Copyright by Jeffrey Michael Grimes 2008 - The University of Texas ...

culture (and particularly the Brahman culture dominant in Pune), both of which have
proven useful for the present study. In 2005, I returned for my official period of research.
My time during this ten month period (from February to December 2005) was divided
between Bombay and Calcutta; I spent five months in the former city and four in the
latter. These two cities, then, served as my home bases. I also, though, spent significant
time in several other important cities in classical music terms, including Delhi (10 days),
Benares (10 days), and Pune again (3 weeks). I should also note that during my visits, I
made an effort to see as many historical, cultural, and/or religious sites as possible in
order, to again, increase my general understanding of these two regions. Thus, during my
visit to Pune, I made brief visits to Kolhapur, Miraj, Pandharpur, Aundh, Aurangabad,
and Jalgaon, as well as to a number of sites in the immediate vicinity of Pune, such as
Alandi, Dehu, and Saswad. This was supplemented by visits in 2005 to Shirdi, Satara,
Akkalkot, and Gangapur (an essentially Maharashtrian pilgrimage site in Karnataka).
While in Calcutta, I made visits to Vishnupur, Srirampur (a historical settlement now
located in the Calcutta suburban area), and Darjeeling.
My research consisted of three broad activities. First, I made an effort to attend
as many musical performances (and occasionally performances of dance and theatre) as
possible in order both to familiarize myself with the performers that were active during
this time span in Pune, Bombay, and Calcutta and to begin to grasp the stylistic
tendencies of these performers taken as a group. As I explain in chapter 1 (and as I have
already mentioned), a number of my interlocutors, particularly the Marathi musicians I
met with in Bombay and Pune, were resistant to the idea of discussing Hindustani music
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