An affair to remember.

In an event hosted by SPIC MACAY, the renowned sitar player, Pandit Prateek Chaudhuri was in our city last week. He, along with Ustad Rashid Zafar Khan were on a whirlwind tour of the city and performed at a few schools to introduce young children to the magic of Indian classical music. Pt. Prateek Chaudhuri needs no introduction; he is one of the brightest lights on Indian classical music's horizons and also one of the most prominent exponents of the 'Senia' tradition of sitar music.  The 'Senia' gharana of classical Indian music traces its roots to the legendary "Tansen' from emperor Akbar's court. Prateek  has performed for two Presidents of India, the Prime Minister of  Norway and also for Bill Clinton- the erstwhile President of the U.S.A. He has also performed in many foreign countries and has also represented India at The Six Nation Music Festival at Greece.  He is also the only Indian musician who has Swarovsky Music Wattens Orchestra in Austria. Having learnt his craft from his illustrious father, Pt. Debu Chaudhuri, he also underwent further training with his father's guru, Ustad Mustaq Ali Khan Sahib. We caught up with him at Eklavya School's new campus at village Partapura and his performance there left the audience thirsting for more. Like a sudden spell of heavy rain quenches the thirst of a drought ridden earth, in a similar manner his musical notes fulfilled the thirst for an out of the world experience. Even the young children were  spellbound as if he were the Pied Piper putting us all under his spell!

The passion that Preteek has in him for his music was evident from the fact that he spent more than half an hour getting the details right- from fine tuning his sitar, to getting the acoustics right, to getting the right level of treble and bass, his painstaking preparation left all the audience in no doubt that they were in the presence of a maestro and a perfectionist. It didn't matter that his audience was mainly young school children who would not know the difference on an off-day, as far as Prateek was concerned, he might have been performing for the president of India.

The performance started with Prateek playing the famous prayer song- "Aisi Shakti Hamein Dena Data" and the children sang along with fervour and enthusiasm. It did not matter that they got the notes went awry sometimes, what mattered was that the children sang with such purity and innocence that it was enough to bring tears to the eyes. The performance turned into an impromptu teaching session as the teacher in Prateek took over and he explained to the children various nuances of  Indian music. Speaking about Indian classical music, Prateek said, " Indian music follows the progression of the day. Like the day, it starts slowly like dawn breaking, gains tempo and momentum as the day progresses and winds down again as the day turns into night."  Pt. Prateek and Ustad Rashid Zafar Khan chose to regale the audience with 'Raag Lalit' and with eyes closed, Prateek seemingly took off into another world, as if preparing and paving the way for his audience to join him on the musical sojourn. Ustad Rashid Zafar Khan, accompanying him on the tabla, joined into the melody flowing from Prateek's sitar and provided the wine for this heady meal for the finer senses. While the senses of sight and hearing reveled in the presence of these maestros, the soul went on to a higher level of consciousness as the outside world ceased to exist and melodies reigned supreme. The understanding between these music maestros was evident from the way in which Rashid would sometimes take the lead, setting up a tempo and suddenly stop playing while Prateek would take the cue without missing a beat and come back with a brilliant repartee! "Flying Fingers" is the term that came to one's mind as both Prateek's and Rashid's fingers turned into a blur on their instruments. Alas, all good things come to an end as did the performance and for a while, after Prateek and Rashid stopped playing, the audience was hushed and silent. The word "Spellbound" came to mind as the silence reverberated with their musical notes and then a thundering applause took over!

It is a pity that we don't get events like this regularly though SPIC MACAY is doing a commendable job in preserving and promoting our rich culture and music.  SPIC MACAY seeks to conserve and promote an awareness of this rich and heterogeneous cultural tapestry amongst the youth of this country through focus on the classical arts, with their attendant legends, rituals, mythology and philosophy and to facilitate an awareness of their deeper and subtler values. We Indians have the most admired music in the entire world and yet we are the ones most ignorant about it. The razzle and dazzle of strobe lights and millions of watts of sound and special effects used by western performers blind us to the fact that our music is the purest form of music in the world. Like Yoga and Ayurveda, Indian classical music is being more and more appreciated by the western world and we need to catch up with the rest of the world before we lose the right to call this treasure ours. Indian music is richer and much more powerful than any other music, is there any other music which can claim to cause rain to fall( Raag Malhar)?  Prateek summed it up rather nicely when he said, " Can any western singers/performers perform on a makeshift stage with just two instruments without the aid of huge sound systems, laser lights, pyrotechnics and twenty feet screens? It is the weakness of their own music that they try and camouflage with these distractions. When our own music is so rich, we don't need these props to connect with our audience".