Friday, December 09, 2005
I am still very reluctantly avoiding most spicy food, but things are feeling much better today thank you.
Yesterday evening I attended a concert of classical Indian music. I got there early, and the guards wouldn't let me in because I did not have a "pass." So I got a book out of my backpack and was standing around reading it, waiting until close to the concert time and hoping the "rules" might loosen up. Before long, a young man came up to me and said that he had an extra pass, if I would like to use it. Things seem to happen like that.
Amrit is studying the tabla (drum), and he took me backstage to introduce me to his Guru who was one of the evening's performers. This was a more formal evening than the concert I attended before: Most of the audience was dressed up, there were beautiful flower petal arrangements on the floor in the lobby, the auditorium was full...
The concert began with a long - one and a half hours long! - raga, of a sitar, a sarangi which is a bowed instrument, and two tabla players one being Amrit's Guru. For me, unfamiliar with the musical form, I have to suspend my concept of what to expect in a musical work and just go with enjoying the sound. In this case, there was of course all the Indian unique sounds and rhythms, but the work often seemed rather Grateful Dead in dissolving into meyhem and then recovering into something quite orderly and rhythmic. Often there were interplays/challanges between the sitar and sarangi or tabla players, rather like riffs at a jazz jam session. Thoroughly enjoyable.
Next on the program there were two dancers who did mostly solo dances, but also some duets, with again musicians sitting to the side. The dancers were just beautiful in their grace and movements. The male dancer wore many bells on his ankles and wrist, and together with stamping and shuffling, was a whole rhythm instrument himself as well as a dancer - again, frequently interacting and sparring with the tabla player on the side.
After the concert, Amrit gave me his address and asked me if I would come to his home on Sunday. I agreed, of course. Now I have to find out how to get to Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, near Mohan Nagar. They couldn't help me at my hotel, today I will ask around at the tourist offices downtown.
Yesterday evening I attended a concert of classical Indian music. I got there early, and the guards wouldn't let me in because I did not have a "pass." So I got a book out of my backpack and was standing around reading it, waiting until close to the concert time and hoping the "rules" might loosen up. Before long, a young man came up to me and said that he had an extra pass, if I would like to use it. Things seem to happen like that.
Amrit is studying the tabla (drum), and he took me backstage to introduce me to his Guru who was one of the evening's performers. This was a more formal evening than the concert I attended before: Most of the audience was dressed up, there were beautiful flower petal arrangements on the floor in the lobby, the auditorium was full...
The concert began with a long - one and a half hours long! - raga, of a sitar, a sarangi which is a bowed instrument, and two tabla players one being Amrit's Guru. For me, unfamiliar with the musical form, I have to suspend my concept of what to expect in a musical work and just go with enjoying the sound. In this case, there was of course all the Indian unique sounds and rhythms, but the work often seemed rather Grateful Dead in dissolving into meyhem and then recovering into something quite orderly and rhythmic. Often there were interplays/challanges between the sitar and sarangi or tabla players, rather like riffs at a jazz jam session. Thoroughly enjoyable.
Next on the program there were two dancers who did mostly solo dances, but also some duets, with again musicians sitting to the side. The dancers were just beautiful in their grace and movements. The male dancer wore many bells on his ankles and wrist, and together with stamping and shuffling, was a whole rhythm instrument himself as well as a dancer - again, frequently interacting and sparring with the tabla player on the side.
After the concert, Amrit gave me his address and asked me if I would come to his home on Sunday. I agreed, of course. Now I have to find out how to get to Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, near Mohan Nagar. They couldn't help me at my hotel, today I will ask around at the tourist offices downtown.
