Film: India's Song (India)

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00:00:00: SOUND UP; [SOUND OF WIND, BIRDS, CRICKETS]
00:00:33: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: For a moment, whoever this is, just listen. Nature’s greatest symphony. We talk about music as the gateway to the soul? But where was music inspired from?
00:01:10: MAN: Music is not just rhythm and musical notes. Music is silence, also.
00:01:26: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: There was a time, when people gathered around a fire, a circle of light. To pass down oral histories through story and song. But those times are slipping into the past. As the Explore team travels the world, one of our primary concerns is learning about endangered species, environments, and people, so that we can better champion those who fight selflessly to preserve them. Traveling in India, I was to learn of another endangered creature — culture.
00:02:00: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: Specifically, the culture of music. Not only instrumental, but the music of Nature as well. India harbors a myriad of languages, yet music is shared by all. This mystic language is a universal thread that reaches around the world, weaving through all of humanity.; CHARLIE: [WITH MUSICIANS] Music.; MAN: Music is life.; CHARLIE: It's the gateway to the soul, right?; CHARLIE [NARRATING]: I realize that here I could learn from those who had passed the ancient art of listening down from generation to generation. [MUSIC PLAYS] India’s musicians. With their generous guidance, I would see with my ears, trust my ears, to lead me down the thread of history on the notes of India’s song.; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:02:51: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: I traveled to Rajasthan, a north Indian province where the landscape is so treacherous, so formidable, that throughout India’s history it has kept invaders out, thereby protecting the cultural treasures within.; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:03:11: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: As often happens in the world of the senses, serendipity arranged a chance meeting with Rajasthani maverick and champion of culture, John Singh. John Singh’s work is aimed at improving the conditions of the urban and rural poor, and enabling them to earn a viable and secure livelihood through combining traditional skills with modern methods. Just days before his annual music festival, in Rajasthan’s capital city of Jaipur, he opened the door to a world of musicians, and we gladly stepped through it.; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:04:25: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: Before I came to Rajasthan, I was to learn that the raga, one of India’s influential forms of Indian music, has in fact colored all of India’s musical heritage. Their ragas breach time of day, breach emotional state of being.; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:04:48: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: The raga is defined as “that which colors the soul.” It seemed to me that this definition of the raga extended to the musicians themselves. From their colorful Rajasthani turbans, to their beautifully crafted instruments, and finally to the joy and love they took in sharing their gifts with anyone, anyone open to receiving them.; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:05:29: JOHN: They’re funky guys, you know, like real energy.; CHARLIE: Where are you guys from?; [MUSIC PLAYS]; CHARLIE: What’s the trick? Have you ever, have you ever seen a mustache like this? You could be, that’s perfect. That’s one good ‘stache, I’m telling you.; [MUSIC PLAYS]; CHARLIE: Tagaran is not only an algoza player, he’s an instrument maker as well. There are very few instrument makers left in Rajasthan.; [MUSIC PLAYS]; ADITYA BHASIN: There are some instruments which we are trying to find, but unfortunately, the guy we saw playing it two years ago, we’ve got photographs of him, we’ve got recording of him, we even know his name. But we’ve sent out about two or three cars in different directions to find him, but I got a call today that nobody knows of him. How is it possible? The instrument called the been, which is two pumpkins and a thin reed, we, we’re trying to find it but the instrument makers are gone.; [MUSIC PLAYS]; JOHN: [CAPTIONED] The thing about your heritage, it’s like, you know, the knowledge that you had for predicting the rain, the knowledge you had through your herbal plants, etcetera, or your exercise, like your yoga or whatever—we sort of dumped the whole lot. Which is like a stupid shame, and it shouldn’t have been dumped.
00:07:12: MAN: With music, or any practical thing, any practical study, you will not be taught everything, but you have to learn everything.; CHARLIE: How do you do that again, will you, will you play that? How do you do that? Without killin’ me.; MUSICIAN: [PLAYS INSTRUMENT—clacking noises]; CHARLIE: Like mariachis.; [MUSIC PLAYS – PERCUSSION]; CHARLIE: When I listened to you guys play, I knew you were not just playing but telling a story. Your version of a story. And I was wondering what that story was.; ADITYA: For every occasion, there’s a song. When there’s birth, there’s a song. Throughout life, marriage, in sorrow there’re songs, in death there’re songs.; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:08:28: ADITYA: So really it’s loss. I mean, it’s about life, really. Loss is about life.; [MUSIC PLAYS]; USTAD ASAD ALI KHAN: [TRANSLATED] This music is a shower of the soul.; CHARLIE [NARRATING]: Ustad Asad Ali Khan. One of the last been players, talked about the healing powers of his music.; ALI KHAN: [TRANSLATED] It is my promise that after listening specially to this raga, even a heart patient who listens to it for 40 days will be cured of this ailment. This is the influence of the raga—its particular ability to be therapeutic to body and soul. This is the reason for the ragas. It is music therapy.; [MUSIC PLAYS]; ALI KHAN: [LAUGHS]; [MUSIC PLAYS]; CHARLIE [NARRATING]: Music speaks of emotions. Of sorrow and joy, loneliness and passion. At the Kiran Centre, I saw that even the crippling effects of polio are no match for music.; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:09:55: CHARLIE: Why is music important. Is it? Why?; MAN: [CAPTIONED] Because I think it relates to our heart and our mind. It is related from our life. That’s why it is important.; CHARLIE: Will you play one last song? A song that means a lot to your heart?
00:10:14: MAN: [PLAYS HARMONIUM AND SINGS] "...true love consumers you, wears you out. It makes one anxious, it makes one suffer. Memories, Oh! memories, memories, oh! memories."; CHARLIE: [CAPTIONED] In India, rockin’ out in the music room. There are no handicaps when it comes to music. Music comes from the soul. No boundaries here.; [MUSIC ENDS]; CHARLIE: All right! [APPLAUDS] Way to go, thank you.
00:11:16: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: I was reminded that music allows us to explore the extremes of human existence beyond the boundaries of spoken language. It gives voice to our emotional history on this planet.; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:11:34: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: Shubhendra Rao studied with the world-famous sitar master, Ravi Shankar. Saskia Rao-de-Haas is originally from Holland. Together they represent a modern synthesis of Eastern and Western music styles.
00:12:19: SHUBHENDRA: The piece is something Saskia and I are really very passionate about. It's a piece in the harmonic minor, and corresponding to an Indian raga of course, but we had struggled for almost two years?; SASKIA: Yeah.; SHUBHENDRA: Of composing something in that scale. Got done in two hours.; [MUSIC PLAYS]; SHUBHENDRA: The piece was composed spontaneously on the 12th of September, 2001. And we felt that in that piece we were expressing completely the feeling of utter helplessness. Nine-eleven, the world over (?), it’s a negative milestone, I’d say. It had such a deep impact, even on us. Violence in general violates human spirit. So that feeling of being violated—yet of course we always live with hope. And we want that hope to remain, so I think in this piece we express not only the feeling of being violated, and seeing violence of that magnitude, but also we do express the hope, the beauty of life, the joy of life itself.; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:13:59: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: Music is not only a place for the darker emotions. It is also a playground for the soul.; [MUSIC PLAYS]; CHARLIE [NARRATING]: Even animals respond to the call of music.; [MUSIC PLAYS AS ELEPHANT DANCES]; [MUSIC PLAYS - MAN SINGING]; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:15:23: SHUBHENDRA RAO: My own guru, a few of the ragas that he taught me when I was in my twenties, he said, you know, Practice this. Practice it very well. But don’t perform it till you’re forty. I didn’t understand. And so I practiced, and of course for me what he said, you know, was the ultimate, so I never performed it. But now that I’ve touched 40, now I know why he said it. Because the same rags that I’ve practiced for 15, 20 years, have a different outlook that I fall into, because of my experience of life. That’s what we bring into the music. [MUSIC PLAYS] And it makes so much sense. That’s why in North Indian music, we never have child prodigies. Six, seven - no. It's an experience of life that you throw into your music.
00:16:24: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: For much of Indian music, there is no sheet music. With lengthy ragas held in the minds of the ancients. When they are forgotten, if the music has not been passed down, their offerings vanish into the past.; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:16:47: CHARLIE: [CAPTIONED] As I travel and I do things, they talk about, say, certain animals going extinct, which is so said. And they call it the “Endangered Species Act” in America or something. But so is culture.; MAN: Yes.; CHARLIE:And it’s rapidly going extinct all of the world. And so, it’s the same thing, it’s, you know, culture, also, should almost be listed.; [SOUND OF CLOCK TICKING, CHILD CRYING, WATER PUMP SQUEAKING, COWS LOWING]; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:17:45: CHARLIE [NARRATING]: If music is a gateway to the soul, what would the world be like if we close it? I don’t know.; [MUSIC PLAYS; TRAFFIC SOUNDS; telephones ringing]
00:18:28: [SOFT SOUNDS OF WAVES ON SHORE]; END OF FILM

Now Viewing: India's Song

Meet John Singh, Rajisthani Maverick, who is single handedly trying to save traditional Indian music from going extinct. A must see for all Indian music lovers!