Kishori Amonkar – Swararthramani

Kishori Amonkar is surely an unmatched person in the field of Indian Classical Music. Among all the famous musicians of India, she has created a very distinct position for herself. Kishori Amonkar, as she herself says, is in a true sense an artist who cares for notes and takes every care that a note is approached carefully, with love.  This love for notes, for music can be felt through all the performances of Kishori Amonkar.

Swararthramani – Book written by Kishori Amonkar

Kishori Amonkar, who is also referred as Ganasaraswati (Goddess of music) has written a book named Swararthramni which encompasses her impressions about music. The book comments  in depth about the musical interpretations of Kishori Amonkar. In one paragraph, Kishori Amonkar explains about feelings expressed in any Indian Classical Composition. Her explanation is really very authentic and genuine. She says that any composition in Indian Classical Music talks about a particular feeling of a person, eg. some one waiting eagerly for her lover. As Kishori tai says, later the reason of missing lover is just an excuse to pull up and express the other sorrows of the person. As she says in the book, the ultimate stage is the expression of all the human sorrows, which are quite eternal.

My observation is, what Kishori Amonkar is saying is absolutely true. Unless a song speaks of eternal, it has no appeal. If the sorrow or any feeling for instance, in the given composition is not taken to its eternal form, the music sounds shallow. There are very few musicians which can give us this the feel of eternal feeling. The beauty of such eternal music is, it gives us the sense of universal unity.  To name a few, Pt. Jasraj, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, Ustaad Shujaat Khan are some artists who can give their listeners this feel of eternal oneness.