Zia Mohyeddin column A whimsical appraisal

Baithak makes an exception here and instead of an excerpt is reproducing the whole column from Zia Mohyeddin. The recluse Daud Rehbar he mentions in this column is his cousin. ~ t

Music, like poetry, can communicate before it is understood. Love of music is not contingent upon our understanding it. The intricacies of our classical music take years of study before we can grasp them, but you don't have to be a connoisseur of the technical subtleties of a musical system to savour it.

Johnny Patrick, a highly respected name amongst British musical arrangers once told me that it takes a violinist at least a year to be able to play the instrument by reading notes, five more years to qualify for a professional orchestra and six hours a day, minimum, for the rest of his life to play well.

play well.

When I mentioned to him that our musicians spent just as many years (if not more) in training before they were allowed to perform publicly by their mentor, he said, rather patronisingly, "Ah, but they don't have a score to study." What he implied was that our music was a medley of meandering melodies that could, in no way, match the eloquence of Western classical music.

It was mainly due to Yehudi Munuhin's strenuous efforts in the 50s of the last century that our music, performed by the two stalwarts, Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, came to be taken seriously by the Western musical critics. Until that time the audiences in England still carried the hang-over of the colonisers who abhorred our music and talked about it in derisory terms. In all the accounts, journals, diaries and dispatches of the British colonisers you find that while there is a degree of charitableness shown towards local customs, traditions and manners, there is no tolerance for the music of India. It was sometimes described as a cacophony, not even fit for cats and dogs.

Times have changed. Our musicians now visit Europe and America regularly and their concerts (no longer relegated to drafty YMCA halls) are now not only well-attended by lovers of music but are reviewed by notable music critics in the 'Arts' pages of posh newspapers. Does it mean that these critics have now understood and absorbed the essence of our music? I am not entirely sure.

In vocal performance of a raga the rhythm of the composition and its tempo, pitch of the tonic, quality of the composition, calibre of the singer make all the difference in the aura that a raga creates. I do not agree with the musicologists who stipulate that any given raga is, inherently, either jolly or sad. "Ustad Abdul Karim Khan will sadden, and any raga sung by Ustad Nisar Hussain khan will gladden," writes Daud Rahbar.

Seriously though, every performance of a raga is a unique attempt. Gorukh Kalian is a raga which, for me, evokes an ineffable wistfulness, but when I listen to that estimable violinist, Dr Rajam's rendition, it makes me feel like skipping, barefooted, on a grassy lawn.

There is a curious myth that a classical recital (vocal or instrumental) must last at least an hour and a half to be meaningful. This has nothing to do with, our music. It is, if anything, a social custom, like marriages. The ritual of a marriage in our country takes hours to conclude. (Judging from the trend in the last few years the marriage ceremony between two well-off families lasts four to five days) while a Latvian or a Swiss is married in half an hour or less. Both live long and happy -- or miserable -- lives according to their lights.

Bare Ghulam Ali Khan once told his son, Munawar Ali Khan ( who mentioned this during a concert) that he did not believe that a performance had to last as long as it often did just as he did not believe that a human being had to live until he was eighty four to have lived at all. A performance could be meaningful and conclude only in twenty five minutes as in two hours. The musical experience is a timeless experience. Its timelessness is its chief contribution.

The notion, therefore, that a concert should last nearly two hours is not borne out by the nature of music. The length of a concert depends on the singer's attitude towards his art. If, pre-occupied mainly by the form of his art rather than the content, he could take hours. But this would be like a guide describing the history of every stone in a monument so that the tourist does not see the monument but is filled with its chronicles.

Among our classical musicians there are very few who make a break through into contemplative utterance. Most musicians reside on the flats and marshes of creation. Our musical performance is sublime only when a musician is inspired to make a note instantly redolent and personal. When a singer or an instrumentalist acquires the knack of commanding inspiration to be at his beck and call, the music he creates is connected to his internal universe. If that universe is fertile, the music becomes unique.

Music transports me to the realm of beyond. Some years ago I wrote an essay on my relationship with music in which I said that the two ragas which move me tremendously are Abhogi Kanra and Shree. Daud Rahbar, having read that piece in Florida, wrote to me, "Shree raga is sung during the twilight hour at the end of the day. According to Hindu musicologists the raga celebrates the victory of good over evil allegorised in the myth of victory of the God Ramchandra over the demon-king Ravana...The most resonant note of Abhogi, also a deeply devotional raga, is the fourth, aptly known among musicians as the moonlight (maternal) note in sharp contrast to the fifth which is the sunshine (masculine) note. True to the effeminate softness of Hindu devotions, it is best emulated by female singers."

Daud Rahbar is one of the most discerning musician-musicologists. What he doesn't know about our music is not worth knowing. It amused him to note that the two ragas suitable for Hindu devotions were loved by me.

I admit that I was embarrassingly superficial in my understanding of the theory of our music when I wrote about my abiding fondness for the two 'devotional' ragas. Until then I had not heard any female singer (or instrumentalist) perform these ragas. Having now heard the Mudgals of this world, I still contend that the definitive Abhogi Kanra that I have ever heard was rendered by the late Ustad Salamat Ali Khan and the definitive Shree By Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.