What a journey that was…

During last month (October), my daughter Pratibha gave four sitar performances in Kerala, each for around 40 minutes.  Yes, they were not “perfect”, but had sense of music in them.  Comments from people who know / perform hindustani music were heartening. I am sure, Pratibha enjoyed performing, and quite a few people in the audience enjoyed her performances. That was quite satisfying.  

We started this ‘saga’ about 10 months back.  The goal was to prepare Pratibha to perform Sitar on stage, in front of people who understand and appreciate music.  In last year September, Pratibha underwent a stem cell procedure at Neurogen Hospital, Navi Mumbai.  At the end of the stay at the hospital, we had set goals in order to ascertain the effectiveness of the procedure done.  One of the goal was to see Pratibha perform sitar with improved sense of rhythm, for about 10 to 15 minutes on a stage in one year time.  

We started the journey with a '15 minutes performance' goal.  We had no idea on what she will do, whether she will be able to grasp the complexities of classical music, whether she can remember and play for good amount of time etc.. Pratibha’s academics is almost zero, and she can’t even remember spellings of a 5 letter word, even after repeating it many times for months. Indian classical music has strong mathematical basis, manifested as rhythm / ‘Taala’, and well-defined ‘prescribed’ movements through the swaraas / ‘notes’ that produce melodious music.  Pratibha has gone through basics of Sitar for about an year and a half, more than 5 years back.  With a gap of almost 5 years, I was not sure how much time it will take her to get back to a level of comfortably handling the instrument. 

For me, I was touching Sitar after a gap of almost 5 years.  Initially, I tried to recall what all I learned, and started practising.  I knew playing very basics of 4 - 5 raags, that’s all.  It took her couple of months to get back to practice the basic alankaars (practice patterns), and introduced her to playing a very small bhajan in raag Yaman, all in plain notes.  I introduced couple of small ‘meends’ [pulling string to create gradual variation of sound from one note to other].  In couple of days itself, Pratibha did the meends quite well, and that prompted me to try a bit of ‘aalaap’.  As Pratibha was responding quite well, in trying out aalaap in raag Yaman, my interest also increased.  Teaching her aalaap was a challenge as well as an awesome experience.  Making her pull string, listen to how the note change and then stop when it reaches the right note.  It’s not that easy.  She did that with fair amount of comfort.  That has made me to increase the bar and set a higher goal.  The goal of making her performing for 15 minutes changed to 30 minutes.  

Whatever “yaman” raag I knew was just for 20 minutes and I had to learn more and then teach that to Pratibha.  I started listening to lots of yaman raag on sitar by many performers and started making notes.  Started creating my own taans (manodharma swaraas), that go well with the composition that Pratibha plays.  Also, I made some changes to the main composition, so that the taans I made go well with.  I introduced few variations and a set of taans in the beginning of the compositions itself.  I did’t know whether it is ok to do it or not; whether that violates any rules of the gharaana or not.  No one was there to help me out on this.  So just went ahead. First I practiced the variations and taans on Sitar with ‘iTabla’ on iPad, to make sure that the taal (rhythm) is right, and goes well with the composition and Pratibha can perform it.  

Now I decided on what all components will go into the 30 minutes presentation of raag Yaman.  The overall plan was to have aalaap, jor, vilambit lay (slow speed) composition, madhya lay (medium speed) composition, and jhaala.  The slow speed composition was the same what I learnt at Sangit Mahabharati, but made some changes based on some performances I heard on the net.  Within the slow speed composition, I planned sthaayi (pallavi) with few variations followed by an anthara (charanam). This was different from what I have learnt in Sangit Mahabharati.  Each part of the presentation was again sub-divided into smaller parts for Pratibha to comprehend and play.  That strategy worked.  She could remember sequences, though initially she struggled.  

Each sub-part was taught to her and she started practicing and reaching a good level before moving to the next sub-part/part.  As her speed of playing improved, I thought of introducing dugun [playing in double speed] in the slow speed composition.  Pratibha took quite a bit of time to get comfort in switching between single to double speed and return.  Once she started doing that fairly well, I made her play tihaai [a rhythmic pattern  played thrice and ends in the first beat of taala] while switching from double to single speed.  The practice focussed on each part, playing 20 to 30 times, so that she gets a hold on the patterns.  Once each part is done, the focus of practice moved to playing the parts in sequence.  Initially it was difficult for Pratibha to remember the sequences.  But over a period of couple of months she could remember the sequences most of the time.  During this time, Pratibha was practicing about 2 hours everyday and 4 hours on Sundays.   

To make the performance a concert, Pratibha need to play a different raag after the main raag, for a shorter duration.  I thought Bihag may be a good choice, as both Yaman and bihag are evening raags.  A short aalaap that I have learnt from Sangit mahabharati was tried first.  I was bit apprehensive, because to get the essence of bihag, she has to play upto 4 notes on a single fret, by pulling and stopping the string at the right notes on the same fret.  Surprisingly Pratibha easily did that.  I also tried making Pratibha use 2nd string to reach shadj note of mandra sapthak (lower octave), which she did with some difficulties initially.  But ultimately felt ease in doing that.  It took quite a bit of time for Pratibha to get the hang of sequences of bihag taans right.  Once she conquered that too, I was tempted to raise the bar again.  I have learnt a very short and sweet composition in raag ‘Shudh Bilaval’ at Sangit Mahabharati.  The plain composition is a very short one, and Pratibha learnt that fast, but getting rhythm right was the real problem.  It took her quite some time to get the rhythm right to some extent.  Still I was not comfortable her playing that on stage.  I thought Pratibha can conclude the performance by playing the famous hindi song “Hum Honge Kaamayaab..”.  She quickly picked up playing the song on sitar, but rhythm was not steady.  She needed more practice to get the rhythm right.  

With this, Pratibha was getting ready for her first major performance.  Getting an opportunity to perform at Chinmay Naada Bindu (CNB), Pune, during the Gurupurnima celebration there, was a real blessing.  Big thanks to my bansuri guru Himanshuji for the opportunity.  Pratibha felt very comfortable playing at CNB, with most in the audience being masters in Hindustani music.  She played a cut-down version of Yaman for 15 minutes.  She was struggling to manage with the cut-down version, as she had to make changes to the sequence pattern, that she had already learnt.  Many “Wah Wahs” that came up during the performance was a big boost for her.  Yes, Pratibha fumbled there couple of times.  But she played fairly ok.  Then we got another opportunity to perform at a community get-together.  Though the crowd was around 150, few people did make it a point to listen to her.  Both these opportunities helped Pratibha to get adjusted with live tabla.  

Daily practicing all the pieces together for couple of weeks before the first performance, helped Pratibha to fine tune many finer aspects.  Still there were few rough edges;  they need lot more time to get smoothened.  As the day of first major performance was coming closer, Pratibha had speed synchronisation problems for couple of taans (manodharma swaraas); also she was not able to get her fingers reach the note in time for a complex pattern.  Still I thought of keeping those patterns, assuming that with more and more practice she will be able to close the gap and perform better.  The gaps were identified and her practice was focussed on those areas, along with practising whatever planned for the whole performance.  I wanted our Sitar teacher Smt Jyoti Ghosh to listen to Pratibha playing sitar, and get suggestions for improvement, that did not materialise.  

Many of my engineering class mates planned to come to Edappally Changampuzha park to encourage Pratibha.  I have not met many of them after we left college 37 years back.  I went to the venue in the morning of the performance day and saw a huge flex board there, listing all the performances for 9 days of Navratri, that included Pratibha’s name.  I was originally thinking that, Pratibha’s was just a non-publicised item, just before the main dance performance of the day, which was directed by my sister.  But everywhere, the organisers gave equal publicity to Pratibha’s performance too.  That has created a bit of fear in me.  But whatever done can’t be changed.  

When we sat on the stage for the performance, I could feel bit of nervousness in Pratibha.  That was evident when she was repeating few patterns; and I have to intervene and prompt her the next pattern to be played.  What relieved me was, she did’t stop in between, but repeated the patterns following the ‘laya’, while she was trying to recall the next one.  After completing yaman raag (which took 32 minutes), she was about to perform Bihag.  She asked me whether she can skip the aalaap. But I asked her to play the aalaap, as it was very short and seweet.  I did’t realise that she was struggling to get out of raag yaman.  She tried and couldn’t proceed with bihag aalaap, and I asked her to discontinue aalaap and directly go ahead with the composition, which she did quite well.  I thought, I should have agreed to her request for skipping the bihag aalaap, as she might have felt within herself.   The audience did clap her, and my friends who came over from different places such as Trivandrum, Thrissur, Kochi, Mumbai etc. felicitated her, which was a surprise for me.  When we returned to the green room after the performance, one person, who introduced himself as a professional sitar player shook my hands and told me “it was unbelievable, considering her intellectual limitations’”  Also, well known flute player in carnatic style Vivek Shenoy also told me that “she played very well”.  Both these comments made my day, as they came from seasoned musicians. 

Pratibha was improving day by day, which was seen in the subsequent performances.  The 2nd performance was in Mattancherry, which was organised by my good friend Shri Uday Shenoy, who is an ardent lover of hindustani music.  She felt more relaxed here compared to the previous performance.

The 3rd performance was in a temple in Udyogmandal, Eloor, a temple where we used to go regularly in late 70s / early 80s.   Her confidence grew and she made less stumbling and slippages.

The fourth performance was in the Mahanavami get together and puja of our community in Trivandrum.  Around 150 people were there and most of them patiently listened to her performance.  What has touched my heart was a comment from Dr Nirmala Bai (my wife’s aunt), who was observing Pratibha’s growth right from the day she was born.   Here she performed Yaman, Bihag, the Shudh Bilawal composition and the song 'Honge Kaamayaab'.

In all the four performances, Dipin, a young talented tabalist from Elamakkara, Kochi accompanied Pratibha brilliantly.  Dipin’s controlled and adjusted playing of tabla has immensely helped raising the stature of the performance.  In the last two performances Pratibha played the composition in raag Shudh Bilawal followed by the famous song ‘Hum Honge Kaamayaab’.  We thank all those who have helped us with giving opportunities for these performances.

On our way back in train, the TTR was curious about sitar and he gave us a full berth to keep the sitar.  He also requested Pratibha to show him playing a bit of sitar, which Pratibha obliged.   He brought few of his friends (other TTRs) and few others in the compartment joined as audience.  Pratibha was struggling to hold the sitar in moving train, but it was fun.

It was an immense satisfaction for all of us in the family, to see Pratibha giving Sitar performances on stage.  What we started as a therapy, using music to help her improve, has taken a turn and gave Pratibha a direction for presenting herself confidently in front of music loving audience.  The way Pratibha performed and the kind of encouragement she received from many directly and in social media, is an inspiration for us to put more efforts on her and bring better out of her, so that she enjoys and make others enjoy her music.   

Here is a sneak preview video of Pratibha's first performance at Edappally Changampuzha Park on 16th October.  This is an edited 10 minutes version of 35 minutes performance.

Yes, these are the most joyful moments of our life… 

What a journey that was...