India’s First Pop Queen - Gauhar Jaan

When recording technology came to India in the early decades of the 20th century, it was the women who accepted this very novel & unfamiliar medium & adapted to it. Disregarding several superstitions (recording on evil English instruments would displease the gods and make lose one’s voice) that were floated by men, they went ahead & recorded. This not only helped democratize music & bring it out of the confines of the ‘Kothas’(brothels) & ‘Courts’ but also liberated these performing women from the clutches of their exploitative patrons.

Gauhar Jaan, a feisty woman always embellished in lavish outfits, was a musician par-excellence that recorded at least 600 records between 1902 & 1920, in tongues as diverse as Persian, Gujarati and Pashto. Further, she demanded a handsome Rs 3,000 for each recording session.

Her repertoire was vast & ranged from the weighty khayal to the supposedly lighter forms of Hindustani music such as Thumri, Dadra, Kajri, Hori, Chaiti & Bhajan. While a khayal is traditionally expanded into hours, Gauhar had devised a wondrous formula to compress this in three minutes or less to fit them into 78 rpm shellac discs.

In a strictly regimented class-ridden feudal society Gauhar Jaan, a tawaif, had conquered the hearts of maharajas, nawabs & uber-rich merchants through her singing & her beauty.

Deeds such as flouting British government rules & paying a daily fine of Rs 1,000 as she drove around the thoroughfares of Calcutta in her costly phaeton driven by four horses & throwing a lavish party costing Rs 20,000 when her cat gave birth to a litter made her known not just for her musical talent but also for her ostentatious lifestyle.

Gauhar Jaan lived a life full of passion & often of compassion afflicted with disappointing men or, at any rate, disappointments caused by men.

Her last days were riddled with a series of misfortunes which left her penniless far away from Calcutta, ​​where she once towered over her peers & settled in Mysore breathing her last.

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