Academics
The earliest recordings of\n Indian music are characterised by the high-pitched announcement, 'My name is\n Gauhar Jaan.' This declaration epitomised a milestone in the history of\n Indian classical music, one that would forever change its content, structure\n and style.The musical scene in India at the turn of the 20th century\n witnessed tumultuous changes. The traditional custodians of the art form, the\n devadasis in the south and the nautch girls in the north, who had nurtured\n the art for centuries, became victims of the morality laws of the British\n government and the prudery of an 'enlightened' Indian elitist class. Gauhar\n Jaan (1873-1930), however, an eminent Hindustani vocalist, symbolises the\n resurgence of women musicians of her era.Born Eileen Angelina Yeoward, an\n Armenian Christian who later converted to Islam, Gauhar Jaan was a naturally\n gifted musician with an outstanding repertoire. One of the earliest women\n artists to seize the opportunities that rose with the advent of recording\n technologies, hers was the first Indian voice to ever be recorded in 1902.\n She went on to cut close to 600 records, the most successful female musician\n of her time.This book traces her story, a story peppered with the stuff myth\n and legend, as well as the times during which she lived. It also describes\n the evolution of the Indian recording industry and its impact on the\n country's music, theatre and social life.
Bangalore-based historian Vikram Sampath is the author of seven acclaimed books, including Splendours of Royal Mysore: The Untold Story of the Wodeyars; My Name Is Gauhar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician; Voice of the Veena: S Balachander: A Biography; Women of the Records and Indian Classical Music and the Gramophone: 1900-1930. His latest books, published by Penguin Random House India, are the two-volume biography Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past and Savarkar: A Contested Legacy, 1924-1966. Both the volumes have gone on to become national best sellers.In 2021, Vikram was elected as fellow to the prestigious Royal Historical Society of the United Kingdom. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi's first Yuva Puraskar in English literature and the ARSC International Award for excellence in historical research in New York for his book on Gauhar Jaan. The book has also been adapted to theatre as a play Gauhar by Lillette Dubey and is being adapted to a Bollywood film by Ashutosh Gowariker. Vikram was among the four writers and artists to be selected as a writer-in-residence at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in 2015. Vikram has a doctorate in history and music from the University of Queensland, Australia, and was a Senior Research Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. He is also an Aspen Global Leadership Fellow and an Eisenhower Global Fellow 2021. An engineer/mathematician from BITS-Pilani and with an MBA degree in finance from S. P. Jain, Mumbai, Vikram is also a trained Carnatic vocalist. He has established the Archive of Indian Music, India's first digital sound archive for vintage recordings. He is the founder-director of the Bangalore Literature Festival and curates the ZEE Group's ARTH-A Culture Fest.
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