Indian classical music can be a spiritual experience but there is also a tradition of thought and artistic pursuit

Recently, a revered practitioner and guru of Indian classical music said that all such music is spiritual or enmeshed in spirituality. His comment left me baffled and mildly irritated. But of course, he is not the first to make such a proclamation.

While the need for musicians to embrace spirituality is unknown to me, it seems an easy escape route lest they be required to discuss performance, composition and musical philosophy. The myth of spirituality impedes conversations about form, origin and the presentation of performance. This creates a pliant audience that is expected to feel devotion and merely receive and exit rather than question their experience. The performance becomes a blindfold, not an enabling experience for the audience. The listening to and reception of this music could be a spiritual experience for some but Indian classical music is an evolved form of artistry. This evolution is largely credited to several practitioners and their significant interventions which demonstrate a tradition of thought and artistic pursuit.

The term ‘soch’ is thrown around in discussions on Indian classical music. If soch is a critical element of classical music, how could it be devoid of intellect? The same raga after all has been rendered differently by musicians hailing from one gharana. Indian classical musicians are simultaneously thinkers, philosophers, rule-benders and creators. Our conversations about intellectuals are largely dominated by poets, writers, painters, and filmmakers. Why are musicians seldom acknowledged in this category?

Kumar Gandharva perhaps got a fair deal — and rightly so — given his epochal music that so many were drawn to. Mallikarjun Mansur was adored for similar reasons. Nikhil Banerjee has a committed fan base amongst the intelligentsia. I know several scientists who are besotted by Malini Rajurkar. The avant-garde filmmaker Mani Kaul learnt Dhrupad and made a film on the subject. Kumar Shahani made Khayal Gatha (1989), which traces the history of Khayal singing. I still remember Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar (1958) for Begum Akhtar, and Govind Nihalani’s Drishti (1990) for its music composed by Kishori Amonkar featuring the lilting melody, “Megha Jhar Jhar Barasat Re.”

I wonder whether spirituality had any role to play in all of this. It was the sheer intellect of a group of artists who compelled attention to their art form and fostered new engagements. What is Ali Akbar’s Chandranandan if not the evidence of a great mind at work?

Only a perceptive mind could interpret poetic texts that way. Singing is also a way of enunciating your reading and interpretation of texts. At a recent concert in Pune, I heard the most sublime yet esoteric Marwa by the great sitarist Budhaditya Mukherjee. My friend exclaimed at the concert: “This is sheer intellect.” I couldn’t have said it better.