Prateek Chaudhuri and Pandit HariPrasad Chaurasia performed at Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan’s 102nd birthday celebrations. UK Banerjee shares details about Chaudhury’s 17-fret sitar and Chaurasia’s raga Durga
Ustad Mushtaq Ali Khan, the illustrious doyen of Indian classical music of the last century, whose 102nd birthday was recently observed by the UMAC Centre for Culture, had an endearing way of highlighting the vital role of instrumental music. Called musicians’ musician, he used to emphasise the well-known aphorism: Uttam gana, madhyam bajana (vocals excellent, instruments mediocre), changed as: Uttam gana, maadhyam (the medium) bajana! In a professional career spanning over 60 years, he represented the uninterrupted line of nine generations, playing sitar with 17 frets. This, in turn, reputedly represented the tradition of Senia gharana dating back to Ustad Maseed Sen, a sixth-generation direct descendant of Mian Tansen!
Prateek Chaudhuri, the young sitar exponent, explains the 17-fret mystique of his gharana’s sitar, as opposed to the more prevalent 19 or 21-fret sitars, thus, “our sitar has traditional cords for only one Gandhara and one Nishad. But for 19-fret instruments, there are two Gandharas and two Nishads. So, in playing ragas like Khamaj or Des, we have to pull another cord. Thus, our tonal quality also remains different.”
In fact, in the festival, Prateek played masterfully raga Maru Behag: alap and jod and then came to some rare rhythmic variations like nine-beat and 81/2-beat cycles in a traditional Maseedkhani gat. While his note-combinations sounded more like pure Behag, his alap was remarkably marked by sapat taan of gayaki ang. He added, “I have to maintain utmost clarity in taan.” Yet Prateek’s dexterity seemed to be in tantraang, where he used many impromptu bols (mnemonics). He was particularly adept in drut laya (fast tempo) and ati drut laya (very fast tempo) in his tantrakari where he quite often appeared to get the better of his otherwise quite seasoned tabliya, Pt Ram Kumar Mishra.
Prateek’s forte was his addressing the audience and ask listeners to clap: seldom done by any instrumentalist (or vocalist) from the rostrum. The claps were meant to punctuate: when to start his playing and when to stop. He controlled his sams (end of rhythm-cycles) accordingly. The interventions became almost a game and Prateek played skillfully with ateet (ending sam afterwards) and anaagat (ending sam beforehand) rather than where it was due! Again, the tabliya was occasionally found to be out of his depths!
Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia, easily the most acclaimed flautist (after Pannalal Ghosh) of India, followed next. He began with the highly-contemplative raga Jog, playing the usual sequence of alap, jod and jhala. He started on a serene note and remained stay for quite a while, with his accompanying disciple joining in at times. A musician nonpareil, Chaurasia seemed on this occasion somewhat ill at ease with his left hand: trembling sans control. This was all right when he was still seated, but once the fingers went to the flute, the shaking was largely involuntary, losing the delicate grasp of the instrument and thereby seemingly missing out the notes’ nuances. Once he went beyond jhala, things improved a little and, certainly in the next item — playing the pentatonic raga Durga — he was more comfortable. This is not to gainsay Pandit ji’s greatness, which is indisputable and he is still better than most other flautists. But the inevitable, perhaps unkind, thought lurked in one’s mind as to whether he should not gradually ease himself out from performance platforms now.
Chaurasia said, “I didn’t feel anything wrong while playing Jog. It was fine.” The fact file of his life is an open book, especially the facts that he resurrected bamboo-flute from being a mere folk instrument and, what is more, introduced Jhala never attempted previously on bamboo flute. On that issue, he confirmed with gusto, “It is most widely accepted end every flautist plays jhala.”