By IANS,
Mumbai : Sound is 50 percent partner in a film, Commissioner of Customs and Excise A.N. Sharma said during the release of his book “Baajanama” here Wednesday.
The book was launched on the sidelines of the Mumbai International Film Festival 2012.
Sharma said he chanced upon the project accidentally.
“I was a casual music lover, but a chance browsing of junk in a ‘kabadi’ (scrap) shop some 20 years ago turned me into a keen researcher. The book is a result of this research,” he said.
“Baajanama”, a book about the first decade of commercial recordings in India, was released by classical singers Pandit Rajan Mishra and Pandit Sajan Mishra.
It was in 1902 that the first recording of Indian music was made in the country by the Gramophone Company of India.
“The great sound expedition began with the recording of songs by Kolkata singers Shohsimukhi and Fanibala of Bengal Theatre,” Sharma said.
“Later, Gauhar Jaan recorded her voice in several languages. Most of the well known singers of that time were suspicious of all things foreign and white, and therefore did not oblige the recordists easily,” Sharma added.
Sharma said recorded music played a pioneering role in popularising music, as it made it available to a larger audience.
The book is an effort to document the social and political landscape of the Indian subcontinent after the First War of Independence from British rule and just before the Delhi Durbar in 1911.
“At another level, the volume tries to contextualise the history of Hindustani music at a very crucial juncture,” Sharma said.
“The major courts of north India had disintegrated and erstwhile court musicians were forced to become itinerant musicians who occasionally managed to find favour with smaller principalities and zamindaris. This phenomenon gave rise to a new trend of mixing of elements of gharanas,” he added.