Raga Megh with Love from Canada

In the first light of dawn, it is snowing; like a thousand plum blossom petals on pilgrimage from the first brave tree to bloom in early spring.
It is a seductive and teasing time; a blanket of white collects under grey morning sky and then melts under the surprise of afternoon sun. Buds begin to swell in anticipation, and the geese return home, as the cycle of freeze and thaw starts once more.
Here in Canada, where lines of culture can become fluid and flow into streams of new meaning, there is a house that evokes the feeling of a Japanese minka. Painted on a scroll above the sitar player are the running forms of Japanese villagers, escaping the rains. The ancient Indian Raga of storm clouds and monsoon crystallizes as snow that is swept clean from the stepping stones that lead out to a tea garden.
The musician is joined in his early morning riyaz by his friend, and tea is poured. Just inside the doorway is the scroll of the plum tree, and in the practice room, the scroll of the winter pine. Soon there will be a changing of the guard. As the music begins to intensify, the spring melt begins and the emerald moss is revealed under the rush of water through the rain chains.
The colour palette shifts from the cold blue of outdoor scenes, to a warm and golden interior. The birds featured are Canadian geese, chickadees, cardinals, house finches, and a downy woodpecker.
Thank you to Eric for the lovely black tea cups, to Koji Matsukawa for the rain scene scroll, and Koji Matsukawa for the pine scroll.
- Miranda Stone
Raga Megh is traditionally played to evoke feelings associated with the rainy season in South Asia and the ominous dark clouds that hang over the sweating earth like a Finnish mother hovering over the hot stones of a sauna with a pail of water.
My first meaningful encounter with Indian classical music took place on a field trip from my boarding school to see Pandit Ravi Shankar perform in 1986. I had only just begun studying sitar in India with my first guru, Ajit Singh. Some months before Ravi Shankar’s performance, I remember Mr. Singh coming into class with a pronounced expression of sorrow on his face. He announced that we would not touch our instruments for two weeks. When we inquired why, he said that a great master of the sitar had unexpectedly passed away while still in his prime. The sitar player was Pandit Nikhil Banerjee, whose 30th death anniversary was remembered this year (2016) on January 27th. He died at the age of 54. Sadly, despite the imposed fast from sitar, I did not properly grasp who he was, and it was only eight years later, while continuing my sitar studies in Lucknow at Bhaathkhande Music College that I first encountered his playing on a cassette recording of raga Megh and raga Sohini which I found in a music store in Hazratganj. The lyrical style and devotional mood, coupled with the fiery spontaneity of his improvisation fed my love for Indian music in a completely new way.
Now, thirty years later, here is my attempt to perform the piece, like a student of western classical music performing a piece by Beethoven. For me it is one necessary step along the way to improvising freely in raga Megh and the 10-beat time cycle called Jhaptal. For those unfamiliar with the original recording, I hope my rendition leads them to the source. And for those who know the original recording well, I hope this film will bring Nikhil Banerjee’s music to life again in your heart, perhaps this time amidst snow and the singing and dancing of birds.
- Christopher Dicran Hale
[e-mail]
[e-mail]