When Kishori Amonkar said my music is not instant coffee

What do you want to talk about? Why should I even speak to you? And what do you know about Indian classical music?

These were the rapid fire questions that almost knocked me off my feet as I stood at the suite door of renowned Hindustani classical vocalist Kishori Amonkar at Le Meriden Hotel, when I first interviewed her in January 1992.

Speechless, I mumbled that I was a student of Padma Bhushan Pandit CR Vyas. Her face lit up. "Why are you waiting outside, come in," she said. And that's how we started a three-hour-long conversation, as her disciples too listened to her with rapt attention.

Finally when she looked at her watch, she remembered she had a concert in the evening. "You just leave now. And if my concert doesn't go off well, you will be held responsible for that. But do come for the concert."

That was Kishori Tai, the mercurial, loving and affectionate maestro, who passed away last night (April 3). She was 84.

Kishori Tai was the epitome of what music should represent — contemporary, yet classical. Music that touches and captivates, offering a sliver of divinity. That is why all of Kishori Tai's concerts were sold out. They used to be a rare experience and all those who attended felt bewitched and blessed.

Kishori Tai started learning music from her mother Mogubai Kurdikar. Her mother meant everything to her since she had lost her father when she was just six years old.

She used to say, "I started my first lessons in music when I was in her womb."

She had to struggle a lot in life. I remember her telling me that she and her mother had to spend a night sitting on the floor after a Solapur concert in a storeroom infested with bugs and nothing to eat.

"That is when I decided that the day I'll become an established singer, I will ask for the best hotels, the highest honorarium and the best travel options," she had confided in me.

That's one reason organisers would often get nervous as soon as her name figured in their list of festivals.

She was unpredictable, sometimes used to keep the audience waiting. But then she was a perfectionist.

I remember when she came for the Swar Utsav concert, organised by India Today. She showed up half an hour late and told her disciples in the green room that they would go on stage only when the tanpuras and sur mandal were perfectly tuned.

"My music is not instant coffee. I need to be comfortable with my musical notes as well as the ambience — the perfect lighting, perfect stage management. Too many lights would never allow me to go into a trance. Have patience, if you want the best of Kishori,’’ she retorted when one of us asked her the reason behind the delay.

But the moment she started singing, everything was forgiven. Her music transported her listeners to a different world. "When I present a raga sometimes, I am so lost in it. To express the emotions of a raga into alapi is a difficult job. A note is a living entity. The singer has to love that swar and do justice to it," she told me.

To her, music was not just about singing a raga, but understanding and living (for that moment) the particular notes of that raga. She would often say that the language of the notes has its own rhythm and to know that is to know the creator.

She was a rebel of sorts. A rebel who felt that the gharana style was only one aspect of singing. She incorporated the Jaipur and Atrauli gharana styles into her singing. She also gave a new direction to khayal singing through her approach to alapi. She emphasised the supremacy of musical notes rather than the meaning of words.

"Words are mere distraction," she would say.

A purist to the core, she didn't believe in collaborative or fusion music. "Call me a rebel, if you want,’’ she would say. "I speak the truth."

"This whole issue of diluting classical music is awful in the garb of popularising it. The truth has to be spoken: All classical musicians who are jumping into the popular music bandwagon are only prostituting themselves. Today’s youth is intelligent and we have to channelise their energies. I have not come across one institution which has taught one raga fully. I am appalled at the syllabus-prescribed ragas by music schools and colleges. Institutions teach bookish knowledge. What one needs is a guru."

Even though Kishori Tai composed music for Shekhar Kapur's Drishti and also sang a song for the film Geet Gaya Patharon Ne, she kept herself away from Bollywood. The performer, teacher, composer and artiste par excellence will remain alive through her music and disciples like Maya Kamat, Nandini Bedekar, Gurinder Kaur, and Raghunandan Phansikar.

She would often say, "I would not like to be reborn, although I have sinned. But if at all I am born again, I should be blessed with the same father and mother and all those who love me because love can't be measured."

"If you love me would you not want me to be reborn?"

Well, who can disagree?

Also read: Sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan on what performing with classical music greats was like