Pt. Kumar Gandharva was a born genius, being declared prodigy since his early years. He used to enthrall and enamour every listener who chanced upon his singing recitals. Listening to his exceptionally mellowed voice, Ustad Faiyaz Khan had gladly agreed to help the young Kumar pursue his dream. Numerous legends and stalwarts were also enamoured by this man`s extraordinary rendition at such a young age. He had yet another quality to perfectly emulate the illustrious singers in classical music, and was showered with praises for it. A man of diverse qualities, Kumar Gandharva tasted fame and success at a young age. He was given under the tutelege of Prof. B.R. Deodhar, who made the boy think in a very different manner in the aspect of Hindustani music. The professor made him understand that classical singing was not just a song rendition, but it had a story behind it. In this manner, the student started to think beyond just the four squares of singing. However, after marriage, and in the height of his popularity, he was horribly cut short by an attack of tuberculosis. This cruel sickness forbade him to sing for a long period of time, during which he was engrossed into a very different line of thinking. He was suddenly attracted to folk music of Indian states, and discovered the subtle magic and attraction that it had hidden within itself. A meticulous person himself, he was dawned with the idea to fuse folk with classical genre. His studied paid off, and the fresh start he made in singing, witnessed his listeners to become astonished once more, with a very different Kumar Gandharva in front of them. His radical thinking and disposition, made him a trend-setter in this newly-established classical musical world. And his every rendition of khayal or bhajan was laced with some innovativeness that surprised every critic each time. His contributions to the musical world is honestly proved to noteworthy and unforgettable.

Kumar Gandharva was born in 1924 in Belgaum district as Shivputra Siddharamayya Komkali. When he was hardly 10, a saintly Lingayat living in the area called him Kumar Gandharva when he heard him sing. As his family was musically oriented, the boy took to learning music with a quickness that astounded many. He was soon hailed as a child prodigy. But, unlike most child prodigies, he did not dry up soon. All through the 1930s, the child prodigy traveled in the company of his father, amazing all with his astounding graps over the niceties of music. In 1936 at the Prayag Sangeet Samiti, Ustad Faiyaz Khan ecstatically said that he would bequeath all he had to help the brilliant lad pursue his training in music. Later at a mehfil in Bombay, he amazed all the connoisseurs and maestros present with his melodious singing. All present in the hall, which included among other Kirana doyens, Hirabai Barodekar, showered the lad with donations and presents.

The boy Kumar could, with great accuracy and finesse, imitate the voice and style of all the great contemporary singers. What he executed was not mimicry, but a serious evocation of distinct styles. Maestros like Ustad Abdul Karim Khan, Usatd Faiyaz Khan, Pt. Omkarnath Thakur, Sawai Gandharva and Kesarbai Kerkar listened to his replications and congratulated him for faithfully imitating their styles. Young Kumar`s imitations show his precocious ability to assimilate the voice production, rhythmic play and mode of delivery of the maestros. His simulations were the offshoots of his intense admiration for them, as also a tribute to their prowess. Every creative artist goes through such a period of apprenticeship where each adopts or adapts existing styles keeping with the artistic temperament and gifts of each. Creative imitation can well be the most fruitful apprenticeship an artist can have.

Kumar was fortunate to be taken under the wing of the scholar-musician, Prof. B.R. Deodhar, a direct disciple of Pt. V.D. Paluskar. Though trained in the Gwalior gayaki, Deodhar was a thoroughgoing individualist, open to the beauties and peculiarities of other styles and approaches. Deodhar trained Kumar to be not just an ace performer, but also to be a theorist and intellectual in the field of music. His unorthodox guru imbued him with a powerful sense of individuality by sharpening his fearless and uncompromising intellect. Thus he avoided getting ensnared in any one style of idiom, but at the same time was open to their aesthetic potential.

The iconoclast in him awoke in his early youth during his stint in Bombay. Yet the titanic energy required to make the break was missing. Plagued by inner tussles and tormenting doubts, about his `true` voice and style, he spent six years - the period from 1941 to 1946 - in a state of instability. One day, while singing Raaga Bhimpalas, he was seized by an unusual surge of creative energy which strongly convinced him that he had found his true `voice`. About this time, he fell in love with and got married to his student, Bhanumathi. Being herself a musician, she was, in every sense, a true companion to him. He was slowly gathering success as a concert artist.

Yet, in 1947, at the very height of his new romance and the new phase in his creativity, he was tragically afflicted with tuberculosis. A complicated surgery left him with only one lung. Most who knew and admired him thought that Kumar was finished as a singer. The tale of a brilliant singer would have ended here on a tragic note. But what seemed like a fatal end proved to be a phase in the flowering of a genius. As advised by his doctors, Kumar and his wife moved to the town of Dewas in Madhya Pradesh in search of a drier climate. He was to remain here until his death. His doctors had also warned him to stay away from singing until his recovery was complete. It goes entirely to her credit that Bhanumati supported him in every possible way. She took up a job as a school teacher in a local school to support the family.

Forbidden to sing, Kumarji now allowed his mind to plunge into the enigmatic seas of inner music, wherein he came across strange and beautiful caverns. He avidly listened to, and took down, the songs of wandering mendicants. Crucially, he happened to hear the rich and ruggedly crafted folk music of the Malwa region over a long period through his contacts with the tribes living in Central India. The thinker in him awoke instantly to affirm that classical music was nothing but a disciplined and sophisticated version of folk and tribal melodies. During the course of his intellectual and scholarly forays into the darkest corner of imagination, he felt that the pulse-beat of this vital and hidden heart of music and saw its rootedness in the primeval unconscious of each culture. His wide-ranging researches into the folk music of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh proved very fruitful. He concluded that folk and tribal music were bound up with their physical environment and cultural ethos in truer ways than classical music.

These originative thoughts brought about a radical change in Kumar Gandharva`s approach to music as it did to his aesthetic thinking. From 1952 onwards, his genius began to blossom in new and strange ways. He creatively absorbed and grafted several elements from folk and regional melodies and tunes onto the classical structure and in the process `de-created` the tradition he had assimilated from his early years. He did not throw tradition overboard; rather he infused it with the living blood of creativity by bringing it closer to its origins. Those who listened to the new Kumarji were amazed, shocked and bewildered by the distinctly folksy touch he lent to the pristine classical structure. Many from the classical establishment were justifiably outraged by what they constructed as a bizarre modernist experiment; those seeking the new and the novel in the arts declared him to be the leader of the avant garde, sensing the pulse-beats of the innovative and the challenging in his music. In fact, Kumarji remained as an `on-the-fringes` cult figure in the turbulent 1960s and the revolutionary 1970s. New raagas that sounded utterly alien and thoroughly unsettling came along.

But, tragedy struck again, when his beloved life partner fell a victim to tuberculosis and died in childbirth. The fates struck another mighty blow just when he had recovered from their previous one. But he had vast reserves to inner strength and innate resilience, which helped him tide over this heartrending personal loss. By and by, he came back to life and art. A yer or so after Bhanuamti`s death, he married Vasundhara Devi, a student of his. His life and career moved along the broad highways of recognition and fame from the late 1960s on. The rigours of sowing were over; and festive time of the hard-won harvest had arrived.

Any listener coming for the first time to Kumarji`s music is struck by its emotional range, its inner unfolding drama and its unbridled spontaneity. In these, he was the true inheritor of Pt. Omkarnath Thakur`s mantle. His vocal modulations, his raising and lowering of the volume of his voice, his focus on the emotional content show the extent to which he was influenced by Omkarnath`s music. By accepting Omkarnath`s legacy, he came to belong to the romantic line initiated by Ustad Rehmat Khan. In fact, it is interesting to note that some of the outstandingly individualistic singers, especially of the romantic school, came from the Gwalior gayaki. Being a true romantic, he ignored the traditional mood and emotion through the use of melody and composition.

After having cast aside the traditional format of khayal presentation, his free spirit sought to discover novel and colourful possibilities of the raagas.

Kumarji abandoned the traditional unfolding of the raaga to focus on its melodic centre. In fact, his was a somewhat `de-centred` approach, which followed the promptings of beauty and mood creation and not the logical progression of building of a melodic edifice. Caressing strokes, exquisite melodic passages, and sudden soaring into the upper octave, alternate with carefully punctuated passages of silence in a typical vilambit presentation by Kumar.

The traditional division of khayal into the sthayi and the antara are not strictly adhered to. Often, he would sing a drut composition and then return to the madhya laya composition after singing the drut. During the course of raaga development, he would explore he possibilities offered by its structure by creating unique combinations of notes using the words of the composition. He always used his unique style of voice production to give a creative variation both to the raaga and the bandish. Swara was as important to him as shabda (sound), and, in the manner of a true poet, he sought to amalgamate the two. The unusual accent he gives to certain words in the composition is many a time stunning as it is disquieting. The word-melody relationship in his singing is a very deep one. The disjointed and jarring effect he sometimes creates, has one thinking that musical pleasure lies not in sounding merely tuneful; the inner subliminal world too has to be roused. Yet, when he articulated the words of the bandish, he did so with a desire to impress the poetic meanings of the words through a thoroughly aesthetic presentation.

Kumarji could not elaborate a raaga in the lower register, owing to his physical handicap. However, his madhya laya khayals were invariably brilliant, especially when he rendered the short and brisk taans. Tonal architectonics was not his forte. He achieved many of his tonal effects by increasing or decreasing the volume of his voice. He used to compare his style, characterized by short and swift bursts of singing, to the swift dartings and swishings of small fish in an aquarium. The energy, more than the expansiveness, is what impresses.

What impresses the most about Kumar Gandharva is his sheer presence in whatever he is singing. His vocal energy and intensity mesmerizes one, his romantic waywardness and fanciful flights fascinates one, while his tragic note in his voice disturbs one out of one`s self-satisfaction.

Kumarji is a widely recorded artist, who has cut discs of varying quality. Some of the raagas presented like Saheli Todi, Sanjari, Lagan Gandhar, Madh Surja, Sohoni Bhatiyar and Gandhi Malhar are his own creations, which he called as `Dhun Ugam Raagas`. Most of these raagas are departures from the classical mould serving to arouse the listener`s thirst for novelty and surprise. Of these, his Lagan Gandhar and Madh Surja challenge the listener with their structural intricacy as with their subtle weave of emotions. The unfamiliar contour of feelings that Kumarji explores here remains his prerogative, for these raagas are the creations of a fated and driven man`s quest for the greater mystery. Among his early recordings, his Shree, Poorya Dhanashri, Gauri, Basant, Kalyan and Sohini are outstanding because they reveal his command over madhya laya khayal. The unusual emphasis gives to certain words is seen in his rendition of Shree kalyan, especially the way in which he intones the word ruth. The radiant joy that pervades his Kalyan bandish Mukh tero karo kahe hari is an amalgamation of verbal enunciation and melodic exploration. His brilliant meditation on the words of the composition in the rarely heard raaga Pata Manjari makes it memorable. When he sings the philosophically profound composition Sab ras ek bahyo re, what emerges is a forceful aesthetic statement cast in musical terms. Similarly, his Jeevanpuri (Jaunpuri) and Bilaskhani Todi too are new explorations of familiar ground. When one listens to Kumarji sing prachalit raagas, one cannot help but feel that he has invested them with his own spirit, its joys, conflicts and sorrows included.

The volume of four live recordings brought out by Music Today deserves to be listened to by all wishing to acquaint themselves with the expansive Kumarji. Of these, his rendition of Hamir is fascinating. When he sings the traditional composition Chameli phooli champa with characteristic abandon, the many charms of this early night raaga, flushed with feeling and imagination, shine radiantly. His short renditions of Shudh Shyam and Bhoopali in the middle tempo too are unforgettable experiences, given the felt quality of their musicality and the fresh colouring he gives them. Similarly, his live recording of Bageshri brought out by Sangeetanjali is a fine example of his spontaneity as it is of his desire to unveil less explored facets of this popular night raaga. Especially, worth listening to is his madhya laya rendition of the Gwalior favourite Ritu basant apne umang ko with the deep feeling of a lover separated from her beloved during the festive season of spring. In his Multani and Nayaki Kanada, Kumarji offers mementoes of eloquent anguish. The palpable form of deep emotional feeling comes alive in these renditions.

Kumarji`s stature as a singer of bhajans, is simply irreplaceable. In fact, it was he who single-handedly imbued this genre, otherwise treated as a lilting finale item in a standard recital, with the aesthetic and philosophical depth worthy of a serious art form. As a populariser of bhajans, his spirit was in tune with that of Pt. Paluskar. But he did not use the form to merely instill godliness. Instead he used it as receptacles of his own profound spiritual and aesthetic quest.

The devotional poetry of Bhakti poets like Kabir, Surdas, Meerabai, Tuslidas and Tukaram fascinated both the romantic and philosopher in him. He studied each of these poets deeply assimilating the distinct spiritual essence of each and objectified it using methods of voice production, rhythmic coordination and tempo. His Nirguni bhajans are not merely soulful renditions of devout feelings. They are musical interpretations evoking the rich and strange atmosphere of a spiritual quest using unusual tunes and melodic movements drawn from folk and regional tunes. His prolific mind daringly roved over these vast spiritual tracts in order to give form to the indefinable.

His bhajans are priceless bequests. Almost all and sundry are stirred and deeply moved by his rhapsodic renditions. He was a trend-setter in the field of bhajan singing. Singers as diverse as Kishori Amonkar, Malini Rajurkar and Veena Sahasrabuddhe have been deeply influenced by his approach and style.

Being too much creative and original, he could lave behind no stable style or eminent disciples possessing his creative fire. Worse, his deeply pondered aesthetics is irreproducible. Vasundhara Komkali`s renditions, though competent, lack the glow of originality, sprightliness and verve. But, Kumarji has left a ray of hope in Mukul Shivaputra, his son by his first marriage. Yet he has chosen to stay away from the limelight, owing to certain personal tragedies. Kumarji`s death in 1992, following prolonged illness, took away the leader of the avante-garde singers in Hindustani music.