Welcome to the Vijaya Parrikar Library within the Music Archive by Rajan Parrikar. The Library’s holdings can be explored through the Catalogue.
The Vijaya Parrikar Library was launched in 2003 and my prefatory remarks at the time are reprised below:
Only a modest portion of the recordings from India’s classical masters has ever been commercially published. A large body of mehfil recordings lies out of public earshot, sequestered in private collections or buried deep within the labyrinths of government bureaucracy, out of reach for the common rasika. These civilizational treasures should never become the fiefdom of any individual. Even when a collector is inclined to share his trove, there attends the familiar logjam: copyright constraints and legal entanglements are inescapable realities of modern life. It is, therefore, unlikely that these cultural documents will see the light of day anytime soon. Perhaps in the long run the troves will be pried open and their contents disbursed, but as John Maynard Keynes famously observed, “in the long run we are all dead.” Keynes’s stark observation provides the imperative for this Library. [Added: That was then. It is a different world now. Post-2013 there has been a stampede to upload private holdings to YouTube and other online platforms.]
The Library is named after my mother, Vijaya Parrikar, whose sacrifices and blessings allowed me to immerse myself in the study and joy of music, that ‘nourishing pasture of both the heart and mind’ (adapted from Professor John A. Wheeler’s essay on Hermann Weyl).
The assets of the Vijaya Parrikar Library include excerpts of old recordings, many of them rare, hard-to-find, or unpublished. As many are documents of live performances, they may not enjoy the audio clarity of studio recordings. I hope you will look past the uneven, fractured sound, the audible hiss, and other imperfections inherent in these recordings. For structural and aesthetic considerations of the ragas featured here, refer to the resources of the Music Archive.
The Catalogue spans both Hindustani and Carnatic musicians. I shall look to Dr. V.N. Muthukumar and Dr. M.V. Ramana to provide direction to our Carnatic section.
Every effort has been made to acknowledge the original sources but it is not always possible to do so; in many instances the relevant metadata was never documented. If there is any missing credit for any item such as a photograph or a recording, and you have information about the original source, please let me know. I have scanned most of the photographs on this site myself. Unfortunately, photographer credits are seldom recorded in Indian publications. Any help in filling the missing blanks is welcome.
Acknowledgements:
I extend my gratitude to Dr. Narasimha Bhat of Manipal for helping me put together this layout. The steadfast support of Romesh Aeri, Dr. Ashok Ambardar, and Dr. Ajay Nerurkar is deeply appreciated. Special thanks are owed to Anita Thakur and Vijainder Thakur of the now defunct South Asian Women’s Forum (SAWF) site whose initiative and persistence gave this project its earliest life.
Warm regards,