Melodic links from the past . . .

In the time of Alexander, what must have been the music played in the north western provinces which he annexed and fertilized with enough Greek genes to last for the next few centuries as distinct communities? I like to think there would have been predecessors of instruments like the Rubab, the Santoor and the Pakhawaj. Pashtun music as well as Irani music has these instruments like the Rubab and the Kamanche featuring quite prominently.

Shujjat Hussain's album, Rain, which is a collaboration of Shujjat's strong Hindustani sensibilities with Iranian music played on the Kamanche. The recording that I heard was that of a live performance in Berlin, hence excellent sound quality. The Kamanche's sound is a rawer version of the Sarangi. It screeches in the higher pitch but its ability to impersonate the human vocal chords is amazing, just like the Sarangi's.

The north western music also surprisingly resonates with the rhythm style of Rajasthani and Marathi music. I was in Punjab when i discovered this surprising similarity in the music playing on the car deck of our correspondent in Punjab  with one of the popular Marathi folk tracks. Not just that, but during my travels in Rajasthan, I also came across Bhat music which was very similar to the Gondhal style in Maharashtra. The rhythm dominates the similarity found in the music of all three states. The only other common factor is that it also houses three powerful martial races of India and this could be a reason for the music having travelled during their excursions and campaigns into these territories. The book by Komal Kothari on the Bhat, Manganiyar and other folk musical communities of Rajasthan is a scholarly work which requires dedication to read through. He has actually travelled and mapped each and every family related to these communities across the princely state. I did get a first hand experience of some of the folk artistes in Rajasthan but i probably bumped into the wrong ones since they were nothing more than cheap imitations of some of the popular artists that we see on television.
Many a times I have thought of researching deeper into the reasons behind the similarities in the music of these states. I am going to start doing that on my frequent trips to these regions. I am sure there's already a lot of work which would have been done by academicians on this phenomenon but it would be good to develop my own perspective before I refer to existing ones.

Abyssal music and Colossal Artistes

Anoushka's album with Karsh Kale was a chance dsicovery when browsing for her music on You Tube. The album takes forward Shankar's inheritance in a way that he would have wished for. Ravi Shankar spent the greater part of his life playing with the likes of George Harrison, John Coltrane and Yehudi Menuhin in that part of the world which had never been treated to the magic of Hindustani music. Ravi Shankar was more popularly known as the ambassador of Hindustani music across the globe. Anoushka continues the effort by collaborating with Sting and Ravi Shankar himself on this album.

If you get a chance to hear this album, amongst other interesting parts is the smooth takeover demonstrated by Sting when he picks up on track number four 'Sea Dreamer' from the Sitar solo 'Breathing under Water' and weaves his rhythmic lyrics in the legendary style of the English star. I have replayed this track umpteen number of times without once losing interest in the Indian melody that Sting has redefined to sound as global as it could get. Its interesting to note that Sting and Menuhin  both happened to have inetgrated Yoga into their lives in a serious way. Whether it influenced their music style in any way remains to be explored. Sting also played the role of an activist for eliminating hunger and violence, working with Amnesty International and similar organizations across the world. I remember watching one of Sting's concerts on DVD, which featured many artists from across the world playing in the backyard of Sting's mansion in Italy for a select audience of around a hundred people exclusively invited by Sting. Unfortunately, just a couple of days before this concert, 9/11 happened. As a response, Sting composed the now popular track 'Fragile' and performed it unplugged at this concert.

While this album prominently features Anoushka, there are also tracks featuring Shankar Mahadevan, Sunidhi Chauhan and half-sister Norah Jones which create a distinct flavour for this album. Both, easy listeners and the serious ones alike would enjoy this album and its visual sensibilities.

Bhairavi - a fantastic read

Just utter the word 'classical music' and more often than not, the reaction of most people would be to either move to a group which is supposedly discussing a more interesting topic or cringe instantly in reaction as if the very mention of this for mof music brought back a memory of being dragged to one of the concerts at the Shanmukhanda hall by parents on a Sunday evening when one would have been happier playing cricket with friends or watching some movie on TV. I have encountered this reaction so many times now that I have stopped testing its effect on any new subjects. However, even for those who dont particularly have a taste for classical music and some of the other finer things in life, can still attempt reading Bhairavi by Peter Lavezzolli. The book is a treasure trove of Indian artistes' brief history.

I happened to pick up Bhairavi from one of my favourite book shopping haunts, Book World, on Fergusson College Road in Pune. The owner's enthusiasm sharply contrasts the attitude of most store owners in Pune. He is always eager to pull out books from the farthest corner and top most shelves in his old basement shop, without so much as a frown. This might sound strange to people from Mumbai who are reading this blog but believe me, in Pune this is the epitome of service. Actually that reminds me to write a blog soon on some of the interesting experiences with Pune establishments. Coming back to Bhairavi, its a treat and an unexpected one at that because when you first read the author's name it does not necessarily give you an impression that this book would contain such minute details of our atistes' lives or profession but once you have read the first few chapters, your opinion is completely reversed. The opening chapter on Ali Akbar Khan is marvellous with accounts of his father, Ustad Allaudin Khan's remarkable place in Hindustani music's history and the permanent impact that his mentorship has made on some of the fundamental aspects of the artform. To give an example from this book, Allaudin Khan's students included Pandit Ravi Shankar, Annapurna Devei, Shri Bhatkhande and of course Ali Akbar Khan. Out of these names, the other names would be very familiar and close to most but take the example of Bhatkhande and just try to understand his contribution to our classical music's conservation and tradition. Bhatkhande was the first person to document all the various Ragas, picking up this initiative from Allaudin Khan and to create a notation system in Hindustani music, which never existed till then. Indian musicians like most other Indian professionals till the last century, believed in oral transmission of knowledge. The case of music was no different and more so because Hindustani music does not demand mere interpretation of great works but lays greater emphasis on the improvisation ability of its exponent. Allaudin Khan amazes the reader with his versatility while the chapter on Allah Rakha Khan and Zakir Hussain moves the readers with the story of a Dogra Muslim who ran away from Jammu at a very early age to spend the rest of his life in elevating the Tabla to a position that was inconceivable before. The book proceeds to explore the influence of western musicians like George Harrison, John Mclaughlin and Mickey Hart, on the dramatic changes that happened to Indian music's acceptance and adoption in the West. Shakti is one such merger of the best of both worlds which, according to Lavezolli, influenced not only its listeners but to a great extent even the musicians that formed part of this dream team. The significant role that Zakir assigned to Carnatic music (who can forget Vikku's Ghatam playing) brought even within India, two schools of music quite close.

Without turning into an academic indlugence of the author, Bhairavi weaves one chapter into another and maintains a link between the stories of the musical geniuses that feature in this book. I would reccomend it as an easy reading book that could go down well with some tracks from Shakti or Ravi Shankar playing in the background. The book also adds some new tracks to one's list of tracks to be collected, like the Sitar Concerto no. 1 and 2 by Ravi Shankar, conducted by Zubin Mehta. That's one piece of music that I am going out to search in Rhythm House, Kala Ghoda at the very next opportunity i get.

Being Cyrus

The 2006 Homi Adjania movie, Being Cyrus, starring Saif Ali Khan portrayed the 'tragicomic' characters in a typical Parsee setting in Mumbai and Panchgani. Saif's character has shades of gray throughout the movie and its very reminiscent of his performance in 'Ek Haseena Thi'. Saif gets sucked into a plot hatched by his employer's wife, to remove all the obstacles, i.e, the mostly single male members in the family, to get hold of the property owned by the Sethna family in which she is married. The movie was a good attempt to capture some key dimensions of the Parsee community's peculiarities and common challenges. Some parts of the movie resonated with my own experiences from spending a lot of time over four to five years in the Parsee community, thanks to that part of my life which I spent with Cyrus.

My Cyrus was very far from the one played by Saif. Cyrus was not only my piano teacher but also a great friend who taught me more than a few things about life. Cyrus was very gentle and courteous. He would behave quite the same with people from different communities, social classes or interests. The secret to this lay in the fact that he spent the greater or I can say most of his life in teaching the technique of playing the piano to people not only across Mumbai but also the country. Cyrus Panthaky, born sometime in the 1930's, in the quite surroundings of the Dadar Parsee colony in Mumbai, he was one of the greatest interpreters of Western Classical music in our country. Born in a Parsee family, Cyrus had the advantage of being exposed to western and particularly classical music at a very early age. He found his expression in the Piano but he could have just as easily played any other instrument for he had a naturally gifted sense of music which enables one to master any instrument quite easily. Julie Andrews is so right when she sings " When you know the notes to sing, you can sing 'most anything" in the 1965 Rodgers and Hammerstein production 'The Sound of Music'. For Cyrus, music meant everything. In fact, he never separated it from anything he did. His conversations, indulgences and challenges, all of them emerged from and revolved around music. He was one of the youngest people in the country to achieve the Fellowship of Trinity College of London (FTCL) degree in music at the age of eighteen. He was very proud of this achievement and would often talk about that final and challenging examination when preparing us to appear for our grades . He was tutored by a Russian teacher, Olga Cran. I think this was a very big advantage and reason for his robust technique. Russians have amongst other musical attributes, a great passion and respect for technique. One of Cyrus's favourite Russian Gurus was Alexander Peskanov. Peskanov runs an institute which focuses on finger techniques and exercises followed by Russian greats like Rachmanninov and Prokofiev. Cyrus used to play Peskanov's video tutorials for anyone who chose to develop technique rather than just learn some popular pieces to get away as a pianist. Cyrus also made it mandatory for most of us to practice on a 'dumb' keyboard which was basically just the keyboard section of a broken down piano in which the keys were made even stiffer by attaching springs at the hammer end. This contraption and the exercises performed on it made us feel like one of those students who goes through tortorous exercises in the martial arts movies, while the strict master keeps smiling at their agony and impatience. But it did make a measurable difference in our technique for the fingers which were flexed for so long playing on those iron-stiff keys, seemed to just glide on regular piano keyboards. At least we chose to believe so after having gone through that ordeal.

Cyrus not only spent time teaching us technique but also made sure that we developed a deep appreciation for this form of music by taking us to various concerts, including Zubin Mehta's magnificent show with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Of course, he would be in the invitee box of the theatre while we would be seated somewhere in the last rows of the Jamshedji Bhabha Theatre in NCPA. Even those tickets were sought only after spending an entire evening, night and half a day outside the NCPA ticket office on the pavements that carried an awful stench of horse dung and Mumbai's peculiar smell carried all over by the ocean breeze coming from the nearby Marine Drive. But the effort was made worth all that it demanded by the fantastic performance which Zubin Mehta and his orchestra gave in the two hours that the concert lasted. By grace of being Cyrus's students, we could also get a sneak preview of the orchestra's practice sessions and dress rehearsal. He nearly always introduced us to the main artist of any show at the NCPA. He enjoyed Indian classical music as well and even took me backstage once to meet Ustad Amjad Ali Khan and his sons when they performed in Mumbai. Quite late in his life, Cyrus attempted what Yehudi Menhuin also did, to find a common axis between the intersecting planes of western and Indian classical music, though he tried it in much isolation as compared to Yehudi who reached out to the greats and even ended up making a significant change in his lifestyle.

Cyrus gave us all a big surprise once when he took us to Mumbai's oldest and trusted music shop, Furtado's near Metro theatre, to have a look at the recently introduced digital pianos from Yamaha. Cyrus, who had so vehemently opposed the influence of digital music on the tranquility and quality of acoustic music, was suddenly promoting a hundred percent digital impersonation of the piano. But the reason for this change was clear when we tried the instrument. It not only reproduced piano tones that only the Steinways and Yamahas could produce but also took away the dependence on the handful of piano tuners in the city who were needed almost every month given the havoc that the humid climate of Mumbai played on the piano strings. On Cyrus's directions, we all purchased a piano each at a handsome amount of over a hundred and fifty thousand rupees in those days. Our parents' trust in Cyrus was really affirmed that day. Even today, I enjoy playing on that piano which has accompanied me to three cities with very little effort in moving it unlike what would have happened with an acoustic one.

For all that Cyrus gave us and particularly me, as I would always like to think, we didn't do much for him other than organize his annual student concert by raising funds from the local community in Dadar Parsee Colony and Dadar Hindu Colony or taking him out for dinner to one of his few favourite restaurants, like Status at Nariman Point, on weekends. I can never forget the kind of attention and time which i received from Cyrus unlike anyone else in my life. But the troubled times that I went through over the last few years and partly my unforgivable mistake of not staying in touch regularly, took me away from Cyrus and Cyrus away from me, forever. Cyrus breathed his last on 10th August 2009 in the Parsee general hospital on Warden road, without my knowing. It was one of the rudest shocks that woke me up from my self centred stupor. I would always like to hope and imagine that in his last moments he must have been hearing and mentally rehearsing his favourite Beethoven creation, the magnanimous Fifth symphony, which we both practised and performed numerous times together as a duo.

Being Cyrus meant being so many things and not all were easy, a western classical musician in a country whose musical tradition is several centuries older, a Parsee who chose to follow a branch of christianity, an aging professional who maintained his standards till the end with no exceptions unlike many who turned to popular music or playing Hindi movie songs on the piano, a teacher who invested his time in every promising student with no expectations of any different material rewards but the hope that his tradition would be continued in posterity. Being Cyrus meant, at the age of seventy five, getting ready in a formal suit every evening and leaving for the Taj to perform for opulent, but not always dignified, listeners. It meant taking care of an equally old sister who also chose to not marry, like him. Being Cyrus would have meant a very different way of leading life for me and I did have that choice at one point. I secretly regret that choice sometimes when the mundane life of a corporate professional gets on my nerves.

If only out of my own selfish interest, I wish Homi Adjania would have met this Cyrus and painted the life of this musical genius on a medium that can reach far more people than this inconspicuous blog.