Sarangi

The sarangi is such an instrument that possibly has experienced every kind of hostile and smooth atmosphere to finally see the brilliant light of the day. 

Sarangi has its origin in the initial folk instruments of Rajasthan or the ones the Sindhis used to play. Traditionally, the name suggests a hundred hues of tonal colours. It is an extremely diversified instrument, closely resembling the human voice. This character makes the instrument a favourite of the now-a-days sarangi concerts. However, it had a hard time to compete with the rather illustrious instruments like sitar or sarod. So much so that, during the 19th century, when thumri was at its peak, the sarangi and its players were just basely associated with the nautch girls and the kothas. 

Additionally, the primary playing strings were made of animal gut, which meant that aristocratic Hindus would never touch it. The sarangi is much hefty looking and it does not possess any frets. The player requires sitting in a special synchronized position to play it with ease. 

Among all the bowed North Indian instruments, it is the sarangi that comes closest to the human voice. Instruments resembling the sarangi can be found among several tribes, local groups and communities in the country. 

The Ravanahatta veena, a kind of folk fiddle, used in Rajasthan is one that is played with its sound box facing the body of the player, unlike the sarangi whose sound box faces downwards. Most scholars` hold that the sarangi originated from folk fiddles, like the kamaicha or the Sindhi sarangi, prevalent in Rajasthan and other parts of North-Western India. 

The Langa and Manganiya communities of traditional musicians of Rajasthan use folk versions of sarangi to this day. The skin used to cover the sound box of the sarangi was that of the spotted deer or the saranga as it is called in Sanskrit. Some musicians and sarangi players suggest that there is a pun on the word sarangi as it also suggests saurangi or 100 spotted or tonal colours. 

As an instrument, the sarangi is somewhat ungainly looking compared to the elegant and sleek sitar or sarod. Its design and structure are not as standardized as several other instruments. Variations do exist. Yet structurally, it comprises of the deep-set belly (peth), the narrowed neck (chhathi) and the head (magaj). These parts are all made from one single hollowed piece of wood, usually the tun. 

The sound box or the body is covered with the skin of a young goat. The main playing strings, which are three in number corresponding to the low, middle and high octaves are made of animal gut; there is also a fourth sympathetic string made of brass. It also has as many as 35 to 40 metallic sympathetic strings running below the main playing strings. These are tuned using elaborate sets of wooden tunets placed on the side of the instrument. They are divided into 4 different "choirs". On the lowest level are a diatonic row of 9 tarabs and a chromatic row of 15 tarabs, each encompassing a full octave plus 1-3 extra notes above or below. 

Between these lower tarabs and the main playing strings are two more sets of longer tarabs, which pass over a small flat ivory bridge at the top of the instrument. Being a fretless instrument, the player uses the base of his nail and finger tip of his left hand to stop the sound while bowing the instrument, using a horsehair bow or gaz with his right hand. 

While playing, the player places the belly of the instrument on the floor or between the feet and the upper end rests on his shoulder. The coordination of the right hand bowing technique with the left hand fingering and stopping calls for great skills in synchronization. The best players are those who can harmonise both the bowing and the fingering in graceful and sustained ways. 

Historically, it is not until the 19th century that one gets prominent references to the sarangi, as it exists in the present form, as the favourite accompanying instrument for khayal and thumri concerts. Following the eclipse of dhrupad and the confinement of khayal in princely courts in the 19th century, thumri rose in popular esteem. 

The only instrument which could appropriately capture the fleeting nuances of the human voice as also the romantic and tuneful turns of thumri was and is the sarangi. Miserably, it also came to be associated with the hedonist and aesthete culture of the kothas and nautch girls; so much so that sarangi players began to gather a sleazy reputation in the eyes of moral prudes, influenced as they were by the uptight morality of the colonial British ruling class. The decline of the kothas, from the late 19th century, owing to several social, cultural and historical factors, added to the instrument`s list of woes. In several parts of North and East India, the decline of the aristocratic class and landed gentry who patronized the courtesans as also the corresponding rise of the puritanical middle class, who took a prejudiced view of the courtesan culture, contributed greatly to the marginalisation of the sarangi players. 

Even earlier, few musicians hailing from a sound background took to the instrument, allured as they were by the more `respectable` instruments like the sitar and the sarod. Some of the reasons for this seem quite obvious, given the unwritten taboos operating in one`s cultural unconscious. For one, the strings of the sarangi were made of animal gut, which meant that Hindus kept away from it. Therefore, only Muslims and low caste Hindus took to it in the 19th century, leading to their lowly musical status made, of course, worse by their lowly social status. Their knowledge of the principles of classical music, for some reason, was considered to be inadequate or scanty, as they had not undergone rigorous training in vocal or instrumental music under finicky and fastidious ustads. 

These factors, coupled with the prudery of the new middle class patrons and listeners hailing from Maharashtra, naturally led to the decline of the instrument well into the 20th century. Yet it is also a fact that reputed sarangi players taught classical vocal music to courtesans well into the 20th century; for few know the nuances of tuneful music as they do. 

During the later part of the 19th century, and early parts of the 20th century, several khayal singers started using the sarangi as their chief accompaniment. However, with the entry of the `meek` harmonium, first in Calcutta and later in other parts of the country, during the very end of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th centuries, the fortunes of the sarangi suffered an irreversible setback. 

The upstart harmonium, caustically referred to by some musicologists as the `bastard progeny` of a despicable Indo-European fling, soon became the preferred instrument for accompaniment of several khayal, thumri and ghazal performers. As many serious musicians have said time and again, the unsubtle harmonium with its limited advantages cannot bring out the rich shruti or tonal shades so characteristic of Hindustani music. Importantly, neither can it execute the meends nor bring out the inflections, ornaments and intonations so typical of Hindustani music. In fact, Hindustani vocal recitals, both classical and light, achieve a tonal fullness and roundedness only when accompanied by its natural spouse, the sarangi. Given its natural ability to imitate the refinements of the human voice, the sarangi can tone with the singer`s voice and give it rich shadings or trail the singer while he or she sings. 

The sarangi can also produce an endless stream of continuous melody while the singer pauses for breath or rest during a recital. Curiously, vocal gharanas, which have a sarangi background like Kirana, Indore, Benaras and Patiala, soon began to resort to the harmonium either partially or totally, probably in a bid to disregard their true musical roots and thereby attain social respectability in the eyes of the musical community in the process. 

Yet they conveniently forgot that it was their sarangi background that gave their music its affecting tunefulness, as also the supreme focus on the beauty of note production. But they chose to leave behind the tradition that nurtured them. 

Today, a majority of the established sarangi players hail from parts of Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Towns like Moradabad, Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Benaras, Meerut, Panipat and Sonipat have all along produced some of the best sarangi players of the 20th century. 

The sarangi`s stirringly emotional tone, so evocative of Indian landscapes and its changing moods at various times of the day and seasons, soon lost out to the sober keyboard instrument, due to the disloyalty committed by numerous singers. Singers had their own reasons for preferring the poorly nuanced harmonium to the tonally resplendent sarangi. 

They felt that while the sarangi sounded excellent in the vilambvit, it had a predisposition to screech when the fast sections were played. This last factor, which proved distracting and irritating to the singer, also quickened its exit from the stage. Also some singers felt that gifted sarangi players had a tendency to upstage them with their virtuoso improvisations leading again to the loading of the scales against the instrument. By the middle of the 20th century, the community of brilliant sarangi players, noted for their classical excellence, were either reduced to destitution or were compelled to return to the handful of kothas that existed in some parts of North India to eke out a living. 

For many decades, until a revival from the 1970s and 1980s on, the sarangi players went through bouts of insecurity made worse by their diminished self-esteem and sidelining by cultural establishments and institutions. Many noted players who were hereditarily sarangi players, even refused to teach their children the instrument and encouraged them to pick up more popular and lucrative instruments like the sarod and the sitar. The state of affairs was indeed sorry until some time back. This was the time which incited some of the gifted players to strike out on their own as soloists and help the instrument win back its lost glory on the national and international stage. In the hands of such players of genius as Ustad Bundu Khan, Pt. Ram Narayan, Ustad Ghulam Sabir Khan, Ustad Sagiruddin Khan and Pt. Gopal Mishra, and brilliant contemporary artists like Ustad Sultan Khan and the late Ustad Abdul Latif Khan of Bhopal, the fortunes of the instrument have revived considerably. The Sarangi Mela held in 1989 in Bhopal proved to be an important event for the more than 100 leading and upcoming instrumentalists who gathered there.

They reminded themselves of the urgent need to preserve and propagate their hoary and splendid traditions in the best way possible. Many talented young players, especially from traditional sarangi communities, are now coming forward to continue their family traditions and are making a name for themselves in the field. 

While there is much room for concern about the future of this instrument, given the slow ousting of it from the film industry, following the overthrow staged by electronic keyboards, there is definitely none for despair.