poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...
and Hindustani classical vocalist. ''Elephant Bathing'' (Poetrywala, 2012), ''Mughal Sequence'' (Poetrywala, 2012) and ''Waking in December'' (Harbour Line, 2001) are his three collections of verse. He received training in Hindustani vocal music for many years from
Satyasheel Deshpande
Pandit Satyasheel Deshpande (born 9 January 1951) is a Hindustani classical musician who specialises in singing Khayal. He is a disciple of Pandit Kumar Gandharva and the son of musicologist Vamanrao Deshpande.
Career
Deshpande has been perf ...
and Pandit Baban Haldankar of the Agra Gharana. He is the founder of ''Harbour Line'', a publishing collective, and ''Kshitij'', an interactive forum for musicians.
Early life and background
Anand Thakore was born in
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...
in 1971. His father Sandeep Thakore was a sitar enthusiast and a disciple of the late Ustad Mohammed Khan Beenkaar. As a child he was fascinated by Hindu Mythology and Indian classical music and dance. His Grandmother, Kapila Thakore was an award-winning Gujarati children's writer and translator.
He spent a part of his childhood in the UK and has lived in India since then. He was educated at
Solihull School
Solihull School is a coeducational Independent school (UK), independent day school in Solihull, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Founded in 1560, it is the oldest school in the town and is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmi ...
, in the West Midlands, and at
Cathedral and John Connon School
The Cathedral & John Connon School is a co-educational private school founded in 1860 and located in Fort, Mumbai, Maharashtra.Kumar Gandharva, Pandit Kumar Gandharva.
He gave his first public performance at the Vitaan Festival of Music and Dance, 1989, hosted by the Sheriff of Mumbai. He has been giving public concerts and '
mehfil
Mehfil (also spelled ''mahfil'') is a formal venue where indoor recreational activities such as poetry ( mushaira), singing, music, and dance are entertained in parts of the Indian subcontinent. It is part of Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb culture.
His ...
s' regularly since. While learning music he simultaneously developed a passion for English literature and various Indian languages:
Hindi
Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...
,
Urdu
Urdu (;"Urdu" '' Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
and Braj Bhasha. In addition to writing poetry in English, he began, in his late teens, to compose his own Hindustani compositions with Braj and Hindi lyrics.
He earned a BA in English Literature from the
University of Mumbai
The University of Mumbai is a collegiate, state-owned, public research university in Mumbai.
The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed h ...
where he also studied courses in Sanskrit literature. He then earned an MA in English Literature from the
University of Pune
Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), formerly the University of Poona, is a collegiate public state university located in the city of Pune, India. It was established in 1949, and is spread over a campus in the neighbourhood of Ganeshk ...
.
Literary career and style
Anand Thakore has been writing verse in English since his teens. He is the author of three books of verse ''Elephant Bathing'', ''Mughal Sequence'' and ''Waking in December''. He has also authored a number of critical essays on music and poetry and a pamphlet of 'Khayal' lyrics in Hindi.
Thakore's poems first appeared in Literature alive, a British Council Journal. His work has appeared in various national and international journals and anthologies since then. He has read work at major literary festivals
Post-Colonial critic Bruce King points out in
World Literature Today
''World Literature Today'' is an American magazine of international literature and culture, published at the University of Oklahoma. The stated goal of the magazine is to publish international essays, poetry, fiction, interviews, and book revie ...
( Vol. 75, No. 3/4, Summer - Autumn, 2001, p. 136) : "That Thakore is a classical singer shows in his imagery and complex patterns of sound, and in the texture of his verse. There is a song-like quality about his verse".
Jeet Thayil
Jeet Thayil (born 1959) is an Indian poet, novelist, librettist and musician. He is the author of several poetry collections, including ''These Errors Are Correct'' (2008), which won the Sahitya Akademi Award. His first novel, '' Narcopolis,'' ( ...
writes about Anand Thakore in the book ''The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets (Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 2008)'' : "Both cultures feed and animate his work. His poems have a line and weight reminiscent of mid-twentieth century British verse; his music reaches out to antiquity".
"From a child who grew up partly in England writing prose, Thakore evolved into a teenager who explored Braj lyrics, which he had to sing as a student of music. His love for poetry took him to literary greats who lived in Mumbai such as Adil Jussawalla,
Dom Moraes
Dominic Francis Moraes (19 July 1938 – 2 June 2004) was an Indian writer and poet who published nearly 30 books in English. He is widely seen as a foundational figure in Indian English literature. His poems are a meaningful and substantial c ...
and
Gieve Patel
Gieve Patel (born 18 August 1940) is an Indian poet, playwright, painter, as well as a physician. He belongs to a group of writers who have subscribed themselves to the ''Green Movement'' which is involved in an effort to protect the environmen ...
who guided him through the jungle of words. But he considers Hart Crane as one of his earliest poetic influences ... The metre and discipline of traditional verse forms helped Thakore find a 'deeper integration of ideas and meanings.' "Free verse," he says, "was driving me crazy. There was too much linguistic and cultural chaos in my head'." - Anupama Raju,
The Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...
.Music of the spoken word, Anupama Raju, The Hindu /ref>
In 2001 Anand Thakore co-founded ''Harbour Line'' - a publishing collective devoted to English verse on the Indian subcontinent. ''Harbour Line'' was founded in collaboration with poets Jane Bhandari, ( 'Aquarius',2002, ), Deepankar Khiwani ('Entr'acte', 2006, ) and Vivek Narayanan (Universal Beach, 2006, ).
The verse of ''Waking in December'', Thakore's first book shows a reverence for definite form and an interest in classical structures like the sonnet and the
villanelle
A villanelle, also known as villanesque,Kastner 1903 p. 279 is a nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain. There are two refrains and two repeating rhymes, with the first and third line of the first tercet rep ...
, exemplified in poems like ''Chandri Villa'' or ''What I can Get away with''. This interest in classical forms is linked to his training as a Hindustani classical vocalist and composer.
In 2006 he received a Charles Wallace India Trust grant for an experimental music-poetry collaboration in the UK with composer and guitarist Pete Wyer. He has a number of recorded readings with music - both Hindustani and western- some now available with his books of verse.
His poems and critical essays on music and poetry have appeared in leading national and international journals and anthologies. His poetry in included in ''Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry'' ( United States ).
Anand Thakore was judge and a co-editor for the first
Montreal International Poetry Prize
The Montreal International Poetry Prize (also known as The Montreal Prize) is a biennial poetry competition based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was launched in April 2011 during National Poetry Month.
The competition invites online submissions o ...
(2011) with
Valerie Bloom
Valerie Bloom MBE (born 1956)Jeffrey Wainwright''Poetry: The Basics''(2004), 2nd edition, Routledge, 2011, p. 21. is a Jamaican-born poet and a novelist based in the UK.Fred D'Aguiar
Fred D'Aguiar (born 2 February 1960) is a British-Guyanese poet, novelist, and playwright. He is currently Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Life
Fred D'Aguiar was born in London, England, in 1960 t ...
* ''Mughal Sequence'' (Poetrywala, 2012).
* ''Elephant Bathing'' (Poetrywala, 2012). Newspaper article about ''Elephant Bathing'' by Gopikrishnan Kottoor in
The Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...
October 6, 2010
* ''Waking in December'' (Harbour Line, 2001).
Essays
* ''On the Music of 'A Missing Person': Adil Jussawalla and the Craft of Despair'' (New Quest, Pune, Ed.
Dilip Chitre
Dilip Purushottam Chitre (17 September 1938 – 10 December 2009) was one of the foremost Indian poets and critics to emerge in the post Independence India. Apart from being a notable bilingual writer, writing in Marathi language, Marathi and En ...
)
* ''Myth and Monologue'' (New Quest, Pune, Issue 167, 2007, ed. Dilip Chitre)
* ''If Music be the food of speech'' (New Quest, issue 169, 2007, ed. Dilip Chitre)
Editorial work
*
*
Anthologised Poems
Thakore's poetry has appeared in the following anthologies amongst others:
* ''The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry'' (Harper Collins, 2012 ed. Sudeep Sen)
* ''Sixty Indian Poets'' (Penguin India 2008, ed. Jeet Thayil)
* ''Reasons For Belonging'' (Viking, 2002, ed.
Ranjit Hoskote
Ranjit Hoskote (born 1969) is an Indian poet, art critic, cultural theorist and independent curator. He has been honoured by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, with the Sahitya Akademi Golden Jubilee Award and the Sahitya ...
Robert Minhinnick
Robert Minhinnick (born 12 August 1952) is a Welsh poet, essayist, novelist and translator. He has won two Forward Prizes for Best Individual Poem and has received the Wales Book of the Year award a record three times (in 1993, 2006 and 2018). ...
)
* ''Fulcrum Three'' (Cambridge, MA, USA, 2004, ed. Philip Nikolayev)
* ''The Bloodaxe book of Contemporary Indian Poets'' (Bloodaxe, UK, 2008 ed. Jeet Thayil)
* ''Both Sides Of The Sky'' (National Book trust, India, 2008, ed. Eunice de Souza)
* ''Poetry with Prakriti'' (Prakriti Foundation, 2009)
Musical career and style
As a child, Anand Thakore learnt Hindustani vocal music,
sitar
The sitar ( or ; ) is a plucked stringed instrument, originating from the Indian subcontinent, used in Hindustani classical music. The instrument was invented in medieval India, flourished in the 18th century, and arrived at its present form ...
and
Tabla
A tabla, bn, তবলা, prs, طبلا, gu, તબલા, hi, तबला, kn, ತಬಲಾ, ml, തബല, mr, तबला, ne, तबला, or, ତବଲା, ps, طبله, pa, ਤਬਲਾ, ta, தபலா, te, తబల ...
. When the family moved to England for a period, he studied rudimentary western musical theory, and violin and sang soprano in the Solihull Chapel Choir. He has always maintained a strong interest in
Western Classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" ...
and jazz though fusion as such, is not his choice of form. On returning to Mumbai he trained for a while with Ustad Aslam Khan of the Atrauli Gharana; though most of his training has been under Pandit Satyasheel Deshpande, senior disciple of Pandit Kumar Gandharva.
Inspired by his Guru, Pandit Satyasheel Deshpande and Pandit Kumar Gandharva (whose music he had the good fortune to listen to at close quarters), Anand Thakore began to compose his own compositions at the age of sixteen, working with Hindi Lyrics in the traditional form known as the Bandish. In addition to being taught a host of traditional compositions from different gharana-s and sources, he was also initiated into various aspects of gayaki ( i.e. modes of improvisation and raga-development) and he was encouraged to seek out his own mode of presentation and expression. He played a supportive role in the musicological research and documentational activities at the Samvaad Foundation run by his Guru, where he had the good fortune to interact with a wide spectrum of artists of the older generation; to vocally accompany and comparatively analyse the music of such stalwarts as Ustad Salamat Ali, Pandit Ramashreya Jha, Pandit K G Ginde, and Pandit Sharadchandra Arolkar, amongst others.
In 1994 he received a scholarship to study music full-time from the
Ministry of Human Resource Development (India)
The Ministry of Education ( MoE; formerly the Ministry of Human Resource Development from 1985 to 2020) is a ministry of the Government of India, responsible for the implementation of the National Policy on Education. The Ministry is further ...
. He then studied music for several years under Pandit Baban Haldankar of the Agra Gharana. This ''Taleem'' (training) familiarized him with a large number of Agra-Gharana compositions and various aspects of the Agra tradition: ''Bol-alaap'', ''Nom-tom'' ''alaap'' and ''Layakari''.
Thakore's first professional concert was at the Vitaan Festival of Music and Dance 1989, hosted by the Sheriff of Mumbai. He has accompanied his Guru-s and performed across the country as a soloist at mehfil-s and music festivals since then.
In 2001 he co-founded Kshitij, an interactive forum for musicians, devoted to the spirit of the live Hindustani ''mehfil''. Kshitij was founded in collaboration with vocalists
Sanjeev Chimmalgi
Pandit Sanjeev Chimmalgi ( hi, संजीव चिम्मलगि) (born 29 July 1972) is an Indian music composer and Hindustani vocalist. He is a disciple of C. R. Vyas. His music reflects the voice culture of Kirana gharana as well a ...
, Kedar Bodas, Krishna Bhat and Tabla accompanist Rupak Kharvandikar. The group has organized concerts of senior and younger artists in semi-private soirees as well as public auditoriums. It also functions as a musicians' salon, repeatedly creating space for interaction between musicians, connoisseurs,critics and musicologists.
In 2006 he received a grant from the Charles Wallace India Trust to work on a collaborative experimental project with British composer and jazz-guitarist Pete Wyer. A participant in the ''
Time Structured Mapping
Time Structured Mapping (TSM) is a score based system created and used by the composer Pete M Wyer. It uses the bar-lines found in conventional musical scores to indicate durational periods during which performers, who may include actors, sing ...
'' project, he collaborated with soprano Evelyne Beech, microtonal vocalist Toby Twining, Pianist Burkhard Finke and the Orchestra of the Swan on a piece called ''Four Bridges''; a score or ''Time Structured Map'', with scope for improvisation, simultaneously recorded in various parts of the world.
In 2009 Anand Thakore presented ''Sabadpiya Ki Khoj'', a concert and presentation at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai, focusing on his work as a composer of ''bandish-es'' composed under the ''Takhallus'' or pseudonym ''Sabadpiya'' (''sabadpiya'' implying ''lover of the word'' and reminiscent of Agra gharana pen-names like Ustad Khadim Hussain ''Sajan piya'' etc.) The event brought together his work both as a composer in Hindustani Raga and Tala and as a lyric-writer in Hindi. A pamphlet of the words of these compositions brought out by Kshitij was also published at the event.
Guldasta-e-Khayal (2011) is his latest Hindustani classical CD. The CD features a live 'mehfil' in Mumbai with ragas Multani, Tilak Kamod, Darbari and Malkauns and is distributed by Underscore Records Pvt. ltd.
* He is the recipient of a National scholarship for music from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, a grant from the Charles Wallace India Trust for experimental work in the UK.
* He has received "Sur-mani" award for excellence in classical music, conferred by the Sur Singar Samsad.