Amit Chaudhuri’s essay about Ustad Rashid Khan’s Gaud Malhar begins with a particular performance: Khan singing during what Chaudhuri believes was a DD Bangla interview program. The recording’s exact date and location are not known. Chaudhuri listens closely to its musical phrases, then considers how a live raga can connect a listener’s present moment with the long cultural memory of the monsoon.
Which Gaud Malhar recording does the essay discuss?
In his 29 September 2024 essay for Scroll, writer, Hindustani classical vocalist, and composer Amit Chaudhuri describes hearing Rashid Khan sing a composition in Gaud Malhar during a long interview interspersed with performances. He believes the program was made by DD Bangla, but the essay does not establish the recording’s date or location.
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Chaudhuri infers that it may have been recorded during the rainy season because Khan is asked to sing several Malhars. That is his reading of the program, not verified recording metadata. The distinction matters: the essay’s reflections arise from this particular encounter with the music, even though some basic facts about its circumstances remain unknown.
What musical details does Chaudhuri hear?
Chaudhuri singles out the phrases “sa re ga ma ga ma” and “dha ni (komal) pa.” He describes the first phrase as ending in repose on ma. These are his observations about Khan’s rendition, not a complete technical analysis or a universal definition of Gaud Malhar.
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The performance also includes tabla accompaniment by Samar Saha and harmonium by Rajyarshee Ghosh. Srijan Bhattacharya is the interlocutor in the interview-performance program, as identified in Chaudhuri’s account.
Why does the live setting matter to Chaudhuri?
Chaudhuri contrasts live performance with studio recordings, which can be made at a time different from a raga’s customary setting. In his account, the live rendition belongs to a particular occasion: the singer, accompanists, music, and listeners meet in a moment that cannot simply be repeated. The uncertain date and place do not erase that sense of occasion; they make the surviving performance’s precise historical setting harder to pin down.
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For Chaudhuri, listening is therefore not only hearing a composition preserved on a recording. The present listener encounters a performance that has already passed, while its unfolding remains available in the sound. He writes, “The past comes back as an unfolding of the present; through the live recording of the raga, we’re introduced to the past’s longstanding transitoriness.” That is his interpretation of what this recording makes possible.
How does the rendition evoke the cultural lineage of rain?
Chaudhuri hears Gaud Malhar as more than a reference to weather. The performance, in his reading, calls up a cultural memory of the rains: what listeners know consciously, what they may have inherited without being able to name it, and the different historical moments that meet in the act of listening. He describes that relationship this way: “This Gaud Malhar brings back to us everything we know and also what we don’t know we know, as historical beings, about the cultural lineage of the rains in this country: because we belong, as Indians, both to our particular time and to all time.”
This is the essay’s reflective claim, not an independently measured account of how every listener experiences the raga. Its force lies in the connection Chaudhuri draws between a specific voice in a specific performance and a much longer inheritance of monsoon associations.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to distinguish related Rashid Khan recordings
Other catalog listings connect Rashid Khan with Gaud Malhar, but that alone does not show that they contain the DD Bangla performance Chaudhuri discusses. For example, Amazon Music India’s listing for Tansen names both Rashid Khan and Gaud Malhar; it has not been established as the same recording.
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A separate Navras catalogue entry describes Rashid Khan live in Wolverhampton in March 1993, performing Desh and Puriya Dhanashri. It is a different release, not evidence about the Gaud Malhar rendition. When comparing recordings, look for the raga and composition, whether the performance is live or studio, the venue and date when supplied, and the accompanying musicians.
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