Sumati Mutatkar, renowned musicologist and singer writes about an evening spent with Sidheshwari Devi in Rajbhavan at Nagpur in 1950:
“ Sidheshwari started explaining to us the role and importance of feelings, and the emphasis to be placed on words in Thumri. The biggest aspect, she said, of the thumri style of singing is ‘baithak’ meaning thereby not the way we sit, but the fact that thumri singing requires a special attitude and aptitude on a singer’s part- special sentiments, delicacy of feelings, and the abundance of love in the heart. This baithak in thumri is a state of mind, its soul and without which there can be no ras or beauty in our singing”
Yesterday night I was listening to the renderings of the famous thumri ‘Ras Ke Bhare Tore Nain’ in Rag Bhairavi by stalwarts like Ustad Barakat Ali Khan, Rasoolan Bai, Girija Devi, Heera Devi Sharma (for Film Gaman), and Noor Jahan. But when I reached Sidheshwari Devi’s ‘out of the world’ performance of this thumri, I realized what she meant by the importance of ‘baithak’ in her singing.
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