On the Wings of Music: A Book of Journeys

By Shantanu Moitra

There was once a young boy who loved nothing more than making music. He dreamt of sharing his music with the world. One day, his dream came true.From a childhood spent strumming away at a guitar in Delhi to one of the most successful music composers in Mumbai: this is the story of Shantanu Moitra. His ebullience and sheer sense of adventure light up this memoir. Finding himself all alone at Jaisalmer station at three in the morning as a schoolboy; days as a client servicing drone in an advertising agency; collaborations with the biggest names in Hindi cinema; the making of Parineeta, his greatest hit; an all-consuming love of astronomy; near-death escapades in the Himalayas; his surreal moment with Diego Maradona at Milan airport - these stories provide a fascinating glimpse of the man behind the music.On the Wings of Music is a collection of reminiscences, anecdotes and self-revelations, embellished by photographs from Moitra's personal albums. These are delightful vignettes that chart the growth of a timid, self-effacing boy into a music composer of international repute. Charming and compelling.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9789351365051

Shantanu Moitra

SHANTANU MOITRA has composed the music in landmark films like Parineeta, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi and 3 Idiots. He was born in Lucknow but moved with his family to Delhi when he was very young. His father is a sarod player and mother is an artist. Moitra grew up in an environment of creativity. Right from his childhood, Moitra was fascinated with folk music from around the world. After quitting client servicing in an ad agency, Moitra started composing jingles. 'Bole mere lips I love Uncle Chipps' was his first ad and he has scored for more than two thousand ads. In 2007, he won the Cannes Bronze Lion for scoring the Happydent ad. Moitra dons many hats: he is a keen trekker, avid photographer and an amateur astronomer. In 2005, he went to the Everest base camp. In 2006, he won the R.D. Burman Filmfare Award. He received the President's National Film Award in 2014 for best music direction. ARUNA CHAKRAVARTI is a well-known writer and translator. Prominent among her eleven published books are five translated works: Songs of Tagore, Srikanta, Those Days, First Light and The Way Home. Her creative writing includes a book of short stories, Secret Spaces, and two critically acclaimed novels: The Inheritors, which was short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2004, and the recent best-selling Jorasanko. She has received several awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Sarat Puraskar.

Book preview

1

JAISALMER STATION, 3 A.M.

When I was very young, we lived in Benares in a house facing the one in which Ustad Allauddin Khan lived. I’ve been told that as an infant, whenever I cried or was fretful, I was taken to Khan Saheb’s house where I would quieten down while listening to his music. It seems to me now that the melodies I heard then gradually entered my bloodstream and have, over the years, suffused my soul.

My mother was a Lucknow girl and a trained Kathak dancer. My father’s people hailed from the other side of the river, then known as East Bengal. When looking for a place to resettle after Partition, they chose Benares because it was the holy of holies for Hindustani classical music, a city where all musicians congregated. A strong love of music ran through my father’s side of the family, a love that went so far back that it had become a tradition. All my uncles were musical. Some sang, while some played the sitar or the sarod. My father was a very good sarod player.

However, banks that look green from afar aren’t always so when one comes close to them. My father’s infatuation with Benares eventually faded. He relocated to Delhi, a better place for education and employment. At first we lived in Patel Nagar, then, when I was in Class Six, we moved to Chittaranjan Park. And it was here that I first discovered what being a Bengali was. I experienced the joy and bewilderment of living in a single-language community. Everyone was Bengali, even shopkeepers and household helps. Durga Puja, Rabindra Sangeet, politics and adda sessions – I was part of them all.

As a child I studied in a kindergarten (the concept had just about caught on) run by an Anglo-Indian lady and her daughter, Jo. One year, at a school function, Jo brought her friend Susmit Bose to play the guitar. It was the first time I had heard the instrument, and I was completely bowled over. Of course, part of the enchantment flowed from Susmit Bose himself. He was six feet tall with hair cascading to his shoulders and a dark, velvety stubble covering his cheeks and chin. He looked just like Jesus Christ. But the wonder of his music and the resonance of his instrument have stayed with me through the years.

It was the 1970s and the hangover from Woodstock hadn’t eased its grip. ‘We had joy, we had fun / We had seasons in the sun…’ Jo and Susmit sang together. And I fell desperately in love with Western music. From that moment there was no looking back. From the world of Hindustani classical music, which had cocooned me from birth, I fell into another. From Dylan to all the folk music of the world, I wanted to experience it all.

When I was a little older, still in school but in the higher classes, I developed a passion for collecting old vinyl records. In those days an auction was held every Sunday in Chanakyapuri where the embassies were housed. People flocked to it to bid for the foreign furniture, carpets, crockery and cutlery put up for sale by embassy officials who were being posted out of India. I went there as often as I could and picked up old discs. Listening to them appeased some of the wanderlust that drove me into a frenzy. My father wasn’t rich enough to send me abroad for higher studies, and I wasn’t brilliant enough to merit a scholarship. But so what? As the music entered my ears, my imagination broke loose from its trappings and carried me on silken wings to the distant lands I yearned to see. I used to gaze at the pictures on the records and go trekking over strange mountains, cross bridges over alien rivers and tramp down unknown streets.

The 1960s, when Dylan reigned supreme, was the decade of escape. And the ’70s, when I was growing up, still bore much of the character of the preceding decade. Arre! I thought to myself one day, all great men are rebels. They either run away from home or break social or community rules or… or… do something their families disapprove of. I too must become a rebel. But how? The first step, obviously, was to run away from home. This decision didn’t spring from any annoyance or disappointment with my family. Nothing of the sort. It was just the done thing. Everyone was running away. I would too.

One day I told my father that our school was organizing an excursion and that all my friends were going. With this unadulterated lie still ringing in my ears I boarded the train to Jaisalmer. I chose Jaisalmer not because I wanted to see the ‘golden fort’ but because I wanted to hear the Ravanhatta. I had heard this instrument only once at the Festival of India concert in Red Fort, and been driven mad with longing to hear it again. There was only one idea in my head now: I must hear the Ravanhatta. I must hear the Ravanhatta. I will find a way of doing so, no matter what the consequence. How I would hear it, to whom I would go, I hadn’t a clue. The only thing I knew was that the instrument was to be found in Rajasthan.

On a whim, I bought a ticket and boarded a train to Jaisalmer. But as it pulled away and the figures of my waving friends faded in the distance, I felt the first stab of fear. And this fear turned to acute panic when, at three in the morning, I stepped onto the platform of Jaisalmer station. It was pitch dark, so dark that I couldn’t see my own hand. Flailing my arms in the inky void, I managed to find a bench and sank down at one end. My heart beat rapidly. What had I done? What fool’s errand had I embarked upon? The romance and glamour of roaming in the desert and crossing sand dunes with the strains of the Ravanhatta ringing in my ears vanished in the coal-black reality into which I had been flung headlong.

Precisely at that moment, a deep voice spoke from out of the dark. ‘You’ve run away from home … You’ve come in search of the Ravanhatta, haven’t you?’ I felt myself turning to stone. What … who was this? God or ghost? I could see nothing, hear nothing but the pounding of my heart. The disembodied voice spoke again. ‘Just pass me the sack, beta.’ Sack? What sack? I opened my mouth to ask but my throat was frozen and no sound came. Groping in the dark, I did find a sack with something heavy in it which I picked up and thrust in the direction of the voice. And now I heard some faint sounds. Jhum … jhum … jhum … jhum … the sound of metals hitting one another. But what they emerged from, I hadn’t the slightest idea. There was no time for speculation either, for now a burst of melody – poignant, primeval, tugging at the heartstrings – rose in the air. I recognized it. Someone was playing the Ravanhatta.

And now I sensed the direction from which it was coming. It was from the other end of the bench. I felt my heart soar as the hauntingly beautiful strains entered my ears and washed over my soul. Is it possible, I thought, that I’ve achieved my goal so soon? This kind of thing doesn’t happen even in storybooks. Am I really hearing this music or is it only my imagination?

The magic went on for an hour and a half, then stopped. Dawn was breaking now and in the faint light I could see a number of policemen sleeping on the platform. The musician was sitting next to me on the same bench. He was heavily shackled. The metallic sounds I had heard in the dark were, obviously, the clink of chains. He was quite a character, with shaggy locks and a flowing beard. Something about him made him appear larger than life. Later, I heard that he was a notorious dacoit of Jaisalmer, newly caught and being transported to Tihar Jail by personnel of the Delhi Police. Around six o’ clock, just before the train snaked its way alongside the platform and the policemen rose to bear him away, he thrust a cloth bag into my hands and whispered, ‘Open it after I’ve left. You’ll find it useful.’

I obeyed. Opening the bag after the train disappeared, I found it contained a thousand rupees. At the time I speak of, a thousand rupees was a great deal of money. And I was only a schoolboy. That day I learned a lesson that changed the way I had viewed the world till then. I realized that there were many questions in life for which there were no satisfactory answers. Rejecting something simply because one hasn’t encountered it before is short-sighted and foolish. Accept whatever falls to your lot, a voice spoke within me, you’ll have a much better life. That day I took a vow. I would embark on a quest of everything that was hidden from me. I would seek out all that was incomprehensible and elusive. I would experience the unknown.

I can say today, without any exaggeration, it was from that moment that I started living my life as I wanted to live it – ignoring the expectations of others.

2

BHUPEN HAZARIKA

One night at the dinner table, my father said to my mother, ‘Bhupen Hazarika will be singing in Delhi next week. What I wouldn’t give to hear him perform live!’

‘Why don’t you buy tickets, then?’ My mother set a bowl of dal on the table. I looked up and saw her eyes glowing. I was only ten at the time and had no notion of who Bhupen Hazarika was or why my parents were so keen to hear him. I hadn’t even heard his name. Little did I know that this legendary name would get entwined in my life in an amazing, compelling way.

The tickets were bought but on the appointed day, due to overselling and the usual last-minute chaos of badly organized concerts, we could not enter the venue. My parents’ faces were clouded over with disappointment as we trudged homewards. But I came back with a memory. Not of Bhupen Hazarika’s singing but of the man himself.

While jostling with the crowd in a desperate effort to enter, I had seen a white Ambassador gliding in through the gate. ‘There!’ my father had said, pointing a finger. ‘That’s Bhupen Hazarika!’ I had looked up and had a fleeting glimpse of a head with the traditional Assamese cap on it. I hadn’t even seen his face. Still, for some reason, the head and the name stuck in my memory.

Months later, I heard him sing ‘O Ganga’ in a programme on Doordarshan. I was enthralled by the song and the singer’s voice. His screen presence was impressive. Even at that tender age I recognized the extraordinary talent radiating from our black-and-white television screen.

‘Aami ek jajabor’, ‘Dil hum hum kare’, ‘O Ganga’! Bhupen Hazarika’s masterpieces became part of my childhood. I