It is easy to locate Kalyan Sen Barat’s house in the Metropolitan lane beside Byepass Dhaba. If the tabla and the tanpura in relief on the garage door are not enough indicators, a signboard declares the name — Aikatan, A House of Music.
The choice of the name, meaning unity of voices, is significant as Barat has been running Calcutta Choir for 47 years. “I have always been good at working with large groups of people,” he smiles.
He recalls producing a show at Salt Lake stadium with 3,300 school children for the opening of Biswa Banga Sammelan Millennium Festival on December 29, 1999. “Subhasda (Chakraborty, the then sports minister) okayed everything I asked for. Rehearsals went on for three months daily at the 30 participating schools where I sent two coordinators each, then for two days at Khudiram Anushilan Kendra, for four days at Netaji Indoor Stadium and finally for three days at the stadium itself.” The Telegraph Salt Lake reminded him how a section of the gallery appeared to change colour to the beat of the music. “We had used flip cards,” explains the composer, who is also the brother-in-law of devotional music great Dhananjoy Bhattacharya.
Last week, as the vice-president of the organising society, he was on stage at Kala Mandir for the centenary celebration of Salil Chowdhury, with whom he was associated since 1979, after the latter’s return from Bombay.
Teacher at heart
“Salilda’s favourite subject was choir music. The way he used choir in so many languages was new in India. The style demands a different kind of schooling,” he says.
It was Barat’s choir that made Chowdhury drive his Fiat all the way from his Lower Rawdon Street home to his house in Sealdah. “It was the very next day after we got acquainted. From 5.30pm to 11.30pm, he trained us in choir singing — how to do harmony and counterpoint, the difference between chorus and choir.... He also suggested that we bring out a cassette,” he recalls. So large was his heart that on hearing Barat did not have enough original songs ready, he gifted them four tunes. “He even called a press conference at home to introduce us.”
Barat went on to do countless shows with him. “He taught us not just how to sing harmony but also how the harmony was created, teaching us the grammar of Western classical symphony. He loved to teach,” he says.
Barat stresses the need to understand orchestration. “When we listen to a song, often we do not bother about what violin obbligato is playing or which oboe or cello line is going or the harmony being sung. But once we understand these details, listening to music becomes a different experience,” he reflects.
The high melodic value of Chowdhury’s songs often distracts the listener from the lyrics. “Amra surey moje jaai, kintu onar kathateo darshon achhe,” Barat insists.
Many of the lines, Barat feels, have an autobiographical touch. “The Hemanta Mukherjee song, Amay proshno kore, includes the lament that Amar choturpashe shobkichhu jaay ashey, ami sudhu tusharito gotihino dhara, that he has not been able to do as much as the world around has. The same holds for the song, Ei roko prithibir gari ta thamao. There is so much depth in its lines, like Bharata boddo beshi, ek hajar maya.”
To understand Chowdhury, Barat suggests that one read his poetry, which is free of the distraction of melody and the restriction of meter. “The poem Ek guchchho chabi could well have been set to tune, but he did not want any alteration.”
Barat agrees that no person is perfect, nor was Chowdhury. “He had his foibles. Life’s dilemmas percolated to his pen. Take the song Na mon lage na and the line E nodir dui kinarey dui tarani in it,” reflects Barat, indicating Chowdhury’s inner turmoil at being torn between two women — his first wife Jyoti, whom he never divorced, and his second, Sabita.
Chowdhury was a feminist too. Barat points to the song O bou katha kow bole pakhi ar dakish na… boba bou thaka bhalo, ta ki janish na, which champions brides branded as mukhora for speaking up against being constantly faulted at home by in-laws and the husband.
Signature tunes
He also had the ability to make his own any song, even if it was inspired by other sources. The lyrics of Ebar ami nijer theke nijeke baad diye, Barat points out, seem to be influenced by the Tagore song Apon hotey bahir hoye baire dnara. He was influenced by Lalon Fakir as well.
“Towards the end, Chowdhury used to urge us to listen to Ramprasadi songs (devotional songs dedicated to Goddess Kali by the 18th century saint and poet of the Bhakti movement, Ramprasad Sen).”
The composer’s signature is left in major Hemanta hits like Amay proshno kore, Gnayer bodhu or Runner. “People know them as Salil Chowdhury songs as much as Hemanta da’s, just as Akashbhora surja tara did not become Georgeda (Debabrata Biswas)’s song once he recorded it. It remains a Tagore song. No other composer, after Tagore, has managed to leave an imprint on a composition despite not including their name in the lyrics, in the manner of Kabir, Lalan or Mirabai, like Salil Chowdhury has. Salil sangeet has an identity, even when he borrows from Mozart or Ramprasad or folk music.”
Another revolutionary novelty he introduced in Indian music is a change of tonic (the first and central note of a scale or key), a practice in Western music. “The sa changes in a song without us realising it. The tonic changes six times in Runner. The komol ni (B flat) is the sa in the section Raat nirjon pothe koto bhoy while in Dorodey tarar chokh knape, komol dha (A flat) becomes the sa. Another song, Shono kono ek din, has three tonic changes. These songs cannot be sung to the accompaniment of a tanpura,” Barat explains.
Chowdhury, he says, had explained how it was done. “But we could not grasp it. That’s because there can be only one Salil Chowdhury in a century.”
The multi-faceted genius rued the lack of a school for composers in Calcutta. “He had thought of starting one just as he wanted to bring the best of recording technology to the city,” reflects Barat.
Chowdhury had built a recording studio, taking a huge loan. “Jyoti Basu came to inaugurate it. Salilda wanted the standard to match that of Bombay, in some cases even Hollywood. He had created a film-editing set-up there as well. The Sennheiser microphones he got cost lakhs at a time when we were used to recording on microphones worth Rs 10,000 or so.”
The expenses worked against the viability of the studio, pushing its rent far above the market rate. “Composers were also scared to use Salilda’s studio as they were unsure if they had the knowhow to use the equipment. The location, in distant Behala and inside an industrial estate, also was an impediment. “There was too much noise which, in later days, maliciously was increased whenever there was a recording,” he recalls.
Barat has himself built a studio on the ground floor of his house. “I built it keeping the market in mind. Kintu Salilda byabsa bujhto na.” Another point that went against him was his inability and unwillingness to compromise on quality. “He took his time to write a score. So recording sessions went into overtime, crossing the producer’s budget.”
Towards the end, Chowdhury had little work in Calcutta. “The south Indian film industry kept him active. Composers like Ilaiyaraaja, who assisted him, still treat him as the god of music.”
Chowdhury died even before touching 70 — at the age of 69. “Salil da used to say people would understand his worth decades after his passing. He was correct in his prediction. It is only now that we are figuring out how he used to compose,” Barat summed up.
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