Meeta the Teacher

Wednesday, March 23, 2005 | 1 comments

As they swept in through the Georgian grid of Mayfair for her sound check, their long winter coats over saris gave the soloist and her tanpura player the outline of two contemporary angrez belles on a jaunt. With a brief smile at the scruffy Englishman sheltering with his bidi by the door, Dr Meeta Pandit buzzed the intercom, announced her name and disappeared behind oak and brass.
If Meeta is 'extremely happy' to be performing at the Nehru Centre in London, then we her audience must be ecstatic. The singer is making a rare UK visit, enabling us to hear ashtang gayaki of the Gwalior gharaana sung by an artist who was born into it.

Meeta represents the sixth generation of the Pandit family of Gwalior. The name is legendary among music lovers. Her grandfather Pt. Krishnarao Shankar Pandit was awarded the title of Padma Bhushan, while her father and guru Pt. LK Pandit has further widened the audience with his many concerts, recordings and broadcasts. Meeta has been tutored by both and cites her father as her guru.

In terms of her formal education, Meeta gained a B.Com (Hons.) degree from Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi, and went on to a Doctorate in Music, with her thesis on the Contribution of the Pandit Family of Gwalior Gharana to Hindustani Music. She is an A Grade artist of All India Radio and Doordarshan and her first album, Footsteps, is available on Music Today.

So this concert was a rare treat.

Meeta begins with a sombre khyal in raag Madhumati, Ek taal. Half-closed eyes accentuate her feline features as the singer produces a thoughtful alaap, with rapid development. The harmonium of Pt. Vishwa Prakash is subtle, although its bass-heavy timbre disguises the tonality of Meeta's voice, which is mid-range. The vocalist is regal and detached in performance, casting an eye over latecomers but not allowing them to disturb her concentration. Eye contact is reserved for the more attentive listeners. Her vocal range is good and there is ample power behind it, enabling dynamic variety. Meeta's purity of tone is impressive. Sustained swaras end in a flourish and the singer's own enjoyment is conveyed to her audience. She begins working against the taal and creates fluid syncopation. There is extended use of ghamakas. Evidently, some sweeping away of cobwebs is required, so Meeta allows tabla accompanist Rajkumar Mishra a solo, before returning to accelerate the khyal to its conclusion.

The singer is clearly a concert artist of great experience and this shows in the friendly and relaxed introduction to her second piece. This is a bhajan, setting the words of Kabir to a melody of Meeta's own composition. With its sensitive and expressive intro, there is a definite sense of the special about the work. It's tremendously enjoyable and you can feel the audience relaxing and warming to it. Prakashji's harmonium is crisp and sweet.

Meeta is ready to respect the Nehru Centre's mandatory time limit, but Deputy Director Padam Talwar won't hear of it. Supported by the whole audience, he requests one more. Meeta graciously obliges with a tappa, Dil lagaa rehna yaar re, in raag Khamaaj. The phrasing is absolutely spot on and the evening concludes happily for one and all.

My attractive Caribbean companion (an amateur bhajan singer) departs, but I am consoled when Shireen Isal introduces me to Meeta and she consents to an interview. Time is against her and money (as usual) is against me, so we arrange to email questions and answers.

'I started music at a very young age,' Meeta confirms. Moreover, 'I don't even remember when because, in our home, music is a part of our lives. It's like eating, sleeping, drinking music. In short, there is music in the air.'

And was there a tradition of amateur music-making among the women of the family? 'They always lived in harmony, doing household chores and caring for the family. At the same time they got peace by hearing divine music in the house. Naturally, they would pick up bandishes and so on, but would sing for themselves. In fact, my mother got married in the Pandit family because of her deep interest in music. She got lessons in music before marriage and has a very beautiful voice. In fact she is the guiding force to have instilled the discipline of riyaaz. It is amazing because I belong to an orthodox family, but my upbringing has been as an equal to my brothers. And my parents have never put restrictions of any kind to my travel schedules, which are sometimes really crazy to deal with!'

Meeta turned professional only after the tragically early death of her brother. It was a difficult decision and a controversial one, as the artist recounts. 'Tushar's death was almost like a bombshell. Nobody could ever imagine that such a talented, handsome person would just vanish from this earth. He was 27. And the accident happened at the time when he was about to take off in the musical world.

'That year I was preparing for MBA entrance. But then it just seemed pointless. I dropped the idea. My father was not happy over my decision. He told me that it is good to have a separate career and keep music as a hobby. As an artist, he knows the difficulties, hardship and uncertainty associated with an artist's life.'

Meeta has enjoyed considerable success in her career, as both a concert artist and a broadcaster. Even so, she has not lost sight of the pure pleasure of performance and study. 'I consider myself very lucky - my passion is my profession. In such a case, the so-called "success" has never been the objective. I will always be very happy to sing. Most important for me is my talim, sadhana, and my own insight of music. God has been very kind. I have been very fortunate to receive blessings, love and admiration of music lovers from a young age.'

As a broadcaster, Meeta has used both standard formats on AIR and Doordarshan and also sought to expand the audience with unexpected slots such as Sunehre Pal. She explains the thinking behind this approach. 'Today we need to accept the importance of media, particularly television, in our lives. It pains me to see my generation hardly interested in classical music. The moment one sees classical, they surf channels! But if we go deeper regarding analysis of this, I don't entirely blame the generation. They hardly are exposed to the rich heritage and culture. We need to take advantage of the media - print, TV, Internet, etc. - to reach out to them. I happened to speak my thoughts in a casual conversation with the producers and they were very interested. Subaha Savere, which was a morning breakfast show, was meant to be a very light programme for laymen. So the programme had to very interesting in order to sustain the interest of laymen.'

But is this not ironic, given Meeta's own solid guru-shishya parampara background? 'There is nothing ironic because such an idea was very successfully used by my father Pt. LK Pandit in Prabhati, the serial that featured on Sun Morning that was a huge success.'

Without compromising her own heritage, the vocalist concludes our interview with hints at her awareness of and enthusiasm for the wider musical world. 'I have always been interested in music, be it classical, rock, pop, jazz, blues... I am at present working with Alli Delfaut, a composer and pianist based in Paris. I would love to be part of [more] international collaborations.'

More at www.meetapandit.com

© veena magazine 2004. Used by permission. This feature was first published in the January 2004 issue of veena.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005 | permalink | 1 comments

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