Striking the right chord

The azure sky, white clouds, quivering ‘kaash’, fragrance of the ‘shiuli’ (harsingar), the phenomenal Mahisasura Mardini and the quintessential ‘pujor gondho’ usher in the Durga Puja days of exhilarating fun and frolic. The sound of ‘dhak’ is synonymous to homecoming, inviting everybody who stays far and away to visit home and immerse in the joy of festivities with their friends and families. The next few days, no matter how humdrum the flow of life in your sheltered nook is, a wave of emotion and nostalgia is bound to overwhelm you. It’s Durga Puja — it’s time to drift away from stolid melancholy to the grand fiesta.

Each year, on Mahalaya – the first day of Durga Puja – millions of Bengalis wake up at the crack of dawn to the sounds of Mahisasura Mardini — a radio programme broadcast by All India Radio for over 93 years, its most popular iteration composed by Pankaj Mullick. It’s no talk show or latest hits countdown, though – it’s the incredible collection of classical Bengali songs, music and acoustic melodrama in the form of scriptural verses that marks the beginning of one of the biggest festivals in India.

Durga Puja is at its heart the epitome of the celebration of good over evil. A 10-day-long festival, it has evolved into an event that is social as much as it is religious, although its origins lie in the triumph of Goddess Durga over the Mahisasura. Other than the eponymous radio event, ‘Mahisasura Mardini’ is the name given to the fierce form of Goddess Durga — literally, the destroyer of Mahisasura, with songs and invocations of the deity carving out a niche of its own in the entire paraphernalia.

Without Birendra Krishna Bhadra’s divine Sanskrit shlokas and sonorous narration of the Mahisasura Mardini, Durga Puja doesn’t begin for the millions of Bengalis — ‘probashi’ (those living outside Bengal) or otherwise. When Mahalaya mornings dawned sharp and bright, there was no way one could escape the harbinger of the Pujas, not if you lived in Kolkata at any rate. Across buildings and streets, Bhadra’s reverberating rendition intoning the story of Durga’s arrival on earth and her killing of the demon king would float along on sunbeams and permeate homes and indeed our very bodies as we lay asleep.

So popular was Bhadra’s rendition that till today no other music heralds the launch of the lunar fortnight of Devi Paksha except his, broadcast faithfully by All India Radio each year and holding its listeners captive for the 90 minutes of its duration, now AIR’s oldest airing.

Thus, music is integral to Durga Puja — from ‘dhak’ beats, ‘agomoni gaan’, ‘dhunuchi naach’, conch blowing to the rhythms of joyous peals of laughter and the inimitable Bhadra — the voice that heralds Durga Puja — triggering a sense of collective nostalgia, an impulsive bond with the immense edifice of memory that connects all humanity.

Continuing this parallel, music albums are integral to Puja celebrations much like new clothes, ‘bhog’ and ‘Ashtamir anjali’ — pretty similar to a must-do custom if not a mainstay! Through the 60s, 70s and right up to the 90s, it was a coveted phenomenon during the festival. It produced some spectacular Bengali music and over the years, has been instrumental in creating a warm, familiar soundscape for the Pujas.

From genres of music known by the names of the creators like Atul Prasadi ‘gaan’ and ‘Dwijendrageeti’ to those composed by lyricists like Shibdas Banerjee, Pulak Bandyopadhyay, Subir Hazra, Gauriprasanna Mazumdar, Mukul Dutt, Salil Chowdhury to those sung by iconic singers like Hemanta Mukherjee, Shyamal Mitra, Bhupen Hazarika, Manna Dey, Arati Mukherjee, Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, S D Burman, R D Burman, Nirmala Misra, Sandhya Mukhopadhyay, Geeta Dutt, Haimanti Shukla, Satinath Mukherjee, Ramkumar Chattopadhyay, Amar Paul, Manabendra Mukherjee and the likes.

What would be those special five days without Puja pandals playing iconic numbers like Moyna Bolo Tumi Krishna Radhey, Ami Ek Jajabor, Tokhon Tomar Ekush Bochhor, Ekdin Pakhi Ure Jabe, Tumi Ele Na, Koto Je Sagor Nodi, E Amar Gurudakkhina, Nayan Sarashi Keno, Ekhono Sarengi Ta, Mohuay Jomeche Aaj on a loop!

While it is impossible to narrow down a few choicest Puja songs, there lies a world of ‘Jibonmukhi gaan’ — a fresh and completely different take on life, leading to late Gautam Chattopadhyay’s Moheener Ghoraguli in the early 1970s. Then came singer-songwriters like Kabir Suman, Anjan Dutt and Nachiketa. Tomake Chai, Nilanjana, Bela Bose, Ranjana were instant hits.

Bhoomi came into the limelight by the end of the 1990s — a band making an honest attempt to popularise folk music among the urban masses. Then came Cactus, Krosswindz, Fossils and Chandrabindoo. Holud Pakhi, Halogen, Hashnuhana, Ekla Ghor, Aaro Ekbar have gone down as Puja chartbusters. Chandrabindoo grew into a major force in contemporary Bengali music with Toker Joyno Neen, Gadha, Juju being tumultuous hits, portraying the thoughts of frivolous youth — recalcitrant and drunk on their own ideas and feelings.

Ajoy Chakraborty, Amit Kumar, Lopamudra Mitra, Indrani Sen, Sraboni Sen, Bappi Lahiri, Kumar Sanu, Alka Yagnik, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Udit Narayan, Shaan, Swagatalakshmi Dasgupta, Shubhomita, Iman Chakraborty, Monali Thakur, Shreya Ghoshal, Rupankar Bagchi, Arijit Singh, Kaushiki Chakraborty, Nipabithi Ghosh and many others have also come up with their own songs. The profusion of light classical music and Rabindranath Tagore’s songs has left an indelible mark on Bengali music as a whole. Not just popular among ‘barwari’ or community Pujas, these songs are played even in ‘bonedi barir’ (aristocratic) Pujas.

However, with time, things have changed and so has the music that used to be played at the pandals. Earlier, most albums would reflect the mood of Sarodotsav (now, it’s a bit too commercial and cinematic). Modern Bengali songs with a devotional touch were what music lovers wanted. These days, the pomp and show draw considerable audiences with the intangible heritage of classical music and melody finding its way in remixes and parodies. Later on, Jeet Gannguli’s compositions in Bengali film music became a staple in Durga Puja pandals.

The tinkling bells of the evening prayers, the divine chanting of the hymns and the Durga ‘strotras’ escape appeal — more like the muted sounds of cymbals and the ‘dhak’ — fading away into oblivion every year as Durga Puja concludes on Dashami, with Uma (goddess Durga) leaving for Kailash with her entourage, only to be back next year, bringing in renewed hope and optimism amid the mundane monochrome.