Singing Emptiness: Kumar Gandharva Performs the Poetry of Kabir

by Linda Hess

Here, two men, 5 centuries apart, make contact with each other through poetry, music, and performance. Kumar Gandharva, the great 20th Century Hindustani classical vocalist, sings Kabir, the great 15th Century poet. Kabir composed poetry that evoked a space called nirgun or shunya – something without qualities or boundaries, empty - which challenged listeners to know it and to know themselves. Kumar Gandharva, drawn to Kabir and other poets of the nirgun experience, seeks the voice that can actually sing emptiness. Singing Emptiness includes an explanatory introduction, bilingual texts of 30 songs, and a CD with selected songs by Kumar Gandharva.

166 pages, Paperback

First published February 17, 2009

Reviews

[Ashok Unny]

धीरे-धीरे रे मना, धीरे सब कुछ होय,
माली सींचे सौ घड़ा, ॠतु आए फल होय

Slowly, slowly, oh mind,
everything happens slowly.
The gardener pours hundreds of jars
of water
but fruit comes
only in season.

- Kabir, excerpted from the book

This exhortation to slow down, to take one measured step at a time, to patience and to fortitude would, I am sure, speak urgently to most of us, living as we do in a world which often feels like a roller-coaster ride.

In the same spirit, this book though short is not in a hurry to go anywhere. It dissembles, meanders, bristles with footnotes and is meant to be read at a leisure pace, to be imbibed slowly. Within its pages time slowed down and I felt transported to another world. For me it opened new doors and pathways to many as-yet-unexplored things that I look forward to knowing more about : Kumar Gandharva's Bhajans, The Nirguni tradition, The works of the painter Ghulammohammed Sheikh (The painting featured on the cover is his, I found it fascinating!), Ashok Vajpeyi, the works of the Malwi folk singer P. S. Tipanya.

One small grouse. The translations of the poems didn't work for me at all. It seemed too literal and not poetic enough.I prefer Arvind Krishna Mehrotra's translation of Kabir, treating him almost like a beat poet, which though strange on a first reading, on reflection seems rather apt:

“Crying won’t help/When death already/Has you by the balls.”
“Friend/You had one life/And you blew it.”

Aside - If someone could recommend a good Hindi edition of the poems of Kabir with a glossary of unusual/difficult words,I'd be very happy. My Hindi is not up to reading him in the original without some assistance.

[Prabhat Gusain · Rating 4 out of 5]

On what would have been Kumar Gandharva's 83rd birthday in April 2006, Gautam Chatterjee wrote a reminiscence of attending a performance in April 1991, Kumarji's last visit to Varanasi. On that occasion, Chatterjee says, he sang 'Shunya gadh shahar' for the first time and discussed it in an interview:

He had come to Varanasi to express his feelings musically at the Sankat Mochan Sangeet Samaroh. It was his last performance in that city, for he passed away on Jan 12, 1992. Even as admirers of Pandit Kumar Gandharva listened to him for the last time, the musical genius was presenting them something new: his own creation, raga Malawati, with a bhajan of Gorakhnath 'Shunya garh Shahar, Shahar ghar basti'...

One could see that despite breaking breaths, the familiar magic of his voice over all three octaves was as harmonious as he was known for. He was with his young daughter Kalapini. After explaining a folktale about his birthday celebrations in Marathi, Kumarji unpredictably started discussing the two key words 'Avadhuta' and 'Shunya'. His eyes rested on the cover of J. Krishnamurti's famous book Freedom from the Known and elaborated on why he always chose the verses of Kabir more than those of Surdas and Meerabai, and why he was going to sing the words of Gorakh in the place of Kabir...

He said, 'Saint Kabir derived the mystic language, which is popularly known as upside-down language or Sandhya Bhasha, from the language of Nathpantis like Matsyendra Nath and Gorakh Nath. I have already sung a pada of Gorakh, "Bhola Mana Jana Ye Amara Meri Kaya" [The childish mind is sure: my body is immortal] where I found the immense capacity of Shunya and the capability to make the space of Shunya in singing. Almost all the Nirgunpantis create a Shunya when they sing a bhajan. What is this, I have been thinking about this abstract singing from my adolescent days...

'And finally, I found,' his eyes sparkled and he put aside the book, 'it is where I am'. Actually, the Nirgunpantis throw this Shunya or throw this word in an upside-down manner to create the Shunya.

'I cannot be as expert as they are but at this time, only this interests me, attracts me. So to create a feeling of Shunya without words within me, I usually sing these padas of Kabir and here, I decided on Gorakh to move a step... towards the root, towards the previous time of Kabir.