The death of no other classical musician in recent times has had such a stunning effect as the passing away of Ustad Baray Ghulam Ali Khan had in April 1968 on the world of Indian music. AIR was flooded with poignant tributes and homages from great musicians, musicologists and music-lovers from all over the country.
The great maestro used to say: "Music is to me more than my food. It is my only life and I cannot live without it. I would rather die with a song on my lips than live without music." Years ago, he had to undergo a serious goitre operation after which he was advised complete vocal and physical rest by his surgeon-friend. Hardly 24 hours had elapsed when he burst into a taan covering 3 octaves! When his surgeon affectionately admonished him for it, his childlike reply was: "I had to see if my voice has been affected. Without it, what use is my life to me?"
When Baray Ghulam Ali was stricken with paralysis in 1961 his admirers all over the country felt deeply grieved not only for themselves, but even more for the great Ustad for whom life without music would be nothing better than the silence of the tomb. Those who had seen his utter helplessness after the stroke, had no hope of hearing his wonderful singing voice again. But after some time, excited rumours spread that he was going to stage a come-back, rumours that seemed too good to be true. But he proved how mind can truimph over the body. There he was on the stage- "frail in body, but exuberent in spirit, looking like a disabled lion - still majestic in his deportment, a twinkle in his eyes, and that impish smile on his lips". Music circles took the lead in restoring his self-confidence. In his programme (relayed by AIR) after receiving the Presidential Award, he seemed to have set a challenge for himself by singing Khayals and Tarana (in Yaman) - just to reassure himself that his taans had at least not been "crippled" by the stroke.
Another of his "come-back" appearances was in the Fourth Music and Dance Festival (1967) sponsored by the Goverment of Maharashtra. He had to be brought on a chair and seated on the stage before the curtain went up. He was surrounded by his various accompanists and admirers on the stage; but he refused to start singing. Reason:- "You have switched off all the audience lights and I can see no one in the dark. How can I feel like singing unless I have a darshan of my dear listeners who have come from far and near in their affection for me?" A glimpse of the adoring crowds, and he broke into his inimitable Khayal in Rag Chchaya ("Jo kare Ram Kripa") full of [The kHayAl in Chhayanat is actually "Sugreeva Rama Krupa" - RP] devotional fervour. For the true musician, there is only one God - by whichever name you address Him. The great artist that he was, Ghulam Ali was not interested in political and religious differences. He knew of only two categories of humanity - music-lovers and the uninterested ones. "I know only one thing - Music ! I am little interested in other things. I am just a humble devotee of God and Music."
Ghulam Ali not only believed in the divine origin of music but also in the story that music came into his family when one of his Pathan ancestors (Fazl Peerdad Khan) migrated to Hindustan from Ghazni, became a Fakir, and worshipped the Goddess of music for years among the lonely mountain-tops of the north until one day she appeared before the music-mad devotee and blest him. "Music will run in your family from generation to generation". Peerdada handed over his ilm to Miyan Irshad Ali Khan (great-grandfatber of Ghulam Ali) from whom it came to Id Mohammad Khan (Ghulam Ali's grandfather), to father Ali Buksh, uncle Kale Khan, and on to Baray Ghulam Ali. Their Gharana was known as the Kasur Gharana.
Born in Lahore in 1901, Ghulam Ali's musical gifts were evident at an incredibly early age. As an infant he once wailed in the same pitch in which his father and his famous uncle Kale Khan were singing! Reminiscing over his childhood, the Ustad once said: "I do not know at what age I began to master the 12 notes. This much I can say. At the age of 3 or 4 when I started talking, I had some idea of the 12 notes. I learnt sargam as a child learns his mother-tongue."
Recognising the musical potentialities of the child, Ali Bux put him, at the age of seven, under the tutelage of Khan Sahib Kale Khan of Patiala for the next ten years. After the Khan Sahib's death, Ghulam Ali continued his training under his own father. Both his uncle and father bad received good training from Khan Sahib Fateh Ali Khan, the court musician of Patiala.
What fired him with a feeling of challenge was a small incident. When Kale Khan died, a certain musician made a caustic remark that "music was dead with Kale Khan." This put young Ghulam Ali on his mettle. In his own words: "For the next five years, music became my sole passion. I practised hard day and night, even at the cost of sleep. All my joys and sorrows were centred on music."
Ghulam Ali was gifted with all the attributes of a great musician: musical lineage, sound training and high artistic sensibility. "To me the purity of the note is the supreme thing", he used to say. Ghulam Ali also had the privilege of receiving talim from Ashiq Ali (who belonged to the Gharana of Tanras Khan), and from the late Baba Sinde Khan. Some people detected shades of Ustad Wahid Khan's charming style in his Khayal alap.
Whether it was a Khayal with a courtly theme, a Thumri with wistfully romantic word-content, a playful Dadra or a soulful Bhajan, Ghulam Ali Khan could always put his heart and soul into the song. We have no dearth of great traditionalists and purists who can impress the intellect by their technical mastery. But what is music without a soul! Ghulam Ali's music was "the best imaginable blend of appeal and technique." Few could touch the listeners' hearts as he could. No wonder, that no other classical vocalist earned such country-wide adulation as he did. Among his many contributions to Hindustani music, the outstanding one is that he opened the eyes and ears of contemporary musicians and music-lovers to the prime importance of voice culture and voice-modulation and the supreme value of emotion in music. "A voice is not just a ready-made gift from the gods. One has to earn it, polish it, and gain absolute command over it by Sangeet Sadhana" - he used to say.
A remarkable fact in Baray Ghulam Ali's life was his transformation, in the early part of his life, from the role of a Sarangi player to that of a vocalist. This experience really enriched his taans and we admire him all the more for it, but somehow Ghulam Ali never liked to be reminded about that -early phase of his life!
The amazing pliability of his voice, his unpredictable swara-combinations, the incredible speed of his tans, and the ease with which he could sway his audiences by his emotional renderings - these were some of the qualities which became the envy and despair of many a rival.
As I sit and recall the numerous concerts of Baray Ghulam Ali that I had the good fortune to attend, I find that there was not a single rasa that he could not bring to life through his music. Such was the power of his music that be it summer or winter, if be chose to sing Basant and (or), Bahar, he could conjure up before the audience, the entire beauty, youthful exuberance, bursting buds, and blossoms, the poignancy of separation and the entire atmosphere of Spring. Suddenly he would wave the magic wand of his music, and when he started that peerless Desh of his "Kali Ghata ghir aye Sajani", the audience could almost hear the rumbling of thunder (in the deep, growling mandra notes) see the flashes of lightning (in his sweeping taan), and share the beloved's agony of separation (through the exquisite meends) and so on. In his Thumri "Naina more taras rahe" (in Jangla Bhairavi), he could bring out the entire longing of the eyes to behold the "Pardesi balam." What passion cannot music raise and quell! He sang strictly within the traditional framework, but what varied emotions he could pour into his dignified and devotional Khayals (like "Mahadev Maheshivar", or "Prabhu ranga bheeni"), sensuous thumris like "Yadpiya Ki aye", or "Tirchh najariya ke Baan"), poignant Dadras (Saiya bolbolo) playful Horis, and soulful Bhajans. By his richly expressive style, he has silenced the detractors of classical music who argue that it is "dry and flat," and therefore, sans appeal. This pained Ghulam Ali, who used to say - "This is because generally our musicians are more interested in technical virtuosity. But really, emotion is the very soul of our music which has the power to express the subtlest nuances of feeling". He proved his point by his own style. "From the heart of the singer to the heart of the listener" was true in the case of his music. For the rare perfection and popularity that he brought to the Punjab ang Thumri, he has been rightly called "the King of light classical music". He had cultivated a full and splendidly modulated voice that charmed listeners. It was a soothing, polished voice that could float effortlessly over the 3 octaves, in slow long glides (meends) or in faans of inimitable speed.
It is true that Ghulam Ali belonged to a long and illustrious musical lineage - the Patiala Gharana. But it was his genius that chiselled off all the harsh crudities and angularities of the once dry Patiala Gharana, and lent it such a rare polish and glow that today it has achieved countrywide popularity. Baray Ghulam Ali Khan has left behind not only hundreds of singers trying to emulate him, but also thousands and thousands of music-lovers who cherish his music. No other North Indian vocalist ever attracted such large audiences in the South as did Baray Ghulam Ali Khan.
Baray Ghulam Ali never tried to win the approbation of those classical purists who judge the excellence of a perfor mance by the length of delineation of each raga. His aim was to appeal to the hearts of the millions who heard him. He would say: "What is the use of stretching each raga for hours? There are bound to be repetitions." He was one of those rare musicians who was an adept in matching his music to the mood and tastes of his audiences. Indeed, few classical musicians have equalled his shrewd knowledge of audience-psychology. He used to give brief renderings of ragas at big conferences because he rightly felt that too elaborate alaps and badhat might sound tedious to the uninitiated who form the bulk of big gatherings. However, he inevitably poured out his sweetest art at exclusive private soirees. It was at the great Vikram Samvat Conference in Bombay that Ghulam Ali shot up to dizzy heights of fame. It was an unforgettable occasion. All the shining jewels of Hindustani classical music like Aftab-E-Mausiqui Ustad Faiyaz Khan, Ustad Alladiya Khan, Kesarbai and all the rest of the brilliant galaxy were present.
Young Ghulam Ali's performance made him the sensation of the day. Those who heard him on that occasion still rave about the Khayals in Pooriva, and Marva and the Thumris that he rendered then.
At his abode, wherever he used to stay, whether Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta or Hyderabad, he was surrounded by his admirers all the time, and the Swarmandal was always with him. Every few minutes he would break into song to illustrate a point he was making. A firm believer in the debt that classical music owes to folk music, he could, with amazing dexterity, demonstrate the simple folk tunes like a real villager, and then suddenly sing out its fully polished classical counterpart in a scintillating manner! No wonder his admirers were always crowding around him throughout his waking hours. An ample, corpulent figure with a handlebar moustache, his face would become lighted up with expression as he sang, and music enriched with unsurpassed melodiousness would flow out of this great maestro.
During the Ustad's last stay in Bombay (prior to his departure for Hyderabad and his last fatal attack), my brother, a devout BGA fan, in the course of his Cochin-Bombay-Calcutta flight, had a few hours' halt in Bombay, before taking a plane to Calcutta. It was 11 pm when he reached Baray Ghulam Ali Khan's place. Yet, with joy, the Ustad showed his hospitality, not by serving tea and sweets but by something more precious. "Bring my swarmandal," he said to his son Munawwar. "Let me sing awhile for my dear guest." My brother was overwhelmed by the great artiste's humility, affection, and his utter absorption in music. One of my brother's most cherished. possessions today is an old autographed Swarmandal of the Ustad.
Baray Ghulam Ali was not only everyone's favourite, but the favourite of many musicians. When the news of his death spread (April 1968), great contemporaries like Begum Akhtar, Siddheswari Devi, Bhimsen Joshi, Dilip Chandra Vedi and a host of others spoke out in their grief over the "irreparable loss". Siddheswari Devi looked nostalgically at a group-photo in which she sat next to the great maestro after a grand music conference in 1936, and said in a tearful voice: "The like of Baray Ghulam Ali Khan will never come. There will not be another like him."
Begum Akhtar who had known him since long, paid her tribute thus: "I have never seen such a rare combination of greatness and simplicity. When I first heard him, I felt that I was hearing real music for the first time. He was my honoured guest for several months in Calcutta. He used to sing all day long. In fact, music was his sole interest in life, In sorrow he would draw solace from music. In joy also he would burst into song. What a rare musician!"
Under his pen name, Sabrang, he has left numerous lilting compositions - khayals and thumris. Sabrang had only one passion in life - Music.
