If it’s a truthful book, it has to portray everything: Zubin Mehta

Zubin Mehta: A Musical Journey is one biography that almost didn’t get written. At the launch of the book, the Mumbai-born music maestro, who is in the city for his 80th birthday celebrations, kept everyone enthralled with his unbridled energy as he spoke of his childhood, his music, the cultural explosion in China, the politics of Israel and more...

It’s really like I’d never left,” said Zubin Mehta at the launch of his biography at the Taj Mahal Palace on Friday evening. The Mumbai-born music maestro is back in the city to play in three concerts on April 17, 18 and 20 that will mark the beginning of his 80th birthday celebrations. The launch of the book Zubin Mehta: A Musical Journey was almost a cosy, homely affair with very few members of the media present. Accompanying the maestro in the room were his wife Nancy Kovack and a few of his childhood friends including Dr Yusuf Hamied, who plays an integral part in the book. Sitting next to Mehta was his biographer Bakhtiar Dadabhoy who was full of stories about how hard it was to convince him for the book. When he revealed that it took him eight years to complete the book, Mehta too raised his eyebrows in wonder. “It took you eight years ” “It took me much less to write, but it took time to get you around,” replied Dadabhoy, who is a senior civil servant in the Indian Railways.

Mehta spoke of how he was in awe of the “incredible research” Dadabhoy had done. “I don’t know where he got all that information from. But obviously he did and I couldn’t argue with it because he stated facts. He quoted newspaper articles, positive and negative. If it’s a truthful book, you have to portray everything. He went into the details of my time in Montreal, Los Angeles, New York, Israel — all the important stations of my musical activity. I take my hat off to him for the amount of research.” It was not too long after Mehta had released his own memoir Zubin Mehta: The Score Of My Life, when Dadabhoy first approached him for a biography. The maestro dismissed the idea, as he didn’t see the need for a biography having just penned a memoir. But Dadabhoy wouldn’t give up and eventually Mehta had to yield. “I couldn’t have dreamed that this book could even exist until last year when Mr Dadabhoy reached me,” he said.

Mehta, who is now a permanent resident of the US, retains his Indian citizenship and says he loves coming back to “Bombay”. “I love coming back here but also, every time I come, I get frustrated to see the condition of the city. We used to live in Cuffe Parade, which was a quiet nook in South Bombay and it was heavenly. We’d see hundreds of people going for work, till evening, and during the monsoons, they would run and come to our houses to hide from the rain it was just a lovely way we grew up. That’s all gone.” He adds, “Ours was one of the four houses in Cuffe Parade, and they were like some kind of monuments, because architecturally they were very special. Only two of them are left now and they are not very well maintained, I must say. So I cannot respect the government of Bombay to let these kinds of things happen.” While still on the subject, he was quick to draw a parallel. “The government house (Governor’s bungalow) still looks the same from a distance, maybe that hasn’t changed.

My father used to give concerts there, so I knew it quite well. The concerts would depend on who was Governor — one Englishman loved music, one Englishman didn’t. My father also played for incoming Viceroys — there was one Lord Linlithgow he played for,” recalls Mehta.

The maestro rues the lack of concert halls in India and points out how China is having a “cultural explosion”. “When we went in ’94, Shanghai had one concert hall of 600 people, now they have at least four or five concert halls and they are building their second opera house. I frankly don’t understand why they need a second opera house. But they are building it, whether that’s ego, or a government that doesn’t know what to do with their money Every city in China has a concert hall. The whole world’s musicians are going to China on a monthly basis and they are playing to full house.” He’s not as appreciative of the Chinese audience though. “You know, my wife is so shocked when we play in Beijing. People are eating their sandwiches, sending SMS — that’s the Chinese way.” Mehta rues the lack of concert halls in India. “Especially in Delhi. It’s a scandal that the national capital cannot build a music hall. I have written to the President, to Members of the Parliament.

They all agree with me and yet there is no hall in Delhi.” He sees an interest in Western classical music in the big cities here. “Last year when I played in Chennai, the concert hall was too small for the number of interested people who showed up.”

Mehta, who has been associated with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for 47 years, is known to be openly critical of the policies of the Israeli government. “Some people wouldn’t admit it but Israel is still a democracy and therefore I voice my opinion freely, which probably I wouldn’t be able to if I were in Syria. Two years ago, I gave an interview on the television for over an hour where I didn’t speak about music. An hour later Shimon Peres (who was President at that time) called me and told me, ‘thank God you can say things I cannot.”

His journey with the Israel Philarhomonic began in 1961 as a substitute conductor. “Every young conductor gets a chance to jump in at some point for somebody ailing, but it’s not necessary that you get called back. But they called me back in ’63 and by ’69, they offered me the music directorship. I have grown up in that country, in that orchestra and today every single member of the orchestra has been picked by me — that’s kind of an ideal situation. What helped very much in the 1980s, was the influx of immigrants from the Soviet Union. They came on a monthly basis and we have auditions behind curtains. So we don’t know who’s playing — nationality, man, woman, nothing. And they were technically so endowed. Even in the communist times, art was treated as a very important factor.”

Mehta is one musician who has never shied away from playing in conflict areas. His connection with Israel was a bone of contention for separatist groups in Kashmir who didn’t want him to play there. Despite the protests he played at the Shalimar Garden last year. “That concert came from my heart. And despite all the gadbad, we did it with help from the Kashmir government and the Central government. Seventy per cent of Kashmiris watched that concert. So it was worth it,” Mehta says. He recalls another time they played in the courtyard of the ruins of a bombed Muslim library in Sarajevo. “We rehearsed in the opera house as it was one of the few things the Serbs had not bombed. The devastation of Bosnia, even if you read it today, is quite unbelievable. We brought musicians from Croatia and Slovenia because the orchestra in Bosnia was decimated. And we did the concert, which was then broadcast by the United Nations to collect money for their refugee funding. But I truly feel I don’t do enough.”