Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar
 
 
By Vijay Phanshikar :
“There is no boundary between the music and myself. The thin layer that separated me from it has dissolved. Now, I am the music, this is a time of great joy”. 
- Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar
DIVINE singularity ! Oneness ! Complete immersion ! 

The import of this state of being is beyond common human comprehension. True, artists in any genre know of such a state of being, such a state of spiritual singularity with their art. The whole experience is just divine -- to say the least. Many persons steeped in their respective arts may use similar words to describe their relationship with art. Yet, it is necessary to admit that such an immersion is achieved only in rare cases. For, connoisseurs can sense two identities operating simultaneously during, say, a music concert -- of the artist and of the art. A good number of artists are able to immerse themselves completely into their art. But, possibly a bigger number of artists appear to be unable to forget their separate identity even during their concerts or shows.

 

 

Though that sense is very faint, many artists do communicate their sense of aloofness from the rendition in which they are engaged. That is, of course, very subtle and most connoisseurs may never notice that very slight hint of the thin layer that Pandit Ravi Shankar talks of between music and the person rendering that music. In his own case, that thin layer has dissolved or disappeared -- so that music and he are no separate entities, or different domains; they are one -- bound by a singularity of the highest and finest order. Unfortunately, in the case of big numbers of artists, the thin layer or membrane is the hardest to be dissolved. The process of dissolution of the layer has strange connotations, so to say. The layer does not actually dissolve (since that may never exist in the first place).

 

It is, then, only a notional layer or membrane -- making its presence felt only in the head and heart of the artist -- and therefore the connoisseur whose senses may capture the cleavage. In Pandit Ravi Shankar’s case, countless connoisseurs in each of his concerts -- public or private -- have noticed that there is nothing separating the art from the artist. So, when Ravi Shankar gave the rendition or concert, the connoisseurs realised that they could not separate the art from the artist.

 

The music flowed from his Sitar for record. But in actuality, the music was Sitar and the music and the instrument were Pandit Ravi Shankar -- with no cleavaging even by a hint: The threesome tied together inseparably by an invisible spiritual bond that some connoisseurs (not all) sensed. And then something stranger happened. The singular trinity attained a fourth dimension -- of the connoisseur. In that state, gods descended at the concert to be part of the divine admixture of multiple entities into one single whole.