Note Extraordinaire: A Film on Kishori Amonkar (DVD)

No price is too hight to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. Neitzche probably wrote this for the phenomenon called kishori Amonkar whose divine music has entranced us just like it has a million others! We always felt that kishori Tai never bothered to manage her self image and perhaps therefore. Tai’s defiance and impulsiveness overshadowed her pristine classicism and non conformist experimentation. May be that was one of the deterrent reasons as to why no documentary was made on tai despite her immense and unparalleled contribution to the Indian classical music. This glaring lacuna had to be rectified; hence we decided to accept Tai’s invitation to take up the daunting task of making this documentary.

In case of Tai music had a long unbroken history in the form of her Gurumata Mogubai Kurikar, fondly known as Mai who was the quintessence of Tai’s life. Wounded by the painful feeling that Mai never received recognition proportionate to her legendary talent, Tai donned a resolute impenetrable mask in stark contrast to Mai’s fragility and vulnerability. Tai’s struggle to overcome the long shadows of her tumultuous childhood has perhaps spread all through her life. Another aspect of Tai’s struggle for which she was frequently criticized was transcending her musical oeuvre beyond the conventions and traditions of Jaipur atrauli Gharana. Her experimentation with alapchari her softened tonal accents and intense emotive content or her liberties with traditional renditions were vilified by conservatives as intolerable deviations. The musical voyage of this tireless explorer continue unperturbed despite all such denunciation. Ultimately she found her position repeatedly vindicated by stupendous audience patronage and a string of honors including the sangeet Natak Akademi awards (1985-2011) and the titles Gansaraswati the Padma Bhushan (1987) and the Padma Vibhushan (2002)

We wanted to project an accessible portrait of a pensive, creative artiste whose life has been sublimed to and consumed by her art. Thus the quest for seeking out strands of Tai’s musical journey became the paramount focus of our endeavor.

We hope that we could capture the essence of Tai’s ceaseless pursuit of excellence and purity and that the film could archive Tai’s astonishing take for the coming generations who too would salute the note extraorinare!.