Am talking of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, and his recital here, at the Carnegie Music Hall, yesterday. Some factoids before we get into the meat of the story.
a. He was accompanied with his two sons, Aman and Ayan.
b. Two tabla players too, one a disciple of Pandit Kishen Maharaj, and the other son of a decently stalwart tabla player, Anindo Chatterjee, the names: Anubrata Chatterjee( the announcer got it wrong, spelled it like a woman's name, and i wondered, how incidental, :) the readers of this page would know why!:)), and the other i have forgotten the chap's name, its a sacrilege but am sorry...
c. The plan of the programme: Ustadji, plays two short compositions first, leaves the stage for his sons, comes back, plays again a short one, and the three then end, the story for the evening, with Raag Kirwani, a South Indian classical borrowing, very judiciously picked..since all evening we were listening to entire India, East (Bengal and Assam), North (with a pilu kinds beat), West ( a Ganesh Bandana ) but then, what would happen to the South Indian brethrens spread around the world...hats off Ustadji, you sketched it nice...
The lesson:
a. But before that, let me talk of what else, if something else, is happening in life. A friend calls up, wants me to help her with an online magazine she wants to launch, and i talk of, i can help, but...lets bring young people, writers on board..and she agreed, and i thought, so are we becoming old....
b. The other day, my advisor, and two other very senior professors, start debating in a seminar if 56 is an old age, and i wondered, so...here is a feeling thats not new to me alone, aging men and women think about this too, that there time is going, and its time to pass on the baton, the stories to a new generation ...after all, tomorrow we will all perish aint it!
c. So hold on, the lesson is coming, but the weather outside was beautiful. It was sunny the entire day, rained a little in the evening, with Kimi, my Japanese friend, ( who thought Ustadji's music, seemed to give him a feeling as if he was walking on an ocean, he could feel the waves, and could see the bed, and yet, he knows that his walk on the ocean is alone, still, ongoing...) i enjoyed the sporadic Westerlies, that were stripping the spring flowers and laying them astray on the plush American roads, so typically home, i thought and felt comfortable....
All righto, the lesson then, and we go back to Raag Kirwani, and how Ustadji managed the cadences with the Sarod, he went fast, and then went slow, and then allowed Aman and Ayan to pick up the speed and then calibrate it too, giving space to the tabla players to catch up with the beats and the intermittent gaps as well, beautiful control, yes, thats the word, control, and beauty, composed, and lilting, like the rivers, which flow from the mountains into the plains, and soon submerges into the oceans, Kimi's oceans.....
Got the feel, collected it all, her and my thoughts to include young people, on board, how professors think/dont know/wonder, if 50+ means you are aging, Baba had written about this a little while back, the brain not being able to store data more, and i understood..the winds of change are blowing..
If i dont latch on to it now, bridge the young the aging with a new garb of being on stage, who will..if you dont, dear readers, who will!
So on that note, Vaah Ustadji, heres to you a bow, and a lovely poem to leave you with...
O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill'd with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you, you...will contribute a verse.
~Still a Child, but a growing child, the poem courtesy Walt Whitman!
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