Early this semester, the Austin Chapter of Association for India’s Development (AID-Austin) put an eye-raiser on the South Asian event calendar. The prospect was a fusion concert starring one of Hindustani Shahtriya Sangeet’s¹ greatest and Grammy Award-winning Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, guitarist Salman Ahmad of Junoon² fame, an accomplished Tabla player in the form of Pt. Samir Chatterjee and jazz drummer, Daniel Weiss. The event, which was aptly titled ‘Milan’³, materialized last Saturday on November 7 at the Performing Arts Center in Westlake High School in Austin.

Scheduled to begin at 5pm, the event finally started at about 5:20pm with a slide show in which AID Austin made an impressive presentation of their various volunteering & grassroots projects in different parts of India. All proceeds from the show were intended to help fund these philanthropic causes. The artists then took the stage and held it for about two hours. Panditji was dressed in his usual splendor with a nice embroidered kurta⁴. Salman Ahmad wore a floral jacket over a black shirt and the signature black fedora did not fail to make its appearance. Also noteworthy was Pt. Samir Chatterjee’s croquet which he’s probably only recently started wearing.

Much to the delight of the 450-odd present, the first song that the artists decided to indulge the audience in was Kesariya. Set to Dadra⁵ taal⁶, Kesariya Balama, padharo mhare des (O saffron-hued lover, step into my country) is the most popular maand⁷ that is a welcoming tribute to the sands of Thar⁸. The artists began with gentle callouts of ‘Kesariya’. Clearly, Panditji’s voice really suits the song. So he can sing too? What can he not do? Pandit Chatterjee salvaged his first off key call-out with some nice variations (he can sing too?). Besides, his tabla skills were good enough to justify his presence. The Shadaj⁹ and Pancham⁹ trap followed by the playful Gandhar⁹ and Rishabh⁹ that Panditji wove was mesmerizing. A few improvizations by Salman Ahmad in the middle seemed out of place. However, with Panditji’s amazing hold on the ethos of the song, the performers were able to recreate the magic of Kesariya.

Panditji introduced the next song as his own composition. The very first phrase was extremely captivating and set up the joyous mood for the rest of the song. Almost instantly, I was transported back to Sukhna¹⁰, my lake and the gift of Corbusier¹¹. And this was perfect because it was while jogging at Sukhna years ago that I heard Panditji for the first time from hidden speakers placed all around the lake by the city’s administration. The sawaal-jawaab¹² between Panditji and Daniel was well done. Apparently, (and Panditji did reveal this at the end), this song was done impromptu and was not on the set list that the artists had drawn backstage. Yet, it was certainly the most well done song of the evening. Such are the ways of fusion music !

Usually, I associate Heer with the lyrics, and thus with vocal renditions. Waris Shah’s Heer tells the story of the love of Heer and Ranjha, her lover. What we were treated to, though, was an instrumental glorification of one of the most popular tragic romances of Punjab. Salman Ahmad led the song well but yet again, it was Panditji’s explorations that clearly stood out. Initially, the sawaal-jawaab between two percussionists was engaging but it became tedious and erratic after some time and one had to mentally poke a finger at their creativity.

Allah Hoo was perhaps done better than all the rest from the set list. Before presenting it, Pandit Chatterjee jokingly called it a Hindu song but then went on to put forth a secular note to the evening’s presentations, especially since Allah Hoo is a traditional Sufi chant celebrating God and Godliness. This song creates a feeling of freedom - of space and time. There remains no notion of confinement. Indeed a place where ‘zameen‘, ‘jahaan‘, ‘chand‘, ‘sooraj‘ and ‘aasmaan‘ are non-entities.¹³ Heads began to sway gently to the rhythm that Salman Ahmad and Pandit Samir Chatterjee set out. Panditji’s explorations in this song were so beautiful and mindful of not just the pace, but also the ecstatic emotion that this song carries with itself. An experienced fusion artist, when trying to contribute to another’s song, always has immense respect for that song and the musical value that it carries. However, I feel the verses were sped through with minimal attention to enunciation. For a genre that focuses not only on the music but also the message, one felt that a lighter pace would have done the song justice. The ending, too, was haphazard, and though it had to also do with premature applause, a seasoned artist like Salman should know better.

Exit devotional ecstasy, enter Shringaar Rasa again! Panditji announced that the next song would be Raaga Kirwani. Clearly, this raaga is his favorite; he played it the last time he came to Austin too. In this piece, Panditji played with the listener not once, not twice but for what seemed like an eternity and with every slide on his frets, you could feel your own heart fret away with expectation and longing. The Uthan¹⁴ of the song had an avrohi¹⁵ character and resultantly, the tone of the song was that of an uncertainty. Indeed, what a peculiar uncertainty this life and its attachments are! The control that Panditji has on the volume and tempo showed its true color throughout this piece. As you can clearly make out, this one was also all about him.

Shahbaaz Qalandar celebrates and honors Hazrat Lal Shahbaaz Qalandar, a Persian sufi saint, philosopher, poet and mystic.  and  Salman Ahmad led the artists and the listeners into Shahbaaz Qalandar through the Tarana fragments of Man Kunto Maula. The whole thing with involving the audience is that one risks over-doing it. Being an auditorium and not a riverside, it mars what some people have taken their time out to come and hear. Once again the sawaal jawaab between the two percussionists was a tad bit too long. This song really did not work for me and the ending was as disappointing as the whole build-up.

I concede that, for me, the only the draw to this concert was Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. And if there’s one raaga that I want him to play every time I attend his performances, it’s Jog. No instrument, except perhaps a sarangi, can play Jog as melodiously as Panditji’s Mohan Veena. And so when one has to hear audience cries for Sayonee after he announces what he’s playing, it’s insulting, in my opinion, to both the artist and his fans. However, my petty anxiety was put to rest with the call of Gandhar. Though the artists kept this piece short, Panditji was still able to mesmerize all to such an extent that at one point, he had to physically poke Pandit Samir Chatterjee to remind him that he was on stage and needed to continue playing!

Inevitably, the most awaited song of the night arrived and was received well. Sayonee came out in 1997 as part of Junoon’s patriotic album ‘Azaadi’ that marked off 50 years of independence for both India and Pakistan. The song was on the lips of every South Asian and topped all the Asian charts. I feel the Tabla needed to be louder for the right mix in this song. Salman Ahmad’s rounding off of the ends of the lines also did not help the cause. The percussion duet in this piece fitted in well and in the final stages, the audience chimed in with Sayonee.

In all fairness, the expectations from this concert were very high. Thus, the disappointment for those who left before the culmination. However, many opined that they had a good time and that it was a rare opportunity to see such esteemed artists together. In Panditji’s words, “When you fuse different music streams, different and distinct expressions surface through the interaction with the other artist“. And it is this for which AID-Austin must be lauded. They have initiated a great combination of artists. As Salman Ahmad said in an interview he gave Nazar, “I have never performed with Danny and Mohanji before. So, it was like jumping into water … into the ocean and just swimming, you know. I hope that we can do this more often …“At the end, each artist hailing each other marked what this concert on the whole was - cute. However,  yeh dil maange more. (This heart yearns for more!)

Glossary

1. Hindustani Shastriya Sangeet - Indian Classical Music
2. Junoon -  popular Pakistani rock band
3. Milan - meeting / confluence
4. kurta - traditional item of clothing worn in South Asia
5. dadra - taal consisting of six beats in two equal divisions of three
6. taal - rhythmic cycle
7. maand - sophisticated style of folk music sung originally in Rajasthani royal courts
8. Thar - sandy desert of northwest India and southeast Pakistan
9. Shadaj, Rishabh, Gandhar, Madhyam, Pancham, Dhaivat, Nishad - seven notes of the Indian Musical Scale
10. Sukhna - artificial lake in Chandigarh, India
11. Le Corbusier - Swiss-French architect and urbanist, one of the pioneers of Modern architecture
12. sawaal-jawaab - musical question and answer; an interplay between two or more artists in which they have a conversation through musical phrases
13. zameen, jahaan, chand, sooraj, aasmaan -
14. uthan - introductory phrase that leads into the song and the first beat cycle
15. avrohi - descending scale/notes

Photo Courtesy: AID Austin

Related Articles:

• Quick 8 With Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt
• Quick 7 With Salman Ahmad
• “Milan” - Music Without Borders
• Riyaaz for AID - A Review
• An Eye For An Eye