Sahela Re!

(appeared first in Outlook Feb 28 2011)

Sahela Re!

For a music universe that is still coming to terms with the demise of its adored and venerated Banyan, Bhimsen Joshi, a two-day festival of music, ‘Sahela Re’, could not have come at a better time. It was a banquet that lifted spirits and celebrated the 80th birthday of another great, Kishori Amonkar. (Sahela Re is her composition that mesmerized even ‘non-classical types’ when she first sang it in her prime, and the ‘LP’ hit music stores.)

The act of simply getting into a plane, train or bus to perform in tribute to someone is not unusual. It is seen as a privilege by most musicians. What turned this event into something of a magnificent Maha Yagna as someone called it, was the coming together of musicians from so many gharanas from across the country. And they came bearing gifts as ephemeral but priceless as that one special taan, a mesmeric tabla bol, a Carnatic composition with the name Kishori woven into it, or that quicksilver phrase or jageh that showers her with stardust.

The Indian classical music world is overburdened with stories, real and imagined, of rivalry and brinkmanship among various gharanas down the ages. To the evolved and eager listener (as distinct from the groupie), these are differences to be celebrated, and not affinities and loyalties to be hotly and pointlessly debated. However, the musicians who come to perform at such a festival, have to achieve a fine balance. Firstly, to make that jump from competing to cooperating. And secondly, to hold their own while performing, yet merge and coalesce in ways that contribute sparkling facets to the ensemble performance.

Magically, the audience saw that happen in Pune on the 12th and 13th of February. The different treatment of a single raga by vocalists or players sharing a stage brought alive something that Kishori had once wishfully talked about in a documentary clip. She had mused about why15 people from different gharanas couldn’t one day simply assemble and sing Yaman, bringing their varied approaches to the raga. Film-maker Amol Palekar and his wife Sandhya Gokhale decided to make it happen. This is what led to many confluences at Sahela Re: north-met-south; old-met-young; unknown-met-well-known; reticent-met-flamboyant…

Unfettered by dictates of seniority and protocol, the musician breaks loose in delightful ways at such a programme. So while a Rakesh Chaurasia’s pedigree is top-drawer, his youngness would perhaps normally mean that he doesn’t ‘interrupt’ while the elders are playing. Here, though, the very format invited him to not only play his piece, but to also come up with charming additions and asides on his bansuri, when the more senior player was doing his thing. Incredibly, most of the ‘trios’ that performed – of instrumentalists, women singers and men singers – had not rehearsed together, and had only actually come together that afternoon.

One of the biggest windfalls of a programme that pulls in distinct musical elements from across the country is that the listener stumbles upon a voice or a style or an instrument that one is up until then unfamiliar with, or is not in one’s upper consciousness. The frisson that ran through the 2000-strong audience when the young sarangiya Sabir Khan played just a trial phrase during mike-checks for the percussion finale, is a case in point. The audience-sigh, or ‘Hai’, as Begum Akhtar would have called it, led tabla maestro Zakir Hussain to look up in happy surprise and kid with the audience: “Hey we’re all playing something to test the mikes, but you guys are blown away by just a few notes from this guy’s sarangi?’

As wave upon wave of sur and taal hits the audience at experiments of this kind, the feeling is unmistakable: the Indian music ocean is vast, our listener-boats have happily sprung a leak; and nobody wants to stay dry or be saved.

Percussionists are the people with cartloads of mojo. Some liken them to the mathematicians of the scientific community – captivatingly madder than the rest. The foot-stomping finale of Saleha Re, with the likes of Zakir, Viku Vinayakam and sons, and Bhavanishankar, had not just the audience, but the birthday girl too virtually levitating! Earlier in the evening, she had spoken about music needing to touch souls and not merely ‘entertain’. She had also made graceful reference to accepting the march of time. But as tabla, pakhawaj, khanjira and ghatam thundered their way to a crescendo, Kishoritai looked all of 18, face turned up to the stage, eyes sparkling, hair framing her face, breath baited for that one last, massive, unified beat, the sama.
Amjad Ali Khan said at the beginning, ‘Bhimsenji bina, Poona suna lag raha hai’. He played the sober-sweet Jhinjoti as elegy for Bhimanna’s passing into godhood, and a paean to Kishoritai’s 80 glorious years.

Gouri Dange