Tuesday, May 23, 2006

His Bobness!



Tomorrow Bob Dylan will attain an age of 65 years. O yes! Milestone and all that, for a man who is something of a milestone himself. I first heard him when I was probably ten years old. What I mean is consciously heard him. My young blood in those days wanted The Stones and The Beatles, The Swinging Blue Jeans (“Hippy, Hippy, Shake!” – anyone remember that one?), little knowing what the slightly boring voiced singer of the wind blown anthem meant to those guys! And then one day in my life, Bob Dylan hit me a musical blow I’ve never really recovered from.

That’s almost the same thing that happened to Lou Majaw of Shillong. For the last ten years or more he has been instrumental in planning and organising a BD birthday tribute in the Meghalaya capital. It has also extended itself to a performance by Lou and the Ace of Spades in Calcutta’s Someplace Else. Not exactly an ideal venue (is there any?) but it does till a better one comes up.

Let me also tell you that other than Lou, musicians I respect as much as I do Dylan make up the Ace of Spades. There is of course Nondon on drums, Hiltu-da – Lew Hilt on bass. And the inimitable AJ – Arjun Sen on lead guitar. I also have a slight edge. I know them all at a very personal level and spend a lot of time with them when this show, and similar shows happen. With AJ and Lew living in Delhi, these are great times to get together. So we hung out before the show, rapping and exchanging notes, listening to music, partaking of The Park’s generosity, and waiting for 10 pm when it would be time to go down to SPE.

Nondon arrived punctually as he always does, and some laughs and repartee later, guitars on shoulders, remembering to take their room entry swipe card, we lifted downstairs. SPE was crowded, but it’s such a small space that 10 people can make it look like a full house. Majaw changed the opening song onstage five minutes after they’d decided what it would be upstairs, but that was all right. They’re experienced musicians who can handle any given situation, and I really mean any.

But I will not tell you which songs they sang. If you’re a Dylan freak or fan, they will all be familiar, and if you’re not, then maybe you should have been there. What I will tell you is that they were mostly like what Dylan himself is, a constant reinvention of the known, often drifting off into unexplored places and then finding their way back home. The purists were not happy, but then BD was never a purist either.

Later, post-performance, the band was not happy with the evening. They felt a big hole had been left behind. They are some of the most intensely self-critical guys I’ve seen. It’s what makes them great musicians too. I felt that the energy which comes back from an audience was lacking too. SPE’s greatest failing is this. It is too much of a scene where alcohol intake supersedes the music one comes to listen to. It’s an altogether head banging, feet tapping session rather than a serious listening effort so the band can’t feed off audience response and give back in kind.

Nevertheless a good time was generally had by all (I love this cliché!). Reasons? For some, much money was spent on booze, so they were compelled to. For others, listening to great musicians, who themselves have grown up listening to His Bobness, is in itself a treat to be savoured. And for many of the younger generation, who have not had the opportunity to be intensely exposed to BD and others of his ilk my generation heard, they got their chance at extremely good second-hand lessons.

His Bobness has inspired personal and creative reinvention as much as he did to himself and his art. That’s why the world will always pay tribute to Bob Dylan.

Sunday, May 14, 2006

Gour Khyapa!




We hoped that the full moon of Buddha would charge the atmospherics and enrich our evening. We hoped that the heavy “pre-monsoon” showers which inundated the day would not continue in the evening.

Man proposes, god disposes is a convenient adage to use even for the die-hard non-believer.

Buddha Purnima gave us a fleeting glimpse of her rare beauty before she was smudged from our sight by the rain clouds. As soon as that happened, it began to rain, the one thing we desperately hoped would not.

But Gour Khyapa had spoken to the skies, and it did stop after a brief downpour. The rains may have wet the floor, but it did nothing to dampen the spirits of music lovers congregated on the rooftop of one of south Calcutta’s best known landmarks. There were barely twenty people when it was time to start, and there were a hundred when Gour was in full voice.

An enchanted evening was had by all is putting it mildly, even diplomatically. Gour perhaps, is not in full form these days due to his ill-health. Yet he sang, he danced, he made witticisms, and passed often politically incorrect comments; and those who have seen him perform when he was at his peak were reminded of those days of yore. Whatever it was, Gour can still entrance like few performers can.

When I’m at great music shows, I cannot but recall Stevie Wonder’s lyrics from his song ‘Sir Duke’: “Music is a world within itself / It’s a language we all understand”. Gour sang in Bangla, but what did that matter to a large part of last evening’s audience who didn’t know the Bengali language, yet sat there mesmerised? They were captivated by the language of music and that was enough.

Requests poured in from listeners who had heard him perform twenty years ago and would never forget his songs. There were others who sat at his feet and sang every word along with him. A friend, a very able blues harp player who had never heard Gour before, was moved enough to take his harmonica out at one point and jam with the mad Baul. I swear there was a crackle in the air and it had nothing to do with the lightning that scarred the overcast skies!

For those who may not know (and I include my own ignorance), Baul geet is significantly influenced by Hindusthani classical raags and raaginis. However, because of their free ranging spirit and their open minds, Bauls merge one or more raags to create a tune and feel of their own, and add a distinctive flavour that is not possible if one sticks to the classical tradition. Gour is one of those very few learned Bauls who knows the raags or raaginis his songs are based on, and later, after the show, he discussed this aspect at some length with a classically trained musician who had been one of his enchanted audience.

I find it necessary to describe the setting for the show. It perfectly suited the ideas we have about what we would like to do in our interactive project with folk and ethnic musicians.

The stage was the open rooftop of a popular market building flanked by a constantly buzzing flyover that spans the crossroads of the busiest locality of south Calcutta - Gariahat. Our neighbour was the police thana. In addition to us, the silent spectators of the show were a multitude of beautifully nurtured potted plants, the angular steel structures of giant billboards, a cellular phone tower, the slatted façade of a huge AC cooling tower, and the squat ugly boxes of smaller air conditioners. Random sacks of cement and stacks of new bricks were unintentional art installations which enhanced the sculpted setting. It was as urban an ambience as you could get.

The audience was urbane, most comfortable when speaking English. The performer was a man from rural Bengal, who in the first few moments gauged his listeners, peeped into our souls with his vast experience, his understanding from the philosophy he lives, and then sang for us because we wanted to listen.

When Gour Khyapa sings even the gods pause to listen.

****

Once it stopped raining at 8 we had no rain till midnight, and then we had to regretfully pack up amongst protests, requests, and promises for future shows.
___________________________

The first two photos are by Santayan. My sincere thanks to him.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Bauls

The pronunciation does not rhyme with Gauls, and so should not lead to adolescent humour as it did when I told someone about this community of wandering minstrels from Bengal, and he had difficulty pronouncing it. It is Ba-ools, more or less.

The Bauls are more than wandering minstrels. They are philosophers, mystics, observers and commentators, rebels; and by their own admission, mad. However, this lunacy is not the kind that warrants psychiatric or psychological attention. It is the madness of the man seeking his “inner being” through his love of god. Again, this god is of no particular denomination, and Bauls can be from Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist religious communities and any beliefs in between. Defining their belief system is itself a major task.

The Bauls’ music is simple and evocative. But it also has hidden meaning in straightforward, sometimes off-the-cuff, lyrics. They pluck out examples from normal, human daily living to sing of the oneness that must be achieved in mind, body and spirit so that we can all live a life of divine sustenance. The Bauls tradition is oral and so the language of their songs change with the times they are in, making them of great and instant appeal to the common man and intellectual alike.

There’s plenty more about Bauls, but I will end this post with just one more fact.

Today, May 9, is Rabindra Jayanti, Rabindranath Tagore’s birth anniversary. Tagore, as a poet-musician-philosopher, derived immense inspiration from Baul music and it greatly influenced many of his compositions and thinking. In fact, people with musical sensibilities and interests should not forget that Tagore was probably one of the first “world” musicians. While his learning was in the Indian classical tradition, he broke away from its rigidity and incorporated Baul, Bhatiyali, Murshidi and other Bengali folk and ethnic music influences, as well as used his understanding of Western classical and other music from Britain to add those distinctive flavours in his music, which thankfully, was not the mass-produced “fusion” of today.

In Bangla, the term “baul mon” (literally, the baul’s mind) depicts the state of mind when everything that is material and of this world is left behind to seek that certain spiritual realm, forever out of our grasp.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Look out for my future post on The Bauls of Bengal


For all those rock music fans: Garth Hudson of The Band recorded Purna Das Baul in the late 60s and an album was released called Bauls at The Big Pink. Anyone got it?


Painting by Jamini Roy

Look out for my future posts on the Bauls and use the link
Bull's Run on this page if you'd like to see a private performance of the Baul, Gour Khyapa on Buddha Purnima, 13th May 2006.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Age

I have commenced living the 49th year of my life.

What is that supposed to signify? Forty plus years of ignorance and bliss? More than forty years of swimming around in a shallow pond? Over forty years of never knowing the difference? Forty nine years of experience gained and lessons learned?

Age has the notion of becoming a millstone around one’s neck. Certain behaviour, certain wisdom, certain expectations make demands on one merely because one has reached a chronological point in time in one’s otherwise insignificant life. Suddenly, what you are most expected to share are memories.

As you age it becomes a barrier to re-employment. Age significantly reduces one’s physical capabilities. Age diminishes possibilities of getting financial aid and income opportunities. Age debars one from insurance, and reassurance. Age gets you back-handed compliments. It earns you wary respect, often condescending.

So who needs to age? As The Man said, who said almost everything that my generation had to say, wanted to say, never thought of saying, I want to be "Forever Young"! Or, just be ageless...?

Friday, May 05, 2006

Eyes

Eyes are fascinating features of we humans. I see more of a person through their eyes than from their conversation.

Young eyes see better
They know who I am
They watch very carefully
And don’t give a damn.

Older eyes know better
Though myopic in sight,
Years of watching everything
Have let them see the light.

Ancient eyes in cataract
Don’t want to see anymore,
And in their mind’s eye
They’d rather, remember days of yore.

My eyes watch in silence
In my head the voices speak,
I watch the watcher watching
And drown in the depths of sleep.