He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1982. At last, I am closing this writing on him by quoting his words.
"I was also beginning to discover that the raaga darshan is constantly within you. It is always singing within you. It never stops. You have to know how to summon it from within you for the outside world. It is like bringing out your soul and sharing it with others. I felt it was my duty to share what had been given to me, with the world, with audiences. But I never cared consciously to carry an audience with me. I'm not here to sing popular songs."
We must thank PT Mallikarjun Mansoor for sharing his wonderful music. For further details one can read his autobiography Nanna Rasayatre written in Kannada and the same has been translated by his son Rajshekhar Mansoor into English titled My Journey in Music.
Mumbai
20/09/2020
Comments
Post a Comment