Conversation with Pundit Vijay Raghav Rao

By AMREETA SHANKAR

In the Fall of ’96, the Ohio Ballet premiered Jungle Book - The Adventures of Mowgli to a new orchestral work by the versatile genius, Pundit Vijay Raghav Rao. Discerning critics and audiences alike deeply appreciated the music’s universal qualities in eight sold out performances. Not unusual for an artist known as a Renaissance man: Pioneering flutist, innovative composer, and a poet, conductor and choreographer, Vijay Raghav Rao’s is a rare brilliance on the cultural firmament in India and abroad. Marked by characteristic excellence, his work has always carried an inimitable exuberance of spirit. But there is always a common ground between spirituality and artistic expression.

On a muggy night of a sweltering day in July, 20 years ago, an eclectic conglomeration of audience waited with bated breath under wide, expansive skies. Bombay’s Rang Bhavan that night featured Pundit Mallikarjun Mansoor and Pundit Vijay Raghav Rao. Musicians and students, socialites from the skyscrapers off back-bay, critics and families expected much from this evening. For over an hour in the preceding twilight, I roamed the aisles of the backstage absorbing bustle, sensing moods, seeking patterns in the ambiance. Tanpuras droned from both green rooms, rendering the heavy air with lightness. Voices would fade into silence around the doors--would that a false note carry inside. As the hour ticked into the night, and the warmth from the Arabian sea some miles away wafted through around the bend and across the audience, sneaking its way into the ramps backstage, I peered into the sanctity of the green rooms. If there was a common thread I discerned, it came to me in tones as strong as the waves of the sea in the night: spirituality reigned. As a bird seeking secrets of noble winds, so the artists sought their muse in an atmosphere of prayer. Neither renown nor a lifetime of proficiency seemed to cast a shadow on this pursuit. The Tanpura’s harmonies beckoned the flute’s notes, and then as gently as a finger stroked its strings, Punditji would close his eyes, seeking, embracing, absorbing some divine feeling. What was that feeling? And why did so many uniquely gifted performers of art of so many diverse shades seek its graces around the world? The meeting ground which allowed an artist’s imagination to converse silently with a seemingly infinite ocean of perpetuity was a source of fascination to me. Surely some fathomable mystery lay there, endowing expression with inspiration that endured.

So as the years drifted into the folds of time’s secrets, I tossed the matter in my mind. Some expressed their beings out for a discerning world in the language of the Gods, some flew on its invisible wing riding resilient spirits that imbued subtle feeling to their muse, some forswore it altogether and still sought it unconsciously, in circuitous ways. To those who relied on its embrace it was as simple as a mother’s love, and those who came to it saddened with realizations of chasms and phases of inane work in the name of art it was a tonic, an elixir as time wore on. Wizened pop stars of every generation espoused its virtues in the rancid ways of their idiom, and their following would catch on. As their time waxed and waned, so would the generation’s fascination with such matters.

In the meanwhile, I followed Vijayji’s pursuits with sporadic interest. In concerts and in recording studios with rare collaborative talent, in the diversity of cultures spawned on two continents, creating with purpose and dallying on the frontiers of his art form. Some took to his results readily, others pondered, still some others questioned. For his part, though, there was an apparent commonality flowing through it all; a firm conviction. The same, wide expansive ocean of infinity he had turned to in the green room at Rang Bhavan that night of two decades ago.

I had to sit down with him and explore the meaning of such an intangible entity.

AS: What is spirituality?

VRR: It is perhaps an inwardly soulful vivacity, well defined as an immaterial eternal, pure state of mind devoid of all physical tensions, illusions, or wants. It is what makes the mortal an immortal.

AS: Are you spiritual?

VRR: Just to say, "yes, I am" is sheer hypocrisy. All achievements, attainments or professional skills of a human being, I think, are ultimately aimed at making him/her a ‘spiritual’ person, a true human being guided by a spirit that can conquer his/her self. That spirit embodies my ideals. As I seek it through my thoughts, it transforms my actions. In the serene, unconscious manner of a prayer with tangible consequences, my spirituality allows me successively increasing amounts of self fulfillment. Complete self fulfillment is a state of true independence. Liberation is another moniker for that state of being. As we seek what we know is an infinite expanse of ideals, we regulate our processes accordingly; and eventually liberate ourselves. I think liberation is the process of fully coming to terms with oneself free from non-idealistic bondage.

Every human is endowed with a fund of divinity, the complete potential of our ideals. Artists seek it as a matter of skill, those less prone to expression seek it through prayer. When we strive to realize that innermost being and its consequent dignity, we seek to be spiritual. ‘Spirituality’ is a process of such realization. If I am engaged in this process, I am spiritual.

I wish to be spiritual in every action of mine, and earnestly attempt to seek its blessings.

AS: How does your spirituality influence your expressions?

VRR: My spirituality guides me when I create. It offers me inspiration. It makes me humble. It provides me with an anchor. It puts my muse in perspective. It is the essence of any innovation I attempt. When my creations rise above what is mundane and appear to be genuine, everlasting, they implicitly suggest a lingering, pervasive aesthetic. That aesthetic is significantly intertwined with my spirituality. Because what I seek through my spirituality is intrinsically unique to my being, my aesthetic is original too. Technically perfect pieces of art begin to enlighten beyond their compass if they were founded on the basis of spirituality. Entertaining is no longer an audience driven exercise; with spirituality, the performer begins to express a soul.

AS: Can there be such an entity as a non-spiritual artist?

VRR: The world is populated with human beings of all kinds. Simple expression sometimes becomes high art. Much vacuous expression is passed off as art. Intentions drive human beings to the extremes of their potential: evil masquerades under guises of acceptable expression. There is much tacit approval of non-art, rooted as it is in a confusion of metaphor or medium. A lot of this comes from non-spiritual expressionists. They exist, and they practice, and they foist their mindsets on unsuspecting audiences. They are a necessary barometer of free societies: for every action, the unavoidable reaction. Yet, in my opinion, true art has always had its roots in introspection. Art is a journey from the realms of the self to the non-self. The moment one undertakes the responsibility of making that trip, he/she invariably operates in the realm of spirituality. To be an artist, therefore, is to be spiritual. Art is the language of the spirit. A non-spiritual artist, thus, is a rare species.

AS: Is the artist’s nature the same as his spirit?

VRR: Through constant ‘Sadhana,’ by virtue of an innate discipline in consequent expression, an artist could attain a level of maturity that allows him/her to realize all his/her visions and dreams, consistently, at the level of complete perfection. In that stratosphere, over time’s passage, he/she could conceivably express his/her imagination through the process of conquering self defining traits, so that his/her spirit is allowed free reign. What he/she expresses then is the spirit in its full glory. Shorn of what is fleeting, devoid of the artist, completely representing his/her art. The spirit is the art, then the spirit is the artist. There is a resplendent symmetry in the artist’s nature, his/her medium, and what it carries outward. Perhaps this is utopian, maybe it is an ideal as unattainable as the spirit itself. Perhaps that state of being is what characterizes saints who practice art forms--Thyagaraja is a case in point. In such states of consciousness physical existence is not a desire. Art outlives the artist.

AS: Is God an artist?

VRR: Can you ever believe that nature--our nature, beautiful, colorful, multivariate-- throbbing with a multitude of energies, seething with a billion forms extending well into the reaches of time and space, that this nature could ever be the work of a non-artist? I believe God is the net essence of all knowledge, truth, energy and purity. He/She is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. That essence is achieved through several lifetimes of inculcating and honing of an ephemeral spirituality. The quest of a typical human lifetime is to harness its skills, knowledge, capacity and deeds to move toward a sense of godliness. In that framework, we human beings are all engaged in the process of making art. An art that meshes with the grand order of natural process--the ultimate work of art. In that order worlds exist in majestic splendor to sustain life, and just as majestically self destruct, so that newer worlds of fresher truths take their natural place. If that is not art, what is. If that is not the artist’s dream, what is.

[To be concluded]

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