How Punjab was once the Mecca of classical music

Tracing Punjab' s classical music tradition

The recently held Patiala Heritage Festival reminded one that the region (geographically not as we know it today) has been the cradle of culture in North India. Bharatha’s Natya Shastra was put together in this region, and around 1,000 years later Sharngadev, born in Kashmir (which was considered a part of Punjab), wrote  Sangeet Ratnakar, a significant music treatise.

Classical music has been an intrinsic part of people’s lives in this region — starting from Guru Nanak, (1469-1539), the first Sikh guru, all spiritual instructions were conveyed in the form of verse, in raag.

This deep connect has kept the music tradition of Punjab alive. In the late 19th century, the ‘khayal gayaki’ of the region was linked with Patiala state. Brothers ‘Aliya Fatu’, who were musicians in the court of Maharaja Rajinder Singh gave shape to the Patiala gayaki. Aliya’s grandsons, Ustad Amanat Ali Khan and Fateh Ali Khan were popular singers of their time, who migrated to Pakistan after Partition. The gharana’s most iconic exponent Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, who was from Kasur (Pakistan) inherited that gayaki apart from being trained in the Patiala tradition. Hence the gharana is known as the Patiala-Kasur gharana.

Another popular style practised in the region was of the Talwandi gharana. Earlier, dhrupad defined the music of Talwandi, while khayal came into vogue only around 250 years ago. Historically, the first references to this style are from the time of Akbar — two singers, Chand Khan and Suraj Khan, said to be disciples of Swami Haridas, spread the music in the region, which later came to be known as the Talwandi style.

Pt. Susheel Kumar Jain, who belongs to the Punjab gharana of tabla, says the brothers lived in Kapurthala, where the royal court patronised music in a big way. So much that musicians in the court of Raja Nihal Singh were discouraged from singing raag Hameer since the raja didn’t find the plaintive quality of Hameer appealing. His son Kanwar Bikrama Singh rescued the senia court musician Mir Nasir Ahmed from the Delhi court during the 1857 Mutiny and took him to Kapurthala. Thus came into the existence the Kapurthala gharana.

Later, when Kanwar Bikrama settled in Jalandhar, he started the Harivallabh Mela (now Sangeet Samaroh), incidentally the oldest classical music festival in the country.

According to Susheel Kumar Jain, the entire Punjab region was once known for its classical music tradition. Another oldest and popular music mela that used to be held in Hoshiarpur till the 1960s was the Baddho-Ki Gosain, which featured many music greats. The Sham Chaurasi gharana is also said to be an offshoot of the Talwandi style, extant for 11 generations.