Why You Cannot Imagine Hindustani Music Without The Agra Gharana 

While musicologists always love to argue the relative features of various gharanas, musical schools of thought; really, one cannot deny the basic premise that all these styles owe their genesis to the Gwalior Gharana which, in turn, owes its evolution to the Dhrupad gayaki. We looked at this evolution in detail in an earlier piece. With each school of thought giving different weightage to sur & laya and creating a unique blend out of these two basic musical ingredients, we saw how Gwalior, Jaipur & Kirana, three main gharanas of classical music, evolved over approximately the past 150 years. However, the fourth important style that is closest in musical thinking to Gwalior is that of the Agra Gharana.

In fact, the genealogy of Agra gharana traces its origin back to early fourteenth century from the days of Gopal Nayak of the Nauharbani, one of the four styles of Dhrupad-singing. However; the style, when it evolved as a separate school of thought, exchanged many features with Gwalior gharana. This is the only style that retains and blends traits of Dhrupad singing style with the modern khayal presentation. This blend is believed to have been a brain-child of Ust. Khuda Buksh who had trained extensively in Dhrupad-Dhamar style. He, however, suffered from an unmusical voice and earned a dubious title of ‘Ghagge’, meaning with a broad, abrasive voice not very pleasant on ears. Unable to bear the ridicule, Khuda Buksh went to Gwalior to train under Ust. Naththan Peer Buksh, the inheritor of Ustads Makhkhan & Shakkar Khans (ref. ‘All Roads Begin from The Gwalior Gharana’). Having spent about a dozen years under the Gwalior-maestro, Khuda Buksh came back with a sonorous & compelling voice and went on to mesmerize music-lovers for years after that!

In reality, Khuda Buksh learnt not just the voice culture but also some wonderful traits of Gwalior gayaki under Ust. Naththan Peer Buksh. His creative mind then imagined a blend of his original ‘Nauharbani’ style of dhrupad gayaki with the Gwalior features. The new style featured both aalapchari & nom-tom style expansion of dhrupad and the crisp-compact treatment of a khayal going side-by-side in a performance. Khuda Buksh incorporated ‘bol-baant’ from Dhamar in this blend to make it more listener-friendly. The style also depends heavily on heavy usage of ‘gamaks’ and ‘meend’ (glissando) for embellishments and ornamentation. Eventually, this came to be known as Agra Gharana style.

As Ust. Khuda Buksh became more & more popular, he was invited to join the Royal Court of Jaipur (well-known for its bevy of top grade artists in every art-form) where he came in close contact with many other creative minds and his gayaki absorbed more artistic elements naturally.

In the more recent times, Agra Gayaki has been synonymous with the incomparable Ust. Faiyaz Khan (1886-1950). Trained by his maternal uncle Ust. Ghulam Abbas and later by Agra Gharana maestro Ust. Mehboob Khan, Faiyaz Khan was endowed with a rich voice and incredible range. His taleem began with Ghulam Abbas at the age of five, and as he recounts in his memoirs ‘Sangeet Sansmaran’. He was forbidden to sing any khayal or bandish till the age of twelve and was allowed to only practice twelve notes with their permutations and combinations endlessly. Later, he received extensive Agra Gharana taleem from Ust. Mehboob Khan, his father-in-law. He emerged as a well-rounded singer and could perform a range of compositions from dhrupad-dhamar, to khayal and even thumri. He was loved by lay listeners and connoisseurs alike and most of the artists in the twentieth century, such as Ust. Ahmedjan Thirakwa (tabla), Pt. Ravi Shankar (sitar), Ust. Amir Khan, Ust. Vilayat Khan (sitar), were his fans. He was invited to the prestigious seat of Court Singer at Royal Court of Baroda and remained there right till the end. A number of his disciples went on to grace the musical scene in Hindustani music in the twentieth century.

Although he was a prolific performer across India, his recordings available today have been made when he was past his prime and also suffered from ailments. However, this Yaman-Kalyan gives us a wonderful sample of his Agra gayaki with nom-tom at the beginning and a traditional khayal ‘Kahe sakhi kaise’ –

Ust. Faiyaz Khan’s disciples carried the gharana torch forward ably – Ust. Khadim Hussein Khan, Ust. Vilayat Hussein Khan, Ust. Latafat Hussein Khan foremost among the performers. But it was Pt. SN Ratanjankar who excelled at both performance and as a guru to many others in the subsequent generations. Here’s a typical Agra-style Raag Jhinjhoti sung by Pt. Ratanjankar –

A number of Ratanjankar’s disciples went on to create a niche for themselves in the music-world and became famous in their own right. Pt. VG Jog (violin), Pt. CR Vyas, Pt. KG Ginde, Pt. Dinkar Kaikini, Pt. Chinmoy Lahiri & Roshan Lal Nagrath (Hindi film-music composer) are some of the names that draw a top recall. Ust. Khadim Hussein Khan also was a renowned Guru and two of his disciples are considered benchmarks in today’s Agra gayaki domain. Vidushi Lalith J. Rao gave up her distinguished career in engineering to become a full-time vocalist of Agra gayaki while Pt. Babanrao Haldankar is today considered to be the ‘Khalifa’ (senior-most, most revered artist & guru) of Agra Gharana! We first listen to Lalith Rao’s typical treatment of Raag Bageshri-Bahar –

Ust. Vilayat Hussein Khan ‘Pran-Piya’ sings a composition in a rarely-heard Raag Paraj-Kalingada where Agra bol-baant is very much on showcase –

And here’s a Agra Gharana specialty Raag Kafi-Kanada presented by Pt. Babanrao Haldankar –

Mention must also be made of another landmark artist who initially trained under Agra Gharana maestros Pt. Jagannathbuwa Purohit & Ust. Azmat Hussein Khan extensively but also subsequently trained under Ust. Gulubhai Jasdanwala of Jaipur-Atrauli gharana and created his own blend of creative sparkling gayaki style. Pt. Jitendra Abhisheki was a true genius who forged his own identity, composed a number of bandishes under the pen-name ‘Shyam-Rang’, imagined a few new raag-matrices and also gave new life to the fading ‘sangeet-natak’ tradition in Marathi theatre during the latter half of twentieth century. He also was a Guru par-excellence and trained innumerable students who are popular today in and outside India. Here’s Pt. Jitendra Abhisheki singing Raag Amrit-Varshini, a rare melody derived from Raag Maru-Bihag –

Another very important facet of Agra Gharana is the brilliant bevy of ‘vaggeykar’s (composers of bandishes in various classical raag-matrices) through succeeding generations. All these composers took on very interesting pen-names for their compositions. It seems to start with Ust. Ghulam Abbas Khan who composed under the nom-de-plume of ‘Sab-Rang’ and goes on with Ust. Kale Khan (‘Saras Piya’), Ust. Mehboob Khan (‘Daras Piya’), Ust. Faiyaz Khan (‘Prem Piya’), Ust. Vilayat Hussein Khan (‘Pran Piya’), Pt. Jagannathbuwa Purohit (‘Gunidas’). The next generation saw the trend continue with Pt. Chidanand Nagarkar (‘Chit Anand’), Ust. Khadim Hussein Khan (‘Sajan Piya’), Ust. Sharafat Hussein Khan (‘Prem Rang’), Ust. Azmat Hussein Khan (‘Dil Rang’), Pt. Dinkar Kaikini (‘Din Rang’), Pt. Babanrao Haldankar (‘Ras Piya’) and his disciple Pt. Arun Kashalkar (‘Ras Das’) – one rarely sees such a string of composers in succeeding generations in one gharana. The bandishes composed by these maestros are universally popular and are sung by artists from various gharana styles. This has perhaps been possible because of closeness of Agra style to that of Gwalior in musical thinking and logic.

Even if we take a few representative cases of bandishes composed by some of these greats, the wealth of collection would be more than its worth in gold. We begin this exploration with a famous bandish in Raag Jogkauns composed by Pt. Jagannathbuwa Purohit ‘Gunidas’ in honour of his guru Ust. Vilayat Hussein Khan ‘Pran-Piya’ – so you will see both these pen-names embedded in this bandish. Here this composition is presented by Pt. Ulhas Kashalkar, who although is not exclusively trained in Agra tradition but has received a blend of Agra-Jaipur-&-Gwalior traditions from his Guru Pt. Gajananbuwa Joshi. You can listen to him singing ‘Peer Parayi’ in Raag Jogkauns at –

And here is Pt. Dinkar Kaikini ‘Din-Rang’ singing his own composition in the evergreen Raag Yaman –

From the gen-next performers, Pt. Babanrao Haldankar’s disciple Kavita Kharwandikar presents a bandish in Raag Hameer by Ust. Khadim Hussein Khan ‘Sajan-Piya’ at an informal concert. The typical Agra treatment of the bandish with elaborate bol-baant and bol-banaav is very much evident in this presentation –

The list can be really long, but we conclude this episode on Agra Gharana with an impressive Raag Shree by Pt. Arun Kashalkar who trained with Pt. Babanrao Haldankar for Agra gayaki. Although trained in three distinct styles, Arun-ji showcases a hard-core Agra style with a well-laid-out aalapchari & nom-tom at the beginning coupled with a traditional khayal and a self-composed bandish under the pen-name ‘Ras-das’! Enjoy…

I sincerely hope you like these random ramblings of a ‘Kan-sen’ (and nothing else) that are born out of an immensely pleasurable trek of over thirty-five years of listening to classical music. I am certainly enjoying writing this and re-living those memories when I listened to all these pieces for the first time.