Kishori Amonkar - A personal journey with Ganasaraswati
It was in 1990s that I got interested in Hindustani music. Till then film, carnatic, rock and especially blues, were my staple diet. Those were the days of newsgroups and I joined the famous rmic and rmim newsgroups. In rmic, a lot of Hindustani music discussions happened. My interest in Hindustani music was kindled then. The best way to get introduced to a musical form is to hear the masters of that form. So I started buying tapes of Hindustani masters. One of the earliest tapes I bought was that of Kishori Amonkar in which she had sung 'Bhoop' and 'Bageshree'. Sometimes without your knowledge, you hit gold. This was one such serendipitous occurrence. What I didn't know at that time was that the Bhoop that Kishori Amonkar sang was what Zakhir Hussain would later comment on as, "Some creations will last forever. Kishori Tai's Bhoop is one such creation". It was easy to be charmed by this raga because it is the Mohanam of the north. The familiari