Tea with BS: Shubha Mudgal on how she found herself in the world of music

Mudgal talks to Anjuli Bhargava about how she found herself in the world of music and why artistes in the country must bear part of the blame for the treatment they receive

It is often one’s childhood experiences and exposures that shape the direction one’s life takes. Born to two professors of English literature teaching at Allahabad University and passionate about the arts, as a young child Shubha Mudgal grew up immersed in dance, poetry, music, literature and theater. Her home acted as home to many renowned visiting artistes coming to perform in the city. She vividly recalls that family vacations often centred on music festivals, such as the Maihar festival in Madhya Pradesh. Classical music and dance was more a way of life than a hobby, flowing in their veins.

We are meeting at the Taj Mahal Tea House in Mumbai’s Bandra for tea over a year after I first approached her for a lunch. Mudgal’s entry into the teahouse causes a bit of a stir as almost everyone recognises her and a couple of fans come to get an autograph signed and to take a photograph with her. I wait for the commotion to die down. We order some tea and drinks and a mixed tea platter — an assortment of vegetarian snacks — that Mudgal, 61, barely touches during our conversation.

A proclivity towards the arts — taken as seriously as academics — was encouraged from a very young age by her parents and Mudgal started learning Kathak when she turned four. But even as the young girl did her best to immerse herself in the dance form, her mother suggested she adopt a more interdisciplinary approach and learn Thumri singing and abhinay. Pandit Ramashreya Jha, head of the music department at Allahabad University, consented to take her on as his disciple. It was her mother who suggested that she take a year off from her studies after she’d completed her graduation and decide if she wanted to pursue music seriously and within a month, she enrolled for a master’s in music, spending the rest of her time in riyaaz, fortunate to have found her calling so early in life.

Soon after, her parents encouraged her to leave Allahabad, where she was viewed by the art and music community rather indulgently, and step into the “real” world. So in the early 1980s, she found herself in Delhi to study music under Vinay Chandra Maudgalya, founder of Gandharva Mahavidyalaya. She also had exposure to artists like Pandit Kumar Gandharva and Pandit Jasraj, among other stalwarts. She also began to train for Thumri under Naina Devi.

Perhaps the lack of pressure from her parents to make a commercial success of her career or perhaps it was just the innocence of the times, Mudgal found herself effortlessly slipping into a life filled with rich performances and an even richer guru-shishya tradition that left her constantly striving to improve. Her mother, too, helped keep the pressure on by never being too effusive in praise. Even at her best performances, she’d often be rewarded with a “not bad” from her mother, keeping her feet firmly on the ground.

As Mudgal became more confident in her own skin, she began to experiment with more popular genres including Indipop, and sang for two albums “Ali more angana” and “Ab ke sawan”, quite successful with the crowds but much maligned by the classical critics who said she was abandoning the pure for the popular. For her, it was just a new genre to experiment with, one she found quite challenging. Abandoning “classical”, which was ingrained in her, never crossed her mind.

Our platter of sweet and savoury snacks is before us and we both peck at some small — and in my view, tasteless — stuff. Presentation ranks higher than quality and while the Taj Tea House may have great tea on offer, as far as the eatables went, it could do with a lesson or two from the Taj chefs. The eatery is quite popular though as I have four meetings there over five days. My guest seems singularly disinterested in the food, so we decide to get it packed and carry it with us rather than let it go waste.

Meanwhile, my guest is describing some of her best and most scenic performance spots in some of the most obscure locations in India like at a small but unused Ram shrine opposite Hawa Mahal in Jaipur where a confluence of the moon and its evening glow gave the event an ethereal quality; and on the banks of the Narmada river in Madhya Pradesh at the Omkareshwar temple.

I bring her back to Mother Earth to ask why so many parents around me are constantly trying and failing to instil love for classical Indian music and dance in their children. All around me, for years now, girls have been dragged to Kathak, Odissi and Bharatnatyam classes, most without their consent, by Tiger Mommies who insist on instilling a love for the Indian arts even as their wards remain enamoured with Beyonce and her moves.

She’s more concerned with the overall failure of our system to instil a love for the arts, a factor she sees missing both at homes and in schools. At home, the arts are treated like “hobby classes” and in school, they end up reduced to an evening’s performance, a preparation for a founder’s day or a special show. Some years ago, she was part of a committee of the NCERT working to insert the arts into the school curriculum in a more holistic manner and she endorsed the view that the arts and its appreciation should be made an integral part of a student’s education, one that is evaluated and accorded the seriousness it deserves and receives in many other countries. “We all learn maths and science but we don’t all become mathematicians and scientists. The arts need to find a similar slot,” she argues.

The disregard one sees for the arts in schools extends itself into society at large. That’s why we have people unwilling to pay for tickets to a classical music or a dance performance (people expect these shows to offer free entry) even as they are willing to shell out thousands “for a U2 or Cold Play concert”. It is reflected in the pittance a group of two or three artistes are paid for performances (anywhere between Rs 7,500 and Rs 10,000) even in places like the India International Centre or other such venues in the capital. The Ministry of Culture offers artistes a great repertory scheme, she tells me, in which the director and the accompanists are paid every month, in the months preceding a performance. The scheme, she argues, is well thought-out and well intentioned but the remuneration on offer is laughable. “Take a wild guess what they are paid... the director is paid Rs 10,000 and accompanying artistes Rs 6,000 a month!” That, she argues, is the fundamental problem. If even those who are entrusted with helping the arts thrive value it at so little, how can we blame people in general?

She sees many youngsters from very small towns and often very humble backgrounds — at any point Mudgal has 12 to 15 shishyas — who have a passion for classical music and dance and are supported fully by their parents till the “breaking point” comes when the young artistes are simply unable to support themselves through their chosen vocation. The fault lies equally with the artistes — she’s not excluding herself — she says. An attitude of ji hazoori and subservience has stopped musicians and dancers from asking for their due and simply accepting the treatment that is meted out to them. “I’m not suggesting rebellion but just ask for respect that is due. Artistes as a community have failed each other by not standing up for each other and their rights,” she adds.

Every now and then, one hears of artistes in dire straits, virtually starving or even dying, alone and uncared for. But there are no benefit performances by other artistes to show solidarity — the way you have benefit or charity cricket matches by a group of cricketers to support each other. She says she’s been on shows where the stage has collapsed due to poor execution or even abandoned due to thunderous rain but there is no insurance for the artiste against injury or even death. There are no welfare schemes whatsoever — it’s like you become an artiste in India at your own peril.

I interrupt — since time is now running out — to ask her about her latest excursion into the world of literature. Her debut novel, Looking For Miss Sargam has been well re­ce­ived, she tells me. She is learning to fit the literary festival schedule with her already packed music festivals schedule and is relishing this new avatar of an author. But music remains her first love, a “magnificent obsession”.

In rebirth too, Shubha Mudgal is certain she would like to remain just that: Shubha Mudgal.