Of the artist’s profound humility
   Date :14-Jan-2025

Pandit Ravi Shankar
 
By Vijay Phanshikar :
“You cannot treat a ‘raga’ as if it was your servant. You cannot sit on its chest and order it go your way. You should delve deep into its mysteries, dedicate yourself totally to its spirit and allow it to seek expression through you as a medium.”
- Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar,
as quoted by Oliver Craske in ‘An Unending Quest’,
the Introduction to the maestro’s
biography titled
‘Indian Sun -- The Life and Music of
Ravi Shankar’,
Faber & Faber, (2020), Hard-Cover
ABSOLUTELY typical mindset of a -- any -- maestro ! You are not the creator of the music. You are not the master of the ‘raga’. You are only a medium through which the music expresses itself. Or, in other words, music chooses you to be its medium -- every music maestro reminds self all along, every waking or sleeping moment. On this count, there is no compromise. True, there are some music masters who are extremely proud of their art, their mastery. Some of them also appear to be extremely arrogant, so to say. No matter such personality attributes, most artists -- whether in music or sculpture or painting -- are conscious of their role as a medium through which the art expresses itself. This consciousness brings them to realise their limitations, and also their responsibility to become the best channel through which the art expresses itself at that given moment.
 
This sense of limitation as well as responsibility makes every true artist weigh down in extreme humility and accept that the art is the master -- and he (or she) is only a maestro, a word that defines only the mastery of the skill of expression of the art (which is the real, actual master). This is a wonderful feeling, as every artist -- in any domain -- asserts. Through lifetime of conversation with countless iconic artists, this scribe has realised that the artist’s connect with the art is an elating, elevating, enlightening -- and liberating -- process. Most artists get a sense of enhanced and deep meditation while they are engaged in presenting their art form. Pandit Ravi Shankar, too, said once: “I feel God mostly in the musical notes” ! The field of art -- classical music included -- is replete with examples of personages who delve deep into its (art’s) mysteries, dedicate ... totally to its spirit, like Pandit Ravi Shankar. In those moments of meditative ecstacy, they feel an unusual closeness to the Divine.
 
They sense their personalities getting sublimated into the higher echelons of human awareness. Of course, the crux of this spiritual process is the awareness that -- in case of music, the ‘raga’ is not the servant of the maestro, but a master, THE master ! Pandit Ravi Shankar once gave a fine expression to the spiritual process: “... what makes it (Indian classical music) special is not the exotic part, the virtuosity. This element of speed and playing for the gallery is found in other music also. Every music has speed ... But the very serene part of our music -- you call it spiritual, devotional, soothing, peaceful, whatever you call it -- this is the most unique thing in our music.”
 
This says so much about the spirituality of the Indian classical music (and dance as well) and every other art form. In such a mindset, the artist can rarely get the feeling that he is the master. At best, he may be called a maestro -- which we often do -- but never the master. The disciples may call him (or her) the master -- the Guru -- all right. But the maestro’s personality is conscious of the frame whose walls he (or she) cannot jump, no matter how skilled he or she is. So, the true artist refuses to treat the ‘raga’ as his or her servant -- and thanks the ‘raga’ for allowing him (or her) to be the instrument or medium via which music -- or art -- gets expressed. What a profound humility, this !