The making of a Rasika
It is a windy, almost wintery evening in Paris, France. Before the imagery of wine ‘o’clock sets in, I want to pull in the Indian diasporic scene and it is the festival of Navaratri: nine (nava) nights (ratri) (and mornings too!) of celebrating the feminine being. The immigrant populace invariably has an increased sense of cultural over-belonging and communal spaces and organizations enhance their capacities as performative containers of national allegiance.[1]
As I walk into Maison De L’inde (House of India), I am aware of and adapt to the etiquette: a student is on a loudspeaker phone in chaste Telugu; seated behind me an enthusiast explains the saree symbolism to her French friend; long overcoats and oversized bindis do not look flaunted; and prasad or the deity’s savory is the savior to the starved Indian palate. In short, there is performance galore; spaces, people, attires, and the vibe all perform nationhood.[2]
These performing bodies have gathered for the prototypical performance: A harmonium recital by Ravindra Katoti, accompanied by his son Tejas Katoti and Sumith Naik on the tabla. The concert is organized by the Carnatic Conservatory of Paris (CCParis), under a series Sanatana, that hosts traveling artists. Katoti enthuses the mixed audience to sit back and enjoy Indian music on his muse, the harmonium which is originally a French instrument. He says, “Your instrument, my music.”
Concert going is a ritual. Similar to a ritual, concert going involves cultivated discipline, diligent repetitive attendance, and conscientious practice to engage.[3] In an ideal situation, just like the ritualist, the concertgoer arrives ahead of time, consumes the atmosphere, and prepares both to receive and be carried away. And if they are lucky, concertgoers also get to feel (see/hear) the artists warm up and prepare. This ritual is an impetus to the making of the rasika, the ideal Indian art spectator.
Katoti’s art invoked the several threads of a rasika in me. The harmonium embodied a rare combination of optimistic and calming timbres and thrilled me to engage. Katoti’s intelligent choreography of the short recital sustained the excitement. I was remorseful that it was my first harmonium recital in a two-decade career as a performing artist. However, it was also the recital that instigated me to write after a very long time. Unprepared, I jotted down my affections on the phone while physically enjoying the samams and keeping up with the tala. A fellow audience beside me was rattled about why I was constantly on my phone! I was the ritualist-rasika enamored by the tone of the instrument, the music the Katotis and Naik produced, and the opportunity to capture the evening’s essence in writing.
The opening piece in raga Behaag was what I would, borrowing from scholar Kalapana Ram, call the slow churning of rasa.[4] The three artists on the stage enjoyed churning the piece slow and nice and in doing so, stretched the rasika’s tryst with the music. The tabla stayed long and leisurely on single beats, ending in perfectly exciting samams with the classic one and two beats. Meanwhile, the father-son duo moved effortlessly from single to double swarams, unhurriedly not just touching but exploring the quintessential features of the raga. A taanam here and there followed, and popular strings of overtones led to the pallavi and anupallavi. In simple terms, it was classic. Durita kala was equally secure, blending the swara passages in ways to reach the rasaic crest that left the audience yearning for the next piece.
The following piece in Keervani was beautifully placed and showed Katoti’s exquisite craft to allure the rasika who had warmed up to the structure of the pieces, the tonal patterns, and the pace. This time it was a brisk raga alapana but one that adequately painted the raga’s flavors and an economical rendition of the pallavi and swara phrases.
In instrumental music and vocal recitals which are partly rehearsed and partly instinctive sessions, I always gazed at how the team enjoyed an enviously impulsive chemistry and camaraderie. There are varied tangential performances on the stage in addition to the music being created: there is the vigorous head nod on an exciting muktayi (finish), the artists pass on infectious smiles between them, and the chants of ‘aha,’ “mmm,’ ‘bhale,’ and ‘shabhash,’ and the casual waving of the hand signals the excitement or rasa that the artists enjoy even as they transmute the experience to the audience. In fact, in several instances, the artists seem not to be aware of an audience let alone seeking a reciprocation.
In addition, in these recitals, what does it mean to follow the lead artist? A violin recital by Mysore Manjunath that I attended a few months earlier, also hosted by CCParis, had several learning moments. BC Manjunath, a long-term Mridangam accompanist for the violin maestro and the latter’s son Sumanth Manjunath could at once shadow the lead artist, produce aesthetic counter sequences, respond to his challenges, and trace a refrain. It was a visual image of three colleagues in a highly productive conversation of ideas, ideology, and passion. Manjunath’s is a very well-known and typical violin pedagogy that lingers on the complexity of fast-paced exhilarating technique. Sumanth had carefully inherited his father’s legacy and exhibited technical comprehension. Mridangam artist BCM–as he is popularly called–could, given his diverse expertise to play for classical and global fusion music, retain his raw, rugged beats but simultaneously complement Manjunath. In a post-performance conversation, all the artists concurred that they were fortunate to train in stringent familial legacy, the foundation of which offered them the security to both be rooted and yet experiment and explore.
Coming back to Katoti’s recital, this team was more formal in their camaraderie, their identity lay in preparation and adherence to structure, one that was built just right and carved for the day’s audience. Besides, unlike the violin to which a rasika is attuned, Katoti had to craft a structure for the lesser-known harmonium solo recital, a format for which Katoti is striving to create global currency. For example, in the third piece Pahadi, although he tapped into the vivacity of the folk genre, there was still the characteristic gravity and depth of the classical genre, one that also upheld the instrument’s aesthetic. The tabla equally remained within the framework of pleasantness rather than racing toward a vigorous crescendo.
Given that the festive season had other performances lined up, Katoti excelled in crafting a wholesome recital in an hour which would otherwise have been just the musician’s warm-up. While such an effort needs the rasika to engross more, sadly that day’s Parisian audience was highly distracted. It does seem apathy if the organizers had to make multiple requests to ensure silence, after a commendable effort to globalize such rare art. Credit is overdue to rasikas Bhavana and Pradyumna, of CCParis a couple who consistently push the envelope to create spaces, performances, and vibes for diasporic Indian art.
[1] Jill Dolan, “Geographies of Learning,” Geographies of Learning: Theory and Practice, Activism and Performance, Middleton, (CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2001), 65–91; David Wiles, “Seeing is Believing: A Historian’s Use of Images,” in Representing the Past: Essays in Performance Historiography, eds. Charlotte Canning and Thomas Postlewait (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2010), 215–39; Marvin Carlson, “Space and Theatre History,” in Canning and Postlewait, Representing the Past, 195–214.
[2] Carlson, “Space and Theatre History,” 195–214; Janet O’Shea, Bharata Natyam on the Global Stage: At Home in the World (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, 2009), 4–11.
[3] Richard Schechner, “Ritual and Performance,” Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology (1994), 613–47.
[4] Kalpana Ram, “Being ‘rasikas’: The Affective Pleasures of Music and Dance Spectatorship and Nationhood in Indian Middle-Class Modernity,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17 (2011): S161–64.
