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Gujarat test begins
The Punjab factor |
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For a clean Yamuna
Beyond the hanging of Kasab
A missed opportunity
Pt. Ravi Shankar
His touch of class to film music
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The Punjab factor Pakistani
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, scheduled to reach this side of the border on December 14, is known as a pragmatic business man and politician. The Sharif family’s Ittefaq group of industries is a well-known success story. Therefore, with Shahbaz taking increased interest in promoting trade between India and Pakistan, the situation can change dramatically. Since the two Punjabs —- one in India and the other in Pakistan —- are bound to reap the maximum benefits with the rising trade through the Wagah border, they must find a way to work as the engines of growth. Perhaps, there is realisation of this responsibility on both sides. Proof of this can be seen in the recent visit of Punajb Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal to Lahore and the coming visit of Shahbaz Sharif to Amritsar and beyond. What, however, needs to be done by India is to remind Shahbaz to impress upon the government in Islamabad that the delay in the grant of the most-favoured-nation (MFN) status to India, after Pakistan’s declaration to do so in principle, is working as a major impediment in the growth of Indo-Pak trade. And both are losers. The Pakistan government should come forward with an MFN announcement to spread cheer among the trading fraternity and others interested in fast normalisation of relations between the two neighbours. Besides this, the integrated check-post on the Pakistani side of the Wagah border should be expanded to match it to the one on this side. This is a basic requirement with the Indo-Pak trade volume estimated to go up by at least 10 times in a few years. This is simple economics and the authorities in Pakistan obviously know it. Pakistani leaders and those representing trade and industry have been expressing their desire off and on for improving economic relations between New Delhi and Islamabad, yet Islamabad allows trade in only 137 items through the land route. This is not a positive approach when people on the two sides are ready to lap up anything that is available to them at competitive rates. Political issues, which will take their own time to get resolved, should not be allowed to come in the way of trade and economic relations between the two sides.
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For a clean Yamuna
In
a continuing effort since 1994, the Supreme Court has taken yet another initiative in asking the Indian Institutes of Technology in Delhi and Roorkee to suggest ways to clean up the Yamuna in coordination with the states concerned, especially Delhi. As the various parties continue to bicker or make piecemeal efforts at curbing the pollution of the river, the organic matter (essentially sewage) in it has reached lakhs of times the permissible level. Also, around Rs 12,000 crore has been spent on plans that seem to get nowhere. Before any further plans are made or commitments given, all concerned have to first realise and accept the enormity of the challenge. The will to invest huge amounts of money and enter a whole new paradigm of urban waste management is required. The scale of a city like Delhi — which contributes nearly 80 per cent of the Yamuna’s sewage load — is such that it cannot continue to be run on the age-old concept of simply pouring filth into the river, which at one time seemed like an infinite sink. Taking up independent projects that do not add up to a unified system along the entire length of the river will only be a waste of precious resources, as has been seen over the past two decades. One step that can immediately address the concentration of pollution in the river downstream of Delhi is the release of more water to dilute it. That, however, is something neither the upstream Haryana nor Delhi — which virtually diverts the entire water as the river enters it — can afford. Water is a precious commodity and both are desperately short of it. Under the circumstances, the only sustainable way would be to check what goes into the river. Modern urban management should ensure not a drop of untreated sewage is released into the environment. That will involve costs; as many as 22 drains in Delhi spill muck into the Yamuna, all of which will have to be treated. How best to do that is something experts can suggest, but the political leadership as well as the residents have to be prepared to bear the responsibility of execution and expense. |
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Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious. — Jean Cocteau
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Beyond the hanging of Kasab
The
hanging of terrorist Kasab has raised a number of questions. The foremost question is the refusal of India to abolish the death penalty, notwithstanding the fact that Gandhiji, Jayaprakash Narayan and Dr B.R. Ambedkar were opposed to it. I respectfully follow them. The secret hanging also seems unexplainable in view of the sudden realisation by the Union Home Minister, Sushil Kumar Shinde, of the urgency and public advocacy of rethink on capital punishment. That Kasab was involved in the Mumbai terror attack was an open and shut case. He had a fair trial with one of the senior advocates of the Supreme Court being provided to him free of cost by the state, and it would be slander to suggest to the contrary. But there are other aspects which show a disturbing trend. I am not referring to the unusual speed with which his mercy petition had been disposed of, but the manner in which the Home Ministry acted. Press reports quote two officials, who claim to have been present, giving contrary views, one saying that Kasab was remembering Allah and expressed his desire to see his mother and the other official was quoted as stating that Kasab was dazed and did not say anything. All this could have been avoided if lawyers of Kasab in the trial court and the High Court had been allowed to be present. I would even say that a couple of Indian media people should have been allowed which could have scotched any rumour-mongering. Above all, genuine efforts by the government should have been made to bring over Kasab’s mother to meet him during his last moment — a really human gesture. It would also have complied with the requirement of law and shown humanitarian considerations. It is a settled practice that before hanging, family members are given an opportunity to meet the convict. The government claims that it told the Pakistan government the evening before the execution date about Kasab’s request to meet his mother, but Islamabad refused to receive this information. I find no justification why the Indian government itself did not pass on this information to the Pakistan media. It needs to be remembered that it was the Pakistan Press which traced the parents and residence of Kasab in Pakistan. Even the government in Islamabad does not dispute that Kasab and his co-terrorists (who were all killed in the encounter) were from Pakistan. It only wants to absolve itself of the charge of ISI involvement — in fact, that is the crucial reason why Kasab should not have been hanged and kept as a continuous illustration of Pakistan’s involvement (whether official or non-official) in the Mumbai terrorist attack. A living Kasab, realising that Pakistan was repudiating him, might have disclosed more inside information. Kasab was a live face of terror originating from Pakistan. As some people suggest, did the Home Minister, being from Mumbai, want to score a personal victory by being able to boast before the public on November 26, 2012 (the anniversary of this tragic event), that he had avenged the barbaric act of 26/11. If so, one would be sorry to say that in such important delicate public matters, small personal considerations should not be allowed to prevail. Another boast by the Home Minister was that even Sonia Gandhi or the Prime Minister did not know beforehand of hanging. Not telling Sonia Gandhi is understandable because she is not in the government (though it would have been wiser to seek her advice, considering that she had shown admirable humanism and lack of revenge sentiment, when even in the Opposition she had recommended clemency to Nalini, one of the accused in the Rajiv Gandhi murder case). But to have kept this information away from the Prime Minister is certainly indefensible under our Constitution. The Prime Minister is the head of government and to keep him ignorant of the position where India-Pakistan relations are concerned cannot be considered a correct step. I feel that this tearing hurry and encouragement even by the Press to show that people were celebrating ill-befits our civilised culture, and even responsible persons like Anna Hazare and well-known Director of Films regretting as to why Kasab had not been hung publicly or even been allowed to be publicly lynched. One expected from such personages a more mature and civilised reaction. As against this, the reaction of the father of one of the Pakistani terrorists’ victims that hanging is not a cause for celebration made me salute his humanism. Kasab had stubbornly kept silent. But knowing that all legal remedies were finished, he might have become less resistant to revealing all the details. After all, the voice samples had got to be matched. I think the government has missed an opportunity to embarrass Pakistan. Dawn, a widely respected Pakistani newspaper criticised the Pakistan government when it wrote, "The authorities in Islamabad acted to establish facts that distanced the state from the work of a few fanatic killers. But that doesn't serve to hide the shortcomings in the working of Pakistan's anti-terrorism apparatus and its inability to keep tabs on organisations." Express Tribune of Pakistan echoed the same sentiment thus, "We must show the world that as a country, we are genuinely committed to fighting terrorism. For this reason, the process of trying the accused in our country must be expedited… at the top of the list of those accused by the Indian government in the Mumbai attacks is leader of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed… New Delhi has provided evidence to our government of involvement of Pakistani individuals in the 2008 attacks, but Islamabad denies substantive proof. Such misconceptions need to be determinedly resolved if militancy is to be brought down in the country." Now that Kasab has been hanged, will the Home Minister give concrete shape to his publicly expressed view by bringing a law abolishing the death penalty because, as he himself admits, the death penalty is a violation of human
rights.
The writer is a retired Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court.
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A missed opportunity The
other day a news item published in The Tribune regarding a reward of 46,000 British pounds to a person possessing a copy of the menu of ‘The Titanic’ nearly jolted me. The passenger-cum-Royal mail shipliner sank during the month of April, 1912, during its very first voyage from the UK to the USA. The ship was built in the shipyard of Harland and Wolfe, Belfast, Northern Ireland. I reached Belfast with my family during the later half of 1957 as a member of the staff of Indian naval aircraft carrier ‘Vikrant’ under modernisation in the same shipyard. As it happened, a boiler engineer, John Simon, was also attached to the ship. He happened to be the grandson of a senior electrician who was employed on ‘The Titanic’ just before she sailed for her first and last voyage. Now after so many years of this tragedy John Simon recalled what his grandfather used to narrate to him during his childhood. Soon after I met him he lost no time to invite me and my wife to his home, located near Queen’s University, Belfast. There were photographs of the launching and commissioning ceremonies of this ship attended by top dignitaries of Great Britain at that time. It was firmly and emphatically believed by all concerned then that the large passenger ship was fitted with all the conceivable sea safety devices to meet any eventuality during voyages in high seas. The display included vivid large-sized photos and stories of tragedy which shook the world 100 years ago. Out of 1517 persons who lost their lives, some of them were the world’s richest at that time. The 15th of April,1912, was the day the ship sank. This day is celebrated by the giant shipyard as Titanic Day every year. About a week before this annual day the hull manager’s wife requested my wife to assist the shipyard officers’ wives in arranging a large lunch party at the shipyard premises in memory of the great lost ship. Since the guests numbering almost 3000, including Asian families, were expected to attend, my wife was assigned the duties of supervising the preparation of South Indian dishes, including idli and sambhar. For this purpose an estimated requirement of vegetables, including about 10 kilogrammes of bhindis (lady’s finger), was handed over to the shipyard management for procurement. Since bhindis were not available in the Belfast market, it was procured from Dublin, the capital of Ireland. Therefore, a wagon-type car with my wife left for Dublin very early morning to return by 10 for preparation of sambhar for the lunch party. At John Simons residence I also saw a large photograph of Fred Simon, his late uncle, who died in this disaster as a passenger. Below his photograph, the following words were written in bold golden letters, “As his ship sank, he weighed anchor and sailed to his final port of call” in his first and last message from the ship before it sailed from Southampton. There was also a large envelope containing a six-page daily exclusive menu card of the ship depicting ultimate luxury for the elite passengers then which they presented to me as memento. But, unfortunately, I did not preserve it. Two months ago a prize of about 45,000 British pounds was announced for the person who could produce a menu card from the great ship. Alas! I missed the prize. However, some friends whom I had shown the menu card once did convey their sympathies to
me!
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The maestro leaves a void
Pandit Ravi Shankar not only enriched the sitar, the seven-stringed musical instrument he popularised across the globe, but also influenced the entire spectrum of Hindustani classical music by making it contemporary.
Pt. Ravi Shankar (7 April 1920- 11 December 2012) was born in Varanasi and spent his youth travelling Europe with the dance troupe of his brother Pt Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar, under the tutelage of Ustad Allauddin Khan at Maihar. His father was a minister in Jharwad state, who left for London to fight a legal case leaving his three sons with their mother. After the case was over, he stayed on. His mother managed the family with a pension of Rs 200 that used to come from the state and was reduced to Rs 60 by the cuts taken on the way. Ravi Shankar accompanied his mother whenever she went to pawn her jewellery or Banarasi silk sarees to run the family expenses. The pain of his mother remained with him all his life. His father married an English girl and returned to India, says his official biographer Shankar Lal Bhattacharjee. The other painful reminder in his life was, his failed marriage with Annapurna Devi, a gifted musician who decided to retire from stage after the divorce. "He would always by pass the question, if I ever mentioned Annapurna Devi. I saw his eyes brim with tears when he talked of his mother and when he finally talked about Annapurna Devi. Despite their divorce, they remained in love, it was always very painful for him to talk about her. More than husband and wife, they grew up together and shared a sort of devotion for the heritage of Maihar gharana. She was the daughter of his guru Ustad Allauddin Khan, who treated him as his older son. I met Annapurna Devi too, but I never saw any bitterness or disrespect in them for each other, their love was mutual and he remained concerned for her, till she married the second time. He had a relationship with Kamla Chakroborty for twenty long years, but never married her. When I was working on "Raga Anuraga," Kamla Devi used to run his household. Then he married officially, the second time. While writing "Raga Anuraga" during several discourses he shared his memoirs with me, about his journey in music, about the people and the evolution of his music. I learnt about his unique organisation of a concert, how he managed music, and the technical changes he incorporated in sitar. By adding a small tumbi on the top he got more resonance and added a thick gauged string to give more resonance to notes in the higher octave. He needed this because his alaap was played in Dhrupad ang, slowly and elaborately. He changed sitar from the way it was played earlier and enriched it in so many ways."Shankar Lal Bhattacharjee. Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Grammy Award winner Mohan Veena maestro and a disciple of late Pt Ravi Shankar, "We have a long- standing family association with Panditji and it dates back to 1955 when my oldest brother late Shashi Mohan became Panditji's first shagird. He was a sitar player, and I grew up listening to the beauty of Maihar gharana. Even though I had made Mohan Veena in 1970, I went under his tutelage in 1983 to learn music, in totality. I idolised him, he was a wonderful human being, disciplined, demanding, perfectionist, strict and loving and very caring. A genius of his stature would care for the smallest detail of things like food that I ate. He knew as a vegetarian my choices in food were limited. When it concerned music, he was demanding and exacting to the core. He was a purist when he played ragas, at the same time he was open to fusion. I went to him to understand intricacies of Maihar gharana, the ragas and talas. Guruji heard my instrument, Mohan Veena and without my asking gave me a certificate, written in his own hand. It says, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt has done a great job by Indianizing Hawain guitar by incorporating techniques and merging sounds of sitar, sarod and veena in his instrument. His genius lay in his receptivity, he was the first one in India to work in association with other music systems of the world. George Harrison of Beatles became his disciple, he worked with Yahudi Menuhin, who was a violinist and became the first Indian to win a Grammy in 1967 for "West Meets East" with Menuhin in the Best Chamber Music Performance category. Later, Jean Paul Rampaul, Paco De Lucia, flamenco guitarist, and Philip Glass, were all very keen to work with guruji and collaborated recordings. All these collaborations gave popular music to the world. His contribution to Hindustani music is unparalleled , he was like the Sun, who gives light to all. He will always shine in raga, in the purity of tantrakari, and the beauty of Maihar gharana." Pt Jasraj, Hindustani classical vocalist, "His mastery over Indian classical music touched musicians of all shades and age groups. He opened the world for Indian classical music. His greatest contribution to classical music is in introducing the audiences to alaapchari, he knew how to build a raga with alaap, he could communicate with ragas like you and I communicate with words, and he was always so joyful striking friendly notes with a raga! Panditji paved the way for musicians like us and remained our guide on this path. He was one musician who never felt insecure of other musicians. Who else would take young musicians abroad, spend from his own pocket, give them exposure and introduce to other musical geniuses. His music was so powerful and music made him powerful, he used this power to promote music and musicians like no other Indian musician has ever done. His music is so vast, it cannot be expressed in words, no musician has remained untouched by his vast mastery over music. He was a magician who hypnotised the world with music." Gulzar, "Hindi film director, "I consider it my fortune that I worked with a maestro like Pt Ravi Shankar, I have no regrets that the film "Meera" (1980) flopped. When I narrated the script to him, he said, you are narrating sheer poetry, I will put my heart and soul into it. What Pt Ravi Shankar could achieve for the music of this film, no classical maestro would do for the medium of film." (As told to Vandana Shukla)
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His touch of class to film music At
one time Pt Ravi Shankar joined IPTA in Mumbai that included Bimal Roy, Chetan Anand, K.A. Abbas and Salil Chowdhury. He developed a good rapport with Chetan Anand who gave him his first break as a music director in his debut directorial venture "Neecha Nagar" inspired by Maxim Gorky's "The Lower Depths." The decision was taken against the wishes of the producer Rafiq Anwar, who wanted a popular music director to give the score. For the climax scene of the film the sitar maestro used sitar, violin and some organ notations. For the first time in India fusion of this kind was used in a film. "Neecha Nagar" went on to win the Grand Prix at the first ever Cannes Film Festival in 1946 but flopped miserably in India. For another of Chetan Anand's film "Aandhiyan", Sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan(also his first wife Annapurna Devi's brother) and Pt Ravi Shankar played their instruments together, perhaps the only time for a film. K. A. Abbas' "Dharti Ke Lal" was the next film he scored music for, in the climax scene when Balraj Sahni, Tripti Mitra and Shombhu Mitra were asking for alms, he used a sequence with sitar, which made Abbas cry. The Holi song in "Godan" was another first created by the musical genius of Panditji, using mridang, dholak, sitar, sarangi and many other musical instruments, used for classical music alone. For Hrishikesh Mukherjee's "Anuradha" Lata Mangeshkar sang, one of the most melodious songs of her career and took a token fee in honour of the maestro. But, for Gulzar's "Meera", she politely declined to sing because she had sung Meera bhajans for her brother, Hridaynath Mangeshkar's album. Pt Ravi Shankar used Vani Jairam's voice for "Meera" and music lovers can vouch how it created a perfect symphony for a voice one would associate with a devotee of Krishna from the medieval ages. His music for Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy is well known and is till date praised by the likes of Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, but what he did for "Paras Pathar" , required nothing less than a genius. He created humour with sitar in a sequence when Tulsi, the protagonist, discovers the magic stone, it was a comic sequence for which Panditji created musical nonsense with great elan. Lata Mangeshkar, film singer, "The grand era of classical maestros like Ali Akbar Khan, Vilayat Khan, Bismillah Khan and Pt Ravi Shankar is over. I sang under his direction for "Anuradha" and "Godan", he had an amazing talent for scoring background music, he popularised classical music in cinema beautifully." Mrinal Sen, Bengali film director, "When I asked him to give score for "Genesis," an Indo- French film in 1986, he was already tired of films, after his debacle with Richard Attenborough's "Gandhi." But, once he accepted my request, he created magic for the film with his music."
Unheard melody Master film maker Satyajit Ray wanted to make a documentary on Pt Ravi Shankar, he wrote a script for the documentary much before Pt Ravi Shankar gave music for Ray's famous Apu trilogy. He wrote the script in 1951, it was not a conventional script, it was a set of drawings of about 100 to 120 frames, with directorial instructions. But, the film was never made. It remains a mystery, why the documentary was never made, hence, Shankar Lal Bhattacharjee, who is writing notes for this pictorial book has titled his essay " Unheard Melody". "We have the script in the archives of Satyajit Ray Society. In a few months, we are going to come out with a facsimile edition of the script, which will have an introduction from Bhattacharjee, biographer of Pt Ravi Shankar. The book will also have a lot of rare photographs taken by Alok Mitra, both in colour and black and white taken while Panditji was composing music for "Pather Panchali", "Apur Sansar" and "Aparajito," informs Arup De, CEO, Satyajit Ray Society. The book is soon to be published by Harper Collins.
The stringed family The Grammy Awards seem to have an uncanny connection with the Shankar family. In 2003, the awards given to Geethali Norah Jones Shankar - alias Norah Jones - highlighted the tenuous, on-off relationship between Ravi Shankar and his daughter. This year, the 55th Grammy Awards have directly pitted Pandit Ravi Shankar against another daughter Anoushka Shankar in the World Music category. The nominations have been announced and the awards ceremony would take place on February 10, 2013 at Staples Centre, Los Angeles. Three-time winner Pandit Ravi Shankar has been nominated for his album "The Living Room Sessions Part 1," the first of two releases he recorded with his long-time tabla accompanist Tanmoy Bose in the living room of his Encinitas, California, home. It has four tracks - Raga Malgunji, Raga Khamaj, Raga Kedara and Raga Satyajit. The last is dedicated to Satyajit Ray, for whose Apu trilogy Ravi Shankar composed music. For Anoushka, it is the third nomination. Her album "Traveller (2011)" traces the links between Indian music and Spanish flamenco music.
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