Payal Kee Jhankar

Payal Kee Jhankar is a khayal composition performed by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi in the raga Patdeep, transitioning through Jaunpuri and concluding in Bhairavi. The track appears as the second recording on the 1994 studio album Vocal (Patdeep-Jaunpuri-Bhairavi), released by The Gramophone Company of India Limited in CD format. The performance spans 15 minutes and 3 seconds, showcasing Joshi’s interpretation of the vilambit and drut sections with tanpura and tabla accompaniment.

Joshi renders the composition in the khayal style, a dominant form of Hindustani classical vocal music. The album captures his mature phase, marked by intricate taan patterns and emotive phrasing. The recording session’s exact location and accompanying artists remain undocumented in publicly available sources. The label reissued the album under its HMV imprint, a subsidiary of The Gramophone Company of India Limited, during the 1990s CD revival of classical Indian catalogs.

The track title Payal Kee Jhankar translates to \"the tinkling of anklets,\" a thematic motif common in classical and semi-classical repertoire. Joshi’s rendition adheres to the Gwalior gharana tradition while incorporating elements from the Kirana gharana, his primary stylistic influence. The album’s liner notes, where available, provide minimal technical annotation, focusing instead on the raga’s emotional and structural progression.

No commercial singles or alternate versions of Payal Kee Jhankar from this session exist in official discographies. The 1994 release forms part of Joshi’s extensive recorded output, which includes live concerts, studio albums, and archival compilations spanning five decades. The Gramophone Company of India Limited later consolidated portions of its classical catalog under Saregama, though this specific album retains its original label attribution in most reissues.