Celebrated musician Niladri Kumar, the ‘Wah Taj’ face known for his international fusion albums, Bollywood work and the ‘Zitar’, an instrument he has invented, is an artiste who blends well the tradition of purists with a newfangled freshness. Doing a fine balancing act between his music albums and playing for Hindi film industry, Kumar feels that his is a continuously evolving journey in which no matter how much he learns, there is always a lot more to discover.
Asked by The Pioneer if he had a larger audience abroad for his albums than back home in India, Kumar, who was here for a concert, admitted candidly lamenting, “Yes, it is a reverse situation. People in the West have far greater appreciation and awareness of Indian traditional music than within our country. “For instance, whenever I travel abroad, people always recognise the Sitar and show keen interest. I have observed that in the West if around 20 per cent people recognise me, in India it is actually only two per cent. Here, at the customs, officers look askance at my Zitar and ask me coldly, “What is thisIJ Where did you get it fromIJ How much is it forIJ” With no respect, I usually get much better treatment in foreign land.”
The son of famed Sitar player, Kartick Kumar, who was a student of maestro Ravi Shankar, Niladri grew up learning from the best and started his career with laxmikant Pyarelal in the 1980s. He has played with the likes of Zakir Hussain, AR Rahman, Shankar-Ehsaan-loy and with legendary international musicians like the iconic guitarist John Mclaughlin and Swedish Jazz star Jonas Hellborg.
Responding to The Pioneer’s question about what was it like to play with such legends, Kumar reflected, “When you play with an international legend, you are trying to fit in their scheme of music. It is not about how famous a star I am but about being able to assimilate. I am trained in Indian classical music, so for me what it is to be playing with these stars of western music like jazz can be described by this analogy- I study for an English exam preparing to write about a river. But when I go for the exam, I am told to write about an elephant. I know what an elephant looks like but I have practised on the topic of a river. So I connect the dots about how an elephant is huge, what his skin is like, what he eats and eventually link it to how an elephant comes to the river to drink water, he slips and falls into the river and then I write about the river, the topic I had trained myself for. So when playing with foreign music legends, it is the same thing I do with my music.”
On the current phase of music in India, Kumar rued that in India people today want instant success and they are not willing to travel those extra miles. Describing the ‘Zitar’, Kumar shared, “An instrument should not be called new just because a new string is added to it but only when it creates a new kind of music. Having said so, my Zitar is an electric Sitar that I innovated because I wanted to play music that had a wider reach. Back then I had not anticipated that the instrument would become so popular. To my amazement, someone else has got my instrument- the ‘Zitar’ patented already. It’s as if in India anyone can get anything patented, all it takes is eighteen months.”