An Unforgettable Evening – Part 6

After the event:

Later, after the event, I read a newspaper article about Pandit Chaurasia and Gwyneth and was surprised to see it mention about Panditji’s school in Juhu. Now I live in the Juhu area and so I immediately Googled for Pandit Chaurasia’s school. I was surprised to learn from his website that his school Vrindaban Gurukul was actually within walking distance of my place (http://www.hariprasadchaurasia.com/vrindaban.htm). In fact, I had walked past it and even remember that building. You never know, one of these days I may just drop in there to go and listen to Panditji and get lost in his music again.

Here’s that article from Mumbai Times section of The Times of India newspaper –

Harping around!

REAGAN GAVIN RASQUINHA (reagan.gavin@timesgroup.com), TNN 27 August 2009, 12:00am IST

Okay, so she’s got no King David to serenade, but the elfin-like Dutch harp player Gwyneth Wentink has rolled with her share of royalty. At an age when most kids are still struggling with spellings, she played a show for Queen Beatrix of Netherlands at ten!

Gwyneth Wentink and Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia

Apart from that, she can command the attention of a royally large audience if she so wants to. And she has. At Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Academy of Music… and just a few days ago, at the NCPA as part of the Kala Viraasat (“Vihh-ur-ahsut,” as she struggles to pronounce it), with our very own flautist, Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia. But this is not a first-time collaboration.

“I’ve been playing off and on with Pt Hariprasad since 2005. In May of 2005, we performed in New York for a concert I remember as being quite special,” she reminisces.

No Bollywood confections for this chick. She loves rock ’n roll that tilts towards “Led Zeppelin, Guns ‘n Roses and classic rock…” Food is another thing she’s passionate about, and Indian food is top on her list. Move over Chicken tikka masala, she prefers the real thing. “I have eaten some authentic Indian food and I love it,” she says.

For her, spice definitely is nice. At Chaurasia’s ashram in Juhu, the Panditji is winding up an afternoon lesson with a bunch of students.

The buzzing, droning sound of almost two dozen flutes struggling (some, a bit unsuccessfully) to emulate the one dominant flute adds to the heavy-lidded afternoon heat. Then, things are put away and he shuffles over to a large harp, one of the only two in India. “I believe this one’s been brought in from Delhi by road. I’ve always felt that the sound of a harp and flute go together really well,” he says.

On suggestion, they swap instruments and are motioned to ease up a bit closer. It’s one of those happy accidents. She picks up his flute with sinewy arms peaked with graceful fingers surprisingly uncalloused given the fact that she has been plucking copper-wound and gut strings since age five. “Everyone knows I play the flute, but now, I’m going to serenade her with the harp!” chuckles Pt Chaurasia.

Read Part 5 Read Part 1

An Unforgettable Evening – Part 5

And now, we come to the main attraction of the evening. Six musicians on stage led by Pandit Chaurasia on the flute, Gwyneth on the harp, Louis Banks on the synthesizer, Vijay Ghate on Tabla, Rakesh Chaurasia on flute and Gino Banks on the drums. A Google search tells me that Rakesh Chaurasia is Pandit Chaurasia’s nephew and disciple. It was around 9:45 pm by the time this act began and to be frank my stomach’s grumbling was at its peak. But one can’t walk away from a treat like this. Panditji joked that he didn’t even know what raag this piece was to be played in and the crowd laughed along. He then said that they were going to play this piece in raag Kedarva and someone sitting next to me said “wow”. I don’t know the different raagas but it was a very pleasant piece. Led by Panditji, all of the musicians got a chance to play lead pieces within this presentation with Panditji skillfully taking over and passing the baton to the next musician. When all the musicians had had their turn, Panditji led them towards the climax building the pace of the piece.

Now this is what everyone was here for. I don’t know what words to use, but it is almost as if there is a zone of excellence and ecstasy and Panditji has the key to that zone. If I were to describe it in terms of action, I can almost visualize Panditji leading the way to the top of a mountain, egging everyone to trust him and follow him. He not only led all the musicians but also the audience along. In that peak feverish climax he started jugalbandi / jamming with Vijay Ghate and Gino Banks. He would play a few notes and look to Vijay Ghate as cue, who would then try to play those same notes on Tabla. Then Panditji would play a few notes and look to Gino, who would play something on the drums. And as the tempo was rising, the entire auditorium was mesmerized. Now everyone knows that Tabla doesn’t have an octave like a flute or a piano. But as with the crescendo rising, Panditji played a few notes that one thought Tabla would not be able to match, but Vijay Ghate literally greased the Tabla to play those same notes. It was unbelievable and the whole audience applauded. Drums do have the limitation in this matter as compared to tabla, but Gino was trying to be as inventive as possible with enthusiastic encouragement from the audience. One could literally see it clearly how the master was leading Gino by hand and extending his music and talents beyond his limits. With the playful back-and-forth, Panditji played a low coarse water-gushing kind of a sound and looked at Vijay Ghate, who playfully threw up his hands to indicate that he had no answer on the tabla to this “googly” or “curve ball” from Panditji. And the whole auditorium laughed and applauded.

As the combined piece gathered the final momentum, Rakesh Chaurasia was signaling to the Sound Engineer to tweak up Panditji’s microphone setting up to enhance the sound and depth of it. Young Gwyneth was also in a trance enjoying the music and successfully played the Indian classical tones on her harp matching note for note in this raag. This is the part I felt it most strongly that the sound for the harp should have been turned up, as it was simply getting lost in the sounds of the drums and other instruments.

All of the musicians were now following Panditji together as he played the feverish climax, all of them lost in the music and without fail all of them collectively extending themselves way beyond what each of them was capable of playing individually. I told you about my relocation, cribbed about Mumbai, was apprehensive about my wife’s reaction and complained about the callous crowds, but this is the moment for which I had come to this event. Panditji leading everyone to that zone, where nothing else mattered. We were all beyond ourselves, not knowing where we were, not knowing what we were doing. My wife and I found ourselves on our feet clapping and cheering wildly and found many others around us doing the same. I can vouch that it wouldn’t matter which country or where on earth this music was played. Any country, any place, any crowd would have been on their feet. Oh my goodness! It was exhilarating and mind-blowing and totally a different experience. Nothing else mattered, than being there in that moment, completely surrendered to that surreal feeling.

It was truly an unforgettable evening!

Picture: Ticket for the event.

p.s.: I have had these extremely bad experiences when I went to see movies in theaters here. College kids would come to these posh multiplexes and spoil the movies for everyone. They laughed when Aamir Khan and team were being killed in Rang De Basanti. They actually sang and made cat calls as Dumbledore was dying in Harry Potter and the half-blood prince. Nothing is sacred anymore to the Mumbai youth, I guess. They are born innocent but quickly grow a thick skin and a concrete heart in Mumbai. Life here does that to people. I had come to expect these spoilers in movies but was disappointed to see these spoilers even at a cultural event such as the above presentation. I report this with sadness but now I don’t think I can ever say this for Mumbai, that a presenter had everybody in complete control and performed with such command that not a single person dare move a muscle. Many people continued to leave even as the climax was playing out, phones still rang and I still feel sad that there is nothing in life that these people would respect. There is no such thing as pin-drop silence. Gone are those days. Over the years, Mumbai has changed, it’s people have changed, unknown to themselves, for worse.

Acknowledgment: To all those who previewed this piece and wish to remain unnamed. Thanks for your inputs and suggestions.

Read Part 4 Read Part 6

 

 

An Unforgettable Evening – Part 4

And then came the maestro, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. Everyone was on their feet. I had read that very strong lungs and chest are needed to be able to play flute for a prolonged performance. Pandit Chaurasia looked older than the photo and I later learned that he had turned seventy years in 2008. This performance had Gwyneth on the Harp, Vijay Ghate on tabla and Pandit Chaurasia on the flute. I had imagined that the flute would start churning out the sweetest sounds when such an experienced flautist started playing. It almost appeared that the first couple of notes were not to Panditji’s liking and is the flute had a life of it’s own and took a couple of minutes to warm up. I also learnt that Panditji had a very distinct style of playing rather than the smooth sound. I figured that it would take years of practice and experience to be able to play this type of music with so much emotion in it. For want of a better word, Pandit Chaurasia’s flute music had a bit or coarseness to it. I guess he was able to add texture to the music with this style and it was a very fine line to tread. It appeared that if a younger flautist was to try the same, he may border on sounding “besura” or off-key. The sound of harp went very well with the flute. I guess the santoor-flute jugalbandi by Shiv-Hari from earlier years may have prepared me for a similar sound.

I must talk about Vijay Ghate here. Just like Pandit Chaurasia’s name is synonymous with flute, Ustaad Zakir Hussain with his big curly locks is famous and synonymous with tabla. I was seeing Vijay Ghate for the first time and he too had modeled his hair similar to Ustaad Zakir Hussain’s locks. Vijay seemed to be a great entertainer and while waiting for his queue to start playing, he kept the audience involved and focused on Pandit Chaurasia’s flute. He would raise his hand in “wah” at specific notes while Pandit Chaurasia was playing to emphasize what notes the audience should focus on. He was enjoying Pandit Chaurasia’s performance with full enthusiasm and that kind of also sets the tone for the audience too. Having seen him enjoy, I concluded that every performance should also have similar enhancers. Not artificial prompters but mood setters, who could engage audience participation.

Pandit Chaurasia was at the center leading that performance and Gwyneth was ably matching the flute with the Indian sounds on the harp. The audience was impressed. One could also see the chemistry of a Guru (teacher) and a Shishya (student) going on as Pandit Chaurasia led the way and Gwyneth followed ably, albeit, maintaining a respectable distance as she followed her Guru. I had seen some other concerts where Ustaad Zakir Hussain was on the tabla ably maintaining the beat while playing to Pandit Chaurasia’s flute. In comparison, I felt that Vijay Ghate didn’t get the beat or rhythm for this piece. Either that or I didn’t have enough knowledge to be able to understand his style for this piece. But overall, it was nice presentation and the crowd gave them a warm applause.

After this, Louis Banks, the famous Jazz musician came on stage for his performance on the piano and synthesizer keyboard as well. He introduced his son Gino Banks who played the drums. I tried my best to receive their performance with an open mind and liked the melodious bits of it. I even appreciated wherever they played Jazz like free-form pieces. But overall, I still don’t like Jazz much. The best I can rationalize is that I like my music better if there is a melody to it and if there is a tune to it that I can remember and hum it later. Jazz allows the musicians to explore and express free form and that surely must be liberating, but not for me. The father son-duo played well and the audience gave them a warm applause.

Read Part 3 Read Part 5

An Unforgettable Evening – Part 3

Picture 1: Brochure for the Kala Viraasat event.

 

Picture 2: Brochure for the Kala Viraasat event with a picture of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Gwyneth Wentink and Louiz Banks.

To those who don’t know, “Pandit” is a title for a priest at a temple. But it is also used for the classical music maestros in India. The word “Pandit” is also the same as “Pundit” and another meaning for the word is “Teacher”. I may be wrong, but I think it is mostly Hindu musicians who call themselves “Pandit” and the Muslim musicians call themselves “Ustaad” (pronounced as “oo staad” not “uh” as in umbrella). I don’t know much of his history (though I may have read it at some point and forgotten) but Pandit Chaurasia is the face of flute music in India. Newspapers, TV, etc. wherever people talk of Indian classical music, his name reigns supreme as a flautist. He has also teamed up with the famous Santoor player Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma in the past and given music to a couple of Hindi Bollywood movies (Chandani and Lamhe). I should also mention here about raagas. I am not very informed about the classical music but from what I understand, the word “raag” means a range of specific notes. There are different kinds of raagas to symbolize different times of the day, different moods of a person, etc. So, while a raag may not necessarily mean a tune, it means a musician can play any number of keys in different patterns as long as the keys are within that raag’s range.

Eventually the host for the evening took the microphone at around 7:20pm and started with some announcements. The show started with the young Harp player from Netherlands Ms. Gwyneth Wentink. Very tall and lanky, Gwyneth was treated to an encouraging welcome by the Indian audience, especially since she endeared them by wearing an Indian dress – salwaar kameez. Also, the host had mentioned that she was just 26-27 years old and that’s quite an achievement to have already played at all the major venues of the world at that young an age. She explained that she had played with Pandit Chaurasia first in Philadelphia, USA a few years ago and she had turned into a disciple, visiting India and learning under Panditji. She gave a bit of a history of the harp and the huge and well-polished shiny harp on the stage was lent by the Austrian Cultural Forum, New Delhi. It was one of only two such professional harps in India. We had seen a harp only once before, a few months ago at Sacre Coeur in Paris. A musician was playing beautiful and soothing rhythms on his harp on the steps outside the church. We still remember the stirring and echoing sounds and I thought that this presentation would be even better.

Gwyneth played a few of the European compositions ranging from the old, that were a couple of hundred years old, and some relatively new ones from the 20^th century. The harp is similar to the Indian musical instrument Santoor as both of them have so many strings. Santoor has a box-like casing under the strings there-by leading to a more sustained and deeper sound. The Harp sounded even more complicated not just due to the sheer size but also because the strings had to be plucked by the finger tips. Gwyneth had also explained that a harp has 6 pedals as well to shift base for the notes. So both the hands and legs are busy while tilting the huge frame of the harp towards the musician’s shoulders as the musician sat on the chair plucking on the strings. It was mesmerizing to see her fluently play various patterns. I don’t know the original music sheet for those compositions but it did appear that in some passages in between, the composer may have allowed enough flexibility for the musician to deviate and explore, unless of course it was Gwyneth who had taken the liberty. But either way, it enhanced the performance and one could see the amount of practice that must have gone on achieve this kind of fluency. She skillfully moved from complex notes to periods of melancholy brooding plucking the notes so softly that one could barely hear and yet could completely identify with the tenderness of that moment. I was thinking her finger tips may be rather worn out after years of toiling at the harp, but later I read in a newspaper article that her finger tips are surprisingly intact.

I must mention that Gwyneth was very proficient but I felt that the sound system did not do enough justice to the harp. I would have imagined the sound system to be set to a louder and a sustain / echoing mode. I had seen experienced musicians step down into the auditorium before the show, take a seat in different parts of the auditorium to hear the sound arrangements and ask the sound engineer to tweak the same. I don’t know if Gwyneth may have hesitated to demand any changes, but I think the harp definitely would have sounded better with a more pronounced sound setting. There were fixed microphones for other places on the stage where other musicians would take seat. This thought was later reinforced when I heard the sound of flute, loud and clear with a sustain mode. I have a feeling that the different microphones were set to different levels ahead of the eventual “jugalbandi” / jamming session with flute being the leader and the harp being the accompanier and that those settings were left at that right from the beginning. But at the start where Harp was the solo, those settings should have been enhanced.

Other than the above, the harp solo performance was very nice. I guess part of what got to me was also the constant flow of late-comers who continued to pour into the auditorium hall well after Gwyneth’s performance had commenced. I kept telling myself to focus on the goodness in life and to pay attention to the harp on the stage. But merry old uncles-and-aunties kept pouring in and they walked right in front past my view on their way towards their seats. There was no way I could avoid seeing the harp without seeing them block the view for considerable seconds. One after the other. I couldn’t help but remember that there was a time when one could say that a maestro’s performance was so great that there would be pin-drop silence, nobody would move. I think those days are long gone by. I don’t know whether its my prejudice or if its the truth that only an objective eye who can see the Mumbai world from outside, but I strongly felt at that moment that the Mumbai public had grown even more obnoxious with the more money that has flowed in. They just didn’t care that they were late or were obstructing others’ view. They took their time and their body language indicated an air of I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude. There were the usual cell phones ringing loudly and that too for four-or-five rings before they would be answered. Yes, phones, plural, at least 4-to-5 times. But the crowd eventually settled down and the lights were dimmed out completely.

Read Part 2 Read Part 4

 

 

 

An Unforgettable Evening – Part 2

On that Friday, we planned to leave at 5:00 pm, a couple of hours before the event time, to leave a buffer of at least 15-to-30 minutes over and above the drive through the traffic. On Sunday, when the roads have manageable moving traffic, we would reach from my residence in Juhu to Worli in about 30-to-35 minutes, but weekdays are just simply crazy. We reached the lawns of the Nehru Center about 20 minutes before the event-time and enjoyed a short walk in the peaceful landscaped garden leaving behind the maddening traffic chaos on the roads outside. This was my first visit to the Nehru Center campus since my school days, when I had visited the Nehru Planetarium almost 22-to-25 years ago in the nineteen eighties. I asked the uniformed garden caretaker where the auditorium was within the Nehru Center campus. He pointed at a building and asked us to go straight past the garden gate towards that building. On reaching the building entrance that the garden caretaker had pointed out, we were told by the gatekeeper that we had to go another gate for the auditorium. I was left shaking my head at how somethings never changed here. We still talk in terms of thing-a-mummy and what-do-you-call-that and never in specifics.

We entered the building and found a pleasing atmosphere in the lobby of the auditorium and without doubt such a cultural event still attracted the literary elite and upper middle class crowd, with the common man not to be seen anywhere. We were happy to see a decent number from the younger generation as well. We moved from the lobby to the main hall and took our seats once the auditorium bell rang to indicate that seating had begun. We were surprised to learn that the bell rang every minutes from there on until 7:15pm to remind people not to stand in the lobby and gossip but rather to enter the hall and take their seats. That did give me some time to prepare my wife for the show as well. Not that I was a regular visitor to such music presentations. I had been to such an event only 4-or-5 times before, I had bought a few classical instrumental music CDs and seen a few programs on television. I told her that if the music to be played today is melody-based then it will be enjoyable but if it is more technical or if they play a sad “raag“ (pronounced as raa gah with “g” as in girl) then it may get a bit difficult for us to follow and enjoy (“Raag” or “Raga” for singular and “Raagas” for plural). My wife obviously didn’t take it too kindly on being mischievously reminded about the cotton ear-plugs that she carried. We waited patiently for the show to start. There was not the slightest urgency as my typical fellow Mumbaikars took their seats, talked on their cell phones and generally contributed to the high decibel levels in the auditorium. We reviewed the tastefully prepared brochure and waited for the show to begin.

Read Part 1 Read Part 3

 

 

An Unforgettable Evening – Part 1

Though change is inevitable, it is also not easy to digest. Especially, if it means relocating from one country to another. Although the relocation is a conscious decision, there is still an initial period of adjustment. I guess the inevitable passage of that initial time will eventually lead to acceptance. Knowing my constitution and traits, I had given myself at least a month or two for that initial period of adjustment. 

It was around mid-August, close to a month-and-a-half since I had relocated from USA to Mumbai, and the period of mourning, grief and resistance was almost coming to an end. No doubt things were not going to change overnight and Mumbai would still continue to be the same old smoke, noise and dirt filled pressure cooker of a city. But I guess I was almost ready to lose the critical eye. I said “almost” because the cynicism and the colorful words that magically appear when I describe the city of Mumbai do not go unnoticed by sharp-eyed readers like you :-). Ahem, let me stop cursing Mumbai and get back on track. It was around mid-August and an advertisement in Mumbai Times caught my attention. Not because of the bright colors or the expressive faces of the classical Indian dancers of this two-day event, but because of Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, the legendary flute player. Call it a sign, the advertisement had painted the date 20^th August 2009 for the first event of classical dance presentation in red and the date 21^st August, 2009 for the second event of musical presentation in green :-). The dance presentation by 8 leading classical dancers representing different styles sounded very promising but I have not (yet) developed a taste for the Indian classical dances. The fact wasn’t lost on me that 8 dancing styles on one stage, in one program also goes to show the breadth of Indian classical dancing. Indeed, I did pause for a moment to think about it and feel proud of the cultural diversity, wealth and breadth in India. There probably are a countless other dancing styles in India, apart from the 8 mentioned in the advertisement and all of them just as Indian and just as beautiful. But I was pleasantly tempted to attend the musical presentation of Pandit Chaurasia. 21^st was a Friday and the scheduled time of 7:00 pm suited such an event, but the venue was the Nehru Center Auditorium at Worli. Now that is a fair distance and a lot of traveling time considering the Mumbai traffic. But another positive was that the tickets were available at a bookstore “Landmark” that was fairly close to where I live. I decided that I want to attend this event and it brought a smile to my face because I knew that the period of post-relocation adjustment was almost over.

Now this may sound cold, but I was mindful of how the best of plans get scuttled when a spouse shoots down a plan for an evening. This was not one of those joint activities that a couple had to do together. While my wife is not much into classical music and had never attended such an event, this was the first time, post relocation, that I felt like venturing out into the city. It was symbolic of my adjustment to living in Mumbai and I was keen to go to this event. It was a sweet-and-comical scene straight out of “Everybody Loves Raymond” or any of those funny Sitcoms, when I emphatically told my wife that I planned to attend this event while apprehensively asking her if I should buy tickets for her as well. I guess she was going through the same relocation pangs and probably was pleasantly surprised that I was willingly planning to step out into the city. She did ask me if I was sure about traveling all the way to Worli and I said yes. We went and got the tickets from the bookstore and were happy to see that they had a seating chart as well. A seating chart available in a partner bookstore! That’s definitely a positive change and we would not have seen this amount of sensitivity or care in the past even for such a cultural event :-).

Read Part 2