The female voice in Hindustani classical music

Hindustani classical bandishes have always captured a raag's soul. History shows how by the end of the 11th Century when the genre emerged distinctively in the north of the Indian subcontinent removed from Carnatic, it drew from devotional music, folk music and also outside influences, like Persia. But khayal gayaki which replaced the ancient dhrupad singing brought along influences of partiarchy and misogyny, a reflection of the gender-unequal society.

"Most bandishes – irrespective of composer and performer being male – speak in the female voice," informs percussionist-composer Dr Aneesh Pradhan, a music doctorate. "The woman's almost always desperate to please the male lover/consort, going to great lengths with her pleas/entreaties while the man torments her by callously staying away or worse, showering attention on another."

"Saanwari saloni alabeli naveli naar / Piya ke milan ko karat ati singaar / Roop joban par aayo rang nikhaar / Mukh dekhat darpan baar baar" in Raag Ahir Bhairav, which roughly translated means that the woman, who is about to meet her lover, wishes for greater, more youthful beauty, clearly underlines this.

Dr Pradhan points out how such portrayals of women without agency are spiritually rationalised. "By looking at the male as the divine and the female as mortals under his grace everyone becomes female. Only God with whom they seek union in an atma-meets-parmatma way, is male."

In Delhi, eminent classical vocalist Shubha Mudgal say this does not help take away from problematic compositions. "They not only portray women as helpless, supplicant and without agency, but also show them begging favour/grace from the same tormentor ridiculing, teasing or even harrassing them."

While admitting it is unfair to use modern paradigms to judge compositions from an era when the norm was didactic patriarchy, Mudgal says: "There'll be those who look at such bandishes as a mere set of notes arranged in keeping with the grammar of the raag being sung in but how can one ignore the deeply problematic lyrics?" She cites the instance of one of her own guru Pt Ramashreya Jha's bandish. "Despite its musical beauty, I don't sing it as it says abala naari aaye dwaar tumhare (this helpless woman stands at your door)."

Back in Mumbai, Carnatic and Hindustani Classical vocalist Jayanti Sundaram-Nayak says: "Almost all khayal and thumris with sringara rasa are expressive of the female voice yearning/rejoicing in her quest for the beloved.

(Aaja saawariya tohe garwa laga lu, in Raag Bhairavi where the woman wishes to embrace her lover, Taarwa ginat ginat in Raag Vibhas, Aaye Piya More Mandirwa in Raag Malkauns)." She also underlines how celebration of a woman being divested of agency is problematic. "Today's woke generation may rightly find the idea of woman perpetually afraid of her in-laws strange and unacceptable. The over-eager male consort seems to love getting her in trouble even as she keeps being scolded if she steps out or has to do so on the sly," she says citing the Raag Bhup composition – "Eh nanadiya jaagi /jaagi mori saas devraniya" or the semiclassical Suraj mukh na jaibe in Raag Bhairavi where the heroine's nanand/ devar taunt and tease.

While agreeing with this, gender expert and professor with school for media and culture studies at Tata Institite for Social Sciences (TISS), Dr Lakshmi Lingam says one cannot discount how the musical space helps unshackle women's voices giving them abandon to articulate their desires and feelings. "Women are told not to stand on the threshold or even stretch in public by the real world which frowns on them articulating any desire for intimacy but music allows them that space. Its seen as something mythological heroines and not real women say."

Both Mudgal and Sundaram-Nayak echo this. Mudgal cites the instance of Chalo mitwa baalam bagwa / hum tum piyein madhwa / karein rang raliyan (Come my beloved, let us meet in the garden, drink honeyed nectare and partake in merrymaking) while Sundaram-Nayak cites the Rajasthani composition Chhoti Si Umar Parnaayi o Babasa where a young girl questions why she is being married off as a child. "In the folk composition from UP Maar Diyo Re Rasgullah Ghumaaike the heroine sings of how her devar and sasur are also eyeing her."

Mudgal also laments how the bandishes invariably evoke a young, nubile nayika. "There seems to be no space for the praudh nayika. In the rare instance she ages, it is only to show how she has withered away from her beloved's gaze."

So at the next concert, not only music, engage with the lyrics too...