In the afternoon, Mohan, my music-teacher’s brother, and Sohanlal, his brother-in-law, ring the doorbell. Ponchoo then silently brings out the tablas and tuning-hammer from the cupboard, and the big tabla, shaped like half a globe, he balances between one arm and his chin maternally; the smaller one he clutches lightly but firmly by the strong cords of bark along its sides. Mohan and Sohanlal take a long time settling down, talking in their own language, the latter chattering very fast, while Mohan, a man of few words, sits carefully on the sofa. It is easy to see that Mohan is related to my music-teacher, that he is his brother, because their faces are similar, especially the colour of their skin, Mohan perhaps even a little darker than my music-teacher was. The timbre of Mohan’s voice is also like my guru’s, slightly husky, not loud or deep. Though he may not be aware of it, it is impossible for others not to see my guru come to life, in flashes, in Mohan’s facial expressions, his turns of phrase, and his gestures. But Mohan is an unassuming man, while my guru, shorter and a little plump, was a showoff, doing astonishing feats with his voice and then chuckling gleefully at our admiration. Laughter is drawn out reluctantly from Mohan, who I think used to both hero-worship and self-effacingly humour his brother (he told me once he had turned to tabla-playing because there couldn’t be two singers in a family, and that, when they were both learning the intricacies of vocal music from their father, he found his elder bother much too quick, much too clever to compete with), while my guru, especially when singing, would laugh happily after a difficult taan, and shake with mirth when he arrived at, after much deliberately drunken meandering, the sama, bringing a small, reluctant smile to his younger brother’s lips. On tapes on which I recorded my guru singing in my house, complex melodic leaps and falls performed by him can be heard punctuated by brief chuckles.
When a singer performs, it is the job of the accompanists to support him dutifully and unobtrusively. A cyclical rhythm-pattern—say, of sixteen beats—is played at an unchanging tempo on the tabla, and the song and its syllables are set to this pattern, so that one privileged word in the poem will coincide ineluctably with the first of the sixteen beats in the cycle. This first beat is called the sama, and much drama, apprehension, and triumph surround it. For the singer is allowed to, even expected to, adventurously embark on rhythmic voyages of his own, only to arrive, with sudden, instinctive, and logical grace, once more at the sama, taking the audience, who are keeping time, unawares. Once this is achieved, the logic seems at first a flash of genius, and then cunningly pre-meditated. While the pretence is kept up, and the singer’s rhythm appears to have lost itself, the tabla-player, with emotionless sobriety, maintains the stern tempo and cycle, until the singer, like an irresponsible but prodigious child, decides to dance in perfect steps back into it. Similarly, when a singer is executing his difficult melodic patterns, the harmonium-player must reproduce the notes without distracting him. The tabla and harmonium players behave like palanquin-bearers carrying a precious burden, or like solemn but indulgent guardians who walk a little distance behind a precocious child as it does astonishing things, seeing, with a corner of their eye, that it does not get hurt, or like deferential ministers clearing a path for their picturesque prince, or like anonymous and selfless spouses who give of themselves for the sake of a husband. Mohan, who plays the tabla with clarity and restraint, created the ground on which my guru constructed his music, and Sohanlal, attentively playing the harmonium, filled in the background. In the care of these two custodians, my guru sang and shone with his true worth.