Sound of world music
RANJANI GOVIND
|
Anasuyaa Kulakarni collects musical instruments from around the globe
|
photo: N. Sridharan
ADAPTABLE INSTRUMENT Anasuyaa Kulakarni performs on the Indonesian Angklung
When Gayana Samaja honoured Dr. H.S. Anasuyaa Kulakarni with the title `Swara Bhooshani' last week, it was not just for her familiarity and intricate understanding of swaras, but for the melodic patterns she transfers on her rare Indonesian instrument Angklung. Dikshitar's `Vathapi Ganapathim' in Hamsadwani that highlights an ascending pattern of swara scale proved a magical melody, transformed on the non-Indian device with an aural pleasure hitherto unheard of on pastoral musical implements.
Angklung is a diatonic instrument that Anasuyaa adapted to Carnatic Music after years of nerve-wracking study and acclimatisation during her stay in Indonesia.
It is a rattle bamboo instrument hung on a base, belonging to the idiophone family and makes music with skilful taps from a slender bamboo stick for continuity in melodic vibrations.
Born in Mysore, Anasuyaa, a vocal student of T. Chowdiah and R. R. Keshava Murthy, also learnt Hindustani under Mohammed Hussain Sarahung in Kabul.
"I have travelled with my husband who was serving for the United Nations and his postings took me to Kabul, Mangolia, China, Indonesia... After the famous instruments of Kabul, Rubab and Swaramandal, it was the stringed instruments of China that interested me.
I was floored by Angklung in Indonesia when I saw people perform on them with ease. I thought the pattern of melodic flow in Angklung could be made suitable to Indian music. Why not study more and do something daringly different, was the idea that has brought me here today," says Anasuyaa.
The instrument configured to suit Indian Cutcheri kind has 13 pieces of bamboo, working on octaves that suit the length and breadth of phrases generally typical to the genre. There are Angklungs, which rise to four feet in height with eight people simultaneously performing with eight differently pitched pieces in Indonesia. "For Carnatic Music I had to deal with bamboo pieces of different lengths and place them to get all the swaras of our scale," she says.
Not just for collection
Anasuyaa's penchant to collect instruments was not just for `collection sake.'
She delved into their minutiae and after living with the 250-odd instruments, she enrolled for a PhD in Comparative study of various instruments of Asia, Africa and Pacific at Annamalai University in Tamil Nadu and obtained a doctorate in 2001.
Her bamboo instruments fill an entire room at her home in J. P. Nagar.
"I have an obsession for bamboo, and I can demonstrate on every instrument that I have from my assortment," says Anasuyaa, who conducts lecture demonstrations worldwide on with her rare pieces as the Ethiopian Krar, Indonesian Chelempung, Uganda's Endingidi and Adungu, China's Cinco, Sepic flute from Papua New Guinea or the Khan from Thailand.
Indian folklore has many stories of Lord Krishna as the shepherd treating village folk to enchanting music on his flute.
But it is said that this modest bamboo instrument had its origin in African countries, says Anasuyaa.
"When the soothing wind wafted through the insect-bit holes in the vast expanse of bamboo forests there, the African's created a one-hole reed and then the multi-holed cylindrical wonder followed."
Other eye-catchers in her collection include the V and U top end flutes, pencil-thin piston flutes, the Kua-Kumbha flutes used in Papua New Guinea for Pig Feast, Tripura's bamboo clapper Lebang Gumani used to shoo insects in crop fields and the bamboo panpipe used by hunters in Indonesia to attract stags.
"I want to continue being an ambassador of cross-cultural musical exchanges," says Anasuyaa whose performances are coupled with her demonstrations on her myriad possessions.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
