As she makes her debut as a fiction writer, star classical vocalist Shubha Mudgal is nervous, more nervous than she was for her very first concert. “I have grown more used to the stage than to writing,” she laughs, in her first interview about the book, titled Looking for Miss Sargam: Stories of Music and Misadventure . Mudgal need not be worried. Humorous and heartbreaking, the seven stories crafted from anecdotes she had “hanging around” in her head sparkle with an assured, sophisticated literary quality. They feel topical, yet timeless, with several issues that have troubled Mudgal for long woven into the fabric of fiction. The experience of putting it all down, she says, was both fun and cathartic.
Mudgal — who shuttles between Mumbai and Delhi — spends most of her day surrounded by music, often reading and writing late into the night. A collection of short stories, however, was not on her to-do list. A chance encounter writing Aman Bol for theatre director Sunil Shanbag’s production, Stories in a Song , is where it began for her. “Since 2009, it has been performed over 100 times and stood the test of time. I thought I could follow it up with more nuanced stories.” She then showed her work to literary agent Kanishka Gupta, whose positive reaction was encouragement enough to continue.
Insider point of view
A master of several forms of classical music, with Thumri and Khayal among her favourites, Mudgal has been performing since the 1980s. She retains an effortless youthful quality, an affinity for experimentation and collaborations that go beyond genres, which has won her loyal listeners across age-groups. Her most recent collaboration is an Indo-Australian album Bridge of Dreams , composed and performed with husband and tabla player Aneesh Pradhan, saxophonist Sandy Evans, Sirens Big Band, harmonium player Sudhir Nayak and tabla player Bobby Singh. In her repertoire are the unforgettable pop numbers ‘Mann Ke Manjeere’ and ‘Ab Ke Sawan’.
Adding to this are her tongue-in-cheek columns through which she has turned the spotlight on issues such as ill-treatment of classical musicians and their instruments, blatant copyright infringement and a dismal government budget for arts and culture. These themes, and more, find a suitable home in Looking for Miss Sargam , which took about three years to complete. “As an insider, choosing to write on this subject is an advantage, but on the other hand you find yourself too close to the stories,” she says. The result is a world which feels lived-in and authentic, accompanied by her wry, satirical commentary on how the media, music labels and so-called nationalists operate. Her characters do not necessarily find themselves in happy situations, but “I have tried to make light of the situation and laugh at the not-so-silver lining,” she says.
Mudgal’s eye for detail
The stories are quick to draw you into the lives of musicians from Indian cities big and small. In the first story, Aman Bol , star singers from Pakistan and India are brought together for a peace-broking concert, till petty backstage drama threatens to upstage the music. In Foreign Returned , a Pune-based classical singer’s long-awaited maiden trip abroad doesn’t turn out quite as expected. And in Taan Kaptaan , a second generation musician from Meerut is embroiled in a reality show scam. Over the course of the other stories, she also explores the politics of winning a Padma Shri and the rocky road to musical stardom.
It’s in the little moments, and turn of phrase that Mudgal’s writing shines. She prefers to not give any character a conventional ending. With empathy and an eye for revelatory detail, she draws out hierarchies and power dynamics in the music industry, how artists interact with each other, their hidden desires, regrets and struggles.
Curiously, her debut book gets its title from a mysterious Miss Sargam who flits in and out of the tales, but is teasingly absent from the main narrative. Who is she? “It was my publisher, Ravi Singh, who suggested we base the title on this character who is a quintessential artist reinventing herself. Maybe she will get another story, another time,” chuckles Mudgal. Though behind the curtains, Miss Sargam is a bright spark who sets her own standards in the humdrum of daily music business. The mysterious, spunky singer inhabits many stories and spaces, much like Mudgal herself.
- With her first book out of the way, Mudgal is now gearing up to write a second, which will be nonfiction. Once a voracious reader, she confesses to now having shifted to reading material focussing on music. Think ‘Requiem in Raga Janki’ by Neelum Saran Gour and ‘Monsoon Feelings: A History of Emotions in the Rain’. “Currently I am reading Purushottam Agarwal’s ‘Padmavat’ and Numair Atif Choudhury’s ‘Babu Bangladesh’ is next on the list," she says.
