Bliss indeed it was to attend the programme this evening, as listening to Pandit Shivkumar Sharma speak on the Hindi film music was absolute heaven! Mitra Foundation was presenting its fiftieth programme. Yes, I think I saw a ppt to that effect. Nothing could be a better and fitter mode of celebration than an audio-visual presentation entitled "Revisiting the Golden Era of Bollywood Music" in the august company of Panditji.
The maestro literally lived up to his name. Shiv in Sanskrit means all that is beneficent, benign, pure. Panditji indeed was the perfect living example of this principle. To begin with, he did not rattle on about his own music direction. He chose instead to talk about the great music directors of the golden era of Hindi film music, and how he played the santoor for them. It was thus a tribute to the masters by a maestro.
Unbelievable was the simplicity with which he explained the unique qualities of each one of them. In a soulfully courteous and deferential way, he talked of their modes of music making. Yet there was not even a trace of fawning, of insincere flattery.
With a twinkle in his eyes and a gentle yet naughty smile, he regaled the audience with nuggets of special interludes while making music with these great gifted souls. He talked of his career choices, of the fun points of the musical togetherness with the masterful magicians of sur, taal, laya. Genuinely, the feel he created with artlessness despite being such a great artist was of a friendly sharing. Truly humbling was his humility, especially when everywhere around, one sees absolute nobodies croaking and crowing noisily.
As alluring as the innocent transparency that shone through every word he uttered was the self reflexivity. He appeared to be thinking through, analysing the very ways and processes of the great music making then, and his contribution to it.
Given this self reflexion, one caught a glimpse of how paradigm shifts happen in a creative mind while he talked of how he made santoor an instrument accepted by the classical tradition and the film music composers.
His sincere, committed analysis did not dismiss the current ways disparagingly either. Instead he chose to talk of the excellences of the creative explorations. Indeed every which way, this interview was a great learning experience, both as an ardent admirer of music and as a human being. I must say Gokhale Madam's son is an absolutely lucky guy to have trained with Panditji as his guru!
Well, the two hours seemed to be too short a period to explore the one hundred strings of beautitude. How I wished the interview continued beyond the mingy boundaries of time-n-space, and, in fact, forever! Huge thanks to Gokhale Madam for the invite! Hope Mitra Foundation would allow us to participate in many more such festive feels of music.
Pratima@ Greatness is where there is truth, simplicity and goodness, as Tolstoy would say.
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