Collaborations bring a joy of their own. They result in a new creation, born out of different artistic sensibilities and the end result can surprise you. My latest collaborative effort with Dhrupad singer Prashant Mallick was fraught with challenges, both technical and otherwise. Mallick lives in Delhi and I in Mumbai, each of us with our schedules, travels and other constraints. This was, however, the smallest of worries. The larger demands of a collaboration need a meeting of the minds, that concessions be made, that one remains ready to adapt, to receive ideas other than your own, to make way. Which could be erroneously concluded by some artistes as giving in, losing space, giving up a part of one’s identity. The artiste has to go beyond the micro-elements and target the bigger landscape of collaboration, which though sounding indispensable and hence necessarily present, is unfortunately, usually deficient.
This is perhaps one of the reasons why this Carnatic-Dhrupad combination was successful. Both Mallick and I eyed the common goal and then all else seemed to fall in place in the jigsaw puzzle that a new production is. The geographical factor, given that we live in different cities, could have proved an impediment, but technology came to our rescue as the good samaritan! Our rehearsals on Skype were far from forbidding and helped us set up a format to take on from. The biggest technical challenge was to match our pitch, which is no mean task, and once again demands understanding and willingness to compromise a tad. Not an easy job working out the success of this first ever Dhrupad-Carnatic male-female collaboration. Once we had gone beyond this stage, the rest looked simpler.
The final tableau was very satisfying. The other contributing factor was that Dhrupad holds a lot of promise towards a Carnatic rendezvous. It is a style replete with inflections and a slow melodic unfolding so akin to Carnatic. We explored to the maximum, the beauties of the Darbhanga Gharana of Dhrupad to which Mallick belongs and my traditional schooling in Carnatic music. We went through the nuances of Jog, Nattai, Todi, Shubhapantuvarali and other ragas, including the inner gems of improvisation that seemed to be made for each other in a Carnatic-Dhrupad blend but remain hidden and need to be sought out with careful thought, introspection and questioning.
The concert was in cold and foggy Lucknow, the winter enchanting in its own way. A cross section of doctors at a medical conference was the audience for this premiere and the challenge was also to debunk the myth that medicos are far removed from classical music. I don’t understand why they shouldn’t be targeted more than any other segment of audience. Music is in the listening, in the feeling and the concert did not leave us thinking otherwise. If music is enriched with therapeutic dimensions, then there could not have been a more suited audience. The auditorium, nestled within the sprawling green precincts was refreshingly away from the otherwise stifling Mayawati domain. A good friend of long years and native of Lucknow took us around this “breathtaking” encroachment of a city. Maya flex boards, Maya parks, Maya statues, surrounded by ubiquitous Maya-like elephants, lest you should forget the party emblem, the all-shimmering under generous all-night lighting, left one confounded. The Lucknow that hits the eye is a sad remnant of a once flourishing cultural and artistic capital with a glorious past. It is now reduced to a mere symbol of an autocratic, self-obsessed tyrant, defying condemnation. I barely managed to get to the airport through the sea of humanity that waded its way to a rally. Only music has the power to melt the harshness of this “stone” effect on the mind and the heart.
Meanwhile, one has been inundated with the Kolaveri frenzy. We’ve been trying recklessly to fathom its unfathomable success, trying to decipher the incomprehensible, with countless number of analysis, probing, dissecting, and making meaning of the otherwise meaningless. Maybe the Karma theory holds some answers to this baffling conundrum!

Dr. Vasumathi Badrinathan is an eminent Carnatic vocalist based in Mumbai. She can be contacted on vasu@vasumathi.net