Listen with Irfan

12 July 2014 recording, Mumbai. Starts with a Sarod piece by Zarin Daruwala Sharma followed by casual gupshup at home. Zarin starts with Kersi (Lord) ka kaisa raha? How was the experience of recording last evening with Kersi Lord?

This is an audio recording at Zarin Daruwala Sharma's residence in Mumbai where I am talking to Zarin Daruwala Sharma. She played few pieces of her Sarod and her husband Ashok Sharma can also be heard in the background along with my friend cameraman Anirban Sadhu.

A 2014 recording. Zareen Daruwala was born on 9 October 1946. She was a child prodigy and a celebrated sarod player of India. Zarin had been known for her on-stage performances besides her trysts with the film studios in the tinsel city. She had been a pioneering female hand to play the sarod, a stringed instrument believed to have been an Indian adaptation of central Asia’s rabab. If its feature of having no frets makee many believe that sarod is tough to play, Zarin’s religion made her entry into north Indian classical look as someone all the more alien: ‘that Parsi girl’, as many referred to her initially. Zarin was barely into her teens when she played for the title music for the 1960 movie Maasoom, though her steadier engagement with Bollywood began only by the middle of that decade. Her work in the studios also gifted the musician her future husband: sitarist Ashok Sharma. Zarine Sharma, once a child prodigy, had kickstarted her career at the age of 4 on the harmonium. She was trained by Manohar Chimote, Bhishmadev Vedi and P Madhukar; all renowned harmonium players. She was enthralled by the sound of the great Ali Akbar Khan’s sarod when she was all of six. “In 1952, I had gone to perform my harmonium solo recital at the ‘Sur Singar Sansad’ which would have its Haridas Sangeet Sammelan at the Cowasjee Jehangir Hall.After my performance was over, I listened to other musicians. The evening concluded with a sitar-sarod jugalbandi by Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. I was unaware what the instruments were called, but I was irresistibly drawn to the sound of the sarod,” recalls Sharma.Having begun her career in films with Rajesh Roshan in 1964, Sharma has embellished songs like Mere naina saawan bhaado and Naam gum jaayega with her Sarod strains.While her training with vocalists like Laxmanprasad Jaipurwale and violinists V G Jog, S N Ratnajankar and SCR Bhatt gave her insights into ragas, she mastered the technique of sarod-paying from Haripad Ghosh. “I have always learned with a sense of determination. I remember Jaipurwale humming a tappa once.I requested him to teach me the form. He thought it was not possible to reproduce the difficult patterns on the sarod. After rigorous practice, I could do that,” she says.Sharma performs her tappas with effortless ease on the Sarod and has fashioned her own style a fascinating marriage of gayaki and tant styles She was trained by several eminent musicians like Pandit Haripad Ghosh, Pandit Bhishamdev Vedi, Khayal vocalist Pandit Laxman Prasad Jasperware (doyen of Jaipur & Goswami Gharana) , violinist Pandit V.G. Jog (1922-2004) and Pandit Shrikrishna Narayan Ratanjankar (1900-1974) of Agra Gharana.One of the very few female Sarod players represented on highest level the Hindustani vocal style Agra Gharana. She became Zareen Sharma after she married the famous sitarist Pandit Ashok Sharma (youngest son of Bhagatram, the famous Husnalal-Bhagatram film music duo).As a musician of the top order she received several honours including Sangeet Natak Academy Award in 1988 and Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar in 1990. 

Zarin Daruwala passed away on 20 December 2014 in Mumbai. 

Audio extract of this program.

Anchor-Producer: Irfan Camera: Anirban Sadhu Editing: Abaan

This short story Boo by Manto was produced in 2007 and first published on artofreading.com

Recited by: Munish Sharma

Produced by: Irfan

Image courtesy: Francis Newton Souza

20 March 2016. Behind the Nautanki stage in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh.

Master Munna Lal, 76 speaks of her half century life in Nautanki, a traditional art form of northern India.

At around 19th Min of this podcast joins Master Munna Lal, another veteran Nautanki artiste of Hathras style.

In another podcast you may listen Master Munna Lal at length where Nanda Devi also can be heard singing and talking in between.

Produced by Irfan

20 March 2016. Behind the Nautanki stage in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh.

Nanda Devi, 70 speaks of her half century life in Nautanki, a traditional art form of northern India.   

At around 19th Min of this podcast joins Master Munna Lal, another veteran Nautanki artiste of Hathras style. 

In another podcast you may listen Master Munna Lal at length where Nanda Devi also can be heard singing and talking in between.

Produced by Irfan

26 August 2018, Pune, Residence of singer Shaila Datar | 

During my research for a documentary on the history of Marathi Theatre I met Shaila Datar. Here are some excerpts of her singing and an informal chats. Veteran art critic Sulabha Teranikar and Prachi Deval can also be heard in the recording. My friend cameraman Anirban Sadhu also is there with his baritone instructive voice to his team.

Born in 1953 in a family of musicians and music teachers, Shaila was trained in tabla and vocals by her parents Manohar and Leela Sardesai. During the early years she was lucky to receive the training form veteran songer Pandit Vasantrao Deshpande. She married Sudhir Datar, the grand son of legendary maestro Bhaskarbua Bakhle. She received her early training in classical music from her husband who is a disciple of Pandit Ram Marathe.

Shaila contributes greatly to dissemination and reaserch on music. Her deeply researched biography of Pandit Bhaskarbua Bakhle-  Devgandharva is a significant contribution to the research in music and theatre in Maharashtra. She has received several State Government and Literary Awards for her books. She has produced Radio programs and Documentary films on artists like Master Krishna Rao, Master Dinanath Mangeshkar

Documentary on the history of Marathi Theatre can be seen here Part 1 & Part 2

Recorded at Rajendra Bhawan, 18 November 2017, New Delhi

8th October 2015

I have visited the poet and journalist Veeren Dangwal (5 August 1947 - 28 September 2015) a couple of times when he was staying with his son in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad.

This recording have some of his unpublished poems which he recited for me and a casual gup shup.

Image: My son Abaan, 10 years at that time,

Recorded at Rajendra Bhawan, 18 November 2017, New Delhi

Talking about his colleagues and the senior writers to whom he met.