prohor

We learned ragas only in the proper prohor^. There are eight prohors in the day. 6am to 9am, 9am til noon, the late morning time. 12noon til 3pm, dupur. 3pm-6pm, late afternoon and sunset. 6pm-9pm, sunset and early evening. 9pm to midnight, evening.  12midnight til 3am, late night, and  3am til 6am, pre-dawn.

We would learn the mood and flavor of each raga based on when it was played, the season. Baba only allowed us to play the appropriate raga in its right time. We never questioned why, but we would feel the anubhava (emotional connection/feeling) only when we played that raga at the appointed time.

^ prohor is the Bengali pronunciation for the term prahar in Sanskrit, a three-hour block of the day.

in conversation,  Friday, Sept 26, 2014, Durgakund.

defending the musical sanctuary

…This instant anger was rooted in two things.  One was his intense devotion to music. Anything that lowered it from the high pedestal to which he had raised it, would arouse the savage in him. He would resurrect the forgotten passions of his tantric ancestor, hemmed in by cannibals and savages.  In those distant days Deb Sharma must have jealously guarded his shrine as would a trapped tigress her cubs.  Something of that erupted in Baba if anything intruded the musical sanctuary in his heart.   

Once, in Lucknow,  Baba asked Ravi Shankar to play on sitar in the presence of veteran musicians of the day. Some haughty Ustad objected saying: “It has been a baz [style] of sarod, how can you make him play it on his sitar?” referring to the then unwritten convention that the special type of music for sarod could not be played on sitar, or vice versa.  It was regarded almost like serving western dishes on a plantain leaf. 

Baba all his life had worn himself thin to pull down these artificial barriers. He had derived the essence of each baz, each pattern, and blended them into a musical rainbow.  He had suffered untold hardships and humiliations to combine the separate playing patterns into a common lore for all instruments. Thus had evolved the combined sequence of alap, jod, jhala, gat, etc. The other Ustad was questioning the very basis of Baba’s life-work, i.e.,  codification of instrumental styles…

p84, Chapter 12, Intimate Facets

Pandit upadhi

Sitting for his evening session, he begins, speaking in his old smooth Bengali, his long fingers holding a gold-embossed cup of fortified milk.  “You know, in the olden days we could not simply decide one day to put the title pandit or ustad in front of our names at our own whim, simply as a marketing technique.  There was a strict and solemn code on who could be call themselves, or be referred to as, Pandit or Ustad.

“I remember it was only two years since I had left Maihar and eventually returned to Varanasi after touring the south of India. I was performing actively at the request of Baba.  In 1958, the principal of Adra University invited me to Adra, in Bihar. Several elders also attended the music conference. After my performance, they began to discuss.  They called me and said, ‘You are now Pandit.’

“And, so it became. And so it was. That day, Kishen Maharaj, who was also invited to the music conference, was given the title Sangat Samrāt, indicating his competence to accompany classical Indian musicians.  At that time, the blessing of the title was purely performance-based. Once could not inherit it, though one’s family would predispose one to learning music. But a person had to earn the title, through his or her own merit.”  Jotin Mesho pauses.   “Now.... every tom, dick and harry finds, or hires, someone to listen to him and entitle him as Pandit.  How can a world audience know who is real…? They do not know, in fact. And that is why they cannot appreciate the depth and delight of true Indian classical music…”

in conversation,  Friday, Sept 26, 2014, Durgakund.

his youngest daughter, Annapurna

...The long sufferings which Baba had undergone during his early life might have been partly compensated with rather balmy days he saw in later life.  But his heart was not entirely free from grief and not at least as far as his daughter Annapurna Shankar was concerned. Baba doted on her, for she has fully realized most of his dreams of a disciple. Even if her face straightened a little, Baba would visibly be moved. So when despite her valiant efforts to keep from her father the cracks in her apparently happy marriage, Baba could instinctively gauge the depth of her grief, he could not be the same again.

p59, Chapter 9, Remarkable Incidents of Life

Baba's beginnings

... He was the tantrik sadhu, Dina Nath Deb Sharma. In his early stage of life, he was a family man with a spiritual bent of mind. His wife expired soon after the birth of a male child, leaving the child behind to the mercy of God. Despite his apathy for family life, the boy was brought up by him with necessary care. As soon as the child was 7 years old, he was placed under the care of one of his disciples; then he renounced family life in quest of higher spiritual attainment. 

p2, Prelude