The Sound is God

For most Americans, Indian music is one of those fads that went out with the '60s. It conjures up images of burning incense, Sri Chinmoy and vegetarian snack bars. Most Americans' exposure to it is through Western popular musicians.

The Rolling Stones, Richie Havens and the Beatles used sitars for an exotic flair. Jazz musicians John McLaughlin and John Coltrane, attracted to Indian music's minor keys and improvisations, extracted aspects of its theory (quarter tones, complicated 17-beat rhythms, a constant drone) into their musical structures. The result is an innovative, unique music style that fuses Eastern and Western cultures.

The problem with such a style is that American audiences comprehend only the diluted version of a pure art form. There are Indian musicians in the U.S., such as sitarist Ravi Shankar and sarodist Ali Akbar Khan, who play unadulterated classical Hindustani music. But they seem more concerned with commercial success than with upholding the ancient secular and philosophical traditions that are an integral part of Indian classical music.

Many Indian musicians who come to the U.S. become intrigued with the plastic milk and honey they find here. As a result, their art is compromised by their materialistic lifestyle, and ultimately they have lowered their musical standards.

The loss of old traditions among the well-known Indian artists in this country makes Vilayat Khan's visit to Harvard last weekend an especially important event. Khan, one of India's most prominent sitarists, had never visited this country before. Although many authorities consider him the world's greatest living sitarist, he dislikes publicity and giving concert tours, and has not become very well-known outside of the Indian subcontinent. His lecture-demonstration at the Cabot Hall living room on Friday and his concert at Jordan Hall in Boston on Saturday were rare opportunities for Americans to experience Khan's virtuoso technique and original style.

Classical Indian music is connected deeply with the Hindu religion in which it was born. According to legend, several yogis created the music 4000 years ago. They devised a musical system whereby each note symbolized a feeling and part of the body. The music's purpose was utter self-realization, to be one with God.

It was a mystical way to understand the universe's infiniteness. The vogis assigned each raga (a musical composition based on a scale) to a time of day, year and mood. To many Western listeners, the music seems monotonous because its patterns and melodies change so subtly. Unlike Western music, the purpose is to express one constant mood.

The music is steeped in symbolic rituals. A student's guru is more than his teacher--he is a paternalistic spiritual guide. In the student's initiation ceremony, a string is tied around his wrist to indicate devotion to his guru. In addition, the soles of one's feet are considered unclean; it is forbidden to touch instruments with them. Fifteen hours of practice each day is not considered too rigorous.

It was in such a rigidly structured environment that Vilayat Khan learned his art. The sixth generation of a family of celebrated musicians, he was born in 1924 in the town of Gouripur, located in Bangladesh. He gave his first concert at the age of seven, and made his first recording in his early teens. His reputation now is equivalent to that of Pablo Casals in the West.

Vilayat Khan's humility is the first thing one notices about him. A shy man nervously smoking a clove cigarette, he does not fit one's image of a world-esteemed recording artist. In his disregard for fame and commercialism, he is a musician in the traditional Indian mold. He does not enjoy performing for others, but for his own fulfillment.

For Khan, music is "nada Brahma" (sound is God). Playing in front of a large audience is a traumatic ordeal for him. He says, "The kind of person I am, so nervous. Every day I become more nervous. I have no confidence in my music. When I find out after a concert I did superbly, I am surprised. It is like I am a dummy with the sitar and God played for me."

During his lecture demonstration at South House Friday, Khan's discomfort was evident. After playing a 40-minute raga, he looked around the room like a bewildered child, at a loss for words, waiting for someone to relieve him quickly and take him off the stage. At a reception held for him after the concert, he exhibited the same social awkwardness, huddling in a corner of the couch, silent except when spoken to. Unlike Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, who thrive on these liquor-dominated social events, Khan seemed embarrassed.

"I have no time for social life, publicity, selling my own ticket in the hall. I do not have the courage. I prefer to keep quiet and live my life in the countryside."

Khan lives a reclusive life with his family and the few students who study with him, on his estate in northern India at the foot of the Himalayan Mountains. One of his favorite topics is his home-grown produce and simple rural lifestyle.

This desire for a private existence away from the commercial eye has been shown in his refusal to play for radio and television, and in his declining the Padma Shri and Padma Vibhusan Awards in 1964 and 1968. The awards are the highest distinctions the Indian government pays to Indian artists.

Khan says he turned down the awards in a reaction against what he saw as an arbitrary process. "I asked them, 'On what basis is a person given an award--age, beauty, wealth? How can you judge the artist?' They couldn't answer me."

Khan's sheltered lifestyle prevented him from visiting the U.S. earlier. He has toured the Soviet Union, China, Europe and the Middle East, but Khan says he was afraid to come here because of what he had heard and seen through movies and television. He left American audiences would not be as receptive as those of other countries, and he did not want to leave the security of "staying in my own conditions."

The urgings of Khan's close friend, film producer Ismail Merchant, ultimately convinced him to come to the U.S. Merchant was helping Bloomingdale's department stores' president Marvin S. Traub '47 organize a series of Indian cultural events in the U.S., and Khan says, "I finally gave in this time because Ismail was so keen, and assured me that my whole family could come and that I could stay with families in quiet places."

He was surprised, upon arriving in the U.S., to find his fears alleviated. He did not encounter "tall rock buildings and people always in a hurry, unable to talk," but rather friendly and appreciative audiences.

Khan says that during his first days in this country he spent much of his time reflecting on the differences between Eastern and Western cultures. He disapproves greatly of musicians who experiment with mixing the two, valuing tradition over innovation. Attempts to make Indian music more palatable to American audiences by doing such things as writing concertos for sitar or playing Indian music on the saxophone, strike him as a compromise. "I myself will never try to mix two colors to create a third," he says. "It is easy to do that, but it is harder to work with just one color."

Referring to one Western violinist who recorded his experiments with Indian music, Khan says, "When I listen to that great Western musician trying to play Eastern music, he sounds like a child. The Moonlight Sonata--I could not be able to play it even like a European child.

Khan appreciates Western music--jazz, disco, opera--as long as it is unadulterated. His reactions to music are either emotional or intellectual. Bach intrigues him because his complicated fugues resemble Indian classical music in their repetition and variations on one theme. Maria Callas and Bartok are his favorites. "Bartok's compositions are so intricate, but like in Indian music he never uses more than ten notes at a time. Maria Callas--she is my type of lady. She does what she feels and doesn't play for others."

Khan vehemently opposes the various gurus and Indian musicians who come to the U.S. to commercially package their cults and art. His normally soft voice rises indignantly at the idea that they misrepresent Hindy culture in America. He sees Americans as too innocent; in their desire to find spiritual fulfillment in an alienating society, they are susceptible to movements such as the Hare Krishnas and Guru Maharaji.

In an interview last weekend, Khan was reluctant to discuss politics. But he did say that he supported former Prime Minister Indira Ghandhi's state of emergency. "What many Americans don't understand is that it was a necessary thing. Democracy is something people here have because it is tradition." He feels the emergency provided an order to the nation that was imperative for social and economic change. The American press played up its restrictiveness, he believes, and judged the Indian political situation by their own standards, without comprehending the complicated economic and social realities.

Despite any questions Khan might have about the Indian state of affairs, he does not intend to leave the country. It is understandable why he feels that way. In spite of its swelling poverty and destitution and its unstable political situation, India is the only place where he could best develop his art. Everywhere are indications of ancient religions and the traditions. Sacred cows walk the streets, shrines are at the feet of Bombay streetlamps, most homes have puja (worship) rooms and an idol of the household deity. People are named after characters in the Vedic scriptures.

Despite what many people think, not everyone in India is deeply religious--there are a fair number of hypocritical gurus there as well. But it is easier to live a meditative life there than in the U.S.; one has to, because the irremediable poverty demands an escape from it. Hearing Indian music night and day enriches the practice of it. America, with its diversity of cultures, just does not lend itself to the pursuit of pure Indian music.