Infusing life into priceless work

Some are rare live recordings and anybody would give millions to lay hands on such priceless pieces

The knife-edged beam filtering through billowing curtains draping high-porch windows casts lambent shuffling shafts of light and shadows on the flickering computer screens lit up with oscillating waves and a network of lattices. The high-ceiling room opens to a panoramic view outside to gasping buildings, grumbling streets with traffic buzz bouncing between bluish glass and red-grey concrete and steel structures dotted with muted bustle of young office goers, staring with empty eyes and outstretched hands clawing the blinding need for the shadowy and elusive prosperity and wealth. Inside the room, basking in a warm mellow glow, sublime strains of sitar and veena twirl in the air wrapping the walls and slowly opening an inner sanctum of heart and pole-vaulting the psyche beyond the self-limiting realms noesis.

Here in this room, last century’s legendary singing ghosts lingering in  the musty archives for decades are being once again woken up. The liquid memories of stage-artistes and musical legends like Bal Gandharva, Girija Devi, Jaffar Khan, Kumari Janaki Aiyar to name a few are slowly stirred into a living embodiment of voice. For the past one year, this second floor room in Mumbai’s famous Ravindra Natya Mandir, shaded by trees in the old island city, resonates all hours; sometimes with soft strains emoting rhythms deep inside the hearts and sometimes tonal pitch touching lofty heights with music digging out unconscious collective memories.
The Directorate of Cultural Affairs of Maharashtra has undertaken a task to restore and conserve the musical explorations of yesteryear musical maestros. Along with the restoration of musical tapes which are in magnetic format, the department has also undertaken the conservation of century-old musical plays and photographs.   The magnetic spools were present in the archives, “…and some years ago it was decided to digitise them; thus the digitisation project was started,” says sound technician Milind Shinde handling the restoration and preservation of the archival material.
“I have myself started admiring the subtleties of classical music. We have magnetic spools of vocalists and instrumentalists from both Hindustani and Carnatic schools of music,” says Shinde. Some of the spools contain dance formats also as well as easy-listening music. The spools numbering around 406 contain recordings of singers and instrumentalists who played to a live audience at the once-upon-a-time south Mumbai’s famed open auditorium Rang Bhavan. According to Shinde, “the earliest recording goes half-a-century ago. I am still cataloguing it. But the earliest tape which till date I have digitised format was recorded in1962. Most of the recordings were carried out by Bhalchandra Pendarkar and archived by Prabhakar Sathe who retired from the department in 1998.” 

Over the time fungus started creeping over the magnetic spools and the  department in 2008 came up with a two-fold idea: Clean the fungus from the spools; and digitise all of them. It was then the department stumbled upon rare solitaire gems glistening on the shelves. Hearing the recordings left them stumped and delightfully startled. “We realised that we had tripped upon really rarified precious stones glittering on the Indian musical pathways,”  Ashutosh Ghorpade, Director, Directorate of Cultural Affairs, told Deccan Herald. 
However, the progress though steady has been slow. “This is because after the fungus is removed. I have to see that during digitisation that timbre and tones are retained. In fact I attended a special session by an expert wherein I learnt that improvising one sound wave leads to a change in the formation of other wave… say if I try to highlight the vocal then I would end up distorting the timbre effect of instrument,” Shinde explains. As to why the digitisation project was not outsou­rced, Shinde says: “These are rare live recordings. Anybody would give millions to lay hands on such priceless pieces. Our seniors wanted to protect the rights and save them from piracy.”
Musical plays
Apart from the magnetic tapes hiding musical treasures, the audio-visual tapes are also being digitised. In the eighties, the state government in an attempt to preserve the musical drama legacy of Maharashtra, popularly called ‘Sangeet Natak,’ came up with an idea of enacting out the earliest of this genre if possible through family lineage.

The video recordings of these plays re-enacted in 1985 were first staged in early 20th century- with some of them being played out as early as 1901; and like the audio recordings these cassettes had also started oozing out musty smell in the archival room.
“High humidity aggravates fungal attacks on video tapes. Thus while audio also has
fungal problems, the magnitude in video tapes is extremely high because if a visual frame gets damaged then it is irreparable. In audio post-fungus and post-digitising if I am not convinced with the process I can always revert back to original; but in video it would not be possible…
because once the visual is lost… lost... it is lost forever,” Shinde points out.Most of the video recordings of musical plays are those popularised by the famous theatre prodigy Bal Gandharva who had not just beautifully synthesised folk dances of country in his repertoire but had infused stage and musical forms from European traditions. Bal Gandharva had also tried to infuse realism and classical musical structures in his plays which had become a rage from early 20th century till 1940s. However, the musical plays being restored are not confined to just Bal Gandharva’s stage shows, they also include Ram Gadkari, Vidhyadhar Gokhale and others; the dramas ranging from mythological to social satires and marital comedies. Some years ago, renowned stage photographer K T Deshmukh passed away. But before his death he passed on his photo collection to the Maharashtra government. Some of them were collected by Deshmukh from his seniors while trundling through country-side while pursuing his passion--capture infinite nuances of expressions on stage and urban streets.

The photographs dating to the first decade of last century neatly pasted in huge tomes, with annotations below, open up new dimensions swimming on the wrinkles of time. History can be seen happening all hooked up and intertwined in an intricate unpredictable non-linear geometric pattern of lives.    “There are over 4,000 such photos… they range from earliest Indian newspapers ads to bill boards to portraits and of course to stage shows. Whatever photos we had digitised we held an exhibition but then the scanning and digitisation is still underway.  Black and white are amazingly in such perfect condition… it seems as if they are just few years old,” Shinde exclaims. 
On being asked about the future and possibility of bringing out compact discs of live recordings, video of musical plays and book of photography in early 20th century not just for serious social historians but for lovers of music, Ghorpade says: “We certainly want these precious priceless work of art reach wider audience both in India and on foreign shores. We are studying the modalities as to how make it possible.”