Collector’s item: The Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music

Source http://www.hindu.com/fr/2009/03/13/stories/2009031351370500.htm

Collector’s item

LALITHAA KRISHNAN

The second edition of ‘The Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music’ by Ludwig Pesch is out on the stands.

Photo: R. Shivaji Rao.

Perceptive: Ludwig Peschm.

Ludwig Pesch’s tryst with the Indian classical arts began in the late 1970s. His long-standing association with Kalakshetra, merging with its sylvan ambience and imbibing from distinguished mentors such as S. Rajaram and D. Pasupathi deepened h is perception of the subtly shaded nuances and the philosophy underlying South Indian classical music and dance. Having familiarised himself with precept, it was inevitable that Pesch be drawn to practice as well, learning the flute from H. Ramachandra Sastri and graduating to performance.

In 1999, ‘The Oxford Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music’ authored by Pesch was published by Oxford University Press.

Vast scope

Pesch’s latest offering is the second edition of this publication. Compiling his painstakingly acquired knowledge on the subject into a book could not have been an easy task as the vast scope would have posed a challenge even to the musician or musicologist born and bred in the tradition. Others had done it before, with many efforts sliding into a pedantic morass that invariably succeeded in intimidating the lay reader or summoning the Sandman.

Not so with Pesch. The author’s scholarship extends beyond formal study and comprehension to a tone of ready empathy with the aesthete, whose instinctive appreciation of art forms, both familiar and unfamiliar, is in response to an inner call. In art, there is much that cannot be explained. Only experienced. Pesch unerringly homes in on this truth, trusting in intuition to guide him into spaces illuminated by the spark of enquiry and the glow of discovery that transform mere sight into vision. And herein lies the book’s USP.

A worthy addition

Three reasons that make this volume a must-read and a worthy addition to a classical music aficionado’s collection - the scope is comprehensive, the content is meticulously researched and accurately presented and the tone communicative, striking an instant rapport with the reader. Spanning a broad spectrum ranging from basic concepts, dynamics of voice and instruments, musical forms and composers to complexities of gamaka, raga, tala and rhythm, Pesch employs simple language and lucid explanations to unscramble jargon and decipher technicalities. Sifting, seeking and analysing but never overwhelming, the author engages the reader in a conversation that grows progressively absorbing in its traverse through deftly interwoven past and present, fact and belief, tradition and zeitgeist. The text is richly layered with the musings and quotes of savants and musicians such as George L. Hart, Rangaramanuja Ayyangar, Rabindranath Tagore, Joap Bor and Yehudi Menuhin.

At 514 pages inclusive of a glossary-cum-index, this tome is substantive but not exacting. Certainly, a book that can be judged by its tastefully designed cover that has you running your hand covetously over the embossed gold lettering accentuating a muted olive background graced with a mural depicting a colourful procession of female musicians playing instruments. The layout makes for pure reading pleasure with its vision-friendly font size and apt illustrations that include paintings, photographs, sketches, diagrams and staves.

The inside pages…

• From basic concepts, dynamics of voice and instruments to musical forms and composers

• Complexities of gamaka, raga, tala and rhythm explained in detail.

• Simple language and lucid explanations

• Quotes of savants and musicians such as George L. Hart, Rangaramanuja Ayyangar, Rabindranath Tagore, Joap Bor and Yehudi Menuhin.

Sweet fruits of labour:Fruit Shop On Greams Road

Sweet fruits of labour

Salim and Harris tell PRINCE FREDERICK how they built up their successful venture Fruit Shop on Greams Road

Photo: R. Ragu

TWO IS COMPANY Harris (left) and Salim

Barely out of college, Mohammed Salim started a plywood business in Choolai. A few years later, Harris Abdulla joined him as partner. It was a successful enterprise and they had nothing to complain about. But slowly, boredom set in. They were getting tired of looking at plywood day in and day out. At that time, they learnt about someone who wanted to let out a 250 sq.ft. commercial space on Greams Road.

The two bored timber businessmen took the space but kept it under lock and key for a long time. “We could not decide on a new business. In this state of indecision, six months went by,” recalls Salim.

With friends, Salim and Harris often played cricket at New College, the Gopalapuram Corporation Ground or at Harris’ uncle’s spacious residence opposite Anna Arivalayam. After cricket, they invariably went to a shop on Richie Street, where fresh fruit juices were served. Casually, over glasses of sweet lime juice, they decided one evening to start a fresh juice shop. “Initially, we thought it would be a second business,” says Harris.

Their families were appalled at the idea. “What do you know about making juices?" they asked, considering it a bad investment. Harris and Salim failed to convince them, but nevertheless went ahead with their “hare-brained idea”.

How it all began

“We were hunting for experts to run the shop,” reminisces Harris. They cobbled together a three-member team, and ‘Fruit Shop On Greams Road’ was open for business on June 16, 1995. Fifteen days on, they were faced with the threat of closure. The three young staffers, Roy, Arif and Ali got hold of a bike and went for a spin, well past midnight. “ When they reached Spurtank Road, they rammed into a buffalo.” Having sustained serious injuries, the three had to stay in bed for a few months. “We had to either close down or run the shop ourselves,” says Salim. “We decided to give it a try.”

“Surprisingly, collections rose to Rs. 3,500 a day from Rs. 500! We realised it made better business sense to be more involved. We would be up at 5 a.m. to purchase fruits and would be the ones to lock the shop at 1 a.m. Between these hours, we also managed the timber business,” says Harris. Working two shifts was beginning to tell on their health. Starved of sleep, Harris crashed his vehicle. He crashed once more. Clearly, they had to slow down. They brought down the shutters on the timber business.

“With ten outlets in Chennai and one in Dubai run in a highly professional, corporate fashion, we might today appear as if we followed a well-devised formula for success. Nothing can be farther from the truth,” says Salim. “The only thing going for us was our determination to take ‘Greams Road’ to every part of the city. Fearing we would be diluting our efforts to make this happen, we even gave up our restaurant ‘Galloping Gooseberry’, which was doing well.”

“We were like two bumble bees that bumbled into something great,” says Harris.

During that trying period, when Harris and Salim were mixing fruits and cutting plywood, they made a few mistakes. But they were graciously forgiven. Probably out of fatigue, one of them put more pepper than was necessary in Sam’s Pick Me Up (pomegranate juice with a dash of pepper).

“The juice had taken on a dark hue. The poor gentleman’s face changed after drinking it, but he left without uttering a word,” says Harris. “He returned the next day and told us gently that we had put too much pepper in his drink.”

Customer is king

Salim says customers such as this have been Fruit Shop’s main strength. “They forgave the occasional lapses and gave us feedback that helped improve our service,” he says.

Salim and Harris kept working on all the important areas — hygiene, health, pricing, flavouring and service.

“We use spotless white sugar. Our customers ask us if we use mineral water. The fact is: water goes into only six of the 120 juices we make. Our juices are mostly all fruits. Where milk is required, we use treated milk. Our ice is also treated. We thought of setting up a plant for ice treatment, but finally outsourced the work. Treated ice is made under our supervision,” says Salim.

“The boys at Fruit Shop are low on flamboyance. They are definitely not the ‘Hi, dude’ types. But are very polite and self-motivated.”

Salim and Harris say their unique flavouring is a big strength. It is one of the factors that has ensured continued customer loyalty and given the company a presence on Facebook and Orkut.

“Fans of Fruit Shop have created these profiles. They have discussions about our various outlets,” says Harris. “This is not surprising to us. All through the 14 years, we have not spent much on advertisements. We have grown mostly through satisfied customers who spread the word.”

http://www.hindu.com/fr/2009/02/20/stories/2009022051200100.htm

Sculpting a success story

T.S. SUBRAMANIAM

Sculpture, architecture and Vaastu sastra… these are a few fascinating facets of V. Ganapati Sthapati, recipient of this year’s Padma Bhushan.

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Space is everywhere. If this space is confined by a four-walled structure, it becomes a living organism.

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Photo: M. Karunakaran

THE ARTIST and his creations: V. Ganapati Sthapati

The Tiruvalluvar statue. .

Meeting 81-year old V. Ganapati Sthapati is an interesting experience. He can dazzle you with his scholarship of Tamil, Sanskrit, Vaastu Shilpa sastra, architecture and mathematics. He is a practising sculptor and an architect with a quest for resea rch. Even at this age, his spirit for learning has not dimmed. He is not afraid to speak out his mind either. “Sanskrit and Tamil are one. Technically, they are the same. Only we are fighting over them (about which is superior to the other),” he says and lists out words that are the same in both the languages. For example, ‘moolan’ in both means source, ‘kalam’ denotes time and ‘gnalam’ is world. Ganapati Sthapati was among those chosen this year for Padma Bhushan award. “It is a matter of pride that I have been chosen for the award,” he says with humility. “It gives me a sense of satisfaction, for the award is a recognition of our tradition.” The tradition that he represents is that of Viswakarmas and the Vaastu science of sculpture and architecture, including temple building. He is a descendant of the long lineage of traditional sculptors and temple architects — Viswakarmas — in Tamil Nadu.

According to him, Brahmarishi Mayan is the progenitor of Vaastu science, and the science of Shilpa sastra and architecture are based on mathematics. While others have merely defined architecture as the science of material space, Mayan has described it as ‘the pinnacle of achievement in mathematics.’ This mathematics implies the use of a unique measure called ‘Space-Time Units.’ Ganapati Sthapati himself describes architecture as ‘frozen music’ in which ‘vibrations are important.’

Subject of study

For 27 years, from 1961 to 1988, he was the principal of Government College of Architecture and Sculpture at Mamallapuram. While there, Ganapati Sthapati raised the status of the art of sculpting “from a mere craft practised in thatched road-side sheds to the four-walled precincts of the college where the students learnt the science and technology of tradition and came out as graduates with a B.Sc. in Temple Architecture.”

“Also the age old technical literature on Shilpa and Vaastu (architecture) shastras, which were both in Tamil and Sanskrit, were brought into the curriculum of the institute, thus elevating its academic status.” He argues that vastu means energy and vaastu means matter. “Energy contains matter and matter contains energy. This is our Veda and we practise this theory in architecture,” he says, and continues, “Space is everywhere. But you cannot see it. It has no form which can be seen with eyes. However, if this space is confined by a four-walled structure, it becomes a living organism. It can breathe. In doing this, I use orderly measures. These are backed by a mathematical formula... This technology is called Vaastu shastra.”

Ganapati Sthapati has designed and built 600 temples in different parts of the world including India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Fiji, Sri Lanka and Kenya. He was the architect of Sri Swaminatha temple in New Delhi. He built the 133-foot tall statue of Tiruvalluvar at Kanyakumari, the Valluvar Kottam including its massive chariot in stone in Chennai, the administrative block of the Tamil University at Thanjavur and its library building, the Silappathikaram art gallery at Poompuhar, near Thanjavur, and many more.

When M. Karunanidhi became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu in 1996, he specifically commissioned Ganapati Sthapati to build a statue for Tiruvalluvar on the rocky outcrop, surrounded by sea on all sides, at Kanyakumari. The 133-foot tall, free-standing masterpiece in granite is a testimony to the ingenuity of the architectural skill of Ganapati Sthapati.

The chariot at Valluvar Kottam

Granite masterpiece

“The Tiruvalluvar statue has no foundation at all. It is mounted on a rock. There are 7,500 pieces of granite in the statue. We assembled the statue bit by bit. All pieces are inter-locked. It is a great achievement to interlock 7,500 pieces of granite,” he says.

Sceptics asked him whether such a tall statue could stand on a rock, buffeted by winds from the sea on all sides. They also wanted to know whether the statue’s neck and head could be integrated into the torso. To them, his reply was, “If the statue does not stand, you can chop off my head. As long as ‘alai’ (waves in Tamil) and ‘malai’ (hillock) stand, the ‘silai’ (the statue) and its ‘thalai’ (its head) will survive.” And survive it did the waves of tsunami in December 2004.

Building the chariot in stone at Valluvar Kottam was another daunting task. (Temple chariots are generally made of timber). This stone chariot has three parts: the lower one in inverted pyramid form, the middle one made of pillars and the top one in pyramid form supported by these pillars. The chariot has wheels made of stones. “Building the chariot in stone was difficult,” he says.

After he retired as the principal of the Government College of Architecture and Sculpture, Sthapati devoted his time to research. “I never wasted 20 years of my retired life,” he says. “I did research and discovered my roots.” He has written more than 40 books including those on Shilpa Sastra in Tamil and ‘The Scientific Edifice of Brihadeeswara.’ He is currently writing his 41st book and building a temple for Mayan near Mamallapuram.

Some landmarks

* The Tiruvalluvar statue in Kanyakumari — 7,500 pieces of granite are interlocked.

* The Valluvar Kottam including its massive chariot in stone, in Chennai

* The administrative block and library of the Tamil University at Thanjavur.

* The Silapathikaram art gallery at Poompuhar, near Thanjavur.

* More than 600 temples across the globe including the famous Sri Swaminatha temple in New Delhi.

A mathematician’s passion

A mathematician’s passion

SUGANTHY KRISHNAMACHARI

Of Valavan Kumaran, author of ‘Lakshman’s Dream.’

I find that every drama troupe here has a format, a formula. I didn’t want to be strait-jacketed. I wanted to give free rein to my imagination.

Versatile: Valavan Kumaran

Valavan Kumaran loves all classical arts of India. In fact he listens to Carnatic music, when he wants to think of how to go about his next play. “It helps me to shut out distractions and concentrate on my play,” he says.

A French citizen, he left India at the age of 14, and finished his schooling and his University education in France. In 1997, he started his own theatre group in France, and travelled from village to village staging plays. In 2001, he joined the Theatre du Soleil, where he acted in two plays directed by Ariane Mushkin.

Kumaran has a Ph.D in Non-Commutative Geometry from Marseilles University, and he taught there for four years, before he took to full time theatre.

Mathematics and theatre – what’s the connection? “Both are beautiful,” says Kumaran.

Agreed, but Maths has a different kind of beauty. Austere beauty, without the trappings of painting or music, was how Russell saw mathematics. Why did Kumaran prefer the beauty of theatre to the cold and austere beauty of Mathematics? “Even as a child, I wanted to be a theatre person,” he says.

Then why didn’t he join a theatre group early on? “I find that every drama troupe here has a format, a formula. I didn’t want to be strait-jacketed. I wanted to give free rein to my imagination. That didn’t seem possible in any of the theatre groups in Tamil Nadu.”

In a conversation that ranges from Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and the work of mathematician Alain Connes to Peter Brooks’ plays, Kumaran’s passion for a lot of things is evident. But it is theatre that has a special place in his heart.

Is he happy with the theatre scene in Tamil Nadu today? “ No,” he says. “There is no patronage from the Government. If we have to hire the Museum Theatre for an evening, we have to pay 25,000 rupees. Moreover, here audiences seem to be committed to certain languages. Some will only go to English plays, some only to Tamil plays. Not much importance is given to directing here. I find Indian classical arts moving, but I don’t like drama in Tamil Nadu, whether in English or Tamil.”

Kumaran laments the lack of theatre training in Tamil Nadu. “People think that it is only music and dance that need training, and they assume anyone can act, without training.”

How did he get interested in koothu? Kumaran staged his play “Midnight Traveller,” at the drama festival in Purisai.

“I was not sure of its reception in Purisai. The story is about a young man who dons the role of a woman in a village play. He is mocked and ostracised, and he leaves the village. He travels through India, and meets many women, each of whom touches his heart, and each of whom speaks a different language.” The play had seven languages in it — Hindi, Gujarati, Telugu, Khasi, English, French and Tamil. To his surprise and delight, the villagers liked the play.

His troupe attended a workshop on koothu in Purisai. Later, he met Purisai Sambandam, and was impressed by his method of transmitting the art of theru-k-koothu. It reminded him of his experiences at the Theatre du Soleil, and an idea for a play began to take shape in his mind.

Cheap gimmicks

“Not all performers of koothu stick to tradition. Some of them resort to cheap gimmicks for the sake of popularity. So I wanted to show the dangers to the tradition of koothu, through my play “Lakshman’s dream.’”

What are the gimmicks he is talking about?

“ I’ve actually heard some village artistes use double meaning dialogue.”

Double entendres? “No, ‘double entendres’ as you use it , is not correct French. That is an Anglicised usage. The correct French expression would be ‘double sens,’” he corrects. “ Anyway, to continue, it’s not just vulgarity, it’s the very tampering with the tradition of an art that I disapprove of.”

There are also innovations in Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam, that many frown upon. He might just as well have done a play on any art form. “That’s true. For instance in music and dance, I don’t like fusion. The marrying together of two different art forms is abhorrent to me,” Kumaran shudders.

Kumaran has made Chennai his home. Future projects? Dreams? “I want to do a play based on the Rig Veda. I want to learn Sanskrit and Bharatanatyam. I’m deeply interested in our religious literature and our mythological stories. The Bhagavad Gita offers invaluable lessons on coping with the ups and downs of life.”

Kumaran speaks French, Tamil and English, and that’s the order of his competence in the three languages too, he laughs.

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The comedian's tragedy - N S Krishnan

Source http://www.hindu.com/mp/2008/12/15/stories/2008121551290800.htm

The comedian's tragedy

S. MUTHIAH

There's one more centenary I must remember before the year is out - and that is that of N.S. Krishnan, whom film historian Randor Guy calls `The King of Comedy'.

NSK, as he was known, was born in Nagercoil in 1908 to parents too poor to send him to school. But even if he had gone to school, it is a moot question as to how long he would have stayed in it, for even as a child he was fascinated by the stage. NSK was in his teens when he started working with one of the most famous Tamil travelling theatre companies of the time, TKS Brothers. It was a warm and successful relationship that lasted 10 years.

During that decade, NSK, who knew every role in every TKS play and could step into any of them at a moment's notice, moved from serious roles and the occasional singing one to comedy quite serendipitously. When the troupe's comedian went missing one day, NSK offered to play his role - and did so so innovatively, he became the troupe's comedian thereafter.

In 1935, when the whole cast of the TKS Brothers' play Menaka was hired for a film to be adapted from it, Krishnan's success in it launched him as a film comedian who became a legend in Tamil cinema. Film followed film - and when Vasanthasena came along he found himself not only starring with a new actress, T.A. Mathuram, but also falling in love with her. Till his death in 1957, they were a couple on stage as well as off it. In his later years, it was she who did much to keep the home fires burning.

It was in the mid-1940s, heading out to qualify as an engineer, that I got fascinated with journalism after reading The Hindu's splendid and detailed reporting of the Lakshmikantham Murder Case. The only better newspaper report of a trial I've come across was the one in The Times, London, on what became known as `The Trial of Lady Chatterly's Lover', the famous obscenity case that followed publication by Penguin of the D.H. Lawrence story that had long been banned in Britain. (For the record, Allen Lane, after winning the case, published the entire trial as a Penguin title!)

A major figure in the Lakshmikanthan murder case was NSK, who was one of the main accused. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar and Krishnan were found guilty and awarded life sentences. But on appeal to the Privy Council, they were acquitted in 1947. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar was never the same again - and the matinee idol of the Tamil cinema called it a day after a few flops. NSK fared better - and that had a lot to do with Mathuram.

While the case was going on, she did what she knew best to make the money necessary to fight the case; she started a drama troupe and had the best in the business to help her with it. She then started a film company - and its first production was just getting underway when NSK was released. He came out of prison, addressed a public meeting that had the crowd in splits hearing him narrate his prison experiences - and then he was ready to appear before the lights in Ennesskay Films' first production, Paithiakkaran.

Several successful films followed. At the same time, NSK, once a Periyar follower, became one of the leading lights of the Dravidian Munnetra Kazhagam. Between the film world and the world of politics, the hangers-on and sycophants were many. But he and Mathuram not only became unwisely generous with their money but they also began to burn the candle at both ends. All this contributed to NSK's death - and Mathuram having to live in near poverty till she died 10 years later. In their good days, however, there was no one else in their class in Tamil, nay Indian, filmdom when it came to comedy. If he was the `King of Comedy', she was, as Randor Guy emphatically adds, `The Queen of Indian Cinema Comediennes

The maestro and his music

Source http://www.thehindu.com/fr/2009/02/20/stories/2009022050560200.htm

The maestro and his music

RANJAN DAS GUPTA

Pandit Ravi Shanker looks back at his film compositions.

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I did not appreciate the popularisation of a divine instrument like the sitar though
I have highest regards for Salil (Chowdhury) as a composer.

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Photo: AP

Stringing divinity: Pandit Ravi Shanker performing with his daughter Anoushka in Kolkata.

Pandit Ravi Shanker was recently in Kolkata to perform live with daughter Anoushka Shanker. As he himself says, “This is in all probability is my last concert in Kolkata. I am not keeping well and I don’t think my health will permit another visit to the City Of Joy.”

As he sips a glass of water in his luxury suite at a posh Kolkata hotel, the sitar maestro says, “You are asking me to speak about my compositions in films, is that not too stale a subject? I have not composed any film music in the past two and half decades. Bright, young talents like A.R. Rahman and Shantanu Moitra can speak much more about this aspect of filmmaking.”

On persuasion, he recollects, “I was introduced to films by the late Chetan Anand in ‘Neecha Nagar’, India’s first anti-imperialist film. The highly imaginative Chetan possessed a keen ear for classical melodies and used my sitar counters very well along with some dialectical montages in the film. He gave me the freedom to compose and did not interfere in my work. We again teamed successfully for the background score of his ‘Aandhiyan’ along with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Pannalal Ghosh.”

Apu trilogy

Ravi Shanker composed the tunes for K.A. Abbas’s “Dharti Ke Lal” based on Bijon Bhattacharya’s “Nabanna” after “Neecha Nagar” in 1946. Recalls Shanker, “‘Dharti Ke Lal’ required music with a tragic temperament as it was based on the Bengal famine. During those days our IPTA (Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association ) background was highly instrumental in shaping our work ideologies.” His greatest challenge though was to score the music for Ray’s Apu Trilogy in the mid-‘50s, which ushered in a revolution of sorts in film music. Hearing his compositions for the Ray masterpieces, Elia Kazan, the Greek-American award-winning film and theatre director and co-founder of the influential Actors Studio in New York, had commented, “A new genre of film music, fresh, melodious yet objective has been introduced by Ravi Shanker and his combination with the inimitable Satyajit Ray.”

The stalwart responds, “Here was a director who would never compromise nor allow me to go overboard. He was confident and rigid about exactly what he required from me or any of his composers. Ray himself was an outstanding composer and music sessions with him are still unforgettable. For the Apu Trilogy, he extracted the true essence of rural Bengal from me musically. Similarly, for ‘Parash Pathar’, he brought out of me music with a comic yet subtle touch which had ample depths. That was Ray, a director who believed in musical visualisation at its peak.”

Ravi Shanker scored popular numbers rendered by Mohammed Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar and Mukesh for “Anuradha” and “Godan” too. He comments, “Both the films required sober, touching music and neither director Hrishikesh Mukherjee nor Trilok Jaitley asked me to move on the populist track whilst scoring their music.” The ustad had criticised Salil Chowdhury’s usage of the sitar counter in the song “O Sajna, Barkha Bahar Ayi” in “Parakh”. He clarifies, “I did not appreciate the popularisation of a divine instrument like the sitar though I have highest regards for Salil as a composer.” Ravi Shanker remembers, “What talents the Indian film music had in the ’40s, ’50s and the ’60s. Naushad, Anil Biswas, S.D. Burman, Madan Mohan and Shanker Jaikishan belonged to an era when melody was the king. I was internally inspired to compete with these stalwarts whilst composing music for films. Some of their creations are much more popular than any of mine. Who can forget Naushad’s ‘Mohe Bhul Gaye Sawariya’ from ‘Baiju Bawra’ and ‘Katon Se Khich Ke Ye Anchal’ by S.D. Burman in ‘Guide’?”

By the time he scored for Gulzar’s “Meerabai” and Mrinal Sen’s “Genesis”, Ravi Shanker understood that he was losing his form as a film music composer. He analyses, “Film music is mainly dependant on scripts and special situations. It has constraints. Performing classical music has always been of much more interest to me. After ‘Genesis’, I decided to call it a day in films.”

Mrinal Sen, who directed “Genesis”, says, “I told Ravi Shanker to come out of the IPTA mould of music for ‘Genesis’. After seeing the first show of the film at Cannes, he severely criticised me for not using his music counters and experimenting with natural sounds instead. I politely explained to him that cinema is not only background score and during many sequences in ‘Genesis’, natural sounds were more essential than his compositions.”

Ravi Shanker agrees, “Today, I feel Mrinal was right in his assessment. Ali Akbar Khan stopped scoring for films after ‘Khudito Pashan’. Vilayat Khan only composed music for ‘Jalsaghar’. I should have stopped after the ’60s. Sitar jhankars during a live performance are really divine for me.”

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Scholar on a mission

Source http://www.hindu.com/fr/2008/11/07/stories/2008110751020300.htm

Scholar on a mission

S. SIVAKUMAR

Dr. Emmie finds Harikatha more direct, more authentic and more traditional.

Photo: M.Vedhan

MUSIC MATTERS: Dr. Emmie with Janakirama Bhagavathar

Dr. Emmie te Nijenhuis, a music scholar from Holland, has been coming to India since 1970 — this is her 11th visit — and is on a specific mission now. She studied Western Musicology, Classical Piano and Sanskrit in The Netherlands and then specialised in Indian musicology, to obtain her Ph.D. in 1970, from Utrecht University. She worked for 25 years as Associate Professor of Indian Musicology here.

“I timed my visit to India during this part of the year, as I found that in December everyone gets busy and is unable to spare any time. I wanted to look at Kathakalakshepam, which again is a vast subject.”

She then reasons out how she is always practical and “narrows her area of research to something compact, where I can complete my work according to schedule.”

The objective has been to look at live renderings of Bhadrachala Ramadas’s compositions as they are sung, differently, in Harikathas and in concerts. “I should thank Dr. Prameela Gurumurthy of the University of Madras who started organising things for me as soon as I went to her.”

Conscious decision

Dr. Emmie listened to a variety of performers during the three weeks of her stay: Dr. Kamala Murthy and Dr. Prameela — at the University of Madras — Kalyanapuram Aravamudhachariar at the Varasidhi Vinayagar temple, Janakirama Bhagavathar at the Music Academy, Udayalur Kalyanaraman at MATSCIENCE and Prof. Ramakrishna at the Telugu University at Hyderabad. And she has this to say: “In concerts, Ramadas’s kirtanas acquire the virtuosity and musical excellence of the singer and he adds his personality to it, but in the Harikatha, it is more direct, authentic, more traditional and probably more original. It is not merely the ragas but the original tunes themselves that are of importance to me.”

Dr. Emmie’s output is huge, caused by her conscious decision to pursue Sanskrit and Indian cultural history instead of the customary choice of Italian language. Her publications include historical works such as “Indian Music: History and Structure” (1974), “Musicological Literature” (1977), and “English translations of Sanskrit Texts on Sangitasastra” (Dattilam in 1970 and Sangitasiromani in 1992).

Not one to be enamoured of fusion, Dr. Emmie feels that there is nothing to fuse and any music will and need to exist on its own.

“The works of 17th century Western Classical Composers — Bach and others — were well-structured with wide scope for improvisations and variations like say the niraval or the pallavi of Carnatic music. Things have changed and it is all terse, written down music now,” she regrets.

Dr. Emmie plans to document the life and work of Papanasam Sivan and will be back in India soon. She recalls with gratitude the help rendered by Dr. Ramanathan in all her musical missions. One of her most memorable aesthetic experiences was a Kathakali performance in 1967-68. She expresses her special liking for the small modular introductory narration that always preceded the enactment of “each spectacle,” in Kathakali. Her father was a sculptor and all that she heard of Indian Art, Indian Philosophy and the Theosophical Society in those early years shaped her taste.

Praiseworthy

After listening to the concerts at the Spirit of Youth Festival organised by the Music Academy, Dr. Emmie was all praise for the Indian psyche that possesses a unique ability “to pick up, sort out and reinvent what is best for them from other cultures.”

Being a piano player herself, she reminds you that it took nearly 200 years for the piano to reach present form. She also learnt the veena and the sitar to practically orient herself to “experience the gamakas,” which can at best be played, to be understood.

Her dynamism and unclouded manner of speaking at her age - she is 77 – leaves you at the edge of your seat. And Music, one may conclude, is her religion - and faith.