Many colonial writers equated hereditary women practitioners of Hindustani music with prostitutes and condemned them as a debauched lot.  Their contempt also extended to male musicians, who provided musical accompaniment to women performers and taught them.  This perspective influenced a section of the Western-educated Indians, who looked down upon the practice of music and dance.  Consequently, until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the study and performance of Hindustani music was restricted to hereditary musicians.

But the emergence of national consciousness in the nineteenth century provoked some Indian intellectuals to identify symbols of cultural identity.  Classicising the Hindustani music tradition, linking it to an ancient past, and sanitising it of erotic texts and its association with women performers, were some of the efforts that defined the cultural nationalism of those times.

Institutionalising music education was an important aspect of this grand scheme, as it sought to make the study and performance of music accessible to amateurs.  There were many steps taken in this direction in Calcutta and Bombay, but it was the work of Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande (1860-1936) and Vishnu Digambar Paluskar (1872-1931) that gained nationwide acceptance.

August marks Paluskar’s birth and death anniversaries, so this is the perfect time to view a documentary on his life and work.