Uma Vasudev traces the musical odyssey of the renowned flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia in the biography Romance of the Bamboo Reed

THE little boy’s father was the famed Chedi Lal Pehalwan, the wrestler. He wanted his three sons to be wrestlers like him. As a disciplined devotee he would sing the devotional hymns at the morning prayers. But that was far as music could go. No question of trying out the flute in front of him, thought Hari. But away from his father’s watchful eye, away from the rituals at home and the school and the competitive yells of the wrestlings pit, he would sneak out whenever he could with his stolen flute. He would find a hidden corner and take delight in the few notes he could coerce out of the bamboo reed. In a family governed by a man obsessed with creating an ancestry of wrestlers, Hari realised that he dared not articulate his fascination with something as far removed and contrary as music. If his father felt that he harboured any ambitions other than to follow in his footsteps, Hari knew he would get a sound thrashing. His father packed a wrestler’s punch.

* * *

Whenever Hari would ask anyone about his mother, he would be told, "She’ll be back." The tragedy was never allowed to sink into his mind. The result was that their father came into his life in a bigger way. Not only as the idol they had to try and emulate, but as a concerned, doting but disciplinarian parent. He would cook all the meals. He would not let even his daughter enter the kitchen. He would make them eat well and pack the food for them to take to school. And at night they would all sleep together on a large cot. But Hari began to feel the emptiness, which in a sense never left him, the big void that he felt for a mother who was just not there. The house would look bereft when he came back from school. His sister would be busy with her tuitions. A tutor would come for him too. But he missed his mother. He kept waiting for her to come back. .. The one place that he could visit with impunity was the temple nearby where the priests would be singing the devotional melodies through which they also told the saga of the gods.

* * *

"I just have to learn from Annapurnaji," Hari said.

"Ma doesn’t really teach anybody," Shubhendra said inviting him in. "But if you can persuade her, you’re welcome."

When she saw him, she exclaimed impatiently, "You’ve turned up again! I told you I can’t teach you."

He decided to be circumspect. "No, no, I haven’t come for that. I’ve come to see Subho."

"Accha, accha," she relaxed immediately. "Don’t come to learn, OK?"

"No, of course not, I won’t."

He looked her son’s age. "Have something to eat or drink," she said.

This cat and mouse game went on for a year. Sometimes, even Ravi Shankar would be there, but in his room, having a bath or preparing to practice.

"Do you want to meet him?" she asked.

"No."

"You didn’t ever think of learning from him?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I wanted to learn only from Annapurnaji," he told her.

Annapurna was also unrelenting. "All that you did just now is useless. It is like a monkey’s dance. You’ll have to be like an elephant, slow and steady."

He understood. "I’m ready," he said.

"But you won’t be able to give up your old follies."

"I’ll give up everything."

"We’ll have to start from the beginning, from sa re ga ma again."

"I’ll do that."

He wondered how he could convince her. Suddenly he had an idea. "You can change my position," he said. "I’ll start afresh. I’ll hold the bansuri on the left side. I’ll play with my left hand."

"You won’t be able to do it," she said, quite startled, "You may say so, but you can’t. If you do, I’ll have full confidence in you."

"You’ll see, ma."

"Next time you come, you must play the alankar, as it should be, in slow elaboration, gradually increasing the tempo and then....He vowed to himself that he would do it all. He would not give up anything. But he would do what she had asked or challenged him to do. I’ll do it all. I’ll not leave my film recordings, I’ll not let my earnings drop, I’ll play my ten -second bits for the orchestra and even while the composer gives instructions for the next item, and the mike is being tested, and the playback singer is rehearsing, I’ll go to another corner and practice shifting the flute from the right and holding it on the left. I’ll do it and show her.

Annapurna brought a glass of water and a plate of sweets for Hari. She always did. He took a sip of water.

"Alright, play," she said.

So Hari played, holding the big flute on the left and traversing the notes with his left hand. He played the scales the way she had wanted, evoked the approved tone from the flute and even the difficult, repetitive, guttural sounds of the gamak. She was impressed. She was herself an artist and an exponent of the surbahaar. She realised what it must have taken to habituate the left hand to this kind of expertise. It was unprecedented.

 It was soon after this that Hariprasad faced his first major challenge. He was invited to play at the prestigious Harvallabh Festival of Music at Jalandhar in November, 1967. It is always held in the freezing winter of Punjab nights, out in the open. But it has one of the most discerning audiences for classical music in India. It is attended by established connoisseurs, gurus and ustads of music, theorists, performers and critics and above all, ordinary men and women from neighbouring towns and villages, honed to expertise by the experience of listening to the finest musicians every year. It is their reactions more than anything else which make or unmake the newcomers ...

One should plunge into it. Arey bhai, I didn’t participate in those wrestling matches despite my father’s repeated exhortations, but now at least I can do battle, jump into the fray. This time the fight is for what I want, meri iccha ka kaam ho raha hai! He would not let go such an opportunity. He had the confidence. After all, behind me, backing me, is the teaching of a great guru. His similes, when he was thinking, came despite himself from his years of growth against a background of wrestling.

He set himself a gruelling regimen of practice sessions, a concentrate of riyaaz and tayyari. The evening before the performance, he sat up the whole night practising, wondering which raga he should finally choose. His hand began to tremble. He was filled with such overwhelming love for the people out there who could sit through nights like this with such passion in their love for music that he put his heart and soul into his performance. The notes began to flow with practiced ease along the air and through the fog into the heart of the audience. When he finished, they burst into applause. .. Soon he was surrounded by critics and the press. His doubts were dispelled the next day when he saw the papers. They proclaimed him "the rising son of the bamboo reed...."

That very evening, Hariprasad went to the temple and offered his homage to the Goddess Saraswati. Somehow the image of Annapurna Devi seemed to appear from within it.

With increasing recognition came the frenetic pace of his assignments, and the even more propelling desire to show that he deserved them. His music began to take on a sense of urgency, like a bottled genii, waiting to leap out of its confines.

And yet when in 1992 itself Anuradha had to undergo a serious abdominal surgery, Hariprasad dropped all his assignments. He just stayed by her side. He got special permission to be present in the operation theatre even during the operation. He just never left her. She kept wondering where he could have put away his bansuri...? He looked at her drowsy face and his mind went back to his days in Orissa. he had never had any doubts about how much he had wanted her. Nor had music stood in the way. In fact that was what had brought them together. It was she who had made the fruition of his obsession possible. Always understanding his compulsion to reach out for the sun.

On April 6, 1992 the prestigious President’s National Award of India, the Padma Bhushan, was bestowed on Hariprasad Chaurasia by the then President of India, R. Venkatraman. The Ashok Hall at the Rashtrapati Bhawan, the Presidential Residence in Delhi was ablaze with chandeliers. The glitterati of the capital of India were gathered there for the award ceremony. Hariprasad had his kurta sewn specially by his favourite tailor. Luckily, this time, the man had stuck to the measurements he had given. "That man too has a habit of singing his own alaap in stitching a kurta," mused Hariprasad as he walked up to the President of India.

The citation was read out in Hindi.

The applause was music to his ears.

Excerpted from: Romance of the Bamboo Reed, Shubhi Publications, Gurgaon. Rs 495

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