My favorite singer died a couple of months ago. Over the years I probably had attended 30-40 of her concerts in Kolkatta and Mumbai. It was hit and miss but the hits were spectacular. It took me some years to really appreciate what she was doing. It is not music that would naturally appeal to neophytes. It is too complex. When she was in full flight the atmosphere was electrifying. There have been some beautiful obituaries written- was it in scroll.in or the Hindu, thus the tetchy diva behavior well documented. All her fans suffered that. I also remember at the NCPA yearly seminar (English medium of course) when she adamantly insisted on speaking in Marathi. Comical, really. Most participants were non Marathi speakers. It must have been difficult for her in this sycophantic culture where someone always wants something from you. Maybe it is why she really liked Francoise, her neighbor in Prabhadevi who delivered a note from her guru, Hari prasad Chaurasia to Madame and then saw her occasionally back in the 80s. Francoise was another eccentric who didn’t want anything from her. Odd it was that another foreigner Flo, from Switzerland i believe, by chance became her student. Flo didn’t have a clue who Kishori Amonkar was. She took some lessons, set up some workshops in France and Goa claiming to be KA’s disciple. The perils of taking on foreign students. I do not have a memory of Kishoritai’s accompanists in the 1970’s but like Pt. Jasraj it seems many of them became very good singers including Padma Talwarkar, Manik Bhide and Aarti Ankalikar. Having good support vocalists seemed important to her and Nandini Bedekar was outstanding the past few years. When there were two it was even better. Sometimes with Nandini it was almost a duet. With Milind Raikar’s violin and always a good harmonium the effect was like a small orchestra. It added to the atmosphere. Balkrishna Iyer’s tabla accompaniment in the 1980’s was perfect too and his demeanor on stage added to the aura. Too bad that they had a falling out later. I believe the late Subroto Roy Chowdhury in his outstanding book “The Sound of Sitar” expressed beautifully Kishoritai’s uniqueness. “Kishori Amonkar not only sang brilliantly like a nightingale but understood the audience. Her feeling and intelligent editing of talim cast a spell on the audience whenever she was in the mood. She understood well that this music form in order to remain evergreen had to be presented in a new bottle. In her days Kesarbai’s presentation was novel and this had overshadowed Kishori’s mother Mogubai, also a disciple of Alla diya Khan. Kishori was determined not to make the same mistake.” By the way Subroto Roy Chowdhury, although not a top sitar player of his generation had a complete opposite approach to performance. He had no idea what he was going to play on stage and wanted that choice to be completely spontaneous. Kishoritai on the other hand, and as far as I am aware is unique in preparing meticulously the program she is going to perform and practicing the 2 or 3 ragas with her students weeks in advance.
