Music Room

Continuing with my efforts to list out the books that I will read this year. I am currently reading The Music Room and I am loving it. The book lovingly traces the guru-shishya relationship between Dhondutai, one of the last great exponents of Jaipur Gharana of Hindustani classical music, the only disciple of Kesarbai Kerkar who spends her life in dingy one room chawls across Bombay, often on a hand to mouth existence, and who dreams of spreading her lovingly learned craft through her shishya Namita who has written this book. This book is a tribute to the now dying-out guru shishya parampara that used to define learning in India many many years ago. Often sad, but more often than that seriously uplifting, Dhondutai's life story is a tribute to the scores of nameless singers who have clung to their art forms through decay and deprivation. The book has a charming anecdote to illustrate this about Akbar and Tansen, in which Tansen takes Akbar to meet his guru who lives in a hut inside a forest. Akbar listens in rapt attention to Tansen's guruji and then turns towards him and asks why he can never sing like that. And Tansen replies, 'that's because I sing for you, and he sings for God'.