on...

(shud've written this long ago... but then, better late than never)

'tis a cold mornin 'ere.. very cold.. n my habitat is camouflaged by mist, n d first thought i get, on such an inscrutable morning... is of urs. where shall i start it from... u r definitely the best thing that ever happened to me... and the best thing that can ever be. sumtimes i laugh at myself... at my stupid folly of going out and searching out a soulmate in the abyss of bodies... when my soulmate's always there, by my side. have me n u really become so synonymous that we don't remain to enjoy seperate entities? why do i need to look around? what do i want? security? i don't know... how i wish life had a habit of coming up with precise answers to all our queries... and how i wish we all had the courage to accept them. my body has smelled so many perfumes... but the one that never goes off... doesn't even need to open the bottle anymore. u know, how life plays tricks.. n pranks... n takes us to the labyrinth of relations and dreams, n leaves us alone... n i don't know if life's gonna play a similar game with me too.. but one thing i know for sure, that even in the middle of such a labyrinth, when i'll look up, u'll b shining like the sun...
and u know... I WILL LOOK UP....
LOVE
KUSH

on 'dreams'

... out of the kaliedoscope of dreams... there are broken pieces of glass... kiss them, for they were once those dreams.

on 'music and the new group I want to form'

Every sheet of music ever written is full of question marks. Is music for the soul, for the ears or for the brain? Is it a social concept, intimate concept, political concept or cultural concept? The vexed issue of evaluation of music as an art has been dealt with by innumerous ethnomusicologists, musicians, philosophers, anthropologists etc. in various theoretical, experimental, even dogmatic ways, but the conclusions have always proved out to be inept. Every attempt of classification of music has been turned down by time as abortive with intermingling of genres and recreation of forms. For eg. whether a non-Westerner studying Bach or Mozart would also be an ethnomusicologist, and whether ethnomusicology, as a Western invention, is simply a disguise for the continued dominance of Western concepts and values is a paradoxical question over the whole approach that is termed as ethnomusicology. Similarly, the Impressionist movement in music led by the French composer Claude Debussy, influenced by the paintings of the French Impressionists and by the poetry of Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire, and Stéphane Mallarmé; emphasized tonal colour and mood rather than formal structures such as the sonata and the symphony but by the beginning of World War I in 1914, provoked adverse criticism from composers and critics alike for its over-refinement and technical limitations. A new group of anti-Romantic French composers, Les Six, influenced by Erik Satie, satirized and revolted against these excesses. Eventually, Impressionism, which had been conceived by Debussy as a revolt against Romanticism, came to be regarded as the final phase of Romantic music. History is filled with such ironies and contradictions. The form and function of music has always been a question of great debate all over the world, and so is it, even today.

It becomes important, at this time, to look at the aleatory music techniques, not as an answer or as a refuge (which, frankly speaking, we don’t even need) but as a fresh point of view towards looking at music. For eg. Minimalism evolved in the United States taking influence from Indian improvisation, Balinese gamelan, and African drumming. The experimentalists John Cage and Harry Partch can be seen as father-figures, but La Monte Young was the earliest exponent with his group Theater of Eternal Music, founded in 1962. Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Steve Reich etc are other remarkable figures. Similarly, influenced by the Zen Buddhist philosophy of adapting to the world rather than attempting to shape it, Cage’s attempt to reduce the musical importance of the composer, seeking to find music in life and the environment, rather than to create it by using silence as a musical element, with sounds as entities hanging in time, and exploring ways of incorporating certain degrees of randomness in his music came to be known as Music of Changes (1951) for piano, where, combinations of notes occur in a sequence determined by tossing coins, in accordance with the Chinese Book of Changes, Yijing. In 4′ 33′′ (1952), the performers sit silently at instruments; the unconnected sounds of the environment are the music. Like Theatre Piece (1960), in which musicians, dancers, and mimes perform randomly selected tasks, 4′ 33′′ dissolves the borders separating music, sound, and non-musical phenomena.

What you will listen here, is an extension of these and several other techniques, which we believe, move towards a radical concept of ‘Free Music’. The emphasis here is not towards freeing the music from all the above and several other ‘classical’ and ‘non-classical’ influences, but on the contrary, to allow the artists, to move freely and merge all the possibilities that he wants to explore with a musical piece, not worrying about any possible influence of form or technique. This, we believe, is a true strive towards ‘Free music’. The idea here also is not to play with the term ‘Free music’ but to understand the phenomenon of free music. Any attempt to eradicate a certain kind of an influence from music is ironically an attempt to create a rigid ‘form’ of music- and thus, can’t be termed as ‘free’. Therefore, we allow the free flow of artists’ emotions to create their own music, free from all pre-conceived notions- a truly formless music. Thus, we propose ‘Free music’, not as a term, but as a belief, in continuation of several aleatory techniques already existing in the field of music. We also do not call this a new concept, as this ofcourse is not, but instead a small endeavour towards re-discovering music- with a free and honest heart…. the only requisite for a truly free music. May this freedom stir the souls of all the living beings. Amen.

on 'Z'

Sometimes a small casual meeting can have so many side-effects… and long-lasting ones. Like the prime motif of Beethoven’s ‘fur elise’, that’s playing on my soundbox rite now… the simple little touch and its equally soft responses that this piece so beautifully incarnates… my mind takes me back to that moment… when we shared some whispers, floating in the atmosphere and covering us from all the side, as if hiding us from the world for those intimate moments, those soft little whispers, and their responses… those gazes, touches… smiles. Our body is so full of music, only one should know how to play it.
The obvious query comes up to me, kisses me and says “Hail Rabbi” when I know all it wants is my crucification on the frozen wall of time. Is it love? Do I really need to answer? The impotence of words in explaining and defining the innermost feelings is an issue I keep on complaining about all the time. Then why not this time? Somebody asked me, what do I want to come out of it? I said, ‘Nothing.’ Do I really need anything else to come out, except the pure bliss, the nectar of which has filled me allover… and I’m brimful. I know it’s all very romantic, one can argue about the reality side of it… what is the future? And is it really feasible. I know, an open relationship seems like a mirage to most of us, and we? Two commitment scared souls have found a unique manifestation in this relationship… even if this is a mirage (which, bye the way, I guess every relationship is) then this one is a beautiful one.
My hand has always been full of pearls, of distinct shine, texture and colour. There have been times when a pearl or two has rolled down from my lousy hands… and their shadows have rolled down from my eyes at those moments…watery shadows. Every such shadow has written a testimony for my emotional attachment, and more, for the regular and most natural of all human habits- to hold on. Somewhere, interestingly enough, we all are also scared of this habit- of holding on… of being possessed, being owned… being caged! But at the same time, human beings have got so accustomed to acquiring everything through power that they are also always insecure about these things being snatched away in the same way… and this is where words like relationship, commitment and marriage come in. So the result is a society where an emotion becomes inept to be defined unless it falls into any one of these conventional norms.
When I was born, I had no name… a piece of soft flesh… with a hue of the beauty of the world, a drop of innocence and a little ignorant soul was all I had (sometimes, really, ignorance is bliss) with only one relationship with the physical world… of breath… of hollowness (exhaling) and fulfillment (inhaling)… 23 years later, I share the same relationship with the world (though now I share a name too, the water is all contaminated, and the soul has turned into an arrogant one.), of hollowness and fulfillment. Interestingly, one leads to the other. The only refuge is… if you believe me, the moment of a kiss. That is the only moment, when the hollowness and fulfillment get interspersed with each other, loosing any distinct character which can separate them in any possible manner. Perhaps it becomes possible, because at that moment… you share yourself with someone else… and stand as one. So you share someone else’s hollowness and vice versa. For me... all beauty of life lies in that one moment… the moment of sharing… the moment of unification… the moment of pure bliss…with nothing behind… nothing forward…
Whenever people ask me, what Z is for me? I say… Z is that moment of pure bliss for me…that moment of sharing… that moment of togetherness!
When was the last time you did something without a reason? When something deep inside you compelled you to look at the surrounding things… and smile… without getting any physical gain from it? When was the last time… after getting completely tired after a hectic day, you’ve waited to meet someone… and stayed awake all night? If life was a human, she would’ve lived in all those moments… those precious moments. And then there are people who make every moment equally precious and cherishable. Yes, we are remarkably different people, with different opinions, different points of view and different aspirations about just anything under the sun… but when we are together… we share them… even the differences… and that’s the beautiful part. I have seen the darker sides of that ‘carved’ body and Z has seen that my ‘kissable’ lips have venom too… so it’s ‘all said and done’. Yes, life is a series of discoveries… and tomorrow is uncertain. I won’t claim that this is what I’ve always been looking for... and all that shit… actually I’ve never known what I’ve been looking for… but yes, some right button is pressed… and some beautiful thing is initiated…don’t know what destiny keeps for me… but until this discovery is on… I have things to look forward to… and I’m keeping my fingers crossed….

on 'rediscovering' (1)

The hollowness of the planet I consider to be my habitat bewilders me at every possible occasion with the holocaustic imagery of existential crisis that we all are subjected to every moment by the people around us... not knowing they themselves are the objects of similar 'justifications'. The mercy of acceptance and tolerance that we so lavishly shower upon our co-human beings... thinking we are doing a great moral job... is actually the biggest injustice and an idiosyncretistic device of self amusement that we so deliberately impose upon them... not understanding, that development, at various levels, is just a synonym for displacement... and displacement is the worst curse that we can make somebody suffer from. What's weird... in this whole process is that we share this 'White man's burden' with great pride and honour... becoming the decission makers for others, deciding what's good for them, what's bad for them... as if they do not have their own selves... they are mere objects of our experimental fervors, and what's more painfull is that we start calling ourselves their friends... (sometimes even their mentors, a greater level of self amusement)and find it completely useless to speak to them about what we really think of them... as if, it (really) doesn't matter at all!

And then, all this is interspersed with a sweet n sour curry of emotions/good times/bad times/ long chats etc. leading to the blackhole of hollowness that I've talked about above. Interestingly, whatever we say to underline our dissociation with the given concept... we all fall prey to it... one way or the other. The question here is not of the victim and the victimiser but of the sensitivities that are involved and unfortunately played with in the whole course of this 'experiment'! There are these thick walls of distances between human souls, thicker than our skin, our bones and all the flesh in our body. Impregnable....walls, which are equally sensitive. All relationships, I think, are a quest of touching the surface of these walls (atleast, as touching a human soul seems a mirage to me), but a little bit of insenitivity can scratch the surface to a level, where it can renounce any human contact... forever... (to be contd.)

on 'Sunderdas'

Though technically, Anand Sharma's 'Sanjog' gets the credit for being my music directorial debut on theatre, but looking at the hard work and reasearch demanded by the job... I would say that 'Sunderdas' was my real debut as a music composer for the stage. This in no way eradicates the importance of 'sanjog' in my ouvre... in fact, the challenge of working on a score for a comedy... and that too with a classical structure was a brilliant aesthetic experience in itself, and I will always be thankful to Mr. Sharma for believing in me... a complete amateur (which I still am) for such a remarkable job, but at the same time... I can't deny the fact, that the complicated narrative and different cultural references which demanded to be manifested musically, interspersed with Dr. H.S. Shivaprakash's deeprooted love for music formed the essential grounds from which the music of 'Sunderdas' emerged was a unique experience of my life. The challlenges were enormous, for all of us. A class production, which had to justify the complicated tragic narrative of a historical conjugation... with the a kind of a theatre that is 'poor in means but rich in effect' had a lot of challenges to respond to.

We had all kinds of songs, Hindi( Kabeer's two songs), English (my own composition of an English choral piece), Oriya ( two songs, closest to my heart from the music of the play) and a large body of background score ( consisting basically of various ragas and some folk tunes). I remember those long, late night meetings with our director and several narrations of tunes which lead to our choices of the tunes that were to form the 'musical structure of the play'as Shivprakash would've placed it.

The singers & Satish Bhaiya on Harmonium were our basic assets... and for me the whole assignment was not just an academic practice, but a creative process, which I thoroughly enjoyed. After the success of our first show in J.N.U., we went to IGNCA with our production. This time, we also had Sandeep with us on Tabla. I remember one day, while discussing about the music of the play we were thinking of not using harmonium... and he said, 'the interest of the play and its music is far bigger than any personal interest.' it was a small incident... some time later, when Vibhuti, came up with an invitation for us to conduct a programme for the Krishna Bharadwaj Foundation, we again asked him to play Tabla for us. Since we had very little time to rehearse, things were not shaping up properly with percussion... and then, she was also supposed to sing a duet with her younger sister, who asked her tabla player teacher to accompany her. things went quite chaotic, as we were sad that Sandeep will not be happy with this (which was completely justified), but after he realised the situation, and how this teacher was helpful to us, he stepped back himself. When I was going to drop him back to his centre, I remember him saying, 'the performance is more important than any personal interest', and I was filled with appreciation for him....

Only then did I understand, what 'Sunderdas' was about, it was about rising above personal interests. At one place in the play, Sunderdas says that 'Anything that complicates human situation cannot be true religion', as long as personal interest plays a role, human situation is bound to be complicated.

Benil is ofcourse an effective actor, but only in the IGNCA show could I find a true understanding of his character, Sunderdas, in his performance. The tragedy came out acutely in his act and disturbed me exactly how it was supposed to... this is how character's are discovered perhaps... not by technique, but experience. ( though I'm too naive in acting to comment upon this)

The praises for 'Sunderdas' still encourage me... but I'd like to quote what Benil said after the show. His entry in the show was accompanied by an Aaroh in Raga Kafi which we used to sing. He pointed out, how the rising level of sounds in the aaroh gave him internal energy to come closer to the character when hwe enters. It's an important point to be understood by a composer when he is composing music for the theatre to use music as a tool for the transformation of actors to characters. this can only be done if music for theatre comes out from the story and not merely from composer's personal bias towards certain tunes.

I never worked again for a live music play after 'Sunderdas' because I never wanted to do a play without investing proper amount of time in it, but I still take that one moment, which Benil referred to as my model for all musical theatre. Talks are on between us to work together and explore some more dynamics and relationships between music and theatre (perhaps turning it into a performance) once we come back from Japan... but nothing can surely be said about it. I look forward to it as a learning experience....

on 'Genius'

Those who know me, will very easily be able to announce what a miser I am when it comes to the use of terms like 'Genius'. I remember knowing this man, who named his personal diary -'The Gospel of a Genius Mind'... which I found very amusing, more because I believe 'Genius' is a very specific term... (at the same time, it carries its own set of ambiguities with it though) and should be used very carefully to retain the cognoscenti that follows it. But inspite of all these apprehensions and sensitivities attached to it... I find this term very useful sometimes... as it beautifully translates the feeling that some people are able to impose on my personality... through their ever-enchanting presence ( and there the word... beyond it's linguistic boundaries, creates this 'supercalifragilisticexpealidocious'-istic meaning for me, encompassing a wide range of thoughts and emotions flooding in my mind and heart respectively (let Ryu seperate it as body and mind).

The best thing about my life these days is, that I'm being bestowed with this opportunity of using this word more often for the people I'm interacting with... not only physically... but also 'meta'physically!!! Overwhelmed with these talks, discussions and arguments that come as responses to the floating ideas which camouflage us in every meeting, I'm bound to use this word again and again (and everytime realize the crisis of inability of a language to capture a multidimensional experience).

I'm reminded of a recent class for example, where one of the most beloved profs we have, Shomu, as we lovingly call him... entered the class with the basic question of "what/who is Dionysus?", and what followed was an around two hour long 'Performance' that he gave (and we were also a part of) on Greek Tragedy. It was so well structured and organised, that I'm sure even Aristotle would have revisited his 'Poetics' after going through that experience ( I'm avoiding the notion of viewership, as I find it completely impotent in justifying this 'state of mind'). I remember, how he very modestly (and logically, as he always is) picked up instances and examples from history about historical analysis to construct an image of our perception and idea of a greek tragedy (ofcourse with his own inputs of facts and most importantly- possibilities) and then, how by bringing in Nietszche and his book ' The Birth of Tragedy in the Spirit of Music' he opened gates for several debates around the notions of Greek tragedy, music, performance, ritual and yes.... 'Transformation', leading to a crescendo which in itself was an 'ecstatic transformation' for everyone who was present there.

After the 'Performance'... as calling it a class would be injustice of the highest order... I was wondering if a performane exists only in real time and real space... and what is the scope of 'performative afterthought/aftereffect' that starts the moment the performance leaves the stage and enters one's mind exploring more dimensions, forms and meanings on the most creative theatre in the world- called imagination. I was also curious to know if the reproductions and remakes of performances take place as a response to this 'aftereffect' which acts as the ground on which subjective choices are inserted in an already existing performative experience added with the notion of 'I could have done this with it... if I were the artist' (its notable, that here I use the word artist as the creator and not merely the representer). Interestingly, coming back to what Shomu did, I never visioned myself at his place while giving it an afterthought... but instead, kept on shifting places in the performance space (in this case, unforunately the classroom), to explore the different possible receptions of the same performative experience, and was amazed to realize how awe-struck I was with it at every attempt... and wondering, how he came up with such a narrative structure which was so engaging (apart from it being a very interesting issue in itself, let's accept it that many theoreticians have all the talent in the world to make it sound dry and complicated.... giving enough reasons to the listeners to renounce the attentive mode) and so well planned with really exciting high points and a grand- auspicious finale... being very patient, calm, and logical at the same time... without projecting any sensation of what is to follow beforehand and getting driven away with enchanting issues... now that is what I call a 'GENIUS'.

on my Birthday....

So here I see it again... candles burning in front of my eyes. Another birthday brings so much to dream of... and so much to remember. My frens arranged this warm and loving party for me... just in front of the Ganga hostel... with grand crackling candles n a delicious, yummy cake! love all you guys a ton! I've got accustomed to my phone ring now...

The question of the play stands still, are we going to do it? we are still puzzled... we were sitting together to discuss it when one of the actors appeared from the blue. what he said, was most evidently, something that was coming out straight from his heart. he convinced us to understand that the show must go on. I believe that too... but shouldn't the show also be good? with the time we have in hand, and the academic and performative pressures we are suffering from, its not difficult to predict, that even if we do the music of the play... it won't be good. all we need is time... n I have always believed that creativity should be allowed to flow freely between temporal and spatial levels... without any physical boundaries... that's how great things are created. so even if we do the play now... we'll be able to work only on some songs... nothing more ( though I loved the script, but only if we had more time!! )

The first class in the morning... and that too with her as the professor... what better gift could even cupid ask for from the almighty... so yes! I'm happy, aunty has sent some delicious 'kheer' and we are licking the spoons... and yes, the evening class and rehearsal is also there... so we are booked for the day... let's see if we can go out for the dinner together... I should also get my chance to pay my gratitude na! Some calls that never came... and some wishes, never delivered have also become a ritual of occasions like this... but I have learnt to live now... irrespective to all of them... I love the blinking msg sign on my phone saying the memory is full and I should delete some old msgs to allow the new ones to come... so here I go... DELETED!!!!!