I didn’t care much for Indian classical music and had simply accompanied a persuasive girl friend to a performance where apparently some celebrity was to sing. Typical in India, the event started at eight, with lesser known performers exhibiting their skills in the first three hours. Unlike in the west, the listeners felt free to talk, go out for a snack, keep beat audibly and even shout encouragements. You could even sing along with the artist. I wasn’t used to this and took it all in, curiously, like a circus show.
At eleven, the major artists started performing and the audience seemed more attentive. I tried to concentrate and enjoy a form of unfamiliar performing art, though more impressed than thrilled by the virtuosity of the maestros. By two in the morning, I was tired and my ability to listen with concentration had diminished, when a roar arose from the crowd at the announcement of next artist’s name. Bhimsen Joshi was evidently well known and eagerly anticipated. The fifty-year-old who walked on the stage seemed inure to the applause, quickly took his seat on the stage, nodded respectfully at the two accompanying musicians, closed his eyes for a second and then opened his mouth.
An electric shock seemed to pass through my body at the sound of his voice. It was a powerful, seamless voice, almost inhuman in its controlled majestic force. I didn’t so much listen as felt enveloped in a warm, eerie experience. I wasn’t a religious person, but I experienced what seemed like a spiritual experience, so acutely that the bizarre thought occurred to me that, should I somehow touch him, I could say that I had touched something holy.
An electric shock seemed to pass through my body at the sound of his voice. It was a powerful, seamless voice, almost inhuman in its controlled majestic force. I didn’t so much listen as felt enveloped in a warm, eerie experience. I wasn’t a religious person, but I experienced what seemed like a spiritual experience, so acutely that the bizarre thought occurred to me that, should I somehow touch him, I could say that I had touched something holy.
I am still not sure how long he sang, for time had stood still for me and for others too. I had heard the story of how he had left home, penniless, at the age of eleven after hearing a song by the master Abdul Karim Khan, to search for a teacher that would instruct him to sing like Khan, and become an itinerant singer living on others’ largess, till eight years later he found a tutor who was himself Khan’s protégé. Joshi had gone on to become a legend. I was hearing a voice that could, like Hamelin’s Piper, entice you on an unknown journey from your familiar universe.
When Joshi stopped and quietly folded his hands in the traditional gesture of completion, the crowd seemed petrified and made no move. Minutes passed before a giant roar of applause followed his humble, quick exit from the stage.
When Joshi stopped and quietly folded his hands in the traditional gesture of completion, the crowd seemed petrified and made no move. Minutes passed before a giant roar of applause followed his humble, quick exit from the stage.
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