The following events were held in different cities between July and September:

Ajinkya Shenava: The guru-shishya system of learning sets itself apart because it does not follow a set syllabus or curriculum. Students require a lot of patience to understand the nuances of this system of learning. Once you enter the gurukul you become a student for life.

The gurukul space itself is vastly different from conventional spaces of learning. It’s an intimate space where learning also happens outside the formal idea of a ‘classroom’ space. Conversations at the dinner table, while travelling on a bus with your guru or even while watching a south Indian action flick with the guru, are part of the learning experience of the student. Each student is taught in a different way and it is the student’s responsibility to seek his guru’s guidance. The complex and multifaceted experience of learning—the period of taleem—cannot be articulated in any one specific way. For instance, diligent practice of just three or four phrases of alaap over six months might give me a window to a whole raag while at the same time a chance conversation, or a performance by the guru may provide unforeseen insight into a raag.

The onus of learning is on the student. Only their passion for the form will see them through the rigorous taleem period.

IFA: When did you first experience dhrupad?

Ajinkya Shenava:My first experience of Dhrupad was in a workshop conducted by Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar in August 2003, at my school, Centre for Learning, Bangalore. For the workshop we were required to get up at four in the morning and do our riyaz for two hours. Initially I remember not enjoying the kharaj ka riyaz (singing only the lowest note one can reach in the kharaj or lower scale, for long durations). However, when I finally heard Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar sing I was transported by the tremendous power and beauty of his music. This event compelled me to learn the art form. Soon after, I started training under Shri Bahauddin Dagar, Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar’s nephew and I have continued my training under them ever since.

Shri Bahauddin Dagar playing the rudra veena at the gurukul. Picture: courtesy Ajinkya Shenava

I moved to Mumbai in 2006 to complete my BA (and later my MA) while training at the Dhrupad gurukul in Panvel. I am thus a ‘part-time’ student (as opposed to a full-time student who stays at the gurukul for extended periods of time). I go to the gurukul on weekends, during baithaks and whenever my work and other commitments allow me to stay there for a longer period of time.

Over the years my relationship with the form has changed. When I am not in touch with music or the gurukul space for too long, I feel unsettled. Music brings me balance and keeps me centred.

IFA: Why is it important for a student to spend time at the gurukul? How long does his learning period last?

Ajinkya Shenava: Spending time at the gurukul is integral to the student’s growth. There is a certain atmosphere that is created in the gurukul—with other students and the gurus practicing, the constant talk of music etc.—which is not the same as the atmosphere at home and in any other space. Indeed, it is after interacting with the guru over a long period of time and after countless hours of riyaz that a student eventually begins to ‘create’ music and innovate—my gurus often say that real musicians begin to grow only much later—when they are well into their forties.

Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar teaching a student in his room while other students listen. Picture: courtesy Ajinkya Shenava

The learning process can be seen as a negotiation—a coming to terms with the paradoxical co-existence of different worlds. Students negotiate between the mystic and the mundane, between the sacred air of performance and the prosaic reality of the musical scales for voice culture, between the guru’s brilliance as a performer and his everyday persona as an ordinary person. All students I have interacted with have spoken of a moment of crisis when they broke down and were left floundering before the vastness of the music before them. Yet they unanimously agree that that is the starting point when true learning happens.

This process of learning is life-long and isn’t restricted to music. Initially, the guru becomes a compass for all actions of the shishya. He becomes a moral and ideological guide—a margadarshak. It is for this reason that constant interaction with him/her is so critical to the student’s education.

IFA: Could you tell us a little about the legacy of the Dagar Gharana of dhrupad?

Ajinkya Shenava: Dhrupad is a vocal style of Hindustani music that has been preserved for centuries. Of this, the legacy of the Dagar Gharana can be traced back to twenty generations. Their singing style or Sadharani Geeti combines traits of other Geetis (Shuddha, Bhinna, Vegswara and Gauri). My guru describes Dagarvani as being a more holistic style, one that has evolved through time. While there are other families that practice Dhrupad, its present form is primarily associated with the Dagars. That said, the evolution of Dagarvani shouldn’t be romanticised as being a smooth, linear, unchanged progression from generation to generation. Its language and form has gone through changes as has the Rudra Veena, one of its primary accompanying instruments. Indeed these points of rupture in the tradition are essential and what define the steadily evolving form of Dhrupad today.

Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar (or Bade Ustad as he is known) was Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar’s elder brother. He started the Dhrupad gurukul in Palaspe, a village near Panvel, Mumbai, after a prolonged period of struggle following his father Ustad Ziauddin Khan Dagar’s loss of patronage from the Maharaja of Udaipur. It was also Bade Ustad who made changes to the Rudra Veena; making its tumbas bigger to bring its sound closer to that of the human voice.

As Dhrupad moved outside the exclusive reserve of the family, even audiences have changed over the years. Today my gurus and their senior students perform all over the world. Bade Ustad has also been associated with the American Society for Eastern Arts in Berkeley, California, University of Washington, Seattle and the Rotterdam Music Conservatory, among other places.

IFA: Among the many focal areas of your project you have spoken about understanding the views of students from other countries – who have come to learn dhrupad – on tradition and pedagogy in the guru-shishya system. Could you elaborate a bit on the significance of this theme?

Ajinkya Shenava: The gurukul frequently hosts students from outside India who have taken to learning Dhrupad seriously after listening to a Dhrupad performance. The popularity of Dhrupad in several countries outside India (mainly Europe but also to an extent Asia and America) is closely associated with the work of Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar, Shri Bahauddin Dagar as well as some of the students of the gurukul in these countries. Thus the question of the ‘western’ or ‘foreign’ listener or learner in the community becomes very important. The views of such students (on tradition and pedagogy in the guru-shishya parampara) who might visit the gurukul for short durations is something I have explored in detail.

Nancy Kulkarni, a cellist based in Pune (originally from Canada) who has devoted herself to the study of Dhrupad, told me of how strange she had first found the atmosphere of the gurukul. In the beginning she would come for class and leave immediately afterwards—as she did with her tutor in Western Classical music before that. She found the warmth and familial atmosphere in the gurukul strange as she was not used to it. Gradually she embraced the openness of the space and became a part of the family. In my conversations with such students I have also found a strong spiritual connect with the guru and his music to be one of the reasons why they pursue the form so seriously.

IFA: How does your dual position as student and researcher augment your research? Conversely, what are the challenges you faced in trying to be an objective observer?

Ajinkya Shenava: My position vis-à-vis my research is unique. I am a part of my research. As a researcher I position myself as the ‘outsider’ and the ‘insider’ (in the context of an ethnographic orientation that I wish to assume) simultaneously. This complex relationship adds an important dimension to my research. I learnt to constantly observe and write about everything that transpires during the time I spend at the gurukul—the garlanding of a photograph on a wall has as much significance to the themes that I explore as the guru sitting down and teaching the shishya. There are layers of meaning embedded in these cultural practices. My job, then, as a researcher, becomes to reinvent the familiar. This orientation is a double-edged sword. While my affinity to the Dagar family allows me liberties and visions of the Gharana which might otherwise be misconstrued by an outsider (or alternatively an outsider might be completely excluded from these), I realise that I have to ask questions of social and cultural events which I would otherwise take for granted. I have to make meaning of internalised practices, rituals, codes and signifiers.

The process of writing myself into my research makes me think about my own practice; to reflect on my own learning experience in the light of others’ testimonies. The feeling of the vastness of this tradition envelopes me as I interact with the variety of social actors associated with the gurukul. The questions I ask of others, I ask of myself: in the process of research I find myself simultaneously oscillating between the observer, the witness, the learner, the involved listener, and of course, the researcher.