Peerless Minds by Pritish Nandy

Author:Pritish Nandy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India
Published: 2019-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

HARIPRASAD CHAURASIA

FLAUTIST

Interviewed by KHALID MOHAMED

‘There is the emergence of something called new age classical music: fusion which often becomes confusion. Fusion can be excessively populist, flashy, begging for attention.’

At eighty-one, Hariprasad Chaurasia is India’s fabled flautist, a classical musician who has occasionally dabbled with popular music for the films in collaboration with the celebrated santoor player Shiv Kumar Sharma. Chaurasia was born in Allahabad to a wrestling family and his father wanted him to be a wrestler. That was not to be for he was drawn to music and started learning from his vocalist neighbour. At fifteen he took to the bansuri and became a pupil of the great Annapurna Devi who agreed to teach him if he would show her his commitment by switching over from right hand to left hand while playing, which he does till today. Recipient of the Padma Vibhushan and the Dinanath Mangeshkar Award in 2000, he received the Ordres des Artes et des Lettres from the Government of France in 2009.

T

he intention was to conduct this repondez s’il vous plait gently: an interview with the courtesy of faultless manners and cloaked questions, an exchange between a master and a fanboy.

It didn’t go that route, skidding instead into unexpected lanes. For an inquisitor, that amounts to a whoosh of satisfaction.

Gratifyingly there was no sugar rush, except at the outset when a jugful of clichés were swallowed by me with a straight face this side of the Sphinx: gratitude was expressed by my subject to the divine forces, a sense of creative satisfaction was emphasized, no disappointments whatsover were disclosed. ‘The beat’s on, unstoppable,’ he held forth, followed by that exemplary concern: ‘So, how are you? Of course, I know you well. Tumhe kaun nahin jaanta [Who doesn’t know you]? You shot a video with me for the making of Yash Chopra’s Chandni. Was it ever telecast?’

It wasn’t. The movie moghul of romantic rhapsodies canned the project. Behind-the-scenes video documentations weren’t quite en vogue in those moonglow days, circa 1989. ‘Oh, is that what happened?’ He shrugs. ‘No problems. By the way, where are you writing? What’re you doing nowadays?’

This and that, I mumble, as the monsoon sun’s already threatening to fade at six in the evening outside the Brindaban Gurukul, his pet-dream-come-true, a school for intensive lessons in vocals and classical music. This Brindaban—named after Vrindavan the temple pilgrimage town of the Mathura district—is located in a busy artery of Mumbai’s Versova-Link Road.

India’s iconic flautist, Hariprasad Chaurasia, I imagined, would be seated in the gurukul’s chamber, on a white linen-sheeted mattress propped against a collection of pillows and bolsters.

He wasn’t. We converse instead at a nondescript dining table a sneeze away from a kitchenette. Health food—zero-cholesterol khakras and methi cookies—are stacked on porcelain plates. Cups of sugar-free, ginger-flavoured tea materialize, a knee-high disciple barges in, demands a glass of water, gapes at the guru in high speed, touches his feet and remains stationary. ‘Good boy, good boy. Do you want anything else? A biscuit?’ The

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