thumri sangraha

“Thumri Sangraha” by Rahat Ali, collected and  published by N.S. Bhave (the father of Vinoba Bhave- information provided by Rajesh Kelkar) in the 1940s is 3 volumes of thumris, lyrics and notations. Rahat ali’s father had been in the court of Wajid ali Shah in Lucknow at the time of the great thumri composers.  It is a  fascinating treasure for anyone interested in thumri. It contains many compositions of Sanad piya, Chand piya, Ahktar piya (Wajid ali Shah), Aalam (Wajid ali Shah’s first wife), and many others, as well as Punjabi thumris (now called tappas?), garbas, lavanis, tirvats, dadras, kehrwas, etc.                                                                  I am curious why the thumris of Bindaddin Maharaj are not included.  If I am not mistaken he was a contemporary.  There is no mention of him and of course his thumris are original and outstanding, the bedrock of his descendant Birju Maharaj’s magnificent thumri repertoire birju maharaj .  Although today his (Bindaddin’s) thumris do not sound so different from other bandish thumris, maybe at that time the dancers’ thumris were not part of the singers’ repertoire.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Some thumris in this collection are different from versions in circulation today.  “Aaj man basa gayi”, a popular bandish thumri in kafi, also in Bhatkhande in madhya teentaal , in the Thumri Sangraha is in vilambit punjabi theka. Note, this is not the common addha (think kishori amonkar) ; in slow it is not so easy.  Vilambit here too does not mean vilambit like we know it as say with bol-banao thumri but  just slower than what we are used to with bandish thumri.  By the way, I guess you all probably know that this was before bol-banao thumris came into fashion.                                              Another interesting thumri is “mori kar pakarata gayi bangari” (Sanad piya) in rag dhani sung by Siddheswari devi (I think in one of her A.I.R. national programs http://www.mediafire.com/?hzwnwzmydnu. Rahat Ali’s version is about the same but the antara is more elaborate and contains shudh dhaivat and shudh raishab in a descending phrase.  Thus he classifies this as in rag pilu-barwa.  Here is a photocopy of it:  Often thumris in the T.S. are set to different melodies- Rasoolanbai’s “savaro mori matukiya” , the popular ‘banki chab dekhalaye”, and some of Sharad Chandra Arolkar’s thumris.  Neela Bhagwat had thought that Arolkar bua had composed “dekho shona meinu chalabala” until I found it in T.S.  Arolkarbua sang this as a tappa in kafi; in T.S. it is a punjabi thumri. The melody is about the same, but of course without the taans.                                                                      I should mention that the publisher, Bhave, has a very extensive footnoting of difficult words.  I have found many Maharashtrians and even native Hindi speakers having difficulty with the Braj in thumris and this has really helped me.               Something else I like about T.S. is that Rahat ali very often gives one or two alternative note combinations at places where he feels there could be a choice.                                  My dear friend and mentor Batuk Deewanji had found this book on the footpath years ago. Very few people know about this book and its value. I have made a copy for the N.C.P.A. library and other friends. Deewanji has lost one of the three volumes and I have been searching for that for several years. Rajesh Kelkar in Baroda has a copy of that third volume for me and I am really grateful to him (in advance).