RMIM Archive Article "243".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: K. L. Saigal: the pilgrim of the swara Appendix
#
# Posted by: ADhareshwar@WorldBank.Org (Ashok)
# Source: K. L. Saigal: the pilgrim of the swara
# Clarion Books, New Delhi, 1978
# Author: Ragava R. Menon
#
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The title of the appendix is somewhat misleading. First half of
it actually turns out to be partly a rehash of material in the
chapters, but some stuff is new. The author turns to Saigal's
records in the second half, but unfortunately there is no disco-
graphy, leave alone a list of Saigal songs. That work perhaps
remains to be done; what you will find here are Menon's comments
on some then-commonly available recordings of Saigal.
I have received a few e-mails inquiring about the
availability of the book. (I'd like to believe tha the postings
will cause an increase in the sale of the book, rather than a
decrease!) I came to know from Sreenivas Paruchuri that the
second edition of the book came out in 1989 under the banner of
Hind Pocket Books. I don't know if it is a revised edition; would
be interesting to check what he says about Saigal's year of death,
at least!
Ashok
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:Appendix The Records of K. L. Saigal
Today Saigal's extant phonograph records form the major premise
for judging the degree and quality of his contribution to our
music. It must be remembered that to the public of his day he
was known primarily as an actor who also sang songs. This was
nothing unusual at that time. Most theatrical performers of his
day and age sing songs to embellish the scenes in which they
played and several of them were accomplished singers in their own
right. So it was always through his films in which he was cast
that the public heard him sing and from the phonograph records
that were released together with the films.
These records became wild best-sellers all over the country.
During his lifetime these records were still shellac and turned
approximately 78 times a minute. Today these have been re-issued
with the aid of much more sophisticated reproduction devices in
contemporary vinyl and turn at 33 and 45 times a minute.
The songs that Saigal sang in his records often differ in
some respects from the same songs in the films. The songs on the
screen were, as can be expected, often interspersed with dialogue
and movement and many of them were engagingly abbreviated. The
pacing also differed in many cases. A _meend_ here was
shortened, and there a _gamak_ was substituted with a trill, a
_murki_ by silence, sometimes an additional phrase of variation
made a scene light-hearted, sometimes merely sadder. There are
songs in which Saigal sings above a hardly audible bubble of
suppressed mirth without in any way affecting the delivery or the
tonal attributes of the song.
In some cases the film songs are sung in a slightly higher
pitch, particularly when the scene was being shot out-doors.
This higher pitch of the scale gave his rendition a troubadorial
air, a fleeting mortal quality and often the sadness of
minstrelsy. In this records of the same songs the style becomes
properly prim and conservative.
There are many Indians who do not know that Saigal sang
outside the films and that several of these songs have been
recorded and preserved for posterity. They think that he sang
only as part of his film roles. It is, however, in these songs,
the non-film songs, that Saigal can be recognised primarily as a
singer and only at one remove as an actor. There is often a
debate whether Saigal was a good actor.
Some say he was, some say he was not. It seems to depend upon
the point of view. We tend to forget in making these judgements
that the talkies had just arrived in India at the time Saigal was
singing his songs and that the films we are criticising with the
prescience of the 70s were actually made in the 30s, during and
after a world-wide depression, in a country with negligible
resources and with budgets that would make a contemporary
producer burst into tears. Hand-held cameras, no trolleys, no
zooming, no dissolves, no booms, the microphone into which Saigal
sang the immortal and disturbing "baabula mora" was carried by
hand behind him and the camera likewise. In the film there was a
wind machine that was used to mimic a Nor'wester in the story
which apparently did not have a rheostat and sent the famous
Saigal wig flying, interrupting the song midway. There were no
Kleig lights and the material with which locales were reproduced
on the New Theatres lot in Tollygunge looked cheap and tawdry.
But yet the dramatic impact of the scene was at par with many
films we see today on our screens.
Also this debate lies on the same plane as the other one of
whether Saigal suffered for not being trained in classical music
in the conventional _gharana_ style of the _guru-shishya_. This
is because people do not recognise that Saigal's music was taught
to him by the holistic techniques of the Yesevi _sufi_s. It was
not _raga vidya_. His work was directed towards the mastery of
the _swara_ and its magical relationships to other _swaras_ of
the musical scale. Salman Yousuf who initiated him into this
practice by means of a _zikr_ was a _sufi_ of the Yesevi order
which uses music as a means to attain a certain type of
consciousness of their selves. They do not use music to perform,
but to transform. The Yesevis like the _naqshabandis_ and the
_suhrawardys_ and other orders of _sufi_s exist to this day in
the Punjab area and in Jammu and Kashmir in a belt that stretches
through Peshawar across the Khyber into Afghanistan and beyond
into the Central Asian Highlands.
Since music to the Yesevi _sufis_ was only a means whereby
they may obtain a cognitive vision of the nature of the true
relationships in the world around them and in the inner world of
the spirit, those who practise some of these techniques, even
superficially, become transformed beings in varying degrees and
carry with them a strange quality of presence and appeal. Saigal
merely applied the _swara_ he had gained by the ceaseless
practice of the _zikr_ to the prevailing ethos of the _raga_. So
when you heard him sing, the power and the enchantment of his
music was not because he knew _raga_ or the complexities of
classical music as taught by the _gharanas_. It was the
inaudible emotional attraction of the highly perfected _swaras_,
which had been ruthlessly cleaned and purified to such a degree
that they gleamed with the meaning and significance of Saigal's
inner being. Let us not forget that this after all is the true
meaning of _swara_, it was not being merely _surel_ or having a
true pitch. And everyone knows that our _ragas_ are made of
_swaras_ and note out of musical notes alone. The Sanskrit root
_swa_ stands for the "self" and the root _ra_ stands for the verb
"to offer". So that if you have a self to offer, then it is
possible to offer this self through the _swaras_ of our music.
But we must not forget that very few of us have any self to speak
of, except as a collection of appetites and reactions to which we
give our exalted names.
The _zikr_ and its incessant practice had given Saigal a
self to sing about and that was what we actually heard in his
voice and that also was the reason why when that voice passed
through even the rudiments of _raga_, it was filled with pain,
becoming an inconsolable cry and over the decades would not die
like the voices of other singers, because the selves of creatures
do not die. It is always the form, the receptacles that pass and
wither. The self remains. So thiry years after him his voice
remains a part of our time and our history.
Since Saigal did not seem to practise like other musicians
of our culture, people thought he was born that way, that he was
a peculiar example of the time warp or an incarnation of a
_gandharva_ or something equally silly and naive.
But it was this curious fact of his life which was really
very unobtrusive, almost secretive, that gave his presence on the
screen and outside a certain wholeness and tranquility, an easy
naturalness of gait and carriage. In acting, his face was mostly
still. He never did much emoting with the muscles of his face,
the cocking of eyebrows, the crinkling of eyes, the self-
conscious smirks and grimaces which make some of our actors such
dedicated hams that seeing them go through their paces makes the
audience sorry for their total ineptitude. Saigal never had to
take recourse to these desperate methods. In the result he
carried a low-key conviction and integrity and since sang his
songs himself while the scene was being shot, it seemed quick
with a delicate tension and a subtle stab of truth which was
somehow more powerful than mere acting. To understand Saigal's
true contribution to India's light music it is important to hear
the songs that he sang outside the ambit of his films. We feel
sure that acting for Saigal was a mere profession and it was
music that was his life.
_Rabindra Sangeet_, the _hori_, the _kirtan_, the _baul_,
the _thumri_, the _bhajan_, the _geet_, the _ghazal_, the
Pujabee, the Bengali, the Tamil, the Urdu, the Persian--he sang
in all these styles and all these languages impeccably. The
technique of singing _ghazals_ the way Saigal first sang them
could be said to have been his own innovation. Earlier,
_ghazals_ were recited exclusively for their texts, the noble
words of passion, sorrow, or despair. In fact, there is a school
of thought that believes that _ghazals_ should never be sung,
that words and their meanings are the substance of _ghazal_, that
a _raga_, a tune and a _tala_ detracts and diminishes the impact
of the meaning of the _ghazal_. This is a moot point. Meaning
lies in several levels.
Apart from the one-to-one meaning of the dictionary or the
structure of the line, words also have a resonance in deeper
levels of the being. This is not the strict meaning of the word
as in a dictionary. This is an experience, a total condition of
awareness of the meaning of the word.
There is very little doubt that Saigal's musical
interpretation of the _ghazal_ enriched this resonance. And if
Ghalib had heard him sing, for example, the tightly traversing
_ghazal_, "nuqta chi hai gham-e-dil", he would have exulted to
know how deeply and directly without mediation, Saigal was giving
form and content to the meaning of his words. The musical
content of Saigal's _ghazal_ lay low like the flame under a
kettle of boiling water. It was the bubbling of the text with
the pain and understanding of its composer that made you realise
that there was the flame of a tune underneath the poignant march
of exquisite metres. The music was never obtrusive, never
strident or too clever and was always cut sheet to the text.
Almost any of his songs will stand this test of music
subordinating to text, but there is a song in _bageshri_ that
comes to mind. It is a Seemab _ghazal_ and begins "jalwa go hai
dil me.n marte hi andhera." Here is a song whose tune carries
its text on its head as it were, often the tune standing still to
let the words go on ahead. There are a hundred examples of this
technique Saigal used with his songs, each time meticulously
conscious of his responsibilities as a singer to the words of the
poet.
Classical singers are often notoriously insensitive to the
words of a composition in their belief that a composition is a
vehicle for a _raga_. In fact the converse is true. It is the
_raga_ that is the vehicle for a composition and the belief that
knowledge of _raga_ and performing skill is sufficient, points to
a poor apprehension of the nature of our music.
Saigal was too much of a poet himself and had a high sense
of truth to a poems's secret life which he would not dishonour.
He loved the words of a poem in the way a raindrop loves a window
pane, those magic globes of infinite beauty and order, hanging on
to the transparent glass surface as though for its very life. It
was somewhat in this fashion that Saigal loved the immortal words
of Ghalib, Seemab, Tagore, Bedam, Arzu, Hafiz, Prnab, or Nazrul,
as though for his very life. Saigal made their poems musically
so significant that suddenly people understood Ghalib better than
merely reading him. He was the first contemporary singer who
could be said to have invented the musical law of speech
determining its countless tones and emphasis, its endless nuances
of emotions.
Most of his songs were in classical _ragas_ and structured
with canny art and innovation. Whether it was Ghalib or Nazrul,
Saigal carefully brought out the _raga_ and its chief
characteristics with incredible economy and grace. Among his
records you can find many _bhairavis_, _kafis_ of every hue and
quality, _bhimpalasis_, _mand_, yaman, and at least one _malkaus_
composed on the upper tetrachord. There ar pure _pilus_, and
_pilus_ with an undertow of _multani_; there is a _bageshri_ and
of course the straight form to shoulder _bahar_ and _shankara_ of
Tansen.
But these characteristics as mentioned earlier are more
apparent in the non-film songs of Saigal, songs that were of his
own choosing and oftentimes of his own composing. At least some
of these songs he had inherited from his childhood in Jammu--and
later from his youth in the Punjab, the backwash of a hundred
_baithaks_ and music conference, from Jullunder, the Harvallabh,
from Allahabad's Prayag Sangeet Samiti, from Patna Music
Conferences, from Moradabad, from his penniless days in Kanpur,
from Bareilly, from Lucknow from the section of town where the
dancing girls lived, from beggars who sang the _baul_, from musk
sellers who boasted that they had come from Khorasan, but who
also mysteriously turned out to be disquietingly moving singers.
There is the story of the carpet seller who cam walking up
Jotin Das Road, one Sunday morning, an itinerant singer with a
catch in his throat, who also wove the carpets he sold, who sang
with such power and truth that the windows and doors of the
houses in the street filled with men and women and hordes of
children who left their work and their play to hear this strange
man sing. He said he had come from Khive and sang from one of
the tales of Gilgamesh. He taught Saigal the words of a few
songs in Persian and when in one of those characteristic
unthinking response for which Saigal was by this time well-known,
he withdrew a ring of unknown value from his fingers and gave it
to the singer, the ring at once returned mysteriously back to
Saigal's own finger. When this happened again and again a few
times and Saigal stood amazed, the carpet seller smiled and gave
Saigal the ring. He would not be paid. He smiled knowingly and
left the street never returning. Stories of this kind abound in
Saigal's life.
Saigal had always been a man in love with death. Not the
sick and despairing attraction the suicides have for death. His
was a strange hypnotized fascination with the mystery of
mysteries. Before that final totaliser he stood dismayed like a
child before a thundering waterfall. In his last years in Bombay
he used to make a ritual of spending some time at the cremation
ground on the seaside near Mahim, where night and day bodies
smoldered in embers and ashes and the wind moaned from the sea
smelling of smoke and bleached bones. It is not possible to
practise certain kinds of _zikr_ without producing profound
changes in the psychic and spiritual worlds of the practitioner
and there is no doubt the the flux and perishing of life's
tenderest and most cherished elements was what held Saigal in
thrall, so that even while he drank and to some extent can be
said to have hastened his end, there was no fear in him, there
was only a speechless sense of wonder at this final terminal
mystery of all.
You will find that the accompaniment of the songs of Saigal
that were not of the cinema is always catholic and severe. For a
person who was an actor pampered by the New Theatres orchestra,
the richest and the most voluptuous at the time, and the easy-
going ways of the cinema. It was somewhat noteworthy that it
never struck him to smuggle in a redundant violin or a flute to
accompany his own songs. For he used only a _tanpura_, so softly
played that you had to strain your ears and listen intently to
catch the scattered silver of its drone. He accompanied himself
on a harmonium, a plain Dwarkin-flute, black in colour with a
shift key and concertina bellows. A very unimpressive instrument
when compared to the chrome and velvet, the rich nutty browns of
contemporary instruments. And of course there was the _tabla_.
Now and then rarely he used a _sarangi_ which followed him about
without a single assertive phrase or turn.
The original recordings which were taken on wax and carried
across town from Tollygunge to Dum Dum in the sweltering humidity
of the Gangetic delta, often melted on the way and often Saigal
had to sing the song over again this time in the studios of HMV.
Considering the primitive equipment of the day these are first
rate recordings, but the re-issues are of exceptional fidelity so
that if you play these records on a fairly good hi-fi system even
with a very moderate output, the voice sizzles and crackles like
static and here there you can hear a gentle clearing of throat or
the hiss of a fast breath before a new line began.
Saigal managed to develop what the Italians call _La Voce
Bianca_ or the White Voice. This is the voice which in boy
choirs in Italy fill the remote cornices of cathedrals and echoes
in the sacristy and hose pianissimos whisper and moan in your
ears long after the _Te Deum_ is over and when you emerge into
the blazing sunlight the voice follows you like a scent and hides
in your memory like a coiled serpent. Saigal's voice was the
Indian version of the White Voice of the Italians. And he used
several voices with which to sing and any discography of Saigal
records however select offers the most disturbing challenges of
selection. Each one of his songs, even the most trivial
compositions say something unique about music. Sometimes this
may merely be a special technique of voice production or it may
be a sudden and surprising life in an old and well remembered
note. It may just be a bell-like chime in a word like _sapna_
or in a word like _chanda_, or it may be a whole phrase like "paar
basat hai desh sunehra", a sudden feel of the corn orient with
immortal wheat, that endears the song to you and you would return
to it hungrily again and again. It is not difficult to remember
a _komal gandhar_, in a _hori_, in _kafi_ that booms as though
from within a cave, that makes you marvel at its glittering
purity. The phrasing could delight you in one song, or the mere
musical ingenuity of a composition in another, the use of _raga_
in a third, or the sad, sad, but somehow consoling _meend_ of a
_bhajan_ in _kafi_.
The point is that you can never be submitted to a Saigal
song without at least one unique memorable aspect which only that
particular song embodies matchlessly. That is why the most
ingeniously contrived selection would still suffer from
incompleteness. The problem is that when you leave out one or
another of his songs, you would not even be representing the
personal preferences of the selector.
However, for anyone who wishes to understand and enjoy
Saigal, the songs that are left out in this select discography
are as important as the ones that are included. There are
several songs that have not been re-issued in long or extended
play from their original standard play. These have been phased
out of the shellac and cannot be found in record stores anymore
and reside with collectors. For a Saigal fan no discography is
necessary and for one who is yet to turn to him, no discography
is enough. However, it is possible to go directly to Saigal by
way of three long playing records issued by The Gramophone
Company of India on Angel Labels. Their code numbers are as
follows:
Code no. EAHA-1001: The Golden Voice of K. L. Saigal, Volume I
Code no. EAHA-1002: The Golden Voice of K. L. Saigal, Volume II
Code no. EAHA-1004: The Golden Voice of K. L. Saigal, Volume III
These records encompass 36 songs of Saigal mainly from the films.
Some features of a few of these songs may be worth noting.
Listen to Saigal singing "prem nagar me" from the film
'Chandidas'. This is a duet and you may comfortable ignore the
female voice. It jangles on the nerves, but the whole song
changes in significance as soon as Saigal enters it along halfway
towards finishing. It is a high-pitched thin voice and seems to
be sung at the limit of his pitch. Compare this song with voice
with which Saigal sings the Ghalib _ghazal_ "nuqta chi hai" from
the film 'Yehoodi Ki Ladki'. It is difficult to believe that the
two songs are sung by the same man.
Then let us go on to the strangely moving _yaman_ entitled
"radhey rani dey dalo na" from the film 'Pooran Bhagat' and
compare this song with the _madhya laya teen tala khayal_ "jhula
na jhulay," which is not from a film. The contrast needs no
pointing out. They are unbelievably different voices. Now let
us take a song which is almost, but not quite, speech. Take
"sukh ke dukh ke ab din bitat nahi" from the film 'Devdas' and
contrast it with Saigal speaking and singing in _tin tala_ in the
song entitled "ek raje ka beta lekar" from the film 'President'.
If you strain your ears you can hear a nuance of suppressed
laughter underneath the song.
Now let us take two _bhairavis_, since Saigal admitted his
particular attraction to this _raga_. Take the song "hairathey
nazara" in a voice which in production and quality is so
different from the immortal "babula mora." The first song is
from the film 'Korwan-e-Hayat' (sic) and the second is from the
film 'The Street Singer'. It is interesting to observe the taut
bowstring tension of the notes of the song "main kya janoo kya
jadoo hai" from the film 'Zindagi', and song "karoon kya aas
nirasha bhayi" from the film 'Dushman.' The relaxed tone of the
second contrasts sharply with the tight and shining vigour of the
first. Listen to the power, the near basso baritone that sounds
so much like the voice of the late Faiyaz Khan in the song "ye
tasaruff allah allah" from the film 'Yehoodi Ki Ladki', and
compare it to the lilting tenor of "tarapath bitey din rain" from
the film 'Chandidas.' Listen in this song for one of the most
dramatic _meends_ in motion picture music history in India.
Now coming to the extended play issues, the following are
noteworthy:
Code no. H-7
1. lakh sahi pee ki batiya
2. lag gayee chot
3. apni hasti ka agar husn numaaaya
4. ishq mujh ko nahin wahishath
Each of the four above are memorable songs. The first in
_khamaj_ is a wild beckoning _thumri_ which for its strange and
compelling appeal is difficult to match. It is sung with a
curious abandon, the incipient wildness of the inconsolable. It
stands in marked contrast with the last song in the list above, a
galloping _dadra_ that flows with the rhythm of a steeple chase,
sung against a lusty _madhyama_ on the _tanpura_ in the
background.
Code no. LH-8
1. shama ka jalna hai
2. rahamat pey teri
3. ghar ye tera sada na mera hai
4. aah ko chahiye ek umr
The most powerful rendering in this group of songs is the
second beginning "rahamat pey teri". Its voice is Faiyaz Khan
all over again. There is a baleful _komal gandhar_ which is
worth waiting for. It is a note sung with striking probity. The
first one, "shama ka jalna hai", and the third one, "ghar ye tera
sada na mera hai", are both songs sung in the muted crooning
coice, the speaking pitch which Saigal used with such devastating
clarity and timbre. Like all Saigal songs tuned on the
_madhyama_ they are both ecstatic and devout at the same time.
The last song, the Ghalib _ghazal_, "aah ko chahiye", is
notable. The television retrospective entitled 'Bhulaye Na
Baney' used this song to introduce its credit titles and putit
through an echo mike. The song boomed lugubriously through the
Saigal flat in Matunga while the camera hovered tenderly over his
portrait brushing across his harmonium and _tanpura_, while
Ghalib on the soundtrack seemed to come across the abyss of death
whispering with ghostly intonation, the stately metres of the
poem. This technique, while used lavishly in contemporary cinema
music, added nothing to the song as Saigal first sang it plainly
on the harmonium.
Code no. LH-40
1. har ek baat pey
2. woh aakey khwab me
3. dil se teri nigah
4. bahut is galey me kiye
The two Ggalib _ghazals_ in this record are unforgettable,
powerfully rendered with dramatic _taans_ and _meends_ trimly set
to _tala_ and racing along swiftly into last-line climaxes like a
mystery novel. The third Ghalib ghazal beginning "dil se teri
nigah" is composed in a lilting _kaharwa_ and is sung with gentle
humour and restraint and lively understatements that are
intriguing and evocative. The fourth piece is a miracle of
_rubato_, a marvellous exercise in pithy phrasing and stolen
_matras_.
Code no. LH-26
1. phir mujhey diday tar
2. kaun bujhave rama
3. nuqta chi hai gam-e-dil
4. ye staruff allah allah
All these four songs are absolute gems. If all Saigal
records were to be destroyed, I could happily live with this one
saved from destruction. The Ghalib _ghazal_ "phir mujhey" is
sung in a voice for which there is no parallel even in Saigal's
own records. It stands in a category by itself. Nothing can
compare with this extraordinary song. Then there is "kaun
bujhaye rama" sung in _pilu_, a prayer it seems from its
exquisite petitioning air, its notes pure as starlight huskily
enveloping a gentle grainy baritone, the _tanpura_ and the
_tabla_ and the harmonium and the voice all dissolving in a
single stream of visionary beauty. The next, "ye tasaruff allah
allah", is sung again in Faiyaz Khan's voice almost basso
baritone with an incredible thickness of amplitude. Particularly
notable is the recurring _madhyama_ where the song comes to a
contingent state of rest. The organ tones of that _madhyama_ is
notably different from to the _madhyama_ in which "kaun bujhaye"
is structured, both in texture and in feel.
Even this limited discography will be incomplete if a fe
Bengali songs of Saigal are not included. There is a long
playing record, containing _Rabindra sangeet_ of Saigal, a disc
which shares with the maestro Pankaj Mullick. This is an
important record to hear for you can hear the Saigal rendering of
the Tagore masterpieces for which you cannot easily find
parallels. The record is called "A Tribute to Tagore" and is
a Hindustan Musical Products issue, whose code no. is HX-8.
There are five songs in this record sung by Saigal (and six
by inimitable Pankaj Mullick):
1. ami tomay joto
2. ektuku chhonya lagey
3. tomar binay gan chhilo
4. aaj khela bhangar khela
5. edin aji kon gharey go
These five songs compare and contrast in singing styles.
The most fascinating among them is the second one in a ravishing
_dadra_ with a strong folk flavour. These songs follow the
_Rabindra sangeet_ score, but are sung with a remarkable
directness, no flourishes, not too much decoration, plain,
straight from the shoulder. _Rabindra sangeet_ was taught to
Saigal by Pankaj Mullick and the maestro's inimitable
characteristics can be recognised in Saigal's sining, but there
is a winsome freedom and compactness in the Saigal renderings
which make them very distinctive.
Another record in Bengali that is important and may not be
omitted is the Hindustan Record Extended Play, LA-69.
1. ay peyechi anon jala
2 naiba ghamaley priyo
3. jakhan robona ami
4. bandhinu michey ghar
These pieces portray Saigal's Bengali songs at a very high
level of excellence. There are four distinctive styles in these
four songs. They are also rendered in at least three different
kinds of voices. The most fascinating change in voice is the one
at the end "badhinu michey ghar" in which Saigal sings with a
flute-like voice, a sad forlorn ditty with an intricate technique
of _rubato_ and distant _meends_ that are over the song in
straight uninterrupted trajectories.
With these songs as a beginning a good entry into the Saigal
world can be made, after which no further guidance or help is
needed. Saigal will enter your life and he will remain a welcome
and an eternal guest, not for the weekend, not for the vacation,
but for life. Your musical world would have changed once and for
all time, and that will change you too.
When he died it was a strange thing that had departed this
world. The yeast was out of the bread of music. A presence of
freedom and wonder of surprising ability and gift had gone out.
An era had ended. A new one is yet to begin.
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From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian