Amjad Ali Khan, the great exponent of the sarod, tells a story where his father Hafiz Ali Khan, himself a musical giant, was asked by the then President of India, Dr Zakir Hussain, if he could do anything to help him. Hafiz Ali Khan replied that, by the grace of God, he had all he needed, but since the President had asked, could he use his high office to save the chastity of the classical raga Darbari? The anecdote is not, Amjad avers, apocryphal. His father was even in the 1950s concerned about the erosion of the time-tested traditions for the exposition of raga.
A raga is a creation of rare creativity, delicate like filigree yet tensile in the rigour of its structure. A raga can stand for the mood of the time of the day, early morning, afternoon, dusk or late evening, or of the changing seasons. It can also portray different emotional moods — of love, languor, separation, joy, contemplation, detachment, devotion and so on. The amazing thing is that the artist—whether vocal or instrumental — has no notation of notes before him or her, but can perform a raga for hours.
It is important to preserve this tradition without myopically pandering to so-called “popular” demand. Undeniably, classical soirees, earlier confined to the salons of the rich or the royal, have seen over time a welcome democratisation. But the widening of the audience and the concomitant commercialisation, requires greater vigilance to ensure that the basics are not diluted. In London, Hyde Park gets thousands of people when there is a pop group performing, but the theatres for time-tested western classical music, too, have people queuing up for tickets. In a mature cultural civilisation, appreciation cannot be about monoculture, the popular must flourish with, and not at the cost of, the classical.
In preserving the sanctity of Indian classical music, a great deal depends on the elaboration of the raga, from the meditative, mood-building slow vilambit to the climactic fast tempo of the drut. This sequence cannot be arbitrarily fast-forwarded. However, many leading exponents of the genre today, whether vocalists or instrumentalists, seem to have no inclination to patiently develop the spirit of a raga in their performances. In a manner more appropriate of an adolescent pop band, they are in a hurry to race through the initial, slow phases of a composition to reach the fast-paced crescendo, thereby mutilating the rasa or essence of the raga.
Classical dance requires the same discipline — and vigilance. In our tradition, Shiva is Nataraja, the king of dance, and Krishna is Natwar, the prince among dancers. The timeless bronze images of Shiva doing the tandava, the cosmic dance of destruction and regeneration, have inspired countless generations with their sheer poetry, elegance, and suppressed energy.
In what manner, then, can this ancient art be experimented with? Obviously, creativity cannot be shackled by the legacy of the past. But it is legitimate to interrogate the quality of what passes for “contemporary classical dance”. Experiments with established and highly evolved art forms succeed — if at all — only in the hands of those who are deeply rooted in that tradition and know the limits of what can change and what cannot. The world may be flat, but not everything lends itself to “fusion”. When the famous Stanislavski theatre in Russia sought to stage Kalidasa’s Shakuntalam, the veteran Kathak dancer Maya Rao, who was recruited as an adviser, found that the most difficult part was to make the Russian ballerinas walk on their feet and not on their toes!
I know this is a subject that may provoke people who hold a pro-change point of view. Reader’s reactions are welcome.
The week that was
Another Diwali has come and gone. In my case — and I am sure in the case of millions of others — it is an occasion when the family gets together dressed in their festive best. My wife, Renu, prepares phutte ki poori, a kind of paratha filled with chana dal, for lunch. Gifts are exchanged, some gambling is done for symbolic purposes to entice Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, and there is much merriment. Everybody ends up eating too much. In the evening there is the pooja at home, and then the diyas are lit. Mercifully, this year there were fewer crackers, a great relief — not only for pollution levels — but also for my dogs who get terribly disturbed by the explosions.
Like every year on this day, we went for dinner to the neighbouring home of Aroon Purie, the Chairman and editor-in-chief of the India Today media group. His wife, Rekha, organizes a wonderful spread and creates a very relaxed and welcoming ambience.
Pavan K Varma is author, diplomat, and former Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha).
Just Like That is a weekly column where Varma shares nuggets from the world of history, culture, literature, and personal reminiscences with HT Premium readers
The views expressed are personal
