Of magical silence in creation
| Date :22-Sep-2020 |
KAUSHIKI Chakraborty
“Of course, there are butterflies in the
stomach before every concert. But before the actual concert begins, there is a magical moment of total silence. Nothing moves in the mind. In that stillness, music is born. Then it flourishes on its own. ... It is not the question of doing the music ... it must happen on its own. Once the concert is over, I realise that it just happened. There is no ownership ... I have not created it. I am not the master. ... One does not sing the raaga; one becomes the raaga ...”
-- Celebrated classical musician
Kaushiki Chakraborty
in conversation with the
legendary musician and guru
Shankar Mahadevan.
(A loose reproduction)
KAUSHIKI Chakraborty has offered the quintessence of artistic creation. Steeped in politeness, basking in an endearing nonchalance about ownership of that creation, she highlights the presence of the “magical moment” in which nothing moves in the mind -- in whose stillness music is born. What a beautiful, spiritually-empowered process! The most fascinating part of the process is the denial of the credit of creation. Music just happens -- one does not have to do it. Nothing is cosmetic about this process, nothing artificial, nothing for the sake of demonstration or show-off.
This absence of artificiality is the stepping stone to a natural greatness -- of creation (and indirectly of the individual artist or performer). Yes, Kaushiki Chakraborty is very right, anybody who has understood the process will assert. Actually, she is only representing the universal process of creation. So music happens -- not created by Kaushiki or anybody. Yet, in no way is that just a happenstance; it is a creation all right -- owned perhaps by the Divine, spurred perhaps by the compelling urge of excellence, and as Kaushiki Chakraborty herself says, “made possible through you.
You are just an instrument” -- of the Divine, perhaps the chosen one, perhaps the sublime volunteer to try the arduous path of excellence that takes a lifetime to be charted and built and then used. The “magical moment”! Every sterling performer experiences that magical moment. In that stillness, in that silence where nothing moves, what takes place is a wordless, dimensionless, meditative conversation with self.
It is that zone in which all physical parameters melt, overtaken by the metaphysical thrust that drives latent but cumulative excellence of lifetime’s work to start boiling before bursting into expression. It is that zone in which greatness assumes an uncontrollable urge to assert itself! “In that stillness, music is born”, as Kaushiki Chakraborty says. This is the universal story of greatness of creation! -- the story of the performer’s surrender to the sublime!