I have finished reading the biography by vikram sampath and am very disappointed. I started with great enthusiasm but…. it is an amateurish effort with phoney stilted imagined dialogue and projected motivations that are debateable. I guess this is an attempt to make it more “readable”, but for me it seems a real dumbing-down. The book could have benefitted from a collaboration between the author and a good editor. At least the English would have improved and perhaps less emphasis on the tiresome court cases. the background histories of thumri and classical music are confusing and full of errors. Even if the author is not an expert in Hindustani music couldn’t he find an expert to proofread it? This is not a review so i will leave it there. It is more a criticism of the publisher than the author.
I guess I won’t buy it then after all! Thanks for the heads up :-).
yes i agree with you, he is like porno at places.
The book is well researched, well written and very interesting. I agree that the editing could have been better but the content is very good. The history of thumri – and other such topics – is always controversial and few musicologists, if any, seem to agree on it.
I am surprised at your comment about improving English and proof-reading. Please read your review. There is more room here for improvement in English and it could have benefitted from proof reading. “V” and “S” should be capitalized in Vikram Sampath. Phony is spelt without an “e”. Debatable is also spelt without an “e”. What does, “the English” mean? The whole sentence is grammatically incorrect. And “the” at the start of a sentence needs to start with a capitalized “T.” The word “Thumri” should be italicized. You should consider using a comma in, “This is not a review so i will leave it there.” But even then the sentence will make little sentence. And “i” needs to be capitalized. I do not know you personally but find you attitude despicable. Why criticize someone’s writing ability when you have none yourself?
Dr. A. K. Dubey: What passages did you think read like porn? It seems that you have led a very protected life and never really read any porn. When you grow up, do read some porn so you know what it is. One more thing: your sentence, “yes i agree with you, he is like porno at places.”, makes no sense. You should be careful; otherwise, the original poster, will chastise you for incorrect English.
I agree, my English is not very good. The blog entries I write very quickly and do not pay enough attention to grammar, punctuation etc. If I were writing a book to be published though I would be very careful. Now that you have mentioned it I will try to do better with my writing. Thanks for that. If you think the book is well written……that is your opinion. I didn’t write a full review of this book and don’t want to. There are other books that give a much better idea of the history of the period and the cultural context like B.R. Deodhar’s “Pillars of Hindustani Music”, Sheila Dhar’s ” There is Someone I would like you to Meet”, Mallka Pukhraj’s autobiography, etc., Peter Manuel’s book on thumri, Shanti Hiranand’s book on Begum Ahktar, and Savita Devi’s book on her mother Siddheshwari Devi to name a few. One thing that particularly irritated me about this book on Gauhar Jan was the author’s use of imaginary conversation in reconstructing events in her life. To me this sounds ridiculous. I will not go into details about the author’s mistakes regarding the history and context of thumri. He could have benefittted from an editor familiar with the subject. James
I have read all the books you mentioned except the one by Sheila Dhar. I will order it now. The other books I like quite a lot but Malika Pukhraj’s autobiography has more than its fair share of problems.
I had the opportunity to read some of it in Urdu in 1989 and she was interested in me translating it into English. Personally, I believe that Malika Pukhraj could and should have written a more interesting and accurate book. She did not.
Her glorification of Maharaja Hari Singh makes me sick. He was an evil and cruel man who committed horrible crimes against humanity. Her book is historically inaccurate and chronologically incorrect. She hardly mentions any dates but claims to have been present at Hari Singh’s coronation. She couldn’t possibly have been. She also does not seem to know that Aimanabad is closer to Gujranwala than it is to Wazirabad. She claims to have written a frank and honest autobiography but never talks about her family’s profession of singing and dancing. She talks about her husband hunting tigers, crocodiles and leopards at reserves that do not exist anywhere in this world. Anywhere. She writes that Hari Singh wanted to show her Nishat Baagh the way Nur Jahan saw it. How is that possible? The garden was built by Nur Jahan’s son. She vastly exaggerates her singing prowess. Her singing was severely limited and ultimately boring. She sang geets and ghazals that were popular with a small group of listeners. The book has many, many factual errors. It would have been much more interesting (and close to the porn mentioned by Dr. A. K. Dubey) had she spoken the truth about leaving Jammu Kashmir and not fabricated a reason.
Please tell me mor about yourself. You seem knowledgable about music and I am a student of the same. And I love Peter Manuel’s book. Please do reccomend any other books you find valuable.
Is Sheila Dhar’s book also called Raga ‘n Josh?
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/IDI500/
I totally disagree with the original post and i think it reeks of some personal prejudice against the book or its author. I am a Kolkatan and a student of Hindustani classical music for the last 40 years at the SRA, Rabindra Bharati and other places. For me, the book was fascinating and completely rivetting. What made it special was the fact that even eighty years after her death not a single person in the world of Hindustani music or in Bengal had bothered to resurrect the memory of Gauhar Jaan. Today Shubha Mudgal and others may be conducting listening sessions on her after this book–but i wonder why musicians never woke up to the first Indian classical musician to record before this? It is easy to run down something –our country specializes in that. If the author of the post has/had so much knowledge about music/thumri/gauhar what prevented him/her to write a book on the subject? We are experts at not doing anything ourselves but criticizing everything that others do sitting on the internet with absolutely no substantiation– no doubt so few books are written on music and the ones that are there are highly pedantic and never reach the masses. I tend to agree on the editing front where some more polishing would have certainly helped. But I dont think the details about Hindustani music are inaccurate–i have read similar things in Peter Manuel’s book on Thumris and have a feeling that that book might have been used by the author too as source material, though i am unsure of that.
Regarding dialogues, i think this is new trend catching up especially if we notice a similar style in the ‘Music Room’ of Namita Devidayal which was much talked about as biography of Kesarbai Kerkar. In fact i have read a similar book in Bengali on Gauhar Jaan by a retired Calcutta High Court employee Chitragupta, whom the author too mentions in his preface. That too follows a similar structure.
In conclusion i wanted to say just this–it is very easy to randomly type some disconnected sentences on the internet running down anything that one comes across. Every work of art will have some flaws and so perhaps does this book (though i seriously didnot find anything so glaring). Instead of rubbishing someone’s hard work away like that, sensible and sensitive people would weigh the pros and cons before going public and making a public fool of themselves and their lack of knowledge. At least in my opinion, the pros exceed the cons in this book’s case.
With regards and no malice.
Komolika Majumdar
To Ally Adnan, Thank you for the interesting comments on Malika Pukhraj’s book. Your view of her singing is unexceptionable. Of course you realize that if my “attitude is despicable” in criticizing the English in Mr. Sampat’s book, your own singing should be of an equal level to qualify in judging M. Pukhraj’s singing. That seems to be your attitude. Why don’t you write a biography of her yourself? You seem knowledgeable and interested. Didn’t someone in Pakistan write a biography of Madame Noorjehan? An honest biography of her life would be fascinating. There really isn’t much written in English or Hindi that I am aware of on the subject of thumri and tawaifs. Amie Macicewzki’s Phd thesis is well written and interesting. I have encouraged her to try to get it published. Sheila Dhar’s book is “Here’s Someone…” not “There’s Someone….” as I had written (Oxford Univ. Press 1995). Saba Dewan has made a wonderful documentary film on the subject. There is also a Hindi book that I have seen and not read that might be good- a social study, not the scholarly book of Mr. Shukla. Not exactly on the subject of thumri, Kumar Prasad Mukherjee’s book “The Lost World of Hindustani Music” is just superb. Please excuse my mistakes- I am pressed for time and am sending this off as it is! James
Mr. James, interesting to note that you find Saba Dewan’s film interesting and not the book on Gauhar while the reviewers have sent the former to the washers. She is stuck up with one word ‘Joban’ and creates a whole film on it which, after a while i found taxing on the mind and intellect. However must commend the enormous amount of travel and research she has done, but i came out knowing absolutely nothing extra about Rasoolan Bai. And Kumar da was a very close family friend of ours and an amazing person to talk to with a great sense of musical history. (interestingly and strangely he misses Gauhar Jaan too in the Lost World of HM book). His book is surely a great addition to the documentation of HM, but the glut of details and the taxonomy of names and names and facts after facts heaped together can turn off many a reader. May be that is one reason the younger breed of the likes of Mr Sampath and Ms Devidayal and others are ‘fictionalizing’ their books. There is anyway a new genre these days of a thin line between fiction and non-fiction and i think both these books fall exactly in that category where there are no doubt facts and lots of painstaking research (something that u call tiresome, but which i think is a labour of love) but presented in such a manner that people not necessarily acquainted with classical music can also read and enjoy. After all the high browed musciologists can write treatises with numerous footnotes and references but they ultimately end up in dusty libraries with no one bothering to read it.
~KM
On your last point, “tiresome” was all the detail about a totally uninteresting court case! I am all in favor of good interesting books about music and musicians. I personally like the anecdotal books like Deodhar’s and Sheila Dhar’s. I just do not agree with “dumbing down” by fictionalization. I agree that Saba Dewan’s film was not enlightening at all about Rasoolanbai. I asked her at her showing of the documentary in Mumbai if she had gone to Ahmedabad to meet Geeta Sarabhai (sorry I have forgotten her married name) who was very important in the later years of Rasoolanbai’s life.
I do not know why you and Mr. Adnan are so sensitive to criticism! Does everybody have to agree with you? I certainly appreciate that something has been written about Gauhar Jaan and agree that it is unfortunate that so little is known or written about her. (Just as an aside, I have always wondered about Pyare Saheb, another forgotten singer from that era with hundreds of 78 rpm recordings.). You admit the book has flaws but calling me a know-nothing fool does not really defend the book. If you look in the older posts in my blog you will see my reviews of two books, Deepak Raja’s and Janaki Bhakle’s. I wrote analytical reviews of these books that were published in the Journal of Indian Musicological Society because I thought that unless there was some dissent they would be taken as gospel truth. With Mr. Sampat’s book I do not want to go into so much detail but I will just mention a couple of things that I disagree with. He says that the bandish thumri disappeared in the early 20th century. That certainly is news to anyone familiar with Gwalior gharana! The repertoire is full of bandish thumris and many included in the published recordings of Kumar Gandharva, Mukul Shivputra, Ulhas Kashalkar, Sharadchandra Arolkar, Krishnarao Shankar Pandit and others. These are distinct from chota khayals although sometimes the line between is thin. The Bindaddin Maharaj thumris sung so beautifully by Birju Maharaj are all bandish thumris. Agra- “na manungi”, Benares “hato jao re na bolo sayyan”, “nir bharana kese jaun” a popular thumri in tilak kamod (recorded by Shubha Mudgal, the famous early 78 rpm thumris of Bade Ghulamali Khan “ka karun sajani”- all are bandish thumris. Elsewhere the author states that the Lucknow thumris were composed in “weighty” classical ragas like malhar, malkauns and darbari on page 110, but on page 103 he had said that “They were set in typical “light” ragas like kafi, piloo, ghara, khamaj………”. He says that bol banao thumris were generally set to dadra or keherwa tals. I believe Jat taal and especially deepchandi are more standard. He claims purab- ang thumri is distinct from Benares thumri. I believe Benares thumri style is purab-ang (as opposed to the paschem or punjabi style that was popularised by Bade Ghulamali Khan. He says most bandish thumris were composed in “Khadi boli” mixed with some Urdu and that bol banao thumris were composed in Avadhi and Bhojpuri (p.102 and 103). I believe both are wrong and that they are almost all in Braj. Mr. Mazumdar, if you have been studying music for 40 years don’t you find these glaring errors that could have easily been corrected by a knowledgeable proofreader?
I agree that resurrecting the life story of Gauhar Jaan is commendable and the neglect unforgiveable. Even the memory of Faiyaz Khan is fading with the passing away of the generation who heard him and the inability of anyone to market his recordings. It is a shame because there are many- around 100 longer mostly radio recordings that could now be cleaned up very nicely. I had mentioned in my earlier post that perhaps in the music world written about by K. Mukherjee, Gauhar Jaan was considered somewhat of a lesser singer than say Zorabai Agrawali. I might be wrong about that though. The poor audio quality of the 78s never helped, but I hope that the book and cleaned-up recordings made avaliable to the public give her the exposure she deserves. Indifference to history is so common. Here in Mumbai this beautiful city is being destroyed by the builders with the heritage people seeming to lose the battle in preserving the unique architecture and personality. There are too many buildings to classify and the money and corruption involved overwhelming.
How do I get Saba Dewan’s movie? Rasoolan Bai is one of my favorite singers.
And one needs to be knowledgeable – and not equally talented, or more – to correctly crtique someone’s singing.
You had indicated that by not writing English correctly I was unqualified to criticize someone else’s.
Your English also showed lack of knowledge.
I have reached out to Saba.
I would write to her (Saba Dewan) and ask her! James
I am not aware of Mr Ally Adnan or if he is sensitive to criticism. But why would i be sensitive to criticism of abook that i have not authored !! i find that allegation strange, but again thats your choice to have an opinion abt that too ! I was just trying to prove a point with u.after u pointed out i read ur reviews of Deepak Raja’s book and i found u had berated him there for using terminologies so complex that no one can understand and that u were left confused again !! so seems like confusion is a perennial companion 🙂 and simplification seems like dumbing down and complexity seems confusing and also has limited reach—and then u also berate we are forgetting and losing musical treasures! so u see the disconnect i hope !
The court case might be something that might not interest you, but it did to me for 2 reasons –
1. The first case gave me an idea of Gauhar’s lineage and also of how the British courts were possessed of also solving these petty paternal suits of even ‘dancing girls’. Luckily the author had put the 20 something page judgement in the appendix which u cud have chosen to omit instead of calling it ‘tiresome’ or ‘uninteresting’?
The case with Syed Abbas is so important since that led to her penury ultimately. I in fact after reading the book i even checked with the family of orddhendo coomar ganguly who fought the case for gauhar if they had documents and they feigned ignorance, though it was the gauhar case that had brought OCG a lot of publicity!
2. Being from Kolkata i know it is close to impossible to get documents of the pre 1947 era especially from the High Court because after the shift of the building the authorities insensitively burnt it all down instead of sending it to the archives. And Gauhar was not someone of national importance (like say a Gandhi or a Tagore) for the British to bother saving her petty case papers! In view of that i was amazed beyond measure to see how this young man had squirrelled out such details about a case which i am sure no one in Kolkata knows or remembers. Are we going to beat him down saying –oh how many pages of boredom do u stuff me with or say Great! i admire the way u have dug out the facts? The choice is ours!
Reg the thumri i will get back to you shortly. And there is really nothing personal against you here. You have an opinion and me or anyone else has every right to have a counter opinion. This just so that it doesnt become the ‘gospel truth’ as u urself have mentioned the peril that Raja or Bakhle’s books can have(esp considering the fact that the v first reply to ur post has been of someone who says –ok in that case i wont read this book! So u r not just expressing ur opinions about it but also certifying it in some way..think about it and see if your posts arent full of self-contradictions!!)
And most importantly i hope u realize ‘Komolika’ is a woman and hence i am not “Mr” Majumdar ! So factually incorrect there too!
~KM
Komolika, Sorry about the mistaken gender. Your personalised attack of my criticism of the book (you called me a “public fool that lacks knowledge”) indicated a defensive sensitivity to negative comments on the book. It was rude. I do not think it is contradictory to criticize something for being too dense or incomprehensible and something else for “dumbing down” by phony dialogue. I gave some examples of books that I love that do neither!
No, I do not see contradictions. My opinion in this blog is not on the same level as an award nominated academic publication by a prominent American academic and I hope my word is not taken for gospel truth for god’s sake! Do I really have to go slow on criticising a book like this one?
Leaving me aside, I appreciate you giving your reasons for your interest in the court case.
Mr. Adnan had written ” (I) find you attitude despicable. Why criticize someone’s writing ability when you have none yourself? That was rude too.
Mr James,
That was more of a general statement and no personal affront on you! After all i havent even met you nor i have authored this book to take up extreme cudgels with you on this one.
To your points on the thumri-
1. You mention that the author is wrong when he says the Bandish thumris disappeared during the 20th Century. You have mentioned Peter Manuel’s book on Thumris as something you admire. So kindly open page no 70 of that book-
“As thumri gained in popularity and the Lucknow musicians dispersed to other musical centres, more and more musicians turned their attention to the genre ….while the bandish thumris itself faded and disappeared, talented musicians–particularly from Benares–transformed thumri into a more profound and expressive medim–the bol banao thumri”
and yet again on page 73 where Manuel states-
“During this period two different trends emerged within the genre both of which refined and enhanced it while simultaneously contributing to the eventual dissolution and disapparence of the original style and of the bandish thumri in general…..the emphasis on bol bant and the very term bandish thumri went out of vogue such that prominent singers either mastered the larger raga repertoire ad technical demands of khayal or else they concentrated on the newly emerging bol banao thumri”
And again onn Page 77– ” By about 1920 the popularity of the bandish thumri had been eclipsed by that of the emerging bol banao and the traditional Lucknow style became truly extinct with the death of its last exponent Baba Nasir Khan…”
So—-if u had taken trouble to actually read the book u claim to be in awe of (Peter’s) then u wudnt have found this as suprising news !!
2) On Page 77 of Peter’s book it says “Lucknow composers revealed a classical orientation in their occasional use of serious ragas like Malhar, Malkauns and Darbari for the bandish thumris, but such ragas are never encountered in bol banao. Instead only lighter ragas are employed…” It is on the same page that peter manuel says that talas like Keharava and dadra are used for Banaras thumris while classical teental is in Bandish thumris. (again something you dispute and think incorrect).
3) regarding the language of the Thumris– please once again Open Peter Manuels’s bible page no 6
“In general it may be stated that Khari Boli and Urdu elements are slghhtly more common in bandish thumris, as most of these were composed by Urdu speaking musicians based in Lucknow. Conversely Avadhi and Bhojpuri occur in later bol banao –still we must reiterate that all but a small minority of thumri texts are in braj bhasha even if occasionally diluted with elements of neighbouring dialects.”—so there goes your argument out of the window again Mr James 🙂
I tended to agree with the hypotheses of Mr Sampath’s book largely because the Peter Manuel is something that i have closely followed (unlike others) during the past many years of my student years in classical music, which you dispute. But i think with these glaring mistakes that you urself have made and which i have pointed out by excerpts from the Manuel book, i think i shud rest my case here !!
~KM.
KM. Why would you consider Peter Manuel’s book as some sort of “bible”? I certainly do not, nor ever did. I do think it is a very good book, and that is all! If you agree with those specific things that he wrote I don’t know what to say! Do you think that bandish thumris are extinct, that they are in khadi boli and Urdu, are in “weighty” ragas like malhar, darbari and malkauns, and that Benares bol banao thumris are usually sung in dadra and keherwa???? The recorded documentation, some which I mentioned, and the “Thumri Sangraha” and other thumri collections does not support this. What I have learned about thumri has not been from Peter Manuel’s book. These were just some random errors I picked out. There were more.
Komolika,
You wrote, “That was more of a general statement and no personal affront on you!” That is not how your original statement reads.
You wrote
“I tended to agree with the hypotheses of Mr Sampath’s book largely because the Peter Manuel is something that i have closely followed (unlike others) during the past many years of my student years in classical music, which you dispute.”
I do not understand what you mean here.
You had mentioned that the reviewers had “sent (Saba Dewan’s film) to the washers”. I would be interested to read the reviews if you could direct me to them. I haven’t seen any myself.
James,
It seems that you have a personal grudge against Vikram and are jealous of his success in writing a largely good book. Therefore, I see no benefit in continuing this dialog. When things get personal, one tends to lose objectivity and clearly that seems to be the case with you here. I apologize for having taken up so much of your time.
Ally.
Mr. Adnan, Why would you think that? Because i didn’t like the book? Jealous? you’ve got to be joking. It was you who personalized the discussion and called me “despicable” for daring to criticize the book. What does that have to do with Mr. Sampat? You seem to be unable to accept criticism of his book. Before I bought the book I saw him interviewed on tv. His enthusiasm and engaging personality increased my excitement to buy the book. I really cannot imagine why you think there is something personal in my criticism! It was a disappointment because as you can see from my blog, I am interested in the subject, and my expectations were very high. In my original post I had said that my criticism is more of the publisher than the author. How could something like the contradiction I mentioned between what is written on page 103 and page 110 get past an editor?
I apologize to you and to the author for any offence I have caused.
James, you can not be considering the book of Mr Peter as a good book if it has the same “erroneous” statements (acc to u) that Mr Sampath’s book. My suspicion that in the absence of documented material the author too might have relied on what is now considered as an authentic reference material on thumris among academics, was right as a lot of the material seems to be drawn from the Manuel book. So you should have pointed out these “errors” to Manuel whenever that book was published. Since you continue to stick to the same “contradictions on page 103-110” and similar tunes, like Mr Ally Adnan, i also feel it is pointless talking further since you have a set mind that is unshakeable to logic and reason. So be it ! When we say thumris had urdu splattered in it (and that too clearly mentioned that it was a miniscule) we are talking about the 18th-19th centuries, not what Shubha Mudgal sings today or records which u have heard. Many of these are out of vogue and are lost and talas and ragas employed too is different from what is prevalent today. So do not link up historical facts to what you see and hear of music in the present or even within the last 50 years.
Beyond this i have nothing more to add. I dont know if you have any personal prejudice against the author or not and even if you do, thats your problem and not mine. My interest in this was to point out that there were no innacuracies in the book in the manner tha you disparagingly point out, since in my view it is an extremely well-researched, well-written and good book which will ensure that the memory of the great Gauhar Jaan is kept alive and reaches out to a cross-section of people who perhaps dont even know how to spell a ‘thumri’ about which we all have spent 3-4 valuable days arguing ! I feel efforts like these, especially from the younger generation, need the encouragement and support of us from the previous generation and started off by saying it is thoroughly disappointing, tiresome, full of errors etc (without substantiation) and with not a single good thing to say abt it (when it has more good than a possible few errors as nothing except God is perhaps perfect in this world)–surely and certainly does no good to the cause of Indian classical music, which i think you are passionate about and espouse.
However we are a free democracy and u r perfectly entitled to your views and opinions, however skewed and biased others might feel they are. I rest my case with this and like Mr Ally feel it is pointless to take more of your valuable time on this unrelenting topic!
~KM
Komolika, You wrote, “…we are talking about the 18th-19th centuries, not what Shubha Mudgal sings today or records which u have heard. Many of these are out of vogue and are lost and talas and ragas employed too is different from what is prevalent today. So do not link up historical facts to what you see and hear of music in the present or even within the last 50 years.”
I have a previous post on this blog on the “Thumri Sangraha”. The hundreds of thumris in the 3 volumes were documented by Rahat Ali whose father was a singer I believe in the court of Wajid Ali Shah. I think it represents an authentic version of what the thumris were like. All of the major composers of that era except Bindaddin are represented- ragas, notations, taals and thekas of the era which were somewhat different. Most of these thumris are not in current thumri repertoire and some that are are sung diffirently. They are mostly in kafi, khamaj, jungla, bhairavi, piloo etc., mostly in teental, and in Braj. Lila Karvale’s collection of thumris could hardly be described as unauthentic, nor Rajabhaiya Poochwale’s smaller collection. There is also the huge wealth of recorded music from Gauhar, Zorabai Agrawali, Malka Jaan and others.
You just do not seem to accept a viewpoint different from yours. Criticism is important and one hopes results in better subsequent attempts. I do not know where your anger comes from. You called me “a public fool that lacks knowledge” (and despite what you later said, that is how it reads) without offering any kind of apology. You yourself were disparaging of Saba Dewan’s film and Kumar Prasad Mukherjee’s book.
I have just discovered this informative website, with this discussion of my thumri book. I see that this thread is years old, and everyone has moved on, but for the record I can say a few things. I basically wrote that book in 1982-83, i.e., more than 40 years ago. There are several errors and shortcomings, and of course so much informative literature has come out since then, such as Vidya Rao’s fine articles, and even Sampath’s ‘Gauhar Jan’ book, which I think is a rich mine of data in spite of some minor errors. Even when I wrote my dissertation/book, in the history section I drew heavily (with proper acknowledgement, of course) on Shatrughan Shukla’s (subsequently published) dissertation, and it’s a pity that these—like so much other fine work in Hindi—are not easily accessible (while my book is now on my academia.edu website).
As for the comments on my book, I’m of course gratified that people have read it so closely, and with an appropriately critical eye. Regarding the comments here, instead of saying that the bandish thumri has “disappeared,” I clearly should have said “almost disappeared.” (And I don’t consider something like BGAK’s “Ka karun sajani” a bandish thumri.) Also, I didn’t say that the Banaras thumri was usually sung in dadra and kaharva, I just said that it could be sung in those tals, though I see how my wording could be misinterpreted; obviously, jat/dipchandi is more standard. As for my statements on language in bandish thumris (p. 6, not 102-03), I again see that the wording can be misinterpreted; when I say that khari boli and Urdu were “more common” in bandish thumris, I meant that they were more common there than in bol banao thumris, not that they were more common than Braj Bhasha. I think we all agree on this.
Anyhow, it’s nice to see such well-informed people discussing the music we all love with so much passion.
peter, thanks for your comments. I had been critical of comments of Vikram Sampat on the subject of thumri (thus the page discrepancies and possibly the misinterpretations). I did not know that some things had come from your book which I had read years ago. Whatever I know about the subject is not really from your book. I am glad that you still take an interest in the subject. Your book may be 30 years old but in English it is an unsurpassed classic. I certainly agree that Shukla’s book and others (ramashreya Jha’s volumes, the excellent book on Sadarang (i forget the author’s name) come to mind) should be translated into English. Shukla’s book and I believe your book are very difficult to find and should be in print. I have not yet been able to procure even a photocopy of Shukla’s book! I do not remember about your book and do not have it here with me, but I have noticed in Lalita DuPerron’s excellent book on thumri there is no mention of the most popular thumri of all time- the exquisite “babul more” of k.l. saigal nor mention of the thumri masterpieces of Abdul Karim Khan. As i mentioned somewhere, maybe in another thread, I am intrigued by the absence of bindaddin thumris in the 3 volume “thumri sangraha” of rahat ali. I would be interested if you have any idea on this. I believe he (bindaddin) was contemporary with sanad piya, chand piya, etc. and rahat ali’s father had been in the retinue of wajid ali shah in metiabruz if i am not mistaken. Thanks again for your interest. I also loved your book “cassette culture”. What do you do now? regards, james
Oops, I mean I wrote the thumri book 30 years ago, not 40.