Pundit Bhatkhande (A Personal Tribute)

Pundit Bhatkhande

(A PERSONAL TRIBUTE)

(Sri Aurobindo Asram, Pondicherry)

"Man approaches nearer his perfection when he combines in himself the idealist and the pragmatist, the originative soul and the executive power….The greatest men of action who were endowed by nature with the most extraordinary force of accomplishment, have owed it to the combination in them of active power with an immense drift of originative thought devoted to practical realisation. They have been great executive thinkers, great practical dreamers."–(Sri Aurobindo–Progress and Ideal.)

Pundit Vishnunarayana Bhatkhande died last year. A star has once more ceased to throb in the heart of the far sky: far, yet near. It is the stars which make the void akin to earth. ...But even when they cool to ashes, don't they bequeathe their dreams...of immortality?

I had met Punditji–I will call him so in this personal tribute–for the first time in Benares before I went to Europe. That was years ago, probably in 1916 or thereabouts. I still recollect that crystalline calm way of his of explaining. He adumbrated then and there his theories to me of the structures of different Ragas. I remember still with a sense of delectation his characteristic vein of ardent restraint. It had left a deep impress on my adolescent clay avid for the moulding hand. I was then hardly out of my teens: yet I had visioned the greatness of the man in the then inchoate state of my musical ideas. I had loved music since my earliest childhood. I had been a seeker after the soul of our great classical music–the Raga-evolution. I had learned from different professionals as well as amateurs, composers as well as virtuosos. I had waded through books and treatises suggestive as well as pedantic. I had grown in my love of our beautiful art, but had begun to outgrow the superstitions that had marred its core of loveliness and vision. An intuitive perception of the inner reality–a half-formed sense of the necessity of sifting out gravel from gold-dust was crystallising out. Yet the sense of discrimination was far from luminous so that my mind was in a peculiarly receptive state for illumination. I indulge this luxury of a retrospect not for the mere fun of living the past over again. I delineate my groping state as typical: typical of the majority of bourgeois amateurs’ pilgrim seeking: sincere, yet not surefooted. The soul had put out its boat of adventure for the shores of knowledge, but got stranded often enough on shoals of dogma. I found myself frequently rudderless in the wordy typhoons that raged round about the distraught seeker.

It was at this psychological juncture that I met the man whom I at once thrilled to–hailing him as the Man of Destiny in our Renaissance of Music–the one man who had seen effulgence where the rest of us chased after glimmers in the dim twilight of our musical consciousness.

Then I left for Europe–where I acquired a smattering of European music. This did indeed interest me but failed to hold my soul in thrall. My die had been cast: my heart had been surrendered in toto to Indian music–the classical music. The rudiments of European music learnt in England and on the Continent did, unquestionably, stand me in good stead in that it showed up at once the greatness and deficiency of our music. For instance, it showed up our wardness in harmony as well as our evolution in melody. But when all was said, I thirsted still for sure knowledge. And I cast , again and again, longing if not lingering looks to the one man I had met for a few minutes in Benares who only, I felt, could give me the initiation I still hungered after.

And he did: about ten years later. I had returned home, after a three and a half years’ stay and tour in Europe, in 1922 to renew my contacts with our musicians. But I never forgot Punditji. His mystic radiant face haunted me like to fugitive musical phrases standing out warm and clear like sudden sun-kissed peaks in the oblivion of amorphous clouds. In fact I had become his disciple already–in my heart of hearts–although he must have forgotten a mere stripling he had run across for an odd hour or so at Benares before whom he had, with his matchless courtesy and musical fire, tentatively set forth some of his theories and classifications of the Raga music. He knew the art of wakening the sleeping adult in the juvenile.

I met him next in 1923 in Bombay in his cosy little room overlooking the sea on the Malabar Hill. He accorded me the same cheery welcome. The old man treated youth as old men seldom do in our country: as hi equal. I flattered myself in the vanity of youth: I wanted to ‘discuss things.’ I said so with a consequential air. "Splendid," he smiled, "pray be seated."

I did, but only to find myself in strange waters–in a few minutes. Hardly had a quarter of an hour elapsed before I found myself utterly beyond my depth. I realised, once more, what a hopeless nincompoop I had been to have taken the wise man at his word and sat down splendiferously to ‘discuss’ our music with him. I should have bowed then and there and owned that I had come to learn, to imbibe. For my role was to ask: his–to give. But curiously, I was half-amused to notice the confoundedness of the vain part of my nature–the part that so often got the better of the other part–the one that was loth to flourish its raw ‘opinions,’ but eager to form the basis of knowledge on which to build them. Hence I was partially amused also at his kindly, if a wee bit overt, enjoyment of my discomfiture when he placed me under his mischievous ordeal of cross-examination. The old man had a Socratic vein for mischief–delightful yet none the less disconcerting to his disciples or, more accurately, would-be disciples. I came to my flat a sadder though a wiser man.

But Punditji’s laughing in his sleeves had a charm all his own. I will relate in due course an anecdote or two of this side of his personality, to illustrate his elfin genius for mock-gravity–which I had then recorded. But here let me resume where I left off.

The next day I went to him again. This time–the D- himself being not nearly as black as he is painted–I approached him with a chastened humility and took copious notes. Hence- forward I always did. It was tacitly understood that I had become his pupil. Sometimes, naturally, I could not quite catch his drift. Then I felt a sort of secret animosity. But he quickly appeased me with a kindly laughter ed up by a restatement of his position. I could not but feel then by way of consolation, shall we say:

The Pupil might be dense, but his
Good Master was a Socrates!

Of music, I should have added, of course.

This is not an over-statement; for one thing I was not among his regular pupils that I should have any selfish motive in extolling my master. I hummed he was a Socrates in music as none who knew Punditji well could doubt it for a moment. First, because he was a rationalist par excellence in music. Secondly, because he knew what he was talking about. Thirdly, he never talked or theorised where he was not sure of himself. And lastly–oh, how exhilarating were his succinct, suggestive explanations! What a contrast between this master teacher and the wordy commentators of highbrows! My father (the famous poet and satirist, D. L. Roy of Bengal) had once written about a religious savant Chandicharan (I translate from his Bengali comic song):

Chandicharan was an august savant: for, you see,
When he explained the sacred lores–white daylight itself seemed
Black as night. and lo, he lectured with such subtlety
That butter felt like brick which hurt till the hero of heroes screamed.

A great many professional savants of our music took after the great Chandicharan in the pre-Bhatkhande age of Iron. But this inaugurator of the era of dawn changed it all: when he explained musical mysteries, things did seem unaccountably to clear up at once. Sri Ramakrishna used to say: "When a real lamp is lit, age-long glooms vanish in a moment–the darkness entrenched for ages does not take as many ages to be scattered" off its crannies. Punditji had the real lamp of knowledge born of intuition and verified by experimentation. So when he explained the Raga-subtleties, the evolution of our different styles, their raisons d’etre and other problems, life did, somehow, seem all plain sailing. Those who have once heard his lectures on our music will bear me out in this. Those who haven’t–well, one can only be sorry for them. It is but another of the numerous tragedies wherewith earth-life is afflicted: we so often don’t know our greatest men. But fortunately the tragedy is not un- relieved. For although Punditji was a marvelous lecturer, lecturing was not his only forte: he has left a legacy worth bequeathing. He was an indefatigable crystal-clear writer, an organiser, a trainer and what not. It is noteworthy that the two unquestionably best schools of music have been founded by him: the Gwalior School and the Lucknow College. I had the good fortune to visit the former in 1924 and marvelled at the musical efficiency of many of the boys and the high standard of teaching achieved by the teachers. One instance must suffice. I remember having noticed a little boy taking notes while, at the request of the staff, I sang the famous Italian song ‘Caro mio ben.’I was much intrigued and asked him what he had been writing so assiduously. "The notes of your song, sir," he replied shyly. And I was much impressed to find that the boy had noted it all down faultlessly. For, in Northern India we learn by the ear, and, as often as not, are ignorant of what we sing. Punditji was one of the vanguard leaders of North India who have taught us the science of musical notation–and the simplest: it was his solid plinth on which was built up his noble edifice subsequently with his peerless patience and craftsmanship. His one great predecessor in this had been the now-famous Krishnadhan Bannerji of Bengal who had died in the wilderness, alas, of the early eighties advocating such and other musical reforms. But not before his great book ‘Gitasutrasar’ published in 1884 had paved the way. Punditji was such an ardent admirer of this first herald and dreamer of a new dawn in our North Indian music that (he once told me) he had learned the Bengali language just to read this book. There we find a key to his greatness–the greatness born of love and not of a hard striving after fame to achieve the lime- light.

In fact none hated the lime-light more than he. He had worked hard in the undeciduous shade for years. This is not the place to enumerate his researches–whose scope and gamut are so wide that even a big volume can do but poor justice to his solid, salient achievement. Not only did he publish book after book on the theory and practice of music ¹ but he traveled untiringly for the spread of classical music and elevation of the popular taste, worked hard without remuneration in training teachers, collecting famous songs, classifying Ragas, composing lakshman gitas, explaining the derivations of the melodies and combinations, finding out their key-structures, and lastly convening the All-India Musical Conferences to form the first nucleus of the nascent and enlightened public opinion. I will not go into these as I feel that all that should be dealt with in an adequate biography of this great lover and savant of music who had lived so rich and prolific a life. If I still mention these cursorily it is for another object: to bring out his native humility. It is relevant here anent to note that few in our Provinces–of Bengal, Bihar and U. P.–had known anything about his stupendous silent work even so late as 1925 when he founded his Music College at Lucknow. In Calcutta, I remember, most people raised a hue and cry when I got our Director of Public Instruction to invite his collaboration for the drafting of a scheme for the teaching of music in our primary schools. Very few among the Bengali intelligentsia had even heard his name. And it was partly because publicity was utterly repugnant to his nature. An example: once he told me of a Raga that he had composed. Thus far I have kept its name at his own request. I was astonished when he told me that he was the composer of this well-known Raga. "But how–." "I know, Mr. Roy," he had anticipated me with his charming smile, "the ostads have told you that this Raga has come down to us from the Empyrean through their heaven-kissing ancestors, isn’t it? And that is also the impression of most–that this Raga has been a living one since its name occurs in the books. But only its name, mind you, has survived. So I had actually to compose it and taught the ostads this Raga who subsequently taught the bayaderes and others in the nineties. If I had told them at the start that it was I who had composed this Raga, they would have paid but scant courtesy to it with the result that it would not have the vogue it now has. So please keep it to yourself–pledged?" "But why, surely–" I had objected, fresh as I was from my dip in European ideology, "since you are the composer the credit–". "What matters, Mr. Roy, who gets the credit for having composed this Raga! What matters, except that it should gain currency and enrich our musical heritage?" Then he had added with his characteristic disclaimer of the hand: "And please don’t forget that our composers, in the downfallen India, had never cared to have their names blazoned or their contribution acknowledged on their epitaphs. They were simple folk who found the reward of their creation in the joy of it all. "They"–and his lips curled in an ironical smile,– "fallen Indians had been unabashedly content to feel that they had done something worth doing; and that was all that mattered. The West believes in centenaries: we–in keeping the torch burning. Why perpetuate the names of the torch-beares? Our men of destiny valued destiny above egoisms. That perhaps," with an ironical smile again, "was their destiny."

I remember I was unspeakably moved. It was a moment that has been unforgettable in my life–an ephemeral moment eternised. For it was then that it had been borne home to me, in a flash as it were, that our outlook on life differed from that of the Westerners and that here it was we who rang truer, more truly humble–consequently more truly civilized–than the blatant West with their much-boomed long strides in the seething, swelling paraphernalia of life. When one comes to ponder it, one realises however that it is, strictly speaking, not a matter for arguments and reasons: it is, at bottom, a question of values–the fundamental ones–on which the superstructure of every civilization must ultimately repose. The Westerners do believe that the great men of the past should be honoured for their achievements. We in the East, they commiserate, can boast no history. True, we have no history worth boasting about. It is not for nothing that all we have are a few nebulous names surviving among us–but more as imponderable auras than as clear-cut personalities hewn out of the rocks of oblivion: Haridas Swami, Tansen, Sadarang, Gopal Nayak, Amir Khasru, ² etc. We don’t know for certain what exactly their bequests have been to the nation and the world. Some scraps of information no doubt survive–but they sort of float as legends. At all events, there is in the East hardly any ‘reliable’ history as they have in the West. But why has it been thus? Have we cared to ask ourselves this plain question, plainly ignoring the promptings of the West? No. And why? Is it not because we have been taught to accept the Western values as the only values? But if we hadn’t, we would not have been so disconcerted by the spectacle of our music minus a history of it worth the name. Punditji did suggest–and approvingly–that we haven’t had history because we never set much store by dead chronicles. To take a concrete instance in music. What after all avails us to know that X. Y. Z. had composed on such and such dates such and such Ragas? As pieces of information these names and dates might indeed be interesting–even thrilling if you will. But what after all does it amount to when it comes to a question of marching onward? We, in India, have held that it is of little moment to know the Ragas’ histories and derivations: the thing is to be able to keep our soul open to new lights that are ready to descend if we let them, to infuse new life, to evolve new styles, to acquire new impetuses. Punditji was a living example of just such an attitude bearing fruit. I believe it was this outlook of his that had made his life so richly fruitful: I mean the outlook of his placing the work above the workers. It was this idealism which, lifted to its highest dream-summit, can be recognised as of a piece with the Gita’s ‘Karmanyevadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana’ (you have a right to action but never to the fruits thereof). It was because he knew this deep down in his soul that no modern trend however self-felicitous and attractive, no modern slogan however titillating in its newness, could wean him from such time-old enthusiasms and ideals however successfully discredited for the nonce by the butterfly glamours of the most up-to-date fashions.

I have enlarged somewhat on this head advisedly, even at the risk of seeming to have strayed a little beyond the purview of this obituary tribute. My object was twofold: first, to lay stress on the classical ideal of our music which is being disparaged by modernism whose a priori assumption is that all modern trends stand self-vindicated; and secondly, to throw light on the keynote to Punditji’s sturdy character and dream-light which no modern phantom-lure could outvie, as he often said. Not that he was an anti-modern. I have seldom met in India with a better up-do-date organiser gifted with a keener sense of the practical difficulties by which the uphill work of an idealist must be beset in every clime. Nor was he indifferent to the new-careering currents which the dash and hurl of creative geniuses generate, breaking all bounds of tradition and carving their way through utterly unknown channels to unknown destinations and often subjected to the gravest head-shaking of the pillars of society. To prove this, let me quote from my diary (I translate–it was on a morning ten years ago that he had said all this to me): "My aim, Mr. Roy," he had said apropos of the problem of novelty and individuality in music, "is to make the student’s basis strong and solid. His special gifts, if he has any, can find scope only when he grows up in musical experience. Teachers can conjure up no light of genius from the pervasive sparklessness of mediocrity. So what I want is that before the student matriculates, we will equip him with: (1) a reliable proficiency in notation whereby he will know analytically what he executes; (2) a mastery over three to four hundred songs in the best classical style and tradition–dhrupads as well as kheyals–so that they will be able to discriminate between what is really worth cultivating and what is to be eschewed, and (3) lastly, a sure-footed highly-evolved instinct for tal–ifonly to be able to see rhythm in its proper perspective in the panorama of music. From a human teacher," he smiled, "you could hardly expect more, could you, Mr. Roy?"

Space forbids, otherwise I would have gone on to show how this idealist, born equipped with a marvelous sense of values, had almost an uncanny flair for the best tactics to achieve what he wanted to. For, he was far richer in enemies than in friends. And it is interesting to note that this man who strove all his life to preserve our classical values had met with the sturdiest opposition from those very classicists. The reason is not far to seek. His sympathy was with the revivalists although he was not an intransigeant like them. He was of the conservatives, albeit not a traditionalist. He wanted the best in our music to be preserved but would never oppose new styles and beauties that ache always to be born and reborn through new forms and cadres. His loyalties were as much given over to rationalism as to idealism, his genius was as much executive as originative, his taste as much judiciary as suggestive. He opened to the noonday inspiration of old but never to shut out the dawning radiance of the future. He had faith in the soul of truth surviving through conflicts of ideals, but was never averse to the garbs and forms changing, if by this change the soul was expressed more fully. In Sri Aurobindo’s words, he was truly a ‘practical dreamer.’

Pundit Vishnunarayana holds today, and will hold in future, a high position in the Valhalla of Indian music, not only as a man who achieved, but also as a man who heralded the future by ridding us of the superstitions and catch-words of the past. To take the first point first, to him belongs the unique achievement of what had hitherto seemed all but inachievable: the systematisation and classification of North Indian Ragas out of the welter of conflicting opinions of sonorous authorities. It was no easy task, for each robust pundit was determined, as an authoritarian, not to cede an inch of ground without the most sanguinary opposition. The scene of North Indian music had so far presented a sorry spectacle to say the least: no system, no guidance, no orientation of intelligent opinion on matters of vital moment and import, no planning as to teaching, least of all any co-ordination of the musical energies of the available talents and students of promise. In fact there were hardly any tangible signs of consciousness that it could have been otherwise. No wonder people who thirsted for good music came baffled by the acrobatics of the performers. Sir P. S. Sivaswamy Aiyer, in his address last December as the President of the Madras Musical Conference, did well to regret this state of affairs, as the mouthpiece as it were of such music-lovers who wanted of music what they had every right to demand from the art of music. How keenly Punditji too used to regret, similarly, that of late the soul and fire of music should have come more and more to be thickly overlaid with tedious sparkless ashes of dead formalism masquerading as luminous skill. This, however, had to be, inevitably. For, these ashes danced to every random freezing wind, although people were told that radiant fires below were the cause of such restlessness. But people, nevertheless, felt cold–as Sir Sivaswamy did. No wonder–for no verbal jugglery or erudite rationalisation of decadence can transform a satyr into a seraph. Punditji changed this grievous state of affairs substantially, exorcising the nightmares of music–those blood-curdling gymnastics and rope-dancing. Not altogether of course–that waits still to be accomplished–by the full renaissance of an enlightened public opinion. But to him must belong the unique credit of initiating the new age by paving the way to a scientific musical education of the bewildered, on a democratic basis, through an efficient staff trained on enlightened lines. And be it never forgotten that all this he, a man of very limited means, did single-handed without appropriating a farthing from the sale of his books or the offering of his services, a remuneration he was surely more than entitled to. To give but one instance. He founded the Gwalior School years ago at the request of the Maharaja Sindhia. For this he had to train the staff of teachers himself working day and night; yet he declined to accept any remuneration for his hard labour. He only accepted the train-fare as he could not afford it. He had taken a vow in his youth that, when he would have earned just enough from law to live on, he would retire from practice altogether in order to devote the rest of his life to the cause of music. And he did. Such one-pointed ardour is surely rare anywhere. And how tirelessly did he work–how sustainedly! To give a few instances. He traveled widely for the musical manuscripts and scriptures of old, published those which would help–for he knew that the Indian mind had a penchant for ancient authorities and he utilised even this reverence of ours for the achievement of his aim: that of systematising the Ragas, calling to his aid the authorities of Sanskrit texts. He was the first to organise the Musical Conferences in Baroda, Benares and Lucknow; to devise the best and the simplest system of notation in Devanagari script; to consult all authorities who mattered; and last–though by no means least–to persuade the antagonistic Pundits of music, ever ready to pounce on each other with the bayonets of pointed scriptures, to come to a reasonable compromise. For, if this had not been done, he had realised, no teaching of our music on the democratic basis would be possible, as executants would hardly agree while learned theorists were still at daggers drawn. None who have been dismayed by our suicidal party feuds will hardly realise the magnitude of such an achievement–in a country where no sense of the common cause has yet truly crystallised out of the chaos of defiant, militant self-wills. I remember still how he laboured–the septuagenarian–to pacify the choleric professionals who had never savoured this amateur’s labour of love which strove disinterestedly to bring our august professional music within the portee of the music-lovers. I have heard ostads vent their spleen on him as the one desecrator of Indian music. They moved heaven and earth to brand him as a philistine, slandering him with all the rich epithets of malevolence. But his will was of iron though his tongue of honey, and his ability of turning fierce tides of opposition in his favour was nothing short of the miraculous. In this his wonderful sense of humour helped him not a little, which knew how best to humour the implacable ostads and bring them round imperceptibly to put their seal, on what was utterly against their grain: to make them subscribe, willy-nilly, to the sensible view of things as regards the teaching of music. For instance, they did not like his writing of music. They poohpoohed with gusto his idea that through writing of music one could teach more effectively. "True enough," retorted Punditji smilingly. "That is exactly why I ask you to give them guidance, to teach them to sing what is put so bleakly on the heartless paper with the soulless ink. For, if you don’t, how can they help but travesty your sacred art? So rise, Messieurs, gird up your loins, O you august custodians of our great heritage." But sometimes they would not be won over even by such sweet coaxing and wheedling. Then he, too, would change his strategy in order to bring the recalcitrant round to sanity. One instance must suffice. He related this also to me in 1926 in Lucknow in his newly founded College of Music.

"One ostad here, Khan Saheb A–", he said, with an amused smile, "started the old game of the enfant terrible, relegating my books, notation, ideology–every thing–to the dung heap. ‘Punditji,’ he scoffed, ‘our music has come down from the Empyrean and declines to be shackled by your blasphemous Sa re ga ma pa dha ni arrayed sparklessly. So throw all your books into the river and learn first the art of imploring us artists, to give you, beggars, the alms of our musical lore–’."

"To you, Punditji–such language–," I cried out in amazement.

"Oh, Mr. Roy," he said laughing, "it is nothing to what I have received at the hands of the bigger ostads often enough. If you had only known how much delicious insult has been lavished on me by these intolerant custodians of our musical lore–and how I have profited by them–but to resume."

"Well," Punditji went on, "I hung my head in shame and said contritely: ‘You are right, Khan Saheb. Who are we Pundits, compared with you artists? But that is precisely why I have come to you on bended knees so that you may give to me the alms standing.’ ‘All right,’ he said assuagingly, patting me on my shoulder, for there is something almost lovable, Mr. Roy about their naive ticklishness to flattery."

"And in what way did he give you the alms?" I laughed, catching the infection of his radiant amusement.

" Why, by simply singing to me the Ragas I implored him to exhibit to me. He went on singing song after song in the various Ragas–and very cleverly at that–for these ostads are admirable in execution as you too know."

"I do," I echoed, admiring his sportsmanship in giving even his irreconcilable traducers their due. "But what happened then?"

"Why, I enthused of course, coruscated in flattery–exclaimed my admiration for his ‘heavenly skill,’ ‘marvels of acrobacy’ and what not," returned Punditji with his mischievous twinkle.

"But," he added, "I had at the outset beckoned to my pupils to sit down in a corner behind the Khan Saheb, un-noticed, taking down all that he sang–twenty-three songs they were in number."

"All of them?"

"Of course. You know my way of teaching exacts first of all a faultless knowledge of the ‘swaragram’–the notation–for which I stand most condemned in the eyes of the ostads. But wait–just hear me first. After he had finished I bowed to him agape with amazement. Then I humbly said: ‘Now, Khan Saheb, I ask of you one favour–just correct my witless student S, who has been sitting behind you taking down what you were singing, according to my worthless system of notation,’ And S reproduced one by one all the songs he had sung with the most labyrinthine improvisations and all."

"What happened then?" I asked, hugely intrigued.

"The Khan Saheb fell down at my feet and implored my forgiveness and became my pupil: it dawned upon him that my notation was not so vicious a thing after all. He is now, as you know, one of the teaching staff here."

And how Punditji laughed–like a child, with the twinkle of a veritable child’s triumph in his sparkling eyes! How fresh he was at seventy–I still marvel sometimes as I look gratefully on all that I learned at his feet! What an abundant life and vitality!

I will conclude with just one last anecdote he had related to me then–from my diary–just to end on this delicious note–his sense of humour.

"It was Khan Saheb X in Gwalior, Mr. Roy," he said. "Oh how he sang, neighed, galloped, roared! ‘What high jumps on Ragas, long jumps on talas!’, I burst out when he drew to an end after an endless aeon of vocal valour. He was taken in, poor charming soul, and said complacently: ‘If only you had heard my ostad Y, Punditji!’ ‘I wish I had,’ I said, ‘but why, no–for surely he could not have been more stupefying.’ ‘More stupefying!’ he replied. ‘Why, I am but a baby to him, Punditji, a sprite in the cradle. I will tell you what. You must have seen the ceiling of the Maharaja Sindhia’s Durbar room.’–‘I have’–‘So you must know its height.’–‘Sorry, Khan Saheb’–‘Well, no matter,’ he said in profound compassion of my innocence, ‘the point is that when he thundered in his three octaves the very solid stones in that far ceiling oscillated–actually shivered in terror–as hundreds have seen time and again.’ ‘Indeed!’, I gasped. ‘What do you imagine?’ he interposed contemptuously. ‘But this is nothing. When he sang, well, the tallest elephant in His Highness’s State could not stand it.’–‘Could not–what?’ ‘Why, he bolted, sir, bolted.’–‘You don’t say so !’–‘What do you imagine?’ he boomed, his lips curled in high pride. ‘I can adduce a hundred eye-witnesses to testify.’–‘You don’t say so!’, I ejaculated in amazement. He gave me a superior smile and said: ‘I will tell you what, Punditji. His Highness too doubted this, as you are doing now. So my ostad, challenged by him, took up the gauntlet and asked him to send for the elephant straightaway. It came, he took his thunderous tan of three and a half octaves. The elephant bolted like a scared rabbit.’–‘Indeed!’–‘To the letter,’ he twirled his fierce mustachios. ‘And what did His Highness do?’–‘Why, he got the elephant recaptured, of course, and gave it to my ostad as a paltry tip–’ " And how Punditji rollicked with laughter till tears started to his eyes!

And how we echoed his laughter–the laughter of an unsophisticated child! I wondered what His Highness would have thought had he heard that laughter twenty years ago. Would he have invited such a child to take sole charge of such a task of responsibility as the organisation of his State School of Music, which remains to this day by far the best music school of North India! I wonder! Would anyone hearing Socrates fencing with Euthyphro at the Athenian Porch of the King Archon, laughing at him all the while, have foreseen that such a man would soon afterwards calmly say to his judges when he was to be sentenced to death: "The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways–I to die, and you live. Which is better, God only knows!"

I do not wish to compare him to Socrates. Punditji, for one thing, was no martyr. But then, is it not at least as difficult to live for a great cause as to die for it?

And does the world always know its greatest men? I wonder again!

1 His ‘Hindustani Sangit Paddhati’ is by far the best and the most voluminous book on practical Indian music of today and his ‘Kramic Series’ in five parts by far the best collection of songs with their music written down for beginners in his simple notation.

2 I do not speak here of the South Indian musicians (like Thyagaraja) as I have not studied South Indian music and cannot say whether there is any authenticity here. In North Indian music, however. I know that there is no reliable history beyond a few legends and stories of musical achievements. No chronicle really exists that one can go upon with any confidence.