River of enlightenment

Sep 9, 2010, 12.00am IST
Bindu Chawla.

Long before the universities packaged the deeply spiritual science of Hindustani music into classroom textbooks, the masters used very little verbiage to communicate its essence.

They explained little, but when they did, it was in the form of idioms, proverbs, hyperboles, and adages. But these would show you the world!

For instance, lesson one, they would say, 'paanee karo', asking you to repeat. Like the word simran or internal repetition in scriptures, you were to repeat the notes, phrases, scale, and words, not just a few times, not for some time, but for hours – nay, for years, till your words and musical phrases flowed to perfection.


Renowned master Ustad Amir Khan Saheb would often nod and hand over the so-called 'simple' prescription to his disciples: "Hmmm, sapaat..., karte raho". The word sapaat means 'straight', and he referred to the straight up and down movements of the scale or the raga, to be repeated at length till the gems of enlightenment about its inner nature began to flash through your mind in intuition, and the raga shed its heaviness, flowing out of you like a river of enlightenment.


Once, when Khan Saheb had just finished singing a big raga seated among his disciples, Pandit Amarnathji smiled at him and said, "Khan Saheb, you have turned the singing into light music," at which one of his gurubhais saw red, thinking it an affront. But Khan Saheb smiled at Panditji affectionately, saying "I appreciate your understanding". He knew what he meant to say. That the greatest of music 'sounded' simple though an immense amount of hard labour had gone into reaching its state of lucidity.

On another occasion, after he performed the muhurat for ` Garam Coat,' a film whose music was composed by Panditji, his disciple, Ustad Amir Khan Saheb asked, "Son, how long did you take to compose this song?" It was the beautiful 'Jogia se preet kiye dukh hoye', a Meera bhajan sung by Lata Mangeshkar. "About 15-20 days", was the reply. To which Khan Saheb said, "If you were to take the same amount of time to compose your rendering of any raga before each concert, how would it be..."? It was the same lesson in 'simplicity'.


Beyond the rational mind, it was repetition alone that took you to the highest peak in your sadhana —to samadhi state, union with the Supreme. The very words aalaap and taan in the Hindustani khayal refer to dhyana or concentration on the raga's form till the point of its dissolution in the mind during singing, both slow and fast. Aalaap means to expand or 'spread the notes wide' during slow unfolding of the raga's scale, and taan means to 'stretch them taut' in the faster portion, as the artist reaches the peak of exhilaration in dhyana, forgetting all else. And in the process, taking along his listeners as well!


Pandit Amarnathji would say that the image of the raga's scale in your mind should be horizontal, not vertical, talking of the raga's inner direction during meditation, which is meant to take you to another kind of 'high'—and to the 'mental release'. Finally, as he said, "meditation means not to concentrate on anything when you sing".


That is why, when Panditji sang it, the raga was no longer a ladder-like scale. It was an aural poem.