Silence of a celestial musician

By Kalakeerthi Edwin Ariyadasa

“Music, the greatest good that mortals know,
And all of heaven we have below.”
-Joseph Addison

In all sophisticated cultures, music is esteemed as a boon to man. In consequence, those who practise it at elitist height, are blessed messengers of the divine.

Indian legendary sitar player Ravi Shankar performs during his concert at the Vienna State Opera House in conjunction with the Jazz Festival Vienna in 2005. Reuters

They appear occasionally on earth, enthral humanity with their eclestial gift and pass on, leaving clearing a trail of resounding and echoing silence.

One such global stalwart, has just left us. When Pandit Ravi Shankar took leave from humanity at the age of 92, a whole era of culture – synthesising global music, fell silent. He was India's musical gift to the totality of mankind – sans borders, differences, cleavages and artificial boundaries.

Pandit Ravi Shankar, the most outstanding universal musical aesthete of our time was born into a family of cultural aristocrats, in traditional Benaris, India.

Childhood

As a child he lisped in music. Infant Ravi trotted about in dance steps. Art, music and dance were the staple of the cultural back-drop of his childhood days.

Born with the original name Robindro Shankor Chowdury, he later on assumed the version Ravindra Shankar – eventually to acquire global popularity as Ravi Shankar.

Early on, he was part of the ensemble of his globally renowned dance guru – brother Uday Shankar. Uday's dance group gave Ravi an opportunity to travel around the world. His exquisite sense of rhythm became a built-in factor, no doubt, because of his initial association with his brother's dance group.

Sitar

Opting to go his own way, he left dancing in 1938, when he was just 18. His keenly felt urge was to master the Sitar.

Here he was benefited extensively by his studies under the master Allauddin Kahn. The apprenticeship possessed a long-term sustaining effect.

Ravi Shankar, was an innovative visionary from the very beginning. He perceived that traditional Indian music, when wedded to the newly emerging media, could work itself surreptitiously into the inner recesses of the masses.

His music for Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, provided Ravi Shankar the opportunity to savour the potential appeal of synthesis.

When he collaborated with Yehudi Menuhin – the violin virtuoso and Sitar star could merge their individual refinements seamlessly into a universal musical note.

A new era in modern musical integration was ushered in.

Profound music

The most significant outcome to emerge from this synthesis, was the “discovery” of the aesthetic world of classical Indian music by culture – alert western sophisticates, who, as a rule, had been somewhat sceptic about what the East could offer in profound music.

In such a background Pandit Ravi Shankar assumes the stature of a “new world” sage, who, blazed a pioneering trail of East-West cultural links, with Indian classical music as the bonding force.

Pandit Ravi Shankar's intimate musical association with George Harrison of the Beatles, is eloquent witness to the ties the Pandit forged, with both classical and demotic exponents of world music.

Historically, it could be said 1956 marks the beginning of Ravi Shankar's music synthesising pilgrimage.

Pandit Ravi Shankar, the Bengali Brahmin, assiduously committed himself to the task of bringing into being a class of international “Brahmins,” deeply appreciative of the transforming potentiality of elitist music.

Cultural emissary

The state of India quite effectively recognised the exquisite role played by Pandit Ravi Shankar as an unofficial cultural emissary of India.

He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha – the Upper House of the Indian Parliament.

The highest Civilian Honour India can offer is Bharat Ratnam. When this was conferred upon Pandit Ravi Shankar, the world recognised that a new age of international understanding has arisen – largely through Ravi Shankar's creative exertions.

Though his fingers have become inactive and though the strings of his Sitar no longer reverberate to his dulcet touch, the musical synthesis, he initiated will continue to bring people together, providing muted undertones to all the wholesome efforts people make to achieve friendly co-existence, in a world tragically riven by destructive division.

Pandit Ravi Shankar's sitar is a perennial symbol of man's ability to come together through aesthetic links. He passed away in California, again, indicating his globe – girdling musical sway.