A few days back I received a friendly email from fellow musician Kasim Babu. Kasim is a nadaswaram artiste —nadaswaram is the age old trumpet of South India producing august music. Kasim belongs to the lineage of Sheikh Chinna Maulana, being the grandson of the late nadaswaram maestro and torchbearer of the tradition. The family is settled in the temple town of Srirangam. Kasim’s emails are never complete without “the blessings of Sri Ranganatha”, the reigning deity of Srirangam.
Some months back I was in Benaras with my Indophile French friend André. We set out to explore some hidden treasures of the river-side city.
André had done his homework and with his researcher’s precision was armed with a map that took us through palace homes, winding streets and untold wonders.
It was thus that we climbed up through a maze of staircases with open homes on either side, flights and flights of steps and at the end of it all — surprise! A serene temple of Balaji. In black stone, the deity oversees the town from his high abode, facing the majestic Ganga in her flow.
A young Kathak dancer stood dancing at one corner of the temple hall. Oblivious of the people who came and went, his footwork was constant and he seemed to be in a trance.
When I found a moment to talk to him, he said, “I come here regularly to dance. The atmosphere is so beautiful, I feel very good. I cannot describe anything further.”
We wound our way through gullies and cycle rickshaws to the late Ustad Bismillah Khan’s hospitable family home in Benaras. His son and musician Nayyar spoke eloquently of his father’s attachment to the city, the Ganga and revealed how the maestro would love to spend hours in the quiet of this same temple of Balaji playing the shehnai. Listeners would have been treated to some soulful amazing music in a framework like none other, I thought.
In the medieval town of Fes in Morocco, at the prestigious world sacred music festival where I performed a couple of years back, I was asked during a television interview — “How do you define sacred in Carnatic music?”
I said then and I still believe that it is each individual’s rapport which he creates with the superior. It is something that goes beyond lyrics of the songs, favourite Gods and so on. It is that element that takes you to a higher plane. It helps you evolve, shows you dimensions that routine effaces. It helps rise above mundane issues, advocates harmony, tolerance, obscures petty differences. It humanises you. Carnatic compositions are replete with this message. Not that musicians are Gods; they are all human.
A journalist friend shared with me once that one should take the music and leave the musician out — the former is often more palatable than the latter.
Yet, what Bismillah Khan experienced in the Badrinath temple that he shared through his music, ( ‘music, sur and namaz are the same thing’, the great master would often say), what the young Kathak dancer of Benaras transmits, what Kasim expresses through his emails, what Jesudas experiences when he sings of Vishnu, Shiva and the Hindu pantheon are all but manifestations of the humanistic quality of music. It gives you larger life values, it widens your canvas. It makes you more human while putting you in contact with the divine.
Dr Vasumathi Badrinathan is an eminent Carnatic vocalist based in Mumbai. She can be contacted on vasu@vasumathi.net