There was a time when almost all of us fought with our parents over our taste of music. They said the new generation loves music that is too loud and absolutely toneless. The older generation preferred Rabindrasangeet, which for the young was old people’s music, plain and boring.

And then the copyright law on Tagore’s works was revoked. A whole new genre of Rabindrasangeet flooded the market and  along with Gazal pops, we also had Tagore blues. The whole purpose of lifting the copyright on the Nobel Laureate’s works on December 31, 2001, was to ensure that the creations of Tagore do not become “the property of a few people”.

Dilip Kumar Sinha, who was the vice-chancellor of Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan during that time, had said, “Tagore had become the property of a few people and there were too many vested interests around his creations. We are trying to change all that by offering his compositions to singers willing to set them to music.”

This good intention, however, met with a  pitfall when too much experimentation almost changed the genre of music. Keeping in mind this demand for the purity of Rabindrasangeet, some artistes in Kolkata have started singing Rabindrasangeet, strictly following the norms set by the master poet. One such talented singer is Rahul Mitra.

Powerful recitals

Mitra is well-known  for his powerful yet evocative recitals of Rabindrasangeet. His manly yet melodious voice has earned him  accolades. Critiques have mentioned him as one of the most promising singers of the present times.

They have specifically pointed out that Mitra does not belong to the genre of singers who go for a stage show as soon as they have learnt a few Tagore songs. His years of training and practice are quite evident in his rendition of Tagore’s songs and this makes him one of the sought after artists of recent times.

“My programmes are a tribute towards Tagore and an effort to maintain the pristine quality of the poet’s musical creations in an age of experimentation on Rabindrasangeet, particularly in the post-copyright era,” Mitra says.

He believes that if any experimentation needs to be done it could be accomplished by selecting unusual songs.

“If you want to offer the public novelty do it in your selection of songs.Tagore had composed nearly 2500 songs, however, only a handful are heard today,” he says.

In his recent programme at Kolkata’s Kalamandir with Dhrupad singer Uday Bhawalkar, Mitra had performed lesser-known songs of Tagore that were based on Dhrupad. In Rabindrasangeet, usually the  popular numbers are performed over and over again by different singers.This is the gap that Rahul Mitra wants to bridge.

A great number of unexplored songs from the poet’s repertoire were brought back to focus by Mitra in his programme Dhruvapada.“The poet has written over 2000 songs but just a few are repeatedly performed by the artists of today. I sincerely look forward to a time when trend reversal takes place,” Mitra says.

In fact, experimenting with melody is not the only way to add a new dimension to Tagore songs. For quite sometime now Mitra has been trying to add a new dimension to his programmes of Tagore song.

For example, the programme Karuna, Karunamoy had puja parjay (devotional songs), which also featured recitations by Soumitra Chattopadhayay. Aamar Ekla Banshi was based on poet Joy Goswami’s two prose writings: Nijer Rabindranath and Paagal Je Tui. “All these programmes are a means to present Rabindrasangeet in a more appealing manner to the masses,” Mitra says.

According to Rina Basak, who has been teaching music for the last 25 years, “like every music, Rabindrasangeet is a genre of its own. Too much and random experimentation will spoil that genre and though initially the masses might like it for novelty later they will listen to songs rendered in a traditional fashion.” 

Several artists in Bangaldesh are reluctant to meddle with Tagore’s melodies while making it appealing to the younger generation. In a music album released a few years back Sahana Bajpaie and Shayan Chowdhury, the latter better known to his fans all over Bangladesh as Ornob, reinvented Rabindrasangeet in a new form to the masses in Bangladesh.

 “I guess what we are trying to do is make Rabindrasangeet something that is accessible to our generation,” says Sahana. “I wanted to break the preconceived notion of Rabindrasangeet being another lullaby which cannot be heard by the young masses. It has been the music for the intellectual masses, a sort of cultural elite, in Bangladesh for too long,” she adds. Her counterpart Ornob, however, denied that they were experimenting with music.

Being experimental

“We are in no way experimenting with Rabindrasangeet. We do not claim to be so irreverent and cocky as to assume that we can do so, but Rabindranath himself was very experimental in the way he composed his music,” Ornob says.

“He took tunes from old western folk songs, like the song Purano Shei Diner Kotha, Baul songs, Carnatic classical music and  also used to compose on the piano. What we are doing is keeping the main melody line in front and fusing both Western and Eastern instruments to come out with a different sound.

We have followed the Shorolipi (notations and renditions of Rabindrasangeet) and added our own  feelings to the song without disrupting the overall mood of the song.” Experimentations with Tagore’s song is not new.

Swagatalakshmi Dasgupta has produced two albums, which explored  Carnatic and Irish-Scottish folk influence of the bard to near lift-off levels — she sang the song in Bengali as well as the original.

Similarly, Sumon Chattopadhyay cut another album of Tagore songs using acoustic guitar while Holland-based Sudip Ghosh recorded 21 Tagore songs with a  jazz effect. And of course 60-something Pijush Kanti Sarkar added a new dimension to Tagore’s work.

Over time new experimentations seem to fade and public seem to welcome innovative yet traditional musical programmes. Whether the likes of Rahul Mitras can bring the faith back in tradition, only time can tell.