Tuesday 27 March 2012

Secret Lives: Ravi Shankar



Live notes from the sitar

IT WAS in Benares on April 7, 1920, that a young boy was born into a Bengali brahmin family. He left for Europe about a decade later, to work with his famous brother, the contemporary dancer Uday Shankar. The child was an untapped mine of talent. He could have been a brilliant dancer, artist, or perhaps a writer. But his soul longed for music, no matter how tough the route to his dream.

He chose to learn the sitar under Ustad Alauddin Khan in the tiny town of Maihar, where the calls of jackals and wolves kept him awake all night. He learnt to call his guru Baba. For this, he gave up the luxurious lifestyle he had grown up with. The boy’s name was ~ Ravi Shankar.

Yes, he was honoured with the Bharat Ratna and several Grammy awards. He’s the one whom George Harrison of The Beatles learnt the sitar from in 1966. He popularized the instrument in the west, boosting exports phenomenally. He learnt to fuse the music of the east and the west together. 

Ravi Shankar has other claims to fame, though. He scored the music for Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali.’ He won the prestigious Silver Bear at the 1957 Berlin film festival for his music for ‘Kabuliwala.’ His talented daughters ~ Anoushka and Norah Jones ~ were both up for Grammy awards, which the latter won.

In his autobiography ~ ‘My Music, My Life’ ~ Ravi recreates his days with Baba, who loved him as a father would. Initially, his guru felt that the boy, with his fancy clothes and dandy ways, would never master the sitar. In 1936, while Uday was choreographing new ballets at Dartington Hall in idyllic Devonshire, Ravi concentrated on scales and exercises with Baba. That’s when he decided he would opt for music over dance.

Two years later, on a July day, Ravi ~ with a tonsured head and simple clothes following his sacred thread ceremony ~ set out for Maihar. Settling into a small house next to his guru’s, Ravi stayed awake on his bamboo-and-coconut fibre charpoy, listening to a chorus of crickets and frogs. Of their lessons, he wrote, “When Baba was nice to me, as he usually was, I learned very quickly and well. But when he was angry, I got stubborn, thick-headed, dull, and refused to learn. It must have been because I had never been scolded by anyone, even as a child.” Does that sound familiar to you?

At Baba’s, Ravi led the simplest of lives. He ate meagre meals, practiced for hours on end, and still trembled when he played for his guru. Though Ravi’s keen mind absorbed the music, his untrained hands often refused to keep pace. With the basic ragas, Baba taught Ravi by singing to him. Because, by imitating the voice with the instrument, he could understand the music more deeply. 

Baba was as famed for his brilliance as for his temper. Each of the 30-odd boys who shared Ravi’s cottage soon fled ~ because their guru would beat them if they were inept. Even with Ravi, Baba once lost his cool. He smacked his student’s hands, proclaiming, “You have no strength in your wrists! Go and buy bangles to wear on your wrists. You are weak like a little girl. You have no strength. You can’t even do this exercise…”

Hurt, Ravi rose and stumbled to his cottage. He hurriedly packed and rushed to the railway station. While he waited for the next train, Baba’s son ~ now the famous sarod master Ali Akbar Khan ~ persuaded him to return. When Ravi visited Baba, he found him found cutting out a photograph of his favourite student to put into a frame!

After that, there was no looking back. Ravi Shankar was so moved that he learnt from his guru with even greater zest. No wonder the world listens to his incredible sitar with awe, even today.

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