How many of us remember Kesarbai Kerkar? I asked quite a few of my friends whether they knew about Surashri Kesarbai Kerkar and everywhere I drew a blank. Even the Surashri title did not ring a bell. Yet this Padmabhushan decorated icon of Indian Classical music is considered one of the finest singers of the 20th century . Born in the Village of Keri in Goa, she moved in to Bombay and under the guidance of her guru Ustad Alladiya Khan,the founder of Jaipur Atrauli gharana went on to become a renowned performer of Hindustani Classical music.
How did I come to know about her? I was reading about the Voyager Spacecraft. What has the Voyager Spacecraft got to do with a classical singer? Well... Kesarbai's rendition of "Jaat Kahaan ho" is included in the Voyager Golden Record which was sent into space in 1977 aboard both the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft.
The recording was recommended to Carl Sagan by Robert E Brown of the Center for World Music in Berkeley. Out of print and unavailable in record stores, it was finally tracked down in an appliance store run by an Indian Family in New York, in a carton under a card table.
Voyager1 is now more than 100 au from the sun far beyond Pluto. (One au = avg distance from earth to sun) or 15 billion km travelling at a speed of 56000 km/h and will soon be in interstellar space. It will take 20000 years for the spacecraft to reach a distance of two light years. The nearest star Alpha Centauri (actually a star system) is 4.39 light years away or 41.5 trillion km or 27760 AU.
With all the nuclear weapons, global warming and stuff I don't know whether humankind will be around at that time. But Kesarbai's voice will remain... floating in the immense void of space for ages to come.
- Her voice (need Windows Media Player)
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