Tunes unheard
GAUTAM CHATTERJEE
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Sitar maestro Nikhil Banerji's fingers were stilled two decades ago. But his music and his message remain with his admirers.
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The Hindu Photo Library
Pandit Nikhil Banerji
To recall meetings with great artistes like Pandit Nikhil Banerji is to invite an inevitable feeling of great loss. It was the early 1980s. He visited Varanasi with three gifts: his sensitive sitar, the raga Gauri Manjari and a deep silence. It was as if his sitar created joy between two silences. A full 20 years have elapsed since he left the mortal coil.
That last evening on the campus of Banaras Hindu University, accompanied on the tabla by Ishwar Lal Mishra, he enunciated the alap of raga Gauri Manjari in an unforgettable manner. It was a prayer composed in terms of tranquil grace. That divine supra-grace cannot be articulated, merely felt with the heart.
One made bold to ask why we don't find this creative dimension in his two great seniors, Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ustad Vilayat Khan Saheb.
"They are great and I am a humble student of theirs," answered the humble maestro, fondly addressed as Nikhil da, with his lovely smile. "I have least experience and knowledge in comparison to these two maestros. I listen more than I play. I aspire to hear that which is yet unheard."
After the unforgettable alap, he entered into a Maseetkhani gat in Puriya Kalyan. Characteristic of his style was to weave emotions into musical patterns so vivid they could never be repeated or sung. Even today, it seems, there is no one to reproduce his style.
"Actually I never create anything," he protested. "My imagination dictates to me and I follow the path that my guru and elders have shown me." Nikhil da wanted to talk and share more, but a mysterious silence always seemed to interrupt him. After that, he finished his programme with the raga Hamsadhwani.
In the end, it was a great mysterious feeling for all, since his fine fingers were trying to blend the required notes with nihilism, the space filled with an unknowingly widened space. Between these two spaces, two silences, he flowed with his chaindari that gave the feeling of listening to the notes of the unheard, the Anahata. We moved after that recital to Akashwani. He talked about his complacency with sad eyes. He was afraid of his restless nights in a silent gesture. He disclosed that he was to go to the U.S. for his check-up and treatment.
Only one fear
His only fear, he said was that his learning would be cut short.
"Several patterns of layakari and strokes are in my mind that I want to practice. If there is anyone prepared to receive this from me, I am ready to pass it all on so that it may be preserved."
He had a vast repertoire of inspiring musical memories. He recalled moments spent with the greats like Ustad Alauddin Khan Saheb, Wazir Khan Saheb and others. Today he too is a memory in the hearts of his admirers. But his music lives on.
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