The Birth of Vyāsa (From the Diary of River Song)

Here are some of the verses that Vyāsa uses to describe the circumstances of his birth in the Mahābhārata (आदिपर्व, अध्याय ०५७).

तीर्थयात्रां परिक्रामन्नपश्यद्वै पराशरः ।। ०५६ ।।

विद्वांस्तां वासवीं कन्यां कार्यवान्मुनिपुंगवः ।। ०५७ ।।

साब्रबीत्पश्य भगवन्पारावारे ऋषीन्स्थितान् ।
आवयोर्दृश्यतोरेभिः कथं नु स्यात्समागमः ।। ०५८ ।।

एवं तयोक्तो भगवान्नीहारमसृजत्प्रभुः ।
येन देशः स सर्वस्तु तमोभूत इवाभवत् ।। ०५९ ।।

एवमुक्तवतीं तां तु प्रीतिमानृषिसत्तमः ।
उवाच मत्प्रियं कृत्या कन्यैव त्वं भविष्यसि ।। ०६३ ।।

एवमुक्ता वरं वव्रे गात्रसौगन्ध्यमुत्तमम् ।
स चास्यै भगवान्प्रादान्मनसः कांक्षितं प्रभुः ।। ०६५ ।।

इति सत्यवती हृष्टा लब्ध्वा वरमनुत्तमम् ।
पराशरेण संयुक्ता सद्यो गर्भं सुषाव सा ।। ०६९ ।।

जज्ञे च यमुनाद्वीपे पाराशर्यः स वीर्यवान् ।। ०६९ ।।

While the events described are all relevant, their sequencing didn't really happen as Vyāsa described them.  The truth of the matter, as is often the case, is rarely pure and never simple.  Here's the real story.  Warning: spoilers!


His passion sated, and his seed implanted in her womb, the sage Parāśara sat back and reflected on the princess Satyavatī as she rested by his side. While she was certainly a paragon of ebony feminine pulchritude, her piscine BO was overpowering to say the least. In fact, he had blanched and had had to close his eyes while joining with her. And there were the dual promises he had made in order to seduce her: to rid her of her fishy smell, and to have her remain a virgin after sleeping with him. Women! It was going to be tricky to keep his word, but he had a plan.  He pulled out his intergalactic cellphone from inside his matted hair and put in a call.  After a short while, he heard a familiar whooshing sound and a blue police box materialized next to them. The fog surrounding them shielded the TARDIS from being observed by the sages across the river.

The door opened and the Doctor stepped out.  He looked irritable.  "What is it this time, Parāśara?", he asked.  Then he whipped out a handkerchief and put it up to his nose.  "Good lord, what is that stench?  Have you stopped bathing or something?"

Parāśara explained the situation.  By now, Satyavatī has awoken and was eyeing the TARDIS with a lot of suspicion and a hint of trepidation.

"A fine mess you've gotten yourself into, Parāśara," observed the Doctor. "Well, what's done is done, so let's get the two of you in the TARDIS and spend the next nine months traveling through time and space.  As you know, people assume that time is a strict progress of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly ... time-y wimey ... stuff."

"Quite," interjected Parāśara, desperate to get a word in edgewise and stop the flow of this deep metaphysical stuff that he didn't fully comprehend.  "Let's get going, if we may."

The Doctor disappeared into the TARDIS. Parāśara looked at Satyavatī.  "Let's go in there, princess," he said.

She looked at him suspiciously.  "Into that little box?  With another strange man inside?  What further mischief do you have in mind?"

Somehow, he cajoled her into entering the TARDIS.  Her jaw dropped as she entered.  "How is this possible?" she exclaimed.  "It's bigger on the inside than on the outside."

The Doctor looked bored.  "Yes, yes, they all say that."  He looked at River Song, who was standing at the TARDIS controls. "My dear," he said, "allow me to introduce Satyavatī and Parāśara.  They will be traveling with us for the next nine months, until she delivers her child."

River looked at the Doctor with a hint of annoyance and wrinkled her nose. "Well, I just hope you have a nice airtight wing in this TARDIS where they can stay," she said. "And, by the way, do you have any air freshener? The fish odor is just killing me."


The months passed. Satyavatī showed unmistakable signs of her pregnancy, and then one day, after many hair-raising adventures that are not pertinent to our storyline, delivered a healthy baby boy, dark-skinned like his mother.  Now it was time to pull off the tricky part of the maneuver: ridding Satyavatī of her body odor and restoring her to virginity.  River and the Doctor made several calculations. They both looked uncharacteristically grim.

"Too many variables, Doctor.  Remember what happened to the Brigadier on that spaceliner in that incident with Mawdryn and his undead crew?"

"I know, River - but we have to give it a try.  Let's reverse the polarity of the neutron flow and hope that the Blinovich Limitation Effect does its job.  That seems to be our best option."

"Well, if you say so, my love."

"I do, my dear.  Action stations, everyone!"

The TARDIS materialized once again on the island on the Yamunā under cover of fog, and the Doctor activated the external scanners.  They could see Parāśara and Satyavatī outside engaged in earnest conversation, as she sought to extract the twins boons of continued virginity and fragrant body odor in return for acceding to his carnal desires.

"Well, the spatial and temporal coordinates are good," remarked River. "Satyavatī, time for you to go out there and complete your transformation."

Satyavatī looked worried. "Will this work, Doctor? Or will I be thrown way back into the past, as you told me in the tales of the Weeping Angels."

"Brave heart, Satyavatī," replied the Doctor with his best poker face.

Parāśara bade Satyavatī farewell. "Don't worry, princess," he said. "I will take good care of our son."

Satyavatī took a deep breath and stepped out of the TARDIS.  The couple in front of her turned round to face her. The younger Satyavatī stared in astonishment at her older counterpart.  "Who are you?" she said. "Are you a human, or a rākśasī in human form?" For some reason, Parāśara seemed unsurprised and quickly stepped out of the way.

The older Satyavatī stretched out her arm and approached her doppelgänger.  "Don't be afraid," she said. "No harm will come to you." But her younger version looked terrified and backed away from her, until she backed into a tree and couldn't go further.  "Stay away from me," she shrieked in fear.

Calmly, the older Satyavatī placed her hand on the other's shoulder.  She disappeared in a flash of light, and her younger version sank to the ground, apparently in a deep coma.

The Doctor looked at a display on the TARDIS console and smiled.  "Well, according to these readings, she is just asleep, she is still a virgin, and she is emitting a very high concentration of fragant pheromones. They should be wafting for at least a yojana around her. That was always the dicey part; I'm glad it turned out well."

He turned round to face the sage.  "Well, Parāśara," he said, "time for you and Kṛṣṇa to get going."

"Here," added River, "take this pair of cell phones.  Leave one next to Satyavatī along with this note. Give the other one to Kṛṣṇa when he reaches adulthood.  That way, she can call him whenever she needs him.  Promise me that when that happens, he will drop everything and hurry to her side as quickly as possible."

Parāśara was overwhelmed. "I will," he said. "Thank you both again for your help."

"You're quite welcome," replied the Doctor and River Song.  And the TARDIS dematerialized with its familiar wheezing sound.

A "Hamilton"ian View of रस

The theory of rasa (रस) and bhāva (भाव) is foundational to Hindustani classical music and dance. This rich formal theory of psychoacoustics dates back to the writings of Bharata, Śārṅgadeva, and Abhinavagupta, and - in the time-hallowed Indian tradition of exhaustive completeness - lays out a comprehensive structure of rasa (9-11 "transcendent modes of emotional awareness by which all aspects of a performance are integrated" [Raja 2015]), along with a fourfold set of bhāvas ("innate dispositions and latent energies common to all humans" [Raja 2015] that are manifest upon exposure to a rasa): the so-called sthāyī bhāva, saṃchārī bhāva, vibhāva, and anubhāva.

The purpose of this post is not a formal exposition of this theory.  For that, I refer you to the excellent articles and essays on the subject by Bimalakanta Raychaudhuri and Deepak S. Raja (and many others, no doubt). However, given the universality of human emotions, I have always been curious to see whether this taxonomy of emotions could be successfully applied to another musical genre.  I have been listening a lot lately to the cast album recording of the recent Broadway sensation (and the winner of 11 Tony awards) Hamilton: An American Musical, and it occurred to me that the vast canvas of the piece might afford a perfect backdrop for this Gedankenexperiment.  So here is my take on mapping the songs from the show to the rasas.

1. Śṛṅgār rasa (erotic), rati bhāva (love): Many songs are spiced with this emotion - which is unsurprising given that it is also referred to as ādirasa ("the original emotion"). Among them, the numbers "Helpless" and "Satisfied" from Act 1, and "Say No To This" from Act 2, stand out in my mind.
2. Hāsya rasa (comic), hāsa bhāva (mirth): Several of King George III's numbers ("You'll Be Back" and "I Know Him") serve as comic interludes.  The overlay of rap-based counterpoint on a Baroque minuet in "Farmer Refuted" is also brilliantly funny.
3. Karuṇa rasa (pathetic), śoka bhāva (sorrow): "It's Quiet Uptown" and "The World Was Wide Enough" (both from Act 2) immerse me in the depths of this part of the emotional palette.
4. Raudra rasa (furious), krodha bhāva (anger): In very different ways, Eliza Hamilton's "Burn" and Aaron Burr's "Your Obedient Servant" embody this emotion.  There are also distinct elements of it in "The Room Where It Happens".  Oh, and in Hamilton's uncontrolled outburst and Washington's controlled response in "Meet Me Inside".
5. Vīra rasa (heroic), utsāha bhāva (energy): This is the theme of Act 1 overall.  My favorites are the opening number "Alexander Hamilton", the energetic "My Shot", and the climactic "Yorktown".
6. Bhayānaka rasa (terrible), bhaya bhāva (fear): This is probably stretching it a bit, but Philip Hamilton's solo "Blow Us All Away" definitely touches on his fears of engaging in a duel.
7. Bībhatsa rasa (odious), ghṛṅā bhāva (disgust): This is clearly the theme of "The Reynolds Pamphlet", the story of America's first sex scandal.
8. Adbhūta rasa (wonderous), vismaya bhāva (wonder): The brief "Best of Wives and Best of Women" embodies this sense of wonder.
9. Sānta rasa (tranquil), sama bhāva (equanimity):  The final number "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" closes out the musical on a very atypical quiet note, but it absolutely works in terms of achieving tranquil closure on Hamilton's turbulent life and legacy.
10. Vātsalya rasa (parental binding to children): The amazing and unlikely Burr-Hamilton duet "Dear Theodosia" near the end of Act 1 is a paean to fatherhood.  The reprise of "Stay Alive" in Act 2, with its heartbreaking exchange between Eliza Hamilton and her son Philip, has me choking up every time.
11. Bhakti rasa (devotion to one's chosen deity): There are few references to religion in this musical.  Washington's reference to Micah 4:4 in "One Last Time" is probably the most significant.

This is, of course, a very simplistic and coarse mapping.  Songs like "Wait for It" and "Hurricane", which delve into the complex psyches of the protagonist and his nemesis, are subtly flavored with multiple layers of emotions that you need to discover on your own.

So, what'd I miss?

Note 1: The recording is readily available, in both digital and physical forms.  All of the major digital music stores and streaming services (iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music) carry it; there is a CD available; I've even seen a vinyl set!

Note 2: I have not actually had the opportunity to see the show, except for the snippets available on social media and performed during the Tony awards ceremony.  Since the word saṃgīta technically encompasses music, dance, and theater, it is possible that the full audio-visual experience may somewhat alter these perceptions.

Note 3: Since no one is a tabula rasa, your mileage will almost certainly vary.

श्रोता यत्र न विद्यते

The well-regarded, duly-honored (Padma Shri etc. etc.), virtuoso instrumentalist had just concluded the first half of his concert: a workmanlike but somewhat idiosyncratic rendition of Raga Bageshwari.  His unimpeachable accompanist was perspiring profusely after the thorough workout he had received at the hands of the soloist (first 11 beats, then 7 beats, and finally 16), and was busy re-applying cologne to his upper torso and armpits while seated on stage (seriously, dude, that is off the Narcissus scale).  I approached the Ustad with a request.

"We have had rain in Austin this afternoon after a dry spell, so may I request that you regale us with Malhar after the intermission?"

Ustadji smiled at me.  I continued, "But not the ubiquitous Mian Malhar, please.  I would like to hear one of the many other members of the family."

Ustadji demurred.  "You know, we have to play for the audience.  Most of them would not be able to appreciate something like what you are asking for.  Those ragas are for select mehfils, not concerts such as this one."

"Yeah, right," I thought, "like the hoi polloi really understood how in your Bageshwari you were de-emphasizing the madhyam in favor of the gandhar, or how you were playing a potent Kanada-ang phrase that is generally eschewed unless one is playing Bageshwari Kanada. (I told you that the performance was idiosyncratic.) Or that they appreciated the Philip Glass quality of your compositions: no proper asthayis, just a one-avartan catchphrase repeated endlessly with small variations.  Let's not even get into the matter of the missing antaras."

Ustadji's voice broke in on my musings.  "What particular Malhar would you like to hear?"  Surdasi Malhar was on my mind for some reason, so that's what I requested.  Ustadji was noncommittal.  "Let us see," he said.

For the record, he played a mellifluous dhun in the second half, a delicious stir-fry of Pilu, Kafi, and Shivaranjani.  (As a bonus, the rupak-tal composition actually had a real asthayi and antara.) The concert concluded with a Bhatiyali piece based on a Tagore song, originally immortalized by a scion of his gharana.

So how do we break this cycle of co-dependency, where performers stick to the usual suspects (often, scalar ragas facilitating those lightning-fast runs that receive the biggest applause) because that's supposedly "what the audience wants", while the audience doesn't know to demand any better?  Should we ask that artistes publish the concert program ahead of time (think of all the time I could save by not attending concerts where the main course is, say, Madhuvanti or Kirwani)?  Should we leverage game theory by re-instituting the practice of providing financial incentives or medals for particularly innovative compositions?  Should our farmaishes be for challenging concepts in standard ragas ("Please play a composition in Bageshwari with the sam on pancham" or "Please play a composition in Mian Malhar with the sam on komal nishad")?  Seriously, given where we seem to be headed in this musical genre, I'm tempted to switch over to rap, which I find to be more intellectually stimulating (if one can get past the usual subject matter).

Interestingly enough, this problem seems less endemic in the Carnatic world.  A few weeks ago, the listeners at the TNK+fils concert were knowledgable, and the musicians played for a musically savvy audience.  Their only concession was to choose ragas that would not be alien to Hindustani ears like mine (which I generally appreciated, but something like an Amritavarshini would have been appreciated as a palate-cleansing sorbet; besides, we were in that dry spell in Austin at that point).

So, what do you think?  Is there a way forward here?  Or am I just being "a polymath, a pain-in-the-ass, a massive pain" in an age where anti-intellectualism and mediocrity trumps all else?

Two Concerts

The past two weekends were musically busy in Austin, the "live music capital of the world".  And I don't mean the ACL Music Festival, which of course was the hot big-ticket item in town.  Let me talk instead about two other concerts that I attended, both "fusion" experiences in a sense.

Mompou, Takemitsu, Dvorak, and Bach (on guitar)

The first was a classical guitar concert on October 3rd by the legendary Japanese guitarist Kazuhito Yamashita, the opening concert of the 25th season of the Austin Classical Guitar Society, a wonderful organization on the Austin classical music scene that both organizes concerts and engages in educational outreach.  I walked into the Austin ISD PAC auditorium to the strains of the Austin Classical Guitar Youth Orchestra playing an arrangement of the Villanesca from Granados' Spanish Dances.  The hall itself is acoustically marvellous: I was able to hear every note of Yamashita-san's playing, without any amplification, sitting up in the balcony.

While I listen to classical guitar, I do not follow the genre closely, and I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the program: Mompou, Takemitsu, and arrangements by Yamashita of the Largo from Dvorak's New World Symphony and of Bach's second violin partita.  Mompou is an underrated 20th century Spanish composer (listen to his Variations on Chopin's A-major Prelude to understand why), and his Suite Compostelana was written for none other than Segovia; Toru Takemitsu is, of course, the premier face of modern classical music in Japan (the performance of From Me Flows What You Call Time for five percussionists and orchestra remains unforgettable both visually and musically); the Dvorak and the Bach are staples of the classical repertoire.

Yamashita is a fascinating musician to watch.  Remarkably, he did not speak a single word throughout the performance - he did not even announce the encore that he played (a composition by his daughter, as I found out later).  His intensity and concentration are something out of this world. It is beyond my ability to comment on his musicianship and technical brilliance other than to say that they are on par with the level of virtuosity one associates with the likes of Vilayat Khan and Ali Akbar Khan. And I have never seen anyone hold the instrument in so many positions while playing, all the way from vertical (like a cello) to horizontal (almost like a sarod).

And yet, for all the virtuosity, I came away with a sense of detachment.  I marveled at his reduction of a symphonic work to a solo guitar (comparable only to the similar transcriptions by Liszt), of his mapping of a bowed instrument to a plucked one. I was in awe of his control of the sound textures in Takemtisu's Folios, his effortless speed in the Bach partita. I saw the guitarists in the audience going wild over the performance. But not once during the concert did I get the goosebumps that epitomize the emotional appeal of a truly great performance.  Perhaps he was having an off day. Perhaps I wasn't ready to understand his greatness (just as I still don't "get" Mahler). Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.

I bought the two-CD set of his transcription of the complete Bach cello suites. (I wanted to get them autographed by him, but he never showed up to sign CDs.) I've listened to them over and over, and compared them to Segovia's recordings. The man clearly is a genius. I still mostly have only a superficial intellectual appreciation of his greatness (although the prelude of the sixth suite did give me goosebumps).

Maybe Bach is too cerebral. I need to listen to his transcription of Pictures at an Exhibition. And I hope that ACGS brings him back soon.

Crosscurrents: A Musical Bridge East to West

The second concert on October 11th was the much-awaited grand finale of the 24th year of the Indian Classical Music Circle of Austin, Ustad Zakir Hussain's indo-jazz fusion quintet: Louiz Banks (piano), Sanjay Divecha (guitar), Shankar Mahadevan (vocals), Dave Holland (string bass), anchored by Zakir-ji himself on a eclectic drumset fashioned out of multiple tablas (tuned to different pitches), other varieties of drums, cymbals, etc. The concert was held at Riverbend Center, a hall capable of seating over 2,300 that was packed to capacity.

I first saw Zakir play live in 1983 at IIT Kharagpur, and I have seen him in concert many times since then. His percussive wizardry is the stuff of legend and was on full display at the concert, along with his delicious extemporaneous repartee ("The Zakir Hussain Standup Comedy Hour", as he described it) in which he coolly despatched screaming protestations of love from certain members of the audience, handled complaints about echoes from another section ("you're getting to hear everything at least twice"), and pleaded for "equal TLC" as the crowd went wild at Shankar Mahadevan's name.

Every musician of the quintet is a star in his own right, and they came together as a coherent constellation repeatedly during the course of the sets they played. Dave Holland's bass playing is rightfully legendary: bassists are used to pizzing, but I've rarely seen such pizzicato as he put on display.  Or as much thumb-position playing, for that matter.  The opening piece of the second half, with Holland and Hussain gloriously jamming to a seven-beat rhythmic cycle, will remain long in my memory. Divecha came into the limelight in the delicate ballad that he played exquisitely, also in the second half. (I do disagree with his choice of headgear, though: his woolen hat looked awkward, not cool.) Banks was rock-solid and brilliant in every piece, although I personally could have done with fewer glissandos.

The compositions were a blend of jazz, Indian classical, and Bollywood - the key word being 'blend'. While many of the pieces were structured as more-or-less conventional jazz numbers, the musicians were always stepping outside their traditional boxes in unexpected ways. It was certainly unusual (but quite exhilarating) to hear Shankar Mahadevan render a Swati Tirunal kriti in Ragam Simhendra Madhyamam with harmonic accompaniment from Louiz Banks; I quietly chuckled when he neatly slipped in a Jasraj-style alapana into the piece.

The crowd went into synchronized clapping mode as Mahadevan rendered a Kishore Kumar number at furious speed.  Regrettably, I had to leave at this point.  Note to organizers: Despite this being an Indian music concert, it would actually be nice to start on time, and to not let "short intermissions" stretch to half an hour.

A Teacher's Day Memory

A longtime friend asked me today about the peculiar Inglish usage of the phrase to pass out in the sense of to graduate (rather than the more common Western sense of to become unconscious). Specifically, he asked whether the phrase had been in common use during our student days in India some three decades ago.  The short answer to his question is that it most certainly was in common use. But the query brought back a treasured memory from my undergraduate days that seems particularly appropriate to share on this day that is celebrated as Teacher's Day in India.

Professor T. Ghatak (another Inglish usage, this use of the initial rather than the complete first name) of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur had been our English teacher in our first year (which we had spent mostly reading A Passage to India by E. M. Forster, as I recall).  He was a formal gentleman of the old school: tall, fair, and imposing, yet very approachable.  I had maintained a relationship with him after our formal teacher-student relationship had ended, aided partly by the fact that his son Subhendu was my classmate.

This particular usage had always bothered me, so one day I finally asked Prof. Ghatak about it.  He told me that he was familiar with it only in the sense of 'to graduate'.  I was a little surprised but let it go.

A few days later, I received a handwritten letter from him (an inland letter card, more expensive than a postcard but also more private: I did say he was a formal gentleman), in which he said that he had followed up on my question and had verified the other usage that I had talked about.  He went on to thank me for teaching him something about the English language.

This being well before the time of cellphone cameras and scanners, I unfortunately do not have a copy of this letter.  I wish that I had been more diligent in preserving this testament to Prof. Ghatak's openmindedness and humility, which to me is on par with Buonarroti's immortal utterance "Ancora imparo".

A linguistic side note

The verb graduate comes from the Latin gradus ('degree, step').  The related verb matriculate ('be enrolled at a college or university') comes from the Latin matricula, a diminutive of matrix.