Music And Movies

After he saw my post on Raveeendran's "thamburu kulir", my friend Sanjay mailed me. "I was expecting a tribute to Bhimsen Joshi", he said in his mail. I replied back saying that I had not heard Bhimsen Joshi enough to write a comprehensive tribute. Then I realized I was wrong. While it is true that I have not heard Bhimsen Joshi much, it is also true that he was a major figure when I grew up. Especially when we were slowly getting sucked into the beauty of classical music. I was also wrong because this blog is not just about my experience alone but about shared experiences. While I write about my experience with Bhimsen Joshi's music, I would request others to share their experience as well. During our college going years, Bhimsen Joshi had already become a cult musician. I would define a cult musician as someone who is praised even though the person praising has never heard his / her work!!! Whenever we heard the name Bhimsen Joshi, we would go, "Wow...

I am interested in listening to various forms of music and I believe this attitude has given me a lot of melody and happiness. In this regard, Hindustani music, with its closeness to Carnatic music, has provided me some great moments. I wanted to share some of them here. Most of my appreciation of Hindustani music was generated by listening to tapes. (I have very rarely been to Hindustani concerts.) As can be expected, being a Carnatic music fan, I get easily attracted to those ragas which are present in both the systems. You can see that in my recommendations as well. I am sure I am missing a great number of Hindustani stalwarts and some of the canonical renditions which would be now considered legendary. If you find something missing please pardon me. My listening as well as knowledge of Hindustani music is limited. All the recommendations are for vocal music. All the tapes I mention below are available commercially. Let me start with one of the first Hindustani tapes which made a ...