Arvind Subramanian: From Amir Khan to Bandish Bandits, a 50-year musical odyssey in Raag Marwa

The last episode of the first season of the web series Bandish Bandits climaxes in a music competition for the title of the King of the Jodhpur gharana of classical music, long held by Panditji, played by the great Naseeruddin Shah.

Digvijay, his son (by his first wife), and Radhe, his disciple-grandson, are the two contestants who are required to choose, in the second round of the competition, a particular emotion to show off their musical talents. Digvijay chooses Viraha to bare his separation from and longing for the father who had abandoned him decades earlier and his old love, now Radhe’s mother.

The Viraha composition sung by Shankar Mahadevan – Ai Ree Sakhi Main Ang Ang – rends the air with both poignancy and melodrama as the camera moves between the singer, rival, old love and guru. As the singing ends, the judges declare Digvijay as the winner, invoking the stunned silence of the audience as proof of musical excellence, more compelling than any thunderous applause that might have followed.

The music, of course, thrilled. But it both provoked Proustian remembrance and jarred. The Viraha composition is set to Raag Marwa, which I recognised because...

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