Saigal-Page

Kundan Lal Saigal (1904-1947)

The great Indian singing film star of the 1930s and 1940s

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Articles

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Book Review

By Ashok

(Message posted in GoogleGroups : rec.music.indian.classical)

K.L.Saigal: the Pilgrim of the Swara

By Ragava R. Menon

Fifty years ago from today, just seven months before the country was to win freedom, a musical phenomenon came to its end. Sometime ago, I was reminded of the significance of the occasion by Ajay Nerurkar. Since then, I have been looking around for an interesting article to post for the occasion and soon ran into this crazy book.

Looks like it is written by an international professional hailing from Kerala, who came totally under the spell of Saigal's magic. It is not a biography; there are very few facts here, although the author has spoken to a number of people who had interacted with Saigal and they include some interesting characters.

It is an account of Saigal's singing, or more accurately, an account of author's subjective reactions to Saigal's music. It is quite badly written, author's Hindi seems to be suspect, the author often goes on and on about his own reflections regarding music, society, and life. Nevertheless, the ardour and fervour with which he has approached his love is admirable and the book has lots of quaint and curiously interesting aspects.

I have decided to post selected chapters from the book. It was published in 1978 by a publishing house that I haven't encountered often. I suspect the book is out of print. In any case, I hope the selective material I post leads many music lovers to seek out the book. It has some terrific pictures.

- Ashok

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K. L. Saigal: the pilgrim of the swara

Ragava R. Menon

Clarion Books, New Delhi, 1978

Contents

. Introduction

. shadja
. rishabha
. gandhara
. madhyama
. pancham
. dhaivat
. nishad
. baabula mora

. Appendix: The records of K. L. Saigal
. Glossary
. Index

Introduction

This book has taken a whole lifetime in the making. Information has been slow and difficult to obtain as most of the key men in Saigal's youth and early years were dead and beyond recall. It has been mostly picked, in bits and pieces, a scrap here and a scrap there, over several decades.

Two longish meetings with Saigal himself in the last years of his life have added to my own sense of him. He sang heer to us the first time I met him. He sang softly intoning his syllables returning to an agonizing _madhyama_ that made you wonder whether it was a flute or a voice that you were hearing. He was reticent about himself, laughing off his extraordinary achievements as though it were so much rumour. He did not seem like a man who looked much ahead. He lived largely in the moment.

So he gave you a sense of being all there, a man of the present. All of him. This you could see without having to ask. His drinking habits fascinate many people. You are very well informed on this subject - whether he drank, how much, and whether he sang better or worse when in his cups. This is an eternal topic of discussion whenever Saigal is mentioned.

His family has been of great help to me in my search of him. His wife Asharani Saigal bore with my persistent and sometimes stubborn demand for nuances about him and while she broke into tears very often, forgave me with singular kindness.

His daughters, charming and patient, helped me beyond my ability to repay them in this life, or if there is another, in that. His sons-in-law, Ali and Mahendra Chopra, were helpful in the extreme, communicating with a gentle insight the quality of the man into whose family they had cast their lot.

I have been privileged to have several long sessions with the kind and gentle relatives of K. L. Saigal. I can still recall Asharani Saigal's reference to her husband given me in broken words and often choked with sobs, which I have taken the liberty to quote here with somewhat less discontinuity:

"He is as complex as anything God has created. His characteristics were uncommon in every sense. He had a prodigious memory and felt for things that were difficult to understand. You can be his brother, his mother, or his wife, but you could never know him completely. I felt at times as though I were trembling, and at times it was so easy. He wrote the song "mai.n baiThi thi" with his head on my lap, asking for the pen and ink to write its strange words down.

"Later he brought its tune into life on the harmonium. Long after he passed away, I had a pervading sense of his presence in the house. Everywhere he would appear to me and I was disconsolate for years."

I have taxed the kindness of music maestro R. C. Boral with whom I spent a whole day and whose help was principally responsible for this book. The late Pahari Sanyal gave me two full days of his time, singing various Saigal songs and showing me the peculiarities of his style and the techniques Saigal employed. His insights about Saigal locked with several other views I had picked up from diverse sources about Saigal's art and inner nature.

I was given several hours with film producer B. N. Sircar, who told me many anecdotes about Saigal's life at the New Theatres. Principally, however, the truths of Saigal's childhood were given to me by the three astrologers I have mentioned in the book - Badri Prasad Bannerji, Biswanath Rajgarhia, and Yogeshwar Shastri. The relationship between a man and his astrologer must be deemed as classified as with his physician or his lawyer. Yet these men were aware of the importance of my quest for the man they themselves loved and revered. It was only after they were sure that I would not use the information they had given me for anything but honourable purpose that they agreed to tell all they knew. Imtiaz Ahmed was an important link. Although desperately poor, he refused to accept any kind of consideration for the time he spent and the kindness with which he described his earliest memories of the man. It is not possible to repay the debt of gratitude I owe to him.

I have had access to Kanan Devi's compelling account of her life and times told with such wisdom and penetrating understanding in 'Shobarey Ami Nomey', several published interviews of Pankaj Mullick, the moving TV documentary entitled 'Bhulaaye Na Bane' and the passionate interest of the late Ali Bokhari in the life of his dear friend. I have also had old copies of 'Jayathi' loaned to me by friends in Varanasi, Lucknow, and Allahabad who do not wish to be named.

I would like to say that this book is not a biography of K.L.Saigal. I wait for someone more gifted in the kind of sleuthing needed to write such a book, to do this at a future date. This book is on music. Saigal was all music. He lived it in his life as completely as anyone who has dissolved his existence in any art or craft or science has lived. The pieces of information that I have looked for and obtained have been only those which throw light upon Saigal as a man of music. All other material that I have obtained which does not directly illustrate the timeless discipline which in Indian music has been a source of wonder and fascination to those who have glimpsed it even at a distance, that I have omitted to use. These aspects of the man are not relevant to my enquiry.

It is characteristic of those who have struggled with themselves in acquiring something permanent and indestructible in their natures that they have a certain compassion and understanding of the predicament of human life and effort upon
this planet. It is my meeting with many such men and women in the course of my enquiry scattered over several years that made it possible to make music the issue of the book rather than the fortuitous chronology of events and their passage.

It was during a discussion with the late Ustad Faiyaz Khan on his several years
of contact with Saigal who pointed out to me that Saigal had not entered music on account of the accident of a good voice. He believed that every bit of his musical insight had been acquired. He said, "Don't be carried away by all this talk of _khuda_ in matters of this nature. _khuda_ cannot help without the man he wants to help doing all the work that needs to be done. Of course he takes the credit." He kept on at the theme that he is not what he seems. Look behind him. He hides a big truth.

The book tries to point out the unsurpassed internal certitude Saigal had in his art and the curious path he followed to acquire it.

If the readers are likewise moved as I have been with this questing man and his passion for music he eventually came to exemplify, this book would have achieved its modest purpose.

Rome R.R.M.

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