Mumbai :

The Customs office in Dadar has in its safekeeping a box containing a rare treasure, and it did not come from a seizure of illegal goods. Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise Amar NathSharma claims to have unearthed the oldest and rarest sound recordings in Indian history dating back to 1899. His cache of 200-odd ‘brown wax cylinders’ introduces the voice of Ustad Alladiya Khan, the founder of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana, and Pandit V D Paluskar who founded the Gandharva Mahavidyalay, “artistes whom no living Indian has heard”.

Cylinders are hollow wax rolls about six inches in length that are played on a phonogram. The phono was invented by Thomas Edison but fell into disuse with the entry of the circular disc in 1902.

The collection includes ‘Vande Mataram’ in the voice of Rabindranath Tagore, which was recorded by Tagore’s friend Hemendra Bose in the wake of the Partition of Bengal in 1905. Vignettes of the fabled courtesan from Calcutta, Gauhar Jaan, a Parsi theatre artiste from Jaipur named Miss Allah Bandi, as well as doyens like Peara Sahab figure prominently on the list. Particularly relevant to Maharashtra are the founding fathers of the Marathi ‘sangeet natak’ like Pt Bhaurao Kolhatkar, Pt Bhaskarbuwa Bakhle and Bal Gandharva. Dadasaheb Phalke has spoken about the making of ‘Raja Harishchandra’ as well.

Sharma says, “India has no archive that documents the history of sound recording, be it classical or film music, but it is commonly understood that recording began in 1902 after the advent of the disc that is played on the gramophone. However, we have found wax cylinders dating back to 1899, and these are played on a phonogram.” He bought the phono from a shop in Chor Bazaar.

The officer’s quest for old discs began two decades at roadside stalls. He sourced a few cylinders from private collectors over the years, and began documenting the ones he had for a book. Then, as if by divine hand, last December he chanced upon a cache of 200 cylinders at a kabadiwallah (scrap dealer’s) stall. “I will not say where the shop is located or how much I paid. But it wasn’t much because few people know the actual worth of these cylinders. In fact, the kabadiwallah thought they were textile rolls. This turned out to be the biggest treasure of the earliest and rarest Indian recordings. We were fortunate that the name of the singer and the year of recording was inscribed upon a few,” he says. Some cylinders were wrapped in cotton. Sharma, his wife Abha and daughter Anukriti sat down to clean each one with a brush, taking care to not use any chemical since that could damage the soft wax.

Reacting to the find, vocalist Kishori Amonkar, a doyen of the Jaipur-Atrauli gharana told TOI, “I am interested to hear the recording to identify if it is indeed Ustad Alladiya Khan. My mother (Moghubai Kurdikar) was his disciple, so I can tell his style right away. I do know that the Maharaja of Kolhapur Shahu Maharaj had recorded Ustadji on a ‘bangle’, and if this is indeed the original it is extraordinary. But I have been disappointed before. I was in Rotterdam once, and someone offered to play me a recording of Ustadji. I heard it and knew at once it wasn’t him.”

Sharma has transferred the recordings to a CD and is willing to put them to the test.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Mumbai / by Bella Jaisinghani, TNN / September 05th, 2014