Residual Indian-ness

Last night, as I lay in my bed, I struggled to sleep. Not because I was worried or tensed, But because I hadn’t worked enough that day. All I did was sit on the couch and watched a lot of movies. Well anyway, as I struggled to sleep, I received a text message. I was astonished and wondered who it could be at this time in the night. It happened to be from a British friend. The message read “Hey, congratulations ! The republic of India has completed sixty years this year and I’m sure you take pride in it... “. I was pleasantly surprised with this considering that he wasn’t even remotely associated to India. As of today the most common threads connecting Britishers to India are, either their relatives and their future generations who have lived in India since the colonial times (Well, what can I say ! India and Indians can entice people) or the people who grossly misinterpreted “The monk who sold his Ferrari” think that “moksha”/salvation comes from becoming a vegetarian and metaphorically “selling off their Ferraris” and moving into a cave in the HIMALAYAS (Well what can I say ! A lot of people got rid of their Ferraris after Robin Sharma suggested). So anyway, he wished me and I thanked him and felt so small that I didn’t know when the British republic came into being. My phone lit up again and there was another message. “Hey Janhavi, Happy Independence Day !! Our India is free from all the British”. Needless to say, I really struggled very hard to sleep that night. The boy, an Indian, from my generation, born and brought up next to my home for 15 years was just as Indian as I am. He stood next to me and sang the Indian National anthem with me through school with just as much as pride as I did. Disgust doesn’t even begin to express what I felt towards him. Then again, it got me thinking. Indians probably have portrayed themselves just the way the foreigners perceived it fifty years ago. A great deal of news that filters through Indian borders to the other side, is not really very well thought about. India has automatically become synonymous with, A.R.Rahman, Amitabh Bachchan, Slumdog Millionaire, Poverty, filth, Corruption, Malnourished kids, Kashmir Issues, unfair caste systems, Tiger on the brink of extinction...
Crisply put, all the things that India shouldn’t be known for ! Does that mean that there are no beggars in America ? Or is there no corruption in England ? Or that in no other part of the world has any other animal faces the fear of being extinct ?
What Indians themselves, forget about their own country is that we’re the largest democracy in the world, currently in the league to be a super power in mere twenty years. We have at least a thousand different cultures thriving in the country and 2000 different dialects. The constitution of the country was written by a man who belonged to the lowest possible caste and that the standard of living has increased drastically in the last decade. Walk into a mall anywhere in the world and you’ll definitely find at least one Indian shopping there. Well yes there is filth and yes there is poverty and there are issues with neighbours. But if that was the reason to judge anyone, probably the world would be full of obsessively clean freakishly nice saints.
All I want to say through this, is whether you want to see the glass half full or the glass half empty (in India’s case) is your problem, but you may as well tell everyone else that “India’s glass is almost full, and about to overflow”

The Void...

A reclusive man, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, always shied away from interviews. So much so that he wouldn’t even speak on the phone without clearing the fact that he wasn’t going to answer any questions. In a rare interview from the legendary Marathi series “Maharashtrachi ladki vyaktimatva” (The favourite personalities from Maharashtra) hosted by the celebrated Marathi writer, P.L. Deshpande, he revealed that truly it was his mother’s melodious evening “Bhajans” that captivated his young mind and deeply indoctrinated him into the endless world of Classical Indian Music. At a time when gramophones were too costly to buy, Bhimsenji would spend countless hours listening to music at the local grocery store at the road crossing.

It is a well known fact that Pt. Bhimsen Joshi studied under various gurus in his life but a little known fact is that Bhim- Anna as he was fondly called during his childhood days, was so influenced by Ustad. Abdul Karim Khan’s thumri “Piya Bin Nahi Aavat Chain", that he ran away from home in search of a guru who could train him in the art of singing. He was so insistent that he be trained in Indian classical music that he not only ran away from home but also scoured India from end to end in search of the guru he desired. All thi, he achieved, at the tender age of 12, having little or no money in his pocket and once by borrowing the money from his co-passenger on board a train to Dharwad, Karnataka. At times when his resources were limited, Bhim anna would sit at the railway station on a ragged old cloth and sing in his melodious voice. Mistaken for a beggar’s child he would earn 16 to 18 annas per day, eat his fill of chanaa for 1-4 annas and buy a ticket for the next station. This continued till he had reached Mumbai. While in Jalandhar, he got adopted by a mill owner, only to find that right next to his ancestral home in Karnataka was one of the most celebrated contemporary singers Pt. Ram bhau, (Sawai Gandharva) ! When he reached there, Pt. Ram Bhau tested him for a year, all he was asked to do was fill water from the nearby water reservoir and bring it back home.

After Ram Bhau was assured of his commitment to music, there was no looking back for Bhim anna. He trained the Maestro himself and spent 16 to 18 hours each day conducting Riyaaz for him. He would wake up at 4 a.m. and rehearse up until late evening. His first concert was at the age of 19 and the next step was a record deal with HMV at the age of 22.

In this very interview, Pt. Bhimsen Joshi revealed his feelings about the then contemporary singers. He insisted that the generations of singers that came during the later decades of the 1900’s had somehow rushed into singing and very few actually let the music seep into themselves. He maintained that every artist is a “Thief” because each singer borrows his rhythm from at least one source of inspiration.

A man of few words and a phenomenal vocalist, he was known to be experimental and very humble, so much so that he even learnt a few ‘raagas’ from his adversaries. Be it his voice in the famous Kannada song, “ Uttara dhruv…” or his unmistakable voice that ushers in the song “Miley Sur mera tumhara !”, he will be missed immensely.