Delhi
The rain starts around 4:45pm, and I am due at Gita’s home
by 5pm. I call to say I will arrive from the 30 minute drive a few minutes
late. At 5:30pm, the rain is not stopping, and Sachin, my expert Delhi driver,
is weaving past soaked auto-rickshaws, mopeds, bicycles, drenched cows,
motorcycles, SUVs, and other cars. At 6pm, we encounter a HUGE traffic jam, and
25 minutes later inch past a fallen tree with a live electrical wire soaking in
a large lake of roadside water, which people are slowly traversing with great care.
A large-bellied executive is standing knee deep in his white collar,
volunteering and directing the one-lane passage and 5 lanes of awaiting traffic
until officials can arrive. I feel very
pleased to see an MP with a twirling red light sitting in his car helpless, and
can only fantasize his electric execution if he were to push ahead like a
bulldozer into the wires, as he does in his daily corrupted life of activities.
We pass the crowds and slowly edge toward Gita. She knows
there is no time for a leisurely Saturday evening dinner, and she hastily
enters the car as we turn back for a drive through the waterways to the India
Habitat Centre, where she has tickets for the four-day concert celebration of
India’s independence.
We settle into seats, slightly drenched and entirely
humidified, and wait for the air-conditioning to suck the extra water from our
bodies. Both of us love Indian classical
music. We have made the effort, as is customary, to create the proper ambience
for imbibing this medicinal music of the Ragas by dressing sensuously. She is
in a Madhubala printed kameez, and I
am wearing a simple khadi kurta and
lots of jewels.
We arrive amidst the alap,
the first interface of one’s being with something in the Universe. Alap is the
term “First Contact” from Star Trek. Hindustani vocalist Bharathi Prathap is giving us parichay with
the raga she will be singing. The alap is sensuous and still, yet quaking in its
eagerness to be seen. We are called to
the green room to meet my friend, so we take a quick escape from the main hall,
and arrive behind the stage, only to hear the vocalist even more resound and
colorful. In the green room, several
people are crowded around the reyaaz of Tejendra-Narayan Mazumdar and Mohammed
Akram Khan. We greet him then return to
our seats voyeuristically during the intense jhal or climax of the vocalists.
Mazumdar is probably the best sarodist today, technically
and in character. Several other sarodists are on the scene, but most of them
use politics and other nefarious techniques to edge others out. Mazumdar just
plays. His technique is excellent, and
his hands precise. Like an auctioneer that can keep each sound distinct when
announcing bids at miles a second, Mazumdar keeps his notes clean, with no
reverberations or echoes on the strings, which one can commonly see in other
sarodists during the jhal.
With a polite introduction, he plays four pieces, of which
one is Raga Jhinjhoti. One can visit http://www.itcsra.org/sra_others_samay_index.html and get a nice introduction to the Ragas and when to play each. Jhinjhoti is a raga for late night, but can
be played at any time. It captures the essence of warmth and exudes a magic that envelops the room.
Mazumdar and I are connected by sound. His wife, a PhD in
music and current principal of Bengal Music College, is a scholar and a singer. He and I have been discussing the ragas
intimately for years, as I try to feel a world in which deep secret medicinal
magic is locked. Mazumdar has some
working knowledge of the medicinal effects and tries to converse in these
terms, awkwardly trying to speak a hybrid language from his native tongue of
fingers on strings.
He and I are bonded
from one reyaaz on a late night in Calcutta in 2010, when I witnessed him
develop a few notes, inspired by my stories of love, aspiration and longing for
Ayurveda. The way he interpreted my
heart and played it on the strings bonded us, as I knew he knew that I knew
what it is to be lonely yet entirely fulfilled. He played it for me and my
long-lost love, who was in the room. Of course, destitute-hearted people will interpret
such intimacies inappropriately, but the land of music knows what was shared.
Mazumdar continues into the alap of the last piece. I see people move to the edge of their
seats, some sit rocking with eyes closed, some are tapping feet, hands, shoulders. Everyone is affected. In India, expression of the audience is part
of the energy of the room and contributes to the live piece. In contrast,
western classical music captures and recaptures sequences of notes created by
dead people long ago: the audience reflects it.
At the end of the jhal, Gita takes a deep breath, “Wow.”
We enter the cool, wet, post-rain evening, look at the moon
as it moves toward fullness, and drive home through sweat-filled streets.