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'.