Rāga Khamāj
A look at khyāl and dhrupad repertoire in this 'light' classical rāga

Rāga Khamāj is a pleasant rāga that is widely explored in lighter forms of Indian classical music, such as thumri, tappā, dādrā, hori, chaiti, bhajan etc. Perhaps the most famous example of a composition in Khamāj is Vaishnava jana to, one of Mahātma Gāndhi's favorite Gujarāti bhajans that eventually became associated with the freedom struggle. The vast and rich kingdom of thumris, safeguarded by heavyweight thumri queens such as Begum Akhtar, Girijā Devi and Shobhā Gurtu, is the true home of Rāga Khamāj. This post does not feature thumris though, mainly because I have as much understanding of thumris as I have of impressionist paintings or neuro-chemistry; that is to say - I am a thumri noob. A dedicated "Thumris in Khamaj" post is due for another day.

Several sources [Rajan Parrikar's well-researched but occasionally polemic blog rants for instance] call Khamāj a kshudra prakriti rāga , which means it is deemed "small" enough to not figure in "pure" classical settings like khyāl or dhrupad and be "relegated" to light classical music and folk music. This, along with the fact that I am learning Khamāj at the time of writing this, prompted me to take up an unusual assignment - to find khyāls and dhrupads in Khamaj. In doing so, I attempt to present a different perspective of the same rāga. As I combed through YouTube, attempting to circumvent its search algorithm, I realized how much the khyāl and thumri genres have bled into each other, particularly when ti comes to this raga. Most khamāj bandishes have the lilt of a bandish ki thumri, with the tabla playing a leisurely madhyalaya addhā rhythm, and the vocalist playfully toying with the time signature. Some of the bandishes below will sound awfully like thumris, which holds a mirror to the organism that Khamāj is.

Before I begin, here is a brief technical introduction that a reader might skip if they want to get to the listening part:

A brief introduction to the rāga

Khamāj has a hexatonic ascent with R absent (varjya) in the ascent (āroha) and a full descent (avaroha) with all seven notes. it uses both Ns, the komal one during descent and the shuddha in ascending (ārohātmak) phrases going to upper Sa.

Aaroha: S G m P D N S'
Avaroha: S' n D P m G R S

The R even in descent is ephemeral, merely touched as a bridge note between G and S. The vadi is G and Samvadi is N, and both are prominent resting notes (nyāsa swaras). D plays an important role, with characteristic phrases like DmG. Khamaj has a specific way to approach D-m-G (more like P-D-m-G or P-D-GmG) as will become evident in the pieces below.

We start with Āgrā gharanā's Pt Dinkar Kaikini singing a beautiful lyrical bandish set to madhyalaya teentāl, composed by Kaikini ji's guru Pt. S. N. Ratanjankar, a prolific composer and thorough musicologist much like his own guru Pt Vishnu Nārāyan Bhātkhande. The composition describes gopikas being smitten by the charm, the smile and the mellifluous flute-playing of Lord Krishna. The antara talks about how meditating upon Him makes all their problems and worries vanish.

sakhi saavaro giridhara gopala
jaake mora mukuta kundala kaana
murali adhara mana lubhata musakana

bisara gayi tana ki sujha bujha mana ki saari
leena bhayi brija ki naari nirakhi nirakhi mohani murata
ghari pala china dina raina lagata dhyana

As usual, I have all these songs bunched together in a YouTube playlist with a link at the end if you want to skip my ramblings and just listen to the pieces. I like to think that the small write-ups set up the pieces well though :)

Next I present a Gwalior gharana composition set to jhaptaal, a 10 beat cycle (Ignore the title of the video, the YouTube channel has mixed up names for the entire album)

Ust. Abdul Rashid Khan (pen name rasanpiya) sings his own composition. It is clear that he is pretty old when singing this (he lived up to 102 years, and was giving live concerts at 100) and he is therefore supported by a student on vocals. Fair warning - it is a very earworm-y and cute composition that will replay in your head for hours after you listen to the YouTube video.

chanchala chatura nidara kanhai
loga thado re gayili nahi manata langara
gahe bahiya marodi kalai kalai kalai

rasana shyama cheena jala bhari gagari
bheeja gayi mori saari chunari
mori gagari na phoro tore rama dohai dohai dohai

The last chota khyal I present before moving on to other composition variants is once again from the Agra gharana. Pt Srikrishna Babanrao Haldankar sings a madhyalaya teentaal composition:

murali manohara re mora mana hara leeno
mai to jaata rahi jala jamuna bharana

Jamuna tata para <lyrics unclear here>
sajana saba sakhiyana ko dijo darasana

My introduction to Khamaj came in the form of a teentaal composition, mope kaisi yaha mohini. I tried very hard to find some good recording of this bandish by some eminent artist, but couldn't, so you can find my own rendition linked at the bottom of this page.

Pt. Ulhas Kashalkar sings a tarana
uda tana derena dim tanom set to drut teentaal. I am not a fan of the composition, but this is the only tarana I could find in Khamaj, and I've included it in this list for the sake of completeness.

Here's where the line between khyal and thumris starts to blur a little. Listen to Pt. Ulhas Kashalkar yet again, singing what can only be called a bandish ki thumri - koyaliya kooka sunave in madhayalaya teentaal. He is accompanied by Taalyogi Pt. Suresh Talwalkar on the tabla and a young Tanmay Deochake on harmonium.

Next on the list is one of the most beautiful Khamaj thumris I have had the fortune of listening to. Na maanungi, na maanungi, na maanungi, krishna ke manaye bina. It is a specialty of the Agra musicians and a very famous Khamaj composition. All Agra musicians must have sung this at some point in their performance history, because you can see a lot of these on YouTube. It is interesting that the traditionally masculine Agra gharana gayaki has this thumri from a female perspective in their repertoire.

Here, I present two performances of this thumri. The first one is by Vid. Purnima Sen, a student of the trio Ust. Faiyyaz Khan, Ust. Ata Hussein Khan and Ust. Sharafat Hussein Khan, the rare female musicians in a gharana dominated by male performers. Her interview for Deepak Raja's blog is an interesting read. The second performance is by Ust Yunus Hussein Khan.

Coming back from the detour to thumri-land, here's Patiala gharana's Pt. Ajoy Chakraborty demonstrating that Khamaj has bada khyals as well! He sings a vilambit ektaal composition, sakhi mero mana hara leeno, and follows it up with the same madhyalaya bandish/thumri that Pt. Kashalkar sang above, koyaliya kook sunave. As is standard from him and his daughter, the maverick improvisations are worth looking out for, especially with the madhyalaya, in which he does some real cuckoo-sounding tihais.

I end with three dhrupad performances in Khamaj. Contrary to the common labelling of Khamaj as a light raga, this raga has a long-standing relationship with Dhrupad.

Ustad Faiyaz Wasifuddin Dagar calls it a bakshā-huā raag (forgiven raga) in this concert recording - meaning that in some ragas just repeating the same phrases each time without requiring much innovation from the musician still consistently produces praise and applause from the audience - because of how inherently beautiful those phrases are. He goes on to sing a

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Rāga KhamājA look at khyāl and dhrupad repertoire in this 'light' classical rāga

A brief introduction to the rāga

Rāga Khamāj
A look at khyāl and dhrupad repertoire in this 'light' classical rāga