‘Toorks’ in The House of Nanak
He is a slightly built man,
somewhat bent with age. The slight quaver in his voice, perhaps attributable to
his age, does nothing to detract from the virtuosity that becomes apparent, the
second he opens his mouth to sing. It is Nobvemer 25, 2011. This Pakistani
doyen of Indian Classical Music, which in his homeland is known as Mousiki, has
been invited to the Lahore Music Forum to present his art. With him is an
ensemble of musicians, including his son, Qadir Ali and his grandson Muslim
Hassan.
He starts with a short Alaap (an
unmetered introduction to the Raga being sung, without rhythmic accompaniment)
and then starts to masterfully sing a composition in Raga Malkauns, that grand
melody of the night, often associated with the Hindu God Shiva.
But wait! The text that Ustad
Ghulam Hassan Shggan is singing is from a spiritual tradition that is not the
maestro’s own:
Countless Shastaras and Smritis (ancient Hindu holy texts) have I
studied and sifted through
None, however can compare to the Name of The Lord, for His Name is truly priceless
None, however can compare to the Name of The Lord, for His Name is truly priceless
Why is this old Muslim maestro,
arguably the greatest Pakistani vocalist of his time, singing the poetry of
Guru Arjan, the Fifth Sikh Guru ?
Therein, as you might expect,
hides a story. A story five hundred years in the making, but we will pick it up
a mere hundred years ago.
Edmund Candler was a British
journalist, writer and educator, who in a sense followed in the footprints of
Rudyard Kipling, the famous British Colonial man of letters. The Cambridge University Alumni database
yields this somewhat terse biographic picture of Candler :
Candler, Edmund.
Adm. pens. at EMMANUEL, Apr. 27, 1892.
S. of John, Esq. [M.R.C.S.], of Harleston, Norfolk. [B. Jan. 27, 1874.
School, Repton.] Matric. Michs. 1892; Scholar; B.A. 1895.
Journalist.
Travelled widely in the East. Daily Mail Special Correspondent, Tibet Mission, 1904; severely wounded at Tuna.
Principal of Patiala College, Punjab, in 1910.
During the Great War, Correspondent in France for The Times and Daily Mail, 1914-15; in Mesopotamia, 1915-18; mentioned in despatches. The Times Correspondent in the Middle East, 1918-19.
Director of Publicity, Punjab Government, 1920-1. Author, A Vagabond in Asia, etc.
Died Jan. 4, 1926, in France.
Adm. pens. at EMMANUEL, Apr. 27, 1892.
S. of John, Esq. [M.R.C.S.], of Harleston, Norfolk. [B. Jan. 27, 1874.
School, Repton.] Matric. Michs. 1892; Scholar; B.A. 1895.
Journalist.
Travelled widely in the East. Daily Mail Special Correspondent, Tibet Mission, 1904; severely wounded at Tuna.
Principal of Patiala College, Punjab, in 1910.
During the Great War, Correspondent in France for The Times and Daily Mail, 1914-15; in Mesopotamia, 1915-18; mentioned in despatches. The Times Correspondent in the Middle East, 1918-19.
Director of Publicity, Punjab Government, 1920-1. Author, A Vagabond in Asia, etc.
Died Jan. 4, 1926, in France.
In the early years of the 20th
century, presumably after Edmund Candler accompanied Sir Francis Younghusband
on his expedition to Tibet, which he documented in his book, “The Unveiling of Lhasa” and before he
became principal of Mohindra College in Patiala, Candler found himself in
Amritsar. Candler’s account of his visit to Amritsar was published in the July
1909 issue of Blackwoods Magazine, and later appeared in a collection of essays
he published in a volume called “Mantle
of The East”. The book is fascinating! Candler has an eye for detail; his
curiosity is inexhaustible and his fascination with the culture and lifestyle
of the people he encounters in his travels shines through in his luminous
prose.
For now, however, let us content
ourselves with this account of his visit to The Sri Harmnadir Sahib, also known
as the Darbar Sahib or The Golden Temple in Amritsar:
The Durbar Sahib, or Golden Temple, as we
call it, stands now as it was rebuilt soon after it was destroyed by the
Afghan, Ahmed Shah, in 1762, only with additions. The story of its making, its
disappearances and recrudescences, is, of course, the history of the Sikhs in
abstract. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it needed strong
defences. That it has stood since 1775 means that the Sikhs have been in the
ascendant from this date until they fought the British in 1846 after the death
of Ranjit Singh. For all that, they built it as men who needed a wall behind
their backs.
The temple rises from an artificial lake of
green water, in which the placid reflection of its marble walls and gilded roof
and cupolas rests dreamily all day. It is approached by a marble causeway. The
walls are inlaid with cornelian and mother-of-pearl, and the doors are sheathed
in silver. Iron and brass are " nothing accounted of " in the temple.
The tank is 500 feet in length and in breadth. The pavement round it is of
marble, 30 feet broad, and is enclosed on three sides by the Bangas, or
hostels, which open into it. These belong to the different Sikh chiefs, and are
used by them and their retainers when they visit Amritsar. The Ramgharia Banga
on the east has two towers where the watchmen kept a look-out for the enemy.
For the Durbar Sahib is a soldier's shrine.
One may stand in the gallery on the second
storey of the temple and watch the file of worshippers approach along the
marble causeway through the Darshani Darwaza, or Gate of Adoration, and from
the same spot one may look down on the Granth Sahib within and see the
offerings made to the holy book, and read the spirit of a creed in the faces of
the worshippers.
The Granth rests on a low stand, the Manjhi
Sahib, and is covered with wrappings of silk, and protected from the offerings
of pigeons by a silk awning above. Behind it sits the Granthi, a priest of the
old type, grey-bearded, keen -eyed, with an oval face, and an old-fashioned
turban lying flat on the head in coils. As in the Hindu temples, men, women,
and children drift in a stream towards the priest, throw offerings of flowers,
sugar, or copper coins on the object of veneration, and receive consecrated
ones in return. All coin of the realm, in silver or gold, is sonorously
announced, dropped in a jar before the book, and withheld for temple funds. All
unvalued things receive the currency of sanctity by contact with the Granth,
and are passed on to newcomers. The Sikh offerers approach with the respect
that well-bred men bear to a temporal lord, with a certain love and a certain
ease withal. There is less awe than in Hindu temples, because there is less
superstition. In the place of distorted images and emblems there is the holy
book. The temple is called the Durbar Sahib, because the ceremony is a Durbar
in the literal sense of the word. The book is carried to the shrine with all
circumstance and pomp. It is the deputy, or vicar, of the Gurus who have passed
away, and the disciples approach in an unending stream to pay honour to their
lord.
One is struck most with the gentlemanliness
of it all there is no other word for it. In Anglo-Indian slang the place would
be called " a Sahib's temple." One is not dunned, or jostled, or
insulted, or fawned upon there as one is at Benares or Brinda Ban or Lashkar,
or the temple of Kali in Calcutta, where a mob of brazen - tongued, cadging,
ill - conditioned, noisily-extortionate rascals surround one's carriage before
one is a hundred yards from the gate, and are allowed by the temple authorities
to palm themselves off as priests. Instead there is a rich simplicity in this
as in all Sikh shrines. The Gurus abhorred idols, priest- craft, ritual,
superstition, tamperings with the supernatural, and all attempts to localise,
personify, or insist upon special attributes or manifestations of the divine
being. The highest building in the precincts of the place is a nine -storied
monument to the opposite idea. The Baba Atal is an elegy in stone to the son of
the sixth Guru, who was chid by his father for restoring a playmate to life.
" Two swords cannot be put in one scabbard," his father said, and
bade the boy set his heart on pure living rather than vain meddling and
display. The boy made good his mistake as well as he could by lying down on the
spot and giving up the ghost. It would have been better if he had laid violent
hands on himself like a man of ordinary passions ; for the record is marred by
that commonest of human weaknesses, the boast by inference. Anyhow, that was
the Sikh attitude towards miraculous pretensions. The whole story is
illustrated in frescoes on the entrance-gate to the shrine.
What
a sensitive and nuanced description! In a few short paragraphs, Candler
elegantly captures the zeitgeist of the Sri Harmandir Sahib. His observations
are spot on. It is almost as if he has intuited the ethos of the Sikh devotee at
the Harmandir Sahib in one short visit!
But
I fear we digress from the story we set out to unearth!
Candler
goes on to say :
All through the day the worshippers flock
to the Granth. There is no service from the time of the short reading, when the
book is borne in on a palanquin an hour before dawn, until the evening prayer.
Only the musicians are constantly in attendance, singing hymns to the rebeck
and the lute. These are the Rababis, the descendants of the Muhammadan fakir,
Mardana Mirasi of Merawat, who loved Nanak, and set his hymns to music nearly
five hundred years ago. As Mardana sat by Nanak's side and ministered to him,
yet kept his own faith, so his family have made music for the Gurus or for
their deputy, the Book, these five hundred years, and served the Khalsa and
held to Islam through generations, when to be a Sikh meant to slay " a
Toork " at sight or be slain by him. What were these Muhammadans doing in
the shrine ? I asked. When I was told they were the children of Mardana, I
understood.
Ghulam
Hussain Shaggan, whose rendition of Guru Arjan’s Slok has so captivated me, is
a descendent of the very children of
Mardana that Candler saw in
attendance, singing hymns to the rebeck and the lute during his visit to
Sri Harmandir Sahib !
I
would like to offer this brief biography of Ustad Ghulam Hussain Shaggan, from
the excellent website sadarang.com :
Born in 1928 in Amritsar, Ustad Ghulam Hassan Shaggan is one of the
great exponents of the austere Gwalior style of khayal singing. The ustad
was initiated into classical music at the age of five by his father, the late
Sangeet Sagar Ustad Bhai Lal Mohammad, a leading vocalist of the Punjab during
the early part of the last century. Ustad Bhai Lal received many titles and
awards but the title of Sangeet Sagar awarded at the Shikarpur Music conference
in 1927 was associated with him the most. Ustad Shaggan’s debut
performance came at the age of seven at SPSK Hall in Lahore at a concert
presided by the Maharaja of Poonch. He performed a khayal in raag Malkauns
before a distinguished line of musicians which included his father Ustad Bhai
Lal, Pandit Omkarnath Thakur, Pandit Krishan Rao Shankar, Khansahab Fayyaz
Hussain Khan, Ustad Tawakkal Hussain Khan, Pandit Dilip Chandar Vedi, Pandit
Narayanrao Vyas and Bhai Nasira Pakhawaji, some of the greatest musicians of
the era.
Despite being a child prodigy, Ustad Shaggan's early childhood was
dominated by education. His father wanted him to have basic educational
grounding before concentrating on classical music. Ustad Shaggan received a
scholarship for outstanding achievement in his school when aged six. His
talented elder brother Nisaar Hussain, was groomed as Ustad Bhai Lal’s musical
successor, however, Nisaar tragically died of tuberculosis at the young age of
23. Following the death of his eldest son, Ustad Bhai Lal Muhammad stopped
performing for a number of years, it was during this period of mourning that he
began to focus his attention on the young Ghulam Hassan. Ustad Shaggan started
to perform regularly from the age of ten, regularly providing vocal support to
his father as well as performing solo.
Ustad Shaggan's childhood and youth were spent in Amritsar. He comes
from a distinguished family of musicians known as the Rubabis who were mostly
settled in Amritsar before partition. The city holds a special place in his
heart. “Amritsar was a centre for music, everything was classical, everybody loved
classical music. There were plenty of music clubs in the city, regular
conferences and mehfils used to take place and there was healthy rivalry
between musicians. Senior musicians were open hearted in imparting their
knowledge to juniors and greatly encouraged them” he nostalgically told this
scribe.
The
maestro hails from the Kapurthala gharana but sings in the style of the Gwalior
gharana and is well versed on the repertoire of other gharanas. The ustad
explained “My father Ustad Bhai Lal ji received his initial training from his
father Bhai Ata Muhammad. Bhai Ata Muhammad was a disciple of Mian Bannay Khan
of the Gwalior gharana, Mian Banne Khan hailed from a village near Amritsar
called Nangli-Nowshera and learnt from the Gwalior stalwarts Ustad Haddu and
Ustad Hassu Khan. Mian Bannay Khan was responsible for introducing khayal into
Punjab. After the death of my grandfather, Bhai Lal ji came under the influence
of Mian Mahboob Ali, a distant relative who was a great sitar player belonging
to the Kapurthala gharana and was associated with the states of Kapurthala and
Patiala. He was a disciple of Mir Nasir
Ahmed Beenkar and Saeen Ilyas. Despite being a sitar player, Mian Mahboob Ali
was also familiar with vocal techniques and knew many rare bandishes. He taught
my father these bandishes and the technique of meerkhand and moorchna. In 1921
Ustad Bhai Lal became a disciple of the illustrious Pandit Bhaskar Rao Buwa
Bakhle. Pandit ji had received tuition from a variety of ustads belonging to
different gharanas, including Ustad Bande Ali Khan (Kirana), Ustad Natthan Khan
(Agra), Ustad Faiz Mohammad Khan (Gwalior) and Ustad Alladiya Khan of Kohlapur
(Jaipur)".
Following the creation of Pakistan, Ustad Shaggan and his family settled
in Lahore. The family struggled to adapt to the harsh conditions facing
classical musicians, most of the wealthy patrons had migrated to India and the
long standing tradition of music conferences had not yet taken
shape. During this period, many classical artistes disillusioned with
classical music started to experiment with light classical genres such as
thumri and ghazal, but the ustad did not lose heart and pursued his passion for
classical music.
The Partition of India and
Pakistan in 1947 is one of the greatest tragedies of modern times and one of
the most shameful episodes in the history of Colonialism. Millions lost their
lives and many more had their way of life, which had often been preserved for
generations, completely destroyed.
The ‘children of Mardana’ suffered
greatly too.
In December, 2009, I was in Delhi
after presenting on Gurmat Sangeet, the Sikh Musical Tradition at the World
Parliament of Religions in Melbourne. As I was wont to do whenever I visited
Delhi, I went to the Rakab Ganj Gurdwara to pay my respects to the doughty
Gyani Dyal Singh Ji, the Principal of the Rakab Ganj Kirtan Vidyalay (school).
Gyani Dyal Singh was a stalwart, who as a young man, had rubbed shoulders with
the Rababis of Sri Harmandir Sahib, when he was a Dilruba (a bowed string instrument,
traditionally used in Gurmat Sangeet) player, employed there. Over the years I
rembered having had many conversations with Gyani Dyal Singh about the Rababis,
particularly Bhai Taba, a contemporary of Ustad Ghulam Hussain Shaggan’s father
Bhai Lal, who was also employed at the Sri Harmandir Sahib.
Both Bhai Lal and Bhai Taba had a
vast repertoire of ancient Gurmat Sangeet compositions that had been passed
down from generation to generation within the families of the ‘children of
Mardana’. Both Bhai Lal and Bhai Taba migrated to Pakistan after the partition
of India in 1947. Sardar Gian Singh Abbotabad, who was a wealthy businessman in
Delhi and a purveyor of arms and ammunition (!), was an ardent practitioner of
Gurmat Sangeet. Over the years, he too had collected a large repertoire of
traditional compositions that he wished to record and document for posterity.
Sardar Gian Singh Abbotabad was inspired to write a book documenting old
compositions and not being much of a theoretician, he was advised to employ a
young Dyal Singh to actually parse the compositions and document for what
eventually became the canonical work, “Gurbani Sangeet”.
Bhai Taba was asked to return to
Delhi, where he spent many hours in sessions with Gyani Dyal Singh, who would
ask him to sing and then capture the melodies using the format invented a few
decades ago by Pandit Vishnu Narain Bhatkhande. Bhai Taba much appreciated the
employment. All the Rababis had to live in much reduced circumstances after
leaving Amritsar. The Sikhs had left Pakistan and there was no patronage or
support for their art. Furthermore Bhai Taba had been blessed with a large
family and had, I believe nine young daughters, whose marriages and their
attendant expenses were a cause of constant worry for him. He also found
support and patronage at Bheni Sahib, where he spent considerable time teaching
Namdhari musicians innumerable old compositions that had been passed down in
his family. Thus a large part of the repertoire that the ‘children of Mardana’
had preserved, were propagated and documented for posterity.
In the days when Bhai Taba lived
and sang in Amritsar, he would often be invited to the homes of prominent Sikhs
to teach their children. A young woman called Jaswant Kaur was one of his
students, who spent sixteen years studying with him. After he left for
Pakistan, the young woman got married and made a career in the police. Bibi
Jaswant Kaur was widowed and after ensuring that her daughters were wells
settled, she took up residence in Delhi at Gobind Sadan, the Dera of Baba Virsa
Singh.
Four years before my visit with
Gyani Dyal Singh at Rakab Ganj, I had learned about Bibi Jaswant Kaur and had
gone to visit her at Gobind Sadan. I met a sprightly eighty five old woman, who
had spent the last thrity five years of her life singing the sublime
compositions that she had received from the ‘children of Mardana’ at Gobind
Sadan. She regaled me with anecdotes about Bhai Taba, Bhai Chand, Bhai Lal,
Bhai Nasira, Bhai Santu and other Rababis that she had listened to in her youth
and spoke of them great great love and affection. She was also kind enough to
sing several old compositions that I recorded and published on the Gurmat
Sangeet Project website.
When
I went to visit Gyani Dyal Singh in 2009, I mentioned to him that my next stop
was to be Gobind Sadan to pay my respects to the last living link to the great
Rababi tradition in Gurmat Sangeet. Gyani Ji’s ears perked up when I mentioned
the name of Bibi Jaswant Kaur’s Ustad. It seemed incomprehensible to me that
these two stalwarts, both intimately linked to the tradition of the Rababis,
both sharing a deep sense of affection for Bhai Taba, had lived in Delhi for
the last forty years and never met! Gyani Ji got into my taxi with me, and with
Bhai Kavinder Singh, one of his students who played the table and had visited
Gobind Sadan with me four years ago, in tow, we proceeded to visit with Bibi
Ji.
Bibi Jaswant Kaur was now almost
ninety years old, but still as sprightly as ever. She insisted on serving us
fruit and fussing over us. What a treat it was, to breathe the same air as
these giants and listen to them talk about the great Rababis if yesteryear and
their art! Bibi Ji, though gracious and hospitable, was not cowed down one bit
by Gyani Ji, who had quite an intimidating personality was quite capable of
being a curmudgeon! The conversation got around to the departure of the Rababis
from Amritsar and their fate in Pakistan. Both of them expressed great sorrow
at the fact that the Rababis, who had once been the pride of Amritsar, were
largely reduced to penury after the partition of India. There was no patronage
or support for their music and gradually many of them were forced to take on
low paying menial occupations just to survive.
Bhai Lal, the father of Ustad
Ghulam Hussain Shaggan, who had a solid grounding in Classical Music as well as
Gurmat Sangeet, was one of the few exceptions. He continued to sing, albeit not
primarily his Gurmat Sangeet repertoire and music survived and thrived in his
family. The others were not so fortunate and their art atrophied and crumbled,
though in recent years, we have had the pleasure of listening to some of their
descendants sing Gurmat Sangeet compositions. The glory days of the ‘children
of Mardana’, alas, will never return.
On one topic, there was sharp
disagreement between Bibi Ji and Gyani Ji. Gyani Dyal Singh held to the opinion
that the Rababis left Amritsar, largely because they were somewhat bigoted
Muslims, who felt that their palce was in the Islamic nation of Pakistan. Bibi
Ji, who was there, and was very close to Bhai Taba Ji had a completely
different perspective. According to her the horrific events surrounding the
partition of India in 1947, when innumerable innocent Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims
lost their lives in a frenzy of communal bloodletting, created an environment
in Amritsar that was very hostile to the Muslim Rababis. The Sikhs had suffered
too, at the hands of Muslims in what was going to become the nation of
Pakistan, and there was intolerance and bigotry in the air. In this new
polarized climate, Sikhs would simply not tolerate the presence of ‘Toorks’ in
the holy precincts of Sri Harmandir Sahib anymore. The Rababis had reason to
fear that their livelihood and indeed their lives would be in jeopardy.
The ‘children of Mardana’, whose
presence at the Sri Harmandir Sahib, Edmund Candler had written about a scant
five decades earlier, collected their belongings and left to embrace an
uncertain future.
As I watched the video recording
of Ustad Ghulam Hussain Shaggan singing the Slok, over and over again, I was
impelled to share my thoughts about my personal, albeit tenuous connection to
the ‘children of Mardana’. I cannot but help admire them. For to me, the notion
of devout Muslims, generation after generation, offering devotions at the most
prominent place of worship in Sikhism, bespeaks the catholicism of an era long
gone.
Something that Guru Nanak, the
preceptor and master of Bhai Mardana, would have perhaps appreciated and been
proud of.