Paa, Saa, Saa, Saa (G,C,C,C), the four -stringed tanpura, was droning away. It was 4.00 A.M. The monotonous drone was punctuated by an occasional bark of a distant dog and the bicycle rings of the milkmen.
I was doing my assignment in the basement. As I took a deep breath, I became aware of the all-pervading musty smell. The unfinished basement was used as a storehouse for old pots and pans, extra bedding, blankets, and other household items my mother had collected over the years.
By five O’clock I was feeling drowsy, tired, and dizzy. My throat was sore and my body hot and weak. That morning I went back to bed for a couple of hours. I went to my Guruji in the evening.
“Ji, Panditji.”
“How did it go?”
“My throat is sore.”
“That’s a good sign. Pick it up,” he pointed at the tanpura.
My parents were not happy with my schedule; especially with my pursuit of music. I was born in a middle class family and my neighbors were concerned about my well being.
“Why does your youngest son run around with a tanpura all day?” “Doesn’t Rooshi go to school?” “How is your son going to make a living when he grows up?” “Is he going to join some Sadhus*?” My mother was facing a barrage of questions she was unable to answer. She was very much against my learning music; my father was noncommittal.
II
Any student wishing to study Indian classical music to make a career out of it faces many a problem in India, especially if he belongs to a middle class family from Gujarat State. Music education in most schools attended by middle class students consists of one hour per week music lesson when a part-time music teacher comes to the school and teaches a few folk songs, Bhajans (religious songs), and some classical songs to a group of students most of whom have no sense of melody or rhythm. If the teacher tells them that they are singing off pitch, that they are a bit sharp, they bend their heads a little next time they sing it, still just as off pitch, just as sharp. If the teacher suggests that the note is a bit flat, they raise their heads the second time around. They have been brought up to believe that being a musician does not pay; a musician has no prestige. Middle class Gujarati boys and girls aspire to be businessmen, doctors, lawyers, engineers.
Since the schools do not have regular courses in music, a middle class student with genuine interest in music has one of three options available to him: to have a private teacher, to attend a private music school, or to find a Guru who will agree to accept him as a shishya (disciple) and teach him. Once again, a middle class student has no income of his own hence cannot afford to have a private teacher or to go to a private music school. The third option, which is the best way to learn Indian classical music, presents a different order of problem.
Weber suggests:
And it is precisely the obligation of obedience to the Guru and the loyalty to him taking precedence over loyalty to family that presents a problem when a student, belonging to middle class, decides to learn music under a Guru.
III
I distinctly remember the day when I became obsessed with the thought of wanting to learn music. I liked music since I was five but I had no special feelings for it. I used to sing a few songs: a little boy with a cute voice. Up to the age of fifteen, I dreaded the one hour a week music class when the cross-eyed music teacher brought the harmonium (a French instrument used in India) to the class and threatened to beat us up with its wooden cover. We were afraid of him and his eyes.
And then it happened. One day, during the break time on my way to the playground, I heard a very familiar film song being played on a tishokoto (a Japanese instrument popular in India). Following the sound, I came to a crowded classroom. In the middle of the crowd a young student was sitting playing the tishokoto. Spellbound by the way he played, I stayed behind when others applauded and left. I approached the musician, asked him a few questions about the instrument and whether he could teach me to play it. He readily agreed, taught me some plucking techniques right then and there, and offered to let me have his instrument to take home for practice. Overwhelmed, I came home a different person. That night I was not interested in food. I played the instrument for about three hours. Something within me had changed.
I met my musician friend the next day and started taking lessons from him. He didn’t have any training in classical music. He played by ear - and by heart. I learned a lot from him but not enough.
I was sixteen and in the last year of high school. My parents were becoming concerned about my career. My neighbors’ sons and daughters were going to be engineers and doctors. My sister was in medical school. According to my parents, I had to work hard at my math so I could score a hundred percent and be accepted in an engineering school. I told them that I wanted to be a musician.
That did it. I was not allowed to bring any instruments in the house nor was I to invite any of my “street singer friends.”
Without my parents’ knowledge I dropped math and graduated from high school without math. No math, no engineering! Reluctantly, my parents allowed me to enroll in a liberal art college that ran from 7.00 A.M. to 10.00 A.M. leaving me the remainder of the day to pursue music. I decided to learn music the traditional way - under a Guru.
IV
During my years in high school, I had always been fascinated by the tradition and the ideal of a Guru. I had read about it in Sanskrit literature, I had heard people speak of their Gurus, and now I wanted to have one...for music. However, I didn’t know how to go about getting one. And this was complicated by yet another factor. My birthplace, the city of Ahmedabad in the State of Gujarat with its population of a million and a half, is not known for musicians. Businessmen, yes. Textile mills, yes. Gandhi, yes. But musicians, no. Pandit Ravi Shankar once remarked to me in Chicago a few years ago: “Rooshi, I think the land of Gujarat is musically barren.”
The tishokoto I played is a fixed note instrument and Indian classicists do not recognize it as an instrument suitable for playing ragas since ragas are microtonic in structure. Despite this limitation of the instrument, compounded with my lack of training in ragas, I had been experimenting with the tishokoto and had considerable success in approximating different ragas on it. Occasionally, I was invited by different music schools to give a demonstration-performance on the tishokoto.
Proud of my achievement, at the end of one of my performances, I approached Pandit Thakorbhai Desai, the renowned master of one of the schools where I had performed, for his opinion.
“That was a very naive performance. You think you play ragas but ragas are not a jumble of notes. It takes years of Sadhna (practice, devotion, discipline leading to self-realization) to be able to play a raga well. People like you want to call themselves grocers with only a pound of rice. Stop deceiving the undiscerning ears, and learn some Vinaya (humility) before you decide to learn music.”
Stunned, humiliated, subdued, overwhelmed, I touched his feet.
“Would you accept me as your shishya?”
Next day, I went to his music school at six o’clock in the evening and left at nine o’clock. Different students came every hour, removed their shoes, bowed, entered the room, sat on the carpet, and started practicing. No conversation, no pleasantries. Occasionally, Guruji spoke a few explanatory words or sang a few notes. The picture of music Goddess Saraswati on the wall and the incense smell in the air created a temple atmosphere. Sacred, serene, peaceful. During the two months that followed, every night I helped the last batch of students fold the carpet, bowed to Guruji and bicycled home.
Soon after, on one Guruvar (the day of the Guru--Thursday), Guruji told me to stay after the last student had left.
“Sangeet (music) is a Gurumukhi Vidya - its knowledge can only be acquired through a Guru. If you want to learn under me you will have to devote yourself to it with your Manasa (mind), Vacha (speech), and Karmana (action). Are you willing to do it?”
I spent the next hour learning to play the tanpura: Paa, Saa, Saa, Saa, Paa, Saa, Saa, Saa, Paa, Saa, Saa, Saa.
I went home and anxiously told my parents that I wanted to wake up at 4.00 A.M. to practice singing. After a long argument, I was given a permission to practice in the basement away from the neighbors’ watchful eyes and ears. I was thankful for it.
For the next six months, I followed a very rigid schedule. Daily, I woke up at four, practiced breathing and voice till six, had a glass of milk, bathed, and went to college. After college hours I came home, had lunch, and spent most of the afternoon thinking and practicing music. Along with voice, I was also studying the sitar. My evenings were spent at the music school listening to other students followed by receiving music lessons. I was also honored to accompany my Guruji on the tanpura whenever he gave a concert.
I was now working on Palta and Alankar - exercises within a raga scale and a tala (a rhythmic cycle). My throat was sore no longer and my voice had a good timbre. The calluses on the first two fingers of my left hand were becoming noticeable from regular sitar practice; I remember spending up to thirteen hours a day on thinking, listening and practicing music.
After about a year of training under him, Guruji agreed to accept me as his shishya formally. I felt I was becoming a part of a tradition when the Guruganda ceremony was performed confirming our Guru-Shishya relationship with the patron gods of music as our witnesses. Presumptuous as it may be, I compared myself with Eklavya, Arjuna, Karna - the Hindu archetypes of shishya.
V
The two traditions of music--Indian and Western--have evolved out of two different cultures and they both reflect two different attitudes towards life: intuitive and rational.
Westerner is surprised to know that some anonymous author’s books about Indian music that treat history, legend, and criticism as one, are the only texts of Indian music available, and that most analytical writing about Indian music is of recent origin. As Fox Strangways puts it: “The Indian does not make or read histories, and does not appreciate the value of chronological order.”2
All this is a result of the Hindu concept of music. Sound to the Hindus is a form of God referred to in the Shastra-scriptures as the Nada Brahman, and music a part of the whole cosmology. The history of Indian music is the history of Hinduism, beginning with the Vedas, and the first texts of Indian music are the laws of music as revealed to the sages Narada and Tumburu. To a Hindu, music in its sublime form means the sound of God Krishna’s flute and God Shiva dancing to the beat of His Damaru drum.
The Nada Brahman is invoked by the indispensable tamboura or tanpura for an Indian musician. The four to six strings of the tanpura tuned to the tonic and dominant notes of the “composition” - ragas-being played, provide a continuous and unchanging drone throughout the performance of Indian music, vocal or instrumental. The hypnotic drone of the tamboura (Paa, Saa, Saa, Saa) serves as a reference point for all the improvisations and musical forms --they emerge from that drone, linger awhile, and then merge into it, symbolizing as it were, the macrocosmic revelation of Shree Krishna described in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagvad-Gita.
While the Indian musical tradition still maintains that the source of music is the Self, the Atman, the Breath-Motion, the Saa, the Om, the Guru-shishya relationship part of the tradition, seems to be disappearing in today’s India. In the past, the master musicians--Gurus--were under the patronage of the royalty and didn’t have to concern themselves with the material side of life. They accepted a number of talented and devoted shishyas in their homes where the shishyas spent their years learning music under their Gurus and serving them.
The socio-economic factors have affected this part of the tradition in today’s India. The master musicians have been forced to move to a large city where they have to support themselves by running a music school and giving concerts. Some of them accept shishyas who live with their parents and pursue music along with their academic studies. Pandit Ravi Shankar who was fortunate to be able to study music under the legendary Guru Ustad Allauddin Khansaheb, according to the old tradition, affirms that:
“The main features of a fruitful Guru-shishya relationship led to 1) purity of mind and body, humility, a sense of service, and a devotional and spiritual attitude; 2) a thorough grounding in the technique and science of music; 3) the gradual development of the disciple as he sits behind his guru at concerts and joins in when asked, but does not perform by himself until his guru finds him fit to do so; and 4) freedom from economic worries by the disciple, living and serving his guru as a member of his family.
These essential features, except perhaps the guarantee of economic freedom, could be retained in a modified form. Thus, the training regimen could be made thorough, not allowing the student to proceed to the next lesson before the earlier one has been perfected. There is always the danger of the student’s being satisfied with the outer, superficial achievements, like learning the scales and a few compositions in one raga and then taking up another before exploring some of the endless variations on the first raga. It is only when the student becomes completely familiar with a few ragas and is at home to the extent of improvising, not mechanically, but aesthetically, that he should move on. This slow but meaningful progress that the guru regulated, and the seal of approval he gave before encouraging further steps, could well be retained.” 3
When I look back at the years I spent studying under Guruji Thakorbhai in view of the above comments, I realize how fortunate I was to have him as my first Guru. He was simple, kind, loving, honest, and uncompromising when it came to discipline and music. He taught me to treat even the inanimate instruments with reverence - an Indian musician does not step over his instruments or touch them with his feet. As Weber rightly suggests, the bond between us was uncommonly strong and was regulated in an authoritarian fashion. 4
VI
I was in my third year university. I still followed a very rigid schedule. My parents had gingerly accepted the fact that my interest in music was genuine, and since I was keeping up with my academic studies, they left me alone. I was still afraid to express my feelings about my music studies before them and they never encouraged me to practice it.
My Guru had given me two raga scales to practice - Bilawal for the morning and Yaman for the evening. One day, I hesitatingly mentioned to him that I was not sure about the raga form.
“It will take years for you to understand the raga form. The Sangeet Darpana defines it thus:
‘According to the learned men, a raga has its separate tune and import, is
embellished with the color of musical notes, and is pleasing to the mind.’
But this is only a part of the story. The ragas are our deities. Treat them with reverence and Vinaya (humility). Always remember what happened to Narada (the sage who brought music to the Hindus) and his pride. “
“Please tell me about Narada,” I requested.
“Once upon a time the great anchorite Narada thought within himself he had mastered the whole art and science of music. To curb his pride the all-knowing Vishnu took him to visit the abode of the gods. They entered a spacious building the inmates of which were numerous men and women, who were all weeping over their broken limbs. Vishnu stopped short and inquired of them the reason of their lamentation. They answered that they were the ragas (male) and raginis (female) of music, created by Shiva (patron of all arts); but as one anchorite of the name of Narada, ignorant of the true knowledge of music and unskillful in performance, had sung them recklessly, their features were distorted and their limbs broken, and that unless Shiva or some other discreet and skillful person would sing them properly, there was slender hope of their ever being restored to their former state of body. Narada, ashamed, kneeled down before Vishnu and asked to be forgiven.”
I was speechless.
Shringara....................... Erotic, romantic
Hasya............................ .Joyous
Karuna.......................... .Pathetic
Raudra.......................... .Furious
Veera..........................… Heroic
Bhayanaka.................... Frightful
Bibhatsa........................ Disgusting
Adbhuta........................ Wonderment
Shanta........................... Tranquil
There are two developmental stages of the ragas: Alap (invocation) and Gat (a fixed composition within a rhythmic cycle - tala). You will have a feeling for the ragas after years of practicing and listening to the master musicians perform. The soul of our music is rasanishpatti--the evocation of a given mood, heart to heart commune, it is not the written notation.”
VII
Listening to other master musicians perform, presented a variety of problems for me. About twice a year, Ahmedabad Music Circle arranged a music conference at the Town Hall and invited the master musicians from all over India.
First of all, I could not afford to buy a ticket for the conference - it cost about Rs. 25/- for four days. Secondly, my parents would not allow me out of the house past midnight.
I succeeded in convincing my parents to make an exception for the timings, twice a year. I also told them that I managed to get complimentary passes for such conferences; that was a lie. I did not get any passes, and I used to sit outside the Town Hall along with a few other music students and listen to the musicians perform through the door cracks. Some nights, when the society people left around one in the morning, the organizers would feel sorry for us and let us into the hall. Whenever this happened, we were overjoyed since the musicians of Maestro Ali Akbar Khansaheb’s stature hardly came on the stage to perform before one o’clock in the morning.
As I listened to other musicians perform, I appreciated what my Guruji meant when he said that Indian classical music cannot be learned through written notes. About ninety to ninety-five percent of Indian classical music is improvised, and not “composed” or “written” in the Western sense of the terms.
An Indian performer (vocalist or instrumentalist) begins his performance with the tuning of his tamboura - Paa, Saa, Saa, Saa. He has learned the form of the ragas from his Guru, and he must never violate the rules governing the ragas - they are his Fate once he has launched on his odyssey of improvisations.
Besides, a Western composer can go back and alter a note, or replace an Adagio movement with an Andante or a Moderato one. An Indian performer cannot go back to cancel, to correct, to experiment. He improvises - here and now. And his performance is dictated not only by the inherited “Idea” - the rules that he has internalized while studying under his Guru - but is also influenced by his past performance of the same raga, his mood at the time, and by the involvement of the audience.
VIII
I was in the last year of my B.A. Honors, and was doing well academically. My music training was also going well. I was learning to improvise within the framework of the prescribed rules of
a raga. By listening to my Guru and other musicians perform, I was getting an insight into Indian classical music and the raga form. In Indian classical music the “Idea” is a priori and impersonal; what is personal is the performer’s rendition of a given raga, his interpretations and development of the “Idea” which is an “occurring’ statement of his inner vision of the cosmos made through the means of notes that express his intimations of immortality, and when the performer is contemplating the next phrase, the Paa, Saa, Saa, Saa of the tanpura sound more moving than the notes he sings or plays.
I was ineffably happy with this insight when my Guruji informed me one evening before my music lesson.
“My life in this city is not conducive to my music. I have decided to leave here. I will be moving to a small village next month. I am offered a teaching position in a small school. I have accepted it because I want to be close to nature, and continue practicing and teaching music according to our tradition.”
I was numb, lost, disbelieving, speechless.
I had been learning under Guruji for about four years. I respected him, I believed in him, I obeyed him; especially musically, I completely depended on him. With him leaving, not only was I losing a person who greatly influenced me, but I also knew that I would be unable to continue my music training as regularly as I did.
Guruji Thakorbhai blessed me as he left Ahmedabad a month later.
After he left, I continued my practice and listening to other musicians, but it was not the same for me. Simultaneously, I continued my academic studies, received my B.A. in 1960, and started teaching in a high school. In 1964, I received a Rotary scholarship to go to California for post-graduate studies in English literature. My parents were unhappy with the thought of my leaving
them, but were proud that even though I was not an engineer, I made it academically. They even encouraged me to take my sitar with me. My Guruji also sent his blessings as I left India.
On February 5, 1964, I arrived in San Francisco with my suitcase, sitar and broken English.
IX
After completing my studies in 1966, I moved to Mason City, Iowa, to teach English in a junior college. While there, I learnt that Maestro Ali Akbar Khansaheb was opening a college of Indian classical music in Berkeley, California. The news spontaneously age-regressed me. It was way back in 1956. The year when I first heard him perform in Ahmedabad.
Time: around 1.30 A.M. The society people had left the Town Hall in Ahmedabad - the doors were open to us who were sitting outside lost in the labyrinth of improvisations. I meekly walked in and took a seat in a corner when the announcer appeared on the stage.
“.... and for the music connoisseur, we now present Padma Bhushan Ustad Ali Akbar Khansaheb. The Ustad’s family traces its Gharana (ancestral tradition) to Tansen, a musical genius and court musician of Akbar, Mughal Emperor of the 16th century. The Ustad’s father, the 95 years old, Dr. Allauddin Khansaheb, who was the chief shishya of Wazir Khan, a direct descendant of Tansen, is acknowledged as the most influential figure in North Indian classical instrumental music in this century. Ali Akbar began his studies under his father at the age of three, and at the age of nineteen , he became a court musician for the Maharaja of Jodhpur, and soon after he was given the title of Ustad, a Persian word meaning `master musician.’
The Ustad’s reputation as a performer, a recording artist, and a master teacher, is most impressive - his eminence as a sarod player unchallenged.
With the dawn of independence in India followed by the discontinuation of royal patronage, the Ustad’s music has come into our midst from the palaces of the Maharajas. The maestro will begin his performance with one of his own creations - Raga Chandranandan.....”
There was a perceptible wave of stir among us. The curtain rose. Seated on a rose covered divan were three musicians: a table player on his right, a tamboura player on his left, and in the middle the Ustad, eyes closed, shoulders drooping, head bowed, cradling his sarod.
Paa, Saa, Saa, Saa, Paa, Saa, Saa, Saa, ....the tamboura droned - the Ustad lifted his right hand and strummed the strings of his sarod. “Wah, wah, wah, wah, (beautiful, beautiful),” we responded.
The sarod was so finely tuned - and the stroking so mature, decisive, balanced - and gentle. The performance - lasting for five hours - was a most moving experience for me. It demanded that I apprehend by totally committing myself to the greatest degree. Seemingly impervious to everything around him Khansaheb sat with his eyes closed, his body almost immobile excepting for the movement of his hands. A serene presence, as his fingers slowly drew out the most moving sounds from his sarod during the Alap: Sounds of existential ennui, human suffering, pathos and pain, hope and despair, sacrifice and love. For those moments Khansaheb and his sarod merged into Michelangelo’s ‘Pieta,’ as it were: Grieving, suffering, loving Mother Mary with fatally wounded Christ in her lap.
I sat spellbound as he concluded his performance with Raga Bhairavi. The doors of the Town Hall open - the flood lights on the stage turned off - some daylight seeping through the doors making the Ustad look like a figure in some surrealistic dream world.
X
Summer 1966. As soon as my college closed, I started driving west. I had inquired about Khansaheb’s school of music in Berkeley. It was to be inaugurated in June - I wanted to spend the summer learning music under him - if he accepted me.
I was very anxious as I drove into familiar Berkeley. The music school was temporarily located in one of the fraternity houses at the University of California. As I approached, I noticed long haired people in sandals entering and leaving the building - some carrying incense, some walking with their tamboura, sitars, and bamboo flutes.
I was afraid to walk in. What if he didn’t accept me as his shishya… how should I address him...what questions would he ask...what if I didn’t say the right things to him...should I speak to him in Hindi or in English?...I hope I don’t offend him by any of my mannerisms...
Hesitatingly, I walked into the building and started looking for Khansaheb.
Standing near the back door, was Maestro Ali Akbar Khansaheb talking with some people. Dressed in a suit - smoking a cigarette - smiling - and conversing in English.
Since I first heard the Ustad, some ten years ago, I had attended several of his concerts both in India, and in U.S.A.; I had all of his twenty records; I had seen many of his pictures. In India, I would stand in line to have a close look at him after his concerts - but never before had I seen him so closely. In his suit, he looked like a oil well owner from Texas.
I waited for him to notice me - bowed - touched his feet.
“Have you come to learn music or to visit?”
“I would like to study the sitar under you, Khansaheb.”
“Did you ever take any lessons?”
“Yes Khansaheb, for four years.”
“Bring your sitar tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, and play it for me.”
I touched his feet and left.
That night, I practiced the sitar for two hours and didn’t sleep well.
Next morning, Khansaheb was waiting for me when I arrived at the school. I noticed a blackboard and his sarod by his side. I touched his feet.“Have a seat, and play something for me.”
I was perspiring, nervous, and weak. I tuned my sitar and struck a note - Saa...
“Please give the sitar to me.”
My hands were shaking as I handed the sitar over to him.
Carefully - precisely - he fine -tuned my sitar, and returned it to me.
“Play this Gat,” he wrote a musical piece on the blackboard.
I looked at it, read it, tried to comprehend it - and then tried to play it - once, twice, three times.....
Khansaheb sat - smiled - lit a cigarette.
I was frustrated. A plethora of thoughts crossed my mind - I am a good sitar player, but then why can’t I play this passage? - This gentleman can’t be Khansaheb - but I know he is! - How do I know? - He is not playing the sarod. - Is he the same person I saw ten years ago? - No, no, no.... I am sure he can’t play this passage either - this is an impossible piece to play ...... !
Khansaheb stopped smiling - put the cigarette out - picked up his sarod - glanced at the blackboard - and in one sheer gush played the passage - flawlessly - over and over.
I sat spellbound - I visualized him becoming one with the Khansaheb I had heard in Ahmedabad ten years ago - I saw the rose covered divan - the tamboura drone in the background. I heard him draw out the most heart -rending sounds, most moving notes- - at once conceiving and delivering . I saw the morning light seeping through the doors. All the doubts in my mind were dispelled.
Khansaheb put the sarod down - lifted his head - and looked at me lovingly.
If I’m selfish, everything dies with me,
But my father and I don’t want that -
If you can learn in one day,
I’ll teach you everything,
If you can play better than me, it’s more pleasure;
Like, if your child is healthy,
But if you are healthy and your child is not?”
I touched his feet - I was a shishya -- again.
Notes
“drug addict,” in Indian middle class society.
Boston, 1972, p. 52.
B I B L I O G R A P H Y
