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Making Music - Dipali Nag

Hindustan Times
March 22, 2009

What makes a musician? Undoubtedly, ability, endeavour and opportunity constitute the key ingredients. However, blending them in the right proportions and at the right time is a matter of chance. In the case of Smt Dipali Nag, renowned exponent of the Agra gharana, it was the man behind the woman – her father.

Dipali Nag attained the celebrated age of seventy-five recently. Her birth thus was in the early part of this century, a time when classical music was the privilege of the courts, performed and heard behind rigidly closed doors. Her father’s interest in music led to a search for a Guru for his beloved and very special first born, and initially culminated when Shri Sitaram rook her on.

While she enjoyed the learning experience, it was uninspiring. The emancipated outlook of her father, a Professor of History at Agra, caused him to look further, and when he heard Ustad Faiyaz Khan of the Agra gharana, he coaxed him to come home to teach his daughter. It was a bold decision for those times. Men were not welcome in the homes of the delicately nurtured, much less Muslim Ustads.

The family found themselves ostracized socially, but their home became known as a place where musicians of all schools were equally received and enthusiastically heard. Dipali thus benefited from the recitals of several great musicians such as Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan, Pandit Ratanjankar and many others, and drank to her fill of the richness and diversity so generously offered.

Unlike the hard luck and hard work stories of many musicians, Dipali feels she had it easy. Her Gurus, Ustads Baseed Khan, Tasadduq Khan and Faiyaz Khan gave her taleem in tandem. Practice lasted for whatever time she chose, ‘not more than a few hours a day’, she says. Her mother’s illness was in part responsible, as some household duties became hers.

Dipali is perhaps one of the very few who did not undergo an audition for broadcasting on All India Radio. Ustad Faiyaz Khan walked into the studio with her - that was audition enough! Her first broadcast was around the year 1938. The money she earned from her radio recitals contributed to her training, for her Ustads had to be looked after, picked up and dropped, resulting in a continuous flow of cash and kind. On one of her visits to the radio station, she met this ‘utterly beautiful women, exquisitely dressed jewelled’.

Men crowded around her, and the young and gauche Dipali could not stop staring. Her father promptly dragged her away, and asked her to avoid ‘such company’. Years later, she came to know this person – none other than Begum Akhtar or Akhtari Bai. Begum Akhtar turned out to be a warm and loving human, and the friendship was deep. During a concert tour of Russia, Dipali was utterly perturbed when she entered her room and found all her 16 heavy silk sarees missing. A while later, Begum Akhtar came in, holding the sarees, neatly ironed and ready to wear! She thought that ironing the sarees would be too much for the young girl!

Fame came with ‘Megho madhur milan’, a record in the Ragpradhan tradition of Bengal. At the HMV studios for a recording, she met the famous Kazi Nazrul Islam, who gave her four lines and asked her to compose them to music. This song was the result, and statistics say that no other song, before of since, has created such an impact. She would find the song being played at all street corners, her classmates would be humming it, and she was ‘absolutely thrilled!

Marriage to eminent scientist Dr Nag Chaudhury began on a romantic note, with the two meeting for the first time at the Taj Mahal on a moonlit night. In London, where he husband was, she joined the famous dancer Ram Gopal and broadcast almost daily from BBC.

A different phase in her life began when she commenced lecturing on various faces of Indian music to universities, both abroad and in India. She enjoyed her stint at Khairagarh University immensely. She made time to delve into other musical areas and learnt the tabla, sarod and numerous other instruments. With each, she added on to her own music.

Her colleagues remember Dipali’s long stint as Assistant Producer at AIR Calcutta with nostalgia. Hard working, and ever the perfectionist, her non-formal activities included writing scripts on various aspects of music. She enjoyed the challenge of the job, ensuring that representative of all gharanas received a fair chance.

She was once asked by a casual student to teach her the song ‘Pagla gande’. Dipali denied knowing the song, at which the learner hummed the first line. It turned out to be ‘Pag lagan de’, a meaning far removed from the madness implied! She founded Saptasur, a musical group of her students, both in Calcutta and Delhi. Even at this age, she commutes regularly between the two cities at her own expense, so that her students derive the benefit of her presence and training regularly. Saptasur combines choral with classical music, makes use of harmonies and other innovations. Dipali composes the music for the group’s repertoire herself.

For the youth, Dipali offers a word of advice. At a time when the rigid demarcations between gharanas are dissolving, she requests that while one can draw from the strengths of each, what one sings should essentially be representative of one school. Also, the student of music should take time to select a Guru. He should hear several, decide on one and then start the process of learning.

Any desires unfulfilled? ‘just one’, she says. Having recently undergone major brain surgery, Dipali hopes fervently that illness with now shadow her path again. For, she says, she has no time to be ill.