The scintillating hangover of the World Music Day still lingers as I write this for more often than not, in my writing and painting, music has been a muse of sorts. The number of times I have tuned into Bhimsen Joshi singing Jhimik jhimik paag kumak kunj paga… when confronted by a writer’s block cannot even be counted! Or painted while hearing Begum Akhtar sing Koeliya mat kar pukar… It really is a long list! As I write this column — I suspect the rains are making me nostalgic — I am remembering many such moments with artistes and artists from all disciplines, who constitute Indian culture with all the hues that make the rainbow glisten with a magical light.
M.S. Subbalakshmi
I consider myself hugely blessed that I was born in these defining times when the great stalwarts of classical music like Pt Bhimsen Joshi, M.S. Subbalakshmi, Pt Ravi Shankar, Pt Kishan Maharaj, Pt Jasraj, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Pt Mallikarjan Mansoor, Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia to just name a few from the top of my mind, are and were regaling the world with their soul stirring music. For not only have these stalwarts touched dizzy heights with their creative genius but the times have been such that they got patronage and respect from more democratic quarters. I still shudder when I think about how not too long ago artistes couldn’t perform seated in front of their royal patrons but had to stand and perform – the musicians would “wear” their instruments around their necks or tie them on their stomachs.
Begum Akhtar
I consider myself doubly blessed that not only was I fortunate enough to hear them in person, I have also met so many of them thanks to my journalistic journey. What I have understood is that if art is perfection, then the constant quest for it sets these special individuals apart from the crowd. This is not to say that artistes or artists attain it every time they lift their brush, tie on their ghungroos, touch their instruments or open their mouths to sing. They do not. But when they do, that creates a moment of magic and wonder that is worth all the pain, the effort and the heartbreak of the journey.
Pandit Bhimsen Joshi
Legends who have so helped refine the aesthetic perceptions of an era, that they have become almost synonymous with their chosen art forms. Speaking to each such individual is fraught with its own peculiar set of problems. After you have chased them and pinned them down to a meeting, you might find them surrounded by a plethora of hangers-on. Then, they may take and instant dislike to you and decide to clam up or take recourse in hyperbole. But I must confess that some of the most charming people I have met have been artistes and artists – their conversation is refined and peppered with often self-deprecating humour. That they also indulge in ninda rasa of other artists and artistes is also there, but of that another time!
Hariprasad Chaurasia
In the initial years my aesthetic or artistic appreciation of their genius often left me tongue-tied. It was much later that I discovered that this was an effective tool for interaction or at least interviewing! For interviewing someone else is not an occasion to establish your intellectual credentials after all! I hate long winded questions where both the interviewer and the interviewed lose track of the questions — and believe me there hundreds of those kind — just go a press conference and you will know what I am talking about!
Bismillah Khan
But seriously, it is this faith that one is communicating to a kindred soul that makes any interaction meaningful. As a consequence, I have been privy to a lot of information that may not have found place in the published piece for some of it was shared in a moment when it was just two persons sharing their inner-most emotions and experiences and not a wr-iter speaking to an artiste. Some of them have become friends and remained close over the years.
That they are all creative, goes without saying. Most of them are also eccentric. Some of them are selfish and egoistical too. But all of them are genuinely different. That is what sets them apart from the crowd. Parallel to their need to express their creativity is the need to share the manifestation of that expression. Otherwise how can they even want and expect to hold the undivided attention of hundreds and thousands in a darkened auditorium? Or share their paintings and sculpture with veritable strangers?
It is death for the artiste if the motivations of their creativity are not understood, ageing some before their time and making others wiser. To many, appreciation has come not a day too soon. Perhaps that is why they value it more and fight to retain it – sometimes going to extreme lengths that culminate in making the retention paramount and not the creative expression. In this day and age, the concept of connoisseur, the ‘rasika’, in the classical sense of the term is no longer valid. Neither is that of the true ‘kalakar’ or artiste/artist. Some of the artistes have withdrawn. For others, the need to share has become even more acute.
My own understanding of the arts has deepened and so has my compassion when I critique any art thanks to these shared moments with some maestros. Moments they may be, but they are not transient for I believe that all arts are interdependent, especially in the Indian context and are sanjha or shared in the true sense of the word, for they belong to everybody.
And yet in the Indian context where one is expected to overtly uphold tradition and yet covertly retain one’s own individuality? Can one soar higher than the previous generation and yet not break the established icons to go beyond the laxmanrekha to speak a language that is yours alone? Can one slay the shadowy demons of yesterday to emerge into today? Even when they have been called away by the Universal Boatman, the ripples they created on the waters of time will linger for several generations after.
Most of them have drawn a lot of flak before emerging as “one of a kind.” Experimentation within the parameters of tradition has been the core of their creative genius. This is the thread that binds them together and makes them what they are — Legends. Undoubtedly.
Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yah-oo.com
