Album: Indra Kishore Mishra
Collection: The Lyrical Tradition Of Dhrupad
Vocal: Indra Kishore Mishra
Pakhavaj: Shrikant Mishra
Tanpura: Daniel Scott

Tracks:
0:00 Rag Bageshri - Alap
21:32 Rag Bageshri - Dhrupad - Chautal
28:53 Rag Bageshri - Dhrupad - Jhaptal
37:01 Rag Bageshri - Dhrupad - Sultal
41:57 Rag Bageshri - Tarana - Adi Tal
46:57 Rag Pancham - Alap
58:00 Rag Pancham - Chaturang - Tal Tivra

Description:
The Bettiah Gharana associated with the erstwhile royal court of Bettiah in Bihar primarily flourished during the 19th century. Stylistically, the gharana’s influence extended over entire eastern India. It became particularly strong in Bengal because of the close links of the Vishnupur gharana in Bengal with Bettiah, since masters of the latter trained most musicians of the former.

The genesis of Dhrupad in the Bettiah tradition is associated with the arrival in Bettiah of Pandit Shivdayal Mishra, a prominent disciple of famous Seniya musicians Rahimsen and Karimsen of the Nepal court. Shiv Dayal Mishra is said to have trained the royal brothers Anand and Nawal Kishore Sinha, who, in course of time, became composers of a very high order.

Dhrupad in Bettiah style is signified by elegance of vocal delivery coupled with emphasis on the composition. The hallmark of the Bettiah Gharana is its repertoire in all four Banis of Dhrupad. The “Banis” could be explained as stylistic idioms with definite musical characteristics. Compositions of the Bettiah gharana are based on the poetry of the maharaja-poet-dhrupadiyas, Anand and Nawal Kishore.

After the demise of royal patronage, many musicians migrated out of Bettiah. The Bettiah tradition continued in Varanasi in the hands of stalwarts such as Shivdayal Mishra, Jaykaran Mishra, Bholanath Pathak, beenkar Shivendra Nath Basu, Beni Madhav ji and Shib Mitra. It is claimed that Shiv Dayal Mishra’s descendent Jaykaran Mishra, who had an excellent repertoire of dhrupads, dhamars and also khayals, had committed to memory over 2000 dhrupads in different banis. He passed on this cherished legacy to his deserving disciples, the most prominent among them being Bholanath Pathak. This legacy lives on in Falguni Mitra, son and disciple of Shib Mitra, disciple of Bholanath Pathak. Falguni Mitra’s repertoire is unique in having compositions in all four Banis of Dhrupad.

Musicians of the Bettiah tradition also migrated to Kolkata where they were associated with the court of Raja Sourindra Mohan Tagore. Prominent amongst these were Shiv Dayal Mishra’s descendents, Guruprasad Mishra and Shivnarayan Mishra, and Dhamaria Viswanath Rao Bhatt. These musicians trained many of the leading Dhrupadiyas of Bengal including famous names such as Radhika Prasad Goswami, and Gopeswar Bandopadhyaya, and Beni Madhav ji of Varanasi. Maharshi Debendranath Tagore of Jorasanko Thakurbari patronized Dhrupad and the most prominent musicians who frequented his house such as Jadunath Bhattacharya (Jadu Bhatta) and Radhika Prasad Goswami were deeply influenced by Bettiah gharana stalwarts. This in turn had a strong impact on Rabindranath Tagore who used several Bettiah gharana compositions as models for his music.

However, the Mullick families of hereditary musicians remained in Bettiah. Some of the well-known names of early 20th century Mullicks are Gopal Mullick, Kunj Behari Mullick and Shyama Prasad Mullick. Shyama Prasad Mullick’s legacy of dhrupad, dhamar, chaturang, trivat, swaramalika and tillana lives on today through his grandson, Indra Kishore Mishra whose guru was his father, Mahant Mishra (Mullick). The Bettiah Mullicks sing compositions in Gaurhar and Khandar Banis.

Indra Kishore presents contemporary audiences with an unfamiliar model of music making within the Dhrupad genre. As music, it offers the entire range of aesthetic experiences from the devotional to the titillating. Despite its archaic features, his is a highly cultivated art. It is sparse on artifice and exploding with emotional energy. It comes straight from the heart and goes straight to the heart. This quality – perennially relevant to music --may have the potential to circumvent the obstacles to Indra Kishore’s success.

Indra Kishore’s repertoire includes a Chaturang, a rare compositional form, which combines four forms of articulation – poetry, percussion sound symbols, sargam, and meaningless consonants. The repertoire of the rival dhrupad gharanas seems, in comparison, restricted.

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