On an overcast Sunday evening earlier this month, Shreshta Hariharan, a 24-year-old Gurugram-based Bharatanatyam student with a degree in counselling psychology, made her way to a stranger’s 11th-floor apartment in Dwarka’s Sector 9 to listen to Delhi-based Carnatic vocalist Venkateshwaran Kuppuswamy.Known for his emotive voice during Bharatanatyam performances of noted dancers such as Saroja Vaidyanathan, Swapna Sundari and Geeta Chandran, Kuppuswamy sat at one end of the living room, one that had been stripped of all furniture and replaced with mattresses covered in white sheets. Some chairs were queued on one side for senior citizens. With no stage or spotlight and an audience — some familiar, many unknown — sitting just a few feet away, Kuppuswamy took a deep dive into the charming Kambhoji, an evening raga.Hariharan was impressed. “I have been to concerts in auditoriums before but had never experienced music in someone’s home like this. In an auditorium setting, there is quite a lot of distance between the performer and the audience. Here, the proximity, fewer people, how the artiste explained the minutest bits in the middle of a krithi, answered questions, even ate dinner with us later, made this an immersive experience,” she says.Titled ‘Evenings Unplugged’, a collaboration with the Hyderabad-based Vaagdevi Kala Samithi and the Bengaluru-based Kailas Sangeet Trust, the Dwarka baithak was curated and organised by Soumya Rao and Varun K, a young couple who grew up around classical music in their respective families, besides being exposed to baithaks since childhood. Apart from the idea of propagating the heritage of classical music and attempting to make it accessible, the couple also wanted their two-and-a-half-year-old son to be exposed to the world of ragas and riyaaz. This was their third baithak, having hosted flautist Ajay Prasanna and sitarist Soumitra Thakur previously. “We wanted to curate an experience that we don’t get in concerts. Not everyone can travel to central or south Delhi for concerts. We wanted to build a venue in our area where people can come and listen to classical music,” says Rao, who works in a tech company. She also wanted people to enjoy music without thinking about what to do for dinner later. So, the couple serve a home-cooked meal, “not because it is about a meal but because it also brings people closer. They come alone but always leave with a friend,” she adds. Vinod Kapoor’s musical baithak at his Gurgaon homeA few kilometres away in Gurugram’s Sushant Lok, a first-floor living room was also transformed into a space for a baithak earlier this month. Hindustani vocalist Shivani Haldipur Kallianpur, not yet a marquee name, who learned from the noted Jaipur-Atrauli gharana vocalist Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande, held about 35 people — students, young professionals, a couple of retirees — in thrall at leadership and executive coach Sangeeta Chopra’s Naadyatra Home Baithaks. Chopra, who learned dhrupad, began these baithaks a few months ago “to plug the gap in Gurugram’s cultural scene” after Epicentre shut down. The Aravali Centre for Art and Culture also didn’t do much after Covid. Chopra was tired of the increasing traffic jams between Delhi and Gurugram. “So I decided to bring the music into my house,” she says.Rima Zaheer, a publishing consultant, who was at Chopra’s baithak felt that because the baithak was more contained, it felt more personalised. And that is the charm of it, besides the convenience of not travelling far and listening to music. “In a concert, you are just one of a crowd,” she says. Priced at Rs 1,299, the baithak featured many monsoon compositions, which were followed by a short workshop where those present enthusiastically learned the basics of classical music. The evening, like the one in Dwarka, is part of a wave of new-age baithaks — intimate, ticketed recitals held in living rooms of apartments, farmhouses, gardens, sari shops — that are somewhat redefining how Indian classical music is heard and imbibed. That it is ticketed and democratic has the young keen to know more.“For many, it is their first access to classical music. A lot of youngsters are coming to these baithaks, which is so heartening,” says Chopra.*******Story continues below this adThe Hindustani word ‘baithak’ once meant a room in the house where people sat together, shared stories and heard music. In terms of classical music, it became an intimate performance setting.Private baithaks or mehfils were a part of a flourishing world of Hindustani music that came to the fore in the latter part of the 19th century. As the Mughal empire receded, classical music stepped out of courts and into the drawing rooms of wealthy patrons — landlords and noblemen who hosted intimate soirees in their mansions. While the actual old-style baithaks were, and are, mostly attended by a few privileged ones (the patrons mostly invite friends, family, musicians and music connoisseurs) but in keeping with the spirit of the rasik tradition, an earnest listener was rarely turned away. “Even though no one thought of gatekeeping it, it just happened like that. Not everyone had access,” says Rao. Soumitra Thakur and Pandit Vinod Lele performing at Evenings Unplugged in Dwarka, DelhiMuch like the setting of filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar (The Music Room, 1958), with Begum Akhtar crooning the aching Bhar bhar aayi mori akhiyaan in the chandeliered music room of zamindar Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas), many Kolkata rajbaris, too, hosted opulent mehfils where musicians such as Gauhar Jaan — the first musician to record in India — came in a horse-drawn carriage to perform. The lamps would be lit, the fragrance of jasmine flowers would fill the courtyards and she would croon Aan baan jiya mein laagi in her nasal voice to the accompaniment of sarangi and tabla. The prosperous mercantile elite patronised these mehfils and after the arrival of recording technology in 1902, commissioned private recordings. A lot of these are now archived at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, an effort by noted scholar and literature professor Amlan Das Gupta.In Delhi, in the second half of the 20th century, cultural impresario Sumitra Charat Ram, thumri exponent Naina Devi and Pt Vinay Chandra Maudgalya, founder of the Delhi chapter of Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, were at the forefront of baithaks that took place at their homes, where these were interactive spaces and artistes found a knowledgeable audience. Pt Ravi Shankar, Ustad Vilayat Khan and Ustad Amjad Ali Khan were regular performers. In a famed story from three decades ago, Charat Ram’s daughter Shobha Deepak Singh, who heads Sri Ram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, was hosting Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur at her home when he asked her, “Shobhaji, ek beedi pee loon?”. “Such was the comfort of a baithak,” said Singh, in an earlier interview. The Bahadur family in Civil Lines, SRF Foundation chairperson Arun Bharat Ram’s home in Rajokri and musical evenings at former Punjabi Academy Vice President Anita Singh’s home in Jangpura have also been a succour for the Capital’s music connoisseurs.Story continues below this adGurugram-based 91-year-old Vinod Kapur, chairman, Keggfarms, whose baithaks, since the 1970s, have been sustained by the deep affection for music he shared with his late wife, Rani Kapur, is happy to learn about the rise of new-age baithaks. He believes it is great that the concept is being reimagined for the new generation. “This is how music should be heard. So it doesn’t matter if people are paying for it or coming together otherwise. If someone is hosting the evening, where the artiste is singing to the people and not at the people — usually the case in auditoriums — and you are receiving the music and responding to it, it’s great. I feel it is a much more sensitive way to understand music. It is all about the atmosphere,” says Kapur, who also created VSK Baithaks in 1998, when he took the baithak format to one of the halls pf India Habitat Centre followed by the basement od Sri Sathya Sai Auditorium and then the WWF auditorium. He has hosted a slew of legends at his home including Begum Parveen Sultana, Pt Chhannulal Mishra, Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande, Pt Ulhas Kashalkar and Pt Venkatesh Kumar. Except Kishori Amonkar. His wife was worried about her temper. “I attended every baithak by her but never hosted her. It’s a great regret,” he says. The incident at Charat Ram’s home had Amonkar rudely ask Raj Kapoor’s daughter Ritu Nanda to leave the room for holding a glass of alcohol. (Nanda was having a soft drink). Kapur also regrets not being able to align a baithak with Pandit Bhimsen Joshi. A still from Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar********This atmosphere that Kapur talks of, this certain texture of listening, is what brought painter Nalini Misra Tyabji, 75, who used to play sitar while growing up, to Sukanya Banerjee and Tejas Jaishankar’s baithak ‘Upstairs with Us’ in Vasant Kunj. “The atmosphere here kept me going. I liked their choice of artistes,” she adds. Tyabji had come to attend vocalist Deepika Varadarajan’s recital. Vardarajan is a disciple of Carnatic vocalist Sudha Raghunathan and Hindustani vocalist Pandit Prasad Khaparde.Upstairs With Us finds its audience through an Instagram profile with over 20,000 followers. Sukanya and Tejas share details of forthcoming baithaks days in advance and those interested reach out to them through DMs. The guests are selected, following a few “ticket drops”, on a first-come-first-served basis and pay Rs 2,000 each for the baithak that also includes dinner — a simple, home-cooked fare prepared by the couple, just like the one by Rao and Varun in Dwarka. “Sometimes, we get requests from people who are alone in the city and just want to come here to celebrate their birthdays. This makes us really happy,” says Banerjee.Story continues below this adRecently, Delhi-based sitar player Soumitra Thakur, who himself has been hosting baithaks in a Greater Kailash basement since 2019, played at Upstairs with Us. Thakur grew up listening to music in baithaks organised by his father in Ranchi and still considers it the best way of listening to classical music. When he moved to Delhi in 2012, he found the connection between the artiste and the audience missing. “More than a big auditorium, the first thing that the artiste needs is a connection with the people, second is the ambience, third is sound and then comes the money,” says Thakur. In the new baithaks, the only difference, he feels, is that unlike the discerning audience, people may not receive the subtleties that well. “Mainly because 90 per cent are first-time listeners,” says Thakur. Which is also why, perhaps, the space is a way to lift the veil and decode the mysteries of ragas and riyaaz. Since 2019, he has also been holding Rasa Siddhi baithaks at Pink Lotus Academia, a yoga, music and dance studio, where he taught earlier. His baithaks aren’t ticketed and are funded through personal donations. They are supported by sitarist Purbayan Chatterjee and Thakur’s other musician friends. Titled ‘Rasa Siddhi’, Hindustani vocalist Prateek Narsimha was the first performer, followed by a tabla solo by Yashwant Vaishnav. Bhuvanesh Komkali, Kumar Gandharva’s grandson, too, performed earlier this year. “I want to be able to pay a decent amount. So I do it when I have that certain amount. It was later that I realised that I was paying them more, if not at par with what the organisers usually pay,” says Thakur. With Instagram being as big as it is today, he is now contemplating ticketing his baithaks. “In Delhi, people are used to watching concerts for free or with passes. But it is nice that people, mostly first timers, are buying tickets and getting introduced to classical music,” says Thakur. It is notable how these evenings have also become a great opportunity for many younger artistes to hone their skills before finding a bigger stage.Baithak organisers are also attempting to scale up. Delhi-based Tanvi Singh and Anubhav Jain, who co-founded Ibtida- Ek Mehfil in 2019, are hosting baithaks at farmhouses, old havelis, sari stores and hotels. Unlike the apartment baithak, they are hosting 100-300 people and curating menus to create a high-end experience in an intimate space. Singh, who grew up attending baithaks, says she missed going to community-driven places and wanted to recreate the nostalgia. “I also felt artistes were not getting the status they deserved. I wanted them to talk to the audience and create a place where three generations of a family could go together,” says Singh, who has hosted Usha Uthup, Hariharan, Papon and Kavita Seth at venues across the country. They will now be presenting sitar exponent Ustad Shujaat Khan in a baithak in Hyderabad on September 27. To be held at The Leela Hotel, the baithak is priced at Rs 15,000.Ticketing these baithaks supports artistes, while the warm and cosy setting keeps the closeness intact. Also, it is imperative to understand that the romanticised notion of art as passion only and not for money is problematic, as artistes are also people with bills. “Artistes deserve to be paid. If you go to a theatre, a movie, a mall, you shell out money for an experience. Otherwise there is always OTT. For free music, there is YouTube but this is an experience being curated. With such a small number of people, a baithak isn’t a profit game,” says Rao. Chopra says that one has to make it sustainable while Thakur believes it democratises the space. As for a very expensive baithak, it may promise intimacy but it again checks the exclusivity box, as it is likely to allow only a narrow segment of people to access it.While this attempt at creating cultural compartments in an urban setting is being appreciated, in the end, the baithaks’ endurance will be less about scale and more about spirit. While Kapur is excited, he is also concerned about their longevity. “Baithaks are an expression of patronage. It works up to a point, yes, but then somebody moves cities or loses interest. Often, there is a lot of enthusiasm and then it fizzles out. That has been my experience,” says Kapur.Will the baithak adapt and survive? Watch the space.With inputs from Sakshi Chand