Of music and experiments with Purbayan

Beautifully practiced, with an enviable dexterity, easily absorbable musicality, as well as an extremely attractive stage presence, Purbayan Chatterji is one of the finest instrumentalists today. His frequent forays in international collaborations, extensive work on the electronic sitar signal him out as an artist who constantly strives to create something new. In addition, Mr Purbayan is extremely engaging, as well as being very articulate, highly intelligent, and intuitively perceptive.

Purbayan, you recently got married. Tell us about that.
Gayatri, my wife and I have been through a lot in our lives, both personally, musically and spiritually, lots of ups and downs, it’s fortunate that we both met at a time when we were at the same stage of our lives. It was ordained really. We met at a concert for the Art of Living in Bangalore. We met last May, and were married in December. We are really linked at so many levels.

Music is in itself a journey into the unknown, you are linked with it, and you know you can never really know it. You have no idea when you start on the path where it’s going to take you. Any artist takes this trip with no certainties. If you have a partner whose hand you can hold, while you are jumping off the cliff, who also knows about this journey, it helps. There are so many issues, we artists don’t have a 10 to 5 job, and there are no weekends. I used to feel your partner should not be in the same profession, but I now believe it’s better to be with someone who knows what it entails. It’s not a necessity, but I do believe it’s good if you can connect with your partner at a musical level, as it’s so much a part of you.

Gayatri is a playback singer; she also sings a lot of ghazals. She sings in Malayalam, Tamil, not so much in Telegu, and so she travels to the Middle East quite a lot on Thursday and Friday, their weekend.  Then I go for my concerts over the weekends. We both know that is how the life of a musician is.

So today is your life all about your music?
Well obviously, it’s my profession, and I have to work hard at it. I look at it like this — a regular guy works from 10 am to, maybe 9 pm in a city like Mumbai. That’s how many hours you put in. So if I practice on my sitar every day for 4-5 hours, it’s really not so hard. I do go to the movies, eat out, and have a normal life as well.

Moving on to your music, as a listener, I feel, your concerts have a certain edginess, a racy element. Is this planned?
Thank you! I am glad I don’t sound boring. See, at a concert, you are taking your audience with you on your musical journey; you must keep them on a high. You have to plan the concert meticulously. In today’s world you can’t take your audiences time for granted. There should be no sense of a letdown, a boring phase. What Ragas to present, to present Raga’s of different moods, not to repeat a Raga that someone has presented before you, I am old fashioned that way and like to maintain the courtesies.

Would you like your son to be a classical musician?
I would like to inculcate in my son recognition about how glorious our classical music is. Presently, he is learning how to play the guitar in the Western classical tradition, and I am satisfied with that too, but I would also like him to learn the Indian classical way so he understands where he comes from. Indian classical music is thriving.

Music is a great career if you have the right focus. Of course, the growth rate of Bollywood music as a genre of music is the fastest; they are taking from all genres, and making it their own. That’s is okay, but I feel bad about one thing, that there is so much instrumentation in the tracks, yet the focus is only on that vocalists. No one bothers with who played the percussion or the guitar. It’s only in the classical genre where instrumentalists are feted.

But today you get a lot of recognition as classical artists! You are treated like rock stars!
No I don’t think just because today we get a lot of attention and recognition that we can try to think we are rock stars. We are not rock stars; the interest that they generate is in fact detrimental to us as classical artists.

A classical artist needs to have that feeling of surrender; we as musicians need to stress that to ourselves and to our audience constantly.  Don’t look at the periphery of the benefits, the fame, glamour and media attention — no, you should look at the core. You should focus on the music, your core competence! Yes you need to be presented, but you should have people who look out for you. Even in the West where musicians have to present themselves so much more, they have people handling that aspect.

While growing up, you focused exclusively on music, and training. Did you miss out on fun activities with your friends?
I did miss out on quite a lot of stuff growing up, as the sitar practice was so intense. I was a huge cricket buff too, but could not focus on that. In my mid twenties I felt I had missed out on things so I kind of diverted from my chosen path of classical music. Sometimes you need to take a departure from your chosen track to return to it. I wanted to focus on the so-called “cool stuff”. I wanted to hang out, and that too was part of my journey, so there are no regrets.

Touch wood, now I am back on track, in fact for around a year it took a lot of effort to resist doing the light stuff, financially it was tough to say no, and emphasising that my main mooring is classical. I still collaborate a lot with different types of music, but the difference is I am now doing what I enjoy doing not necessarily only because it may be perceived as being cool. Music should not only be for the money; maybe at the initial stages, one has to perform only for money.

Tell us more about your musical collaborations?
At the moment I am collaborating with the talented Stephen Devassy. He is an amazing keyboard player and working with him is something I am excited about. I am also reviving Shastriya Syndicate with other artists.

Rhythm Shaw, this young Bengali guy who is an amazing guitarist, is also someone I am currently working with. Our album will be out sometime next year, followed by concerts. Three of the tracks composed were inspired while on a plane; in fact one of the numbers came to me while I was in the washroom, with the flight announcement in the background saying please return to your seats! I  recorded the phrase in my mind, to remind myself, with this announcement droning in the background!