A Budhaditya Concert

Amitabha Mukerjee

His fingers flying furiously up and down the stem of the Sitar, Budhaditya launches into yet another rapid taan. Now it is a quick movement down the scale, and now there is a pause at a single fret, moving the string into an expansive meer that wavers delicately and fades off into the evening air, crystallizing a sombre and pensive mood. But he has moved on, returning to the main pakad of this jod in raga Jog, lilting softly past the sthayee theme, resting for a moment, and then suddenly it is back to yet another taan, piling note on top of dizzying note, silk-sleeved forearm working in a frenzy, almost losing track but never quite, and then putting it all back together again at the junction of the rhythm. There is no tabla however, for this is the jod or the development phase to establish the mood of the raga; the underlying rhythm is maintained by the sitar alone.

The stage has a small raised podium and is dominated by the sitar that sits on the crook of his crossed legs. The struts glisten in the footlights and the hand flies up and down, head bent over. At the next fading meer the head looks up again and the right hand takes a respite from plucking and urges the dying resonance through its final undulations, soft and delicate like a reverie. The audience nods appreciatively in the brooding darkness, and a few aaha's are heard as is the wont in Indian music, communicating some of the energy back to the performer, and rejuvenating him for the next sequence. But the big auditorium is perhaps a third full on this unlikely night at the end of the semester, although the turnout is very respectable for an sitar concert. Mostly it is faculty and students from India, although there is a sprinkling of American faces, drinking in this exotica from the east.

It began with Yaman Kalyan - almost two hours back now, before the brief intermission. This was a colourful performance, marked with variation and vitality. The alaap was subtle and evocative; the jod marked by the technical brilliance that has become a hallmark of Budhaditya, and the gat deliciously unpredictable, waves of melody punctuated by rapidfire frenzy. Enayat?? Hussain on the tabla flowed with the music; rising here and following softly there, and on occasion finding his wings for an inspired moment, while Budhaditya retreated, maintaining the subtle threads of his theme. And then again the chase was on, beats and taans following each other, the pace rising steadily until there was a short repetition of the final note; a flourish from the tabla as if on cue, and then applause. Comparisons are unfair but inevitable in this spontaneous, almost rejoiceful Yaman Kalyan - far from the moody melancholy of a Nikhil Bannerjee, and yet not quite the technical fireworks of a Ravishankar. Since his debut Budhaditya has been widely respected as a technical wizard, but the cognoscenti hold that his music has matured only recently, and that he is undoubtedly one of the finest sitarists on the Indian stage today.

Looking at him working frenetically at the sitar, one wonders about the person, the man behind this scintillating art, the man that was trained to be an engineer but left it behind for the sake of music. It is a hard life today for the Indian musician, even one that is established as he undoubtedly is today. For every Budhaditya that we see on stage today, there are a hundred budding artists practising frantically behind the stage, future uncertain, but blissfully oblivious in the fire of the music and their youth. In every township in India you have houses where there is a voice or an instrument that can be heard, often into the night, practising incessantly and playing for the joy of it. When, one wonders, will the country have the wherewithal to truly support the poorer cousins of this dedicated group?

That there is hope is evident in the very fact that this concert could be organized today, for this wealthy but distant diaspora, by an organization that sprouted out of a desire to return our youth to its roots, the SPICMACAY society that brought the concept of free classical music concerts to the youth of India. If the opportunity to listen to Budhaditya is a treat here, it is perhaps even more so in India, where concerts are hard to access for the uninitiated. That such a movement was born, and has flourished so far and spread its tentacles now into a transplanted civilization, is no doubt a powerful testimony for the resilience of Indian classical music.

And now Budhaditya has moved into Tilak-Kamod. This is a lecture-demonstration, in the spirit of informativeness as well as entertainment. After introducing the raga and its basic sequences, ascending and descending, he moves into the alaap, and is quickly lost in the simple dhun that he is weaving for us now. Tilak Kamod is a distinctive raga with a soft, gentle spirit, and it moves us now through this simple melodious treatment. The previous piece never moved out beyond the alaap - so the tabla was dormant all this while but it has sprung to life now, tempering the music with its carefully metered teentaal, impassive and imperturbable. This is after all, a much simpler tune, almost a dhun, a lighter music, removed from the complexities of the first two pieces. Perhaps Budhaditya senses a restiveness in the audience. Only the exitways are lit and occasionally you can see him look up when someone leaves. There is a kid in the right aisle running up and down, so maybe the time is ripe for a simpler pattern, one that finds easier resonance in the restless spirit of the modern man.

After Tilak-Kamod, there is a brief question and answer session. The audience is curious about the artist. Yes, he started early, and his father has been his guru throughout. How could he hold the sitar at age five? Well, he had a somewhat smaller instrument... The questions are spastic, and are more of a personal nature than related to the music. The distance between stage and audience does not encourage this give and take. "If you want," says Budhaditya, "you can ask questions, or I can play on." There is a request for a raga - Jaijayanti - and after a brief alaap in it, Budhaditya moves seamlessly into Piloo, yet another soft melodious piece. Again the music speeds up slowly, weaving its intricate path to the finale and the applause. This time there is a finality to the accepting gesture of raised sitar; both artists rise, bow, lights come on and the concert is over.

The audience breaks up into tight clusters as friends meet, talk, and resume the lives they had left behind for a moment. There was a whiff of home but it is gone now and we file out slowly into the Texas night, warm and moist, each carrying with us our own memory, our own fragmented image of the evening.