The evening begins as such evenings usually do — with a string of superlatives and a tonne of clapping. Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia has come to Ductac’s Centrepoint Theatre. This time around, however, even as the audience follows the cues — cheering at the right places, laughing at the right spaces — the 79-year-old is not amused. The gentle shaking of his legs betray his impatience to get to the point of the night — the maestro wants to play his flute.
He says, once the niceties are over, that while he’s happy to be on stage, whenever he’s introduced, people talk too much about him. So he explains that the upcoming raaga (a type of traditional music) is Maru Behag, and gets down to business. His hands quiver as he picks up the flute. He holds it up and it begins.
The crisp sound of his flute cuts into the silence in the auditorium with the precision of a hot knife in a slab of cold butter. Eyes closed, the audience follows every lilt and every tremble of the instrument.
A genius is at work.
The romantic raaga is an emotional roller-coaster, and the Padma Vibhushan-winner conveys a range of emotions — flirtation, love, heartache — weaving a spell both enchanting and, curiously, cathartic.
He is joined in segments by Pandit Vivek Sonar, who has been a disciple of Chaurasia for more than 20 years and who is the founder of the app myGurukul (an online flute teaching platform); and percussionist Giridhar Udupa, on the ghatam, which is basically a large clay pot.
Satyajit Talwalkar, who is on the tabla, and Udupa also have a competing performance with Chaurasia seemingly playing mediator. The ghatam and tabla beats bounce off each other in a display of skill and precision, playfully coming to a thrilling climax.
When the first raaga, set to Roopak Taal and Dhruti Teen Tal, is up, the musicians take a break — slurping water and gulping air, before getting down to the second segment.
But first, Chaurasia decides to take requests as the audience clamours for tunes from his oeuvre, a body of work spanning more than four decades. He is impressed by his rapt listeners’ knowledge of raagas, but decides on something ‘light’.
He goes on to play a part from Raaga Bhairavi.
The evening comes to a quick end and a standing ovation. Chaurasia has proved once again that he’s the master flautist.
