When you google sitarist Vinayak Chittar, a few links to concert recordings and some music available online is all that shows up. One of the most virtuous musicians of his generation with impeccable technical prowess, the absence of a critical discourse around this gifted musician is perplexing. If you listen to his Bhatiyar or Tilak Kamod, one can clearly see a creative mind at work. Recently, he moved base to Goa, bidding adieu to the bustling metropolis of Mumbai, where he grew up and learnt music from the late Pt. P. G. Parab and Pt. Arvind Parikh. When I met him in Goa last, he took me on a drive to the verdant island of Divar and mentioned to me, “Just look around you. There’s greenery everywhere. Where else should an artiste be?” A trained architect, Chittar also worked briefly with Charles Correa. He teaches a few students, performs even fewer concerts and spends maximum time with his sitar. Excerpts from an interview:
You are referred to as a ‘thinking musician.’ Have you ever thought about this? What does it mean?
Indian classical music or ‘Khayal’ music is a form of extempore art music. ‘Khayal’ by definition literally means ‘to imagine’ or think. Following this rationale, a good musician hence has to be a thinker, composer, and performer in a unique way to be able to narrate the music like an expert storyteller. A good musician has no choice but to be a thinking musician.
Everybody has a guru but how does a musician create his style? How did you create your style or a sound that you most identify with?
Each guru should teach the student to think rather than try to create a musical clone. After reaching a level of taleem , every musician must impart the stamp of his individual thinking. I was trained in two major gharanas of sitar music — Pt. P.G. Parab, a disciple of Pt. Ravi Shankar of the Maihar Gharana, and Pt. Arvind Parikh, a disciple of Ustad Vilayat Khan of the Etawah Gharana. I am also greatly influenced by the Jaipur and Agra Gharana gayaki. Most of my music is based on the Etawah style with a blend of all the above influences. It is also required of a sitar player to constantly innovate and work on the playing technique. Being a qualified architect with a sound background in materials and acoustics enables me to constantly experiment with my instruments and maintain my own instruments rather than depend on a jawari maker (jawari making is a skilled job of filing and shaping the bridge once in a few months to give the unique ‘voice’ to the sitar to suit the player’s preference).
You live in Goa. Does location influence your music?
Being in Goa has been conducive to evolving as a musician. With far fewer distractions, I can practise, think and introspect in the quiet and scenic location surrounded by beaches, rivers and forests.
How do you choose a raga for a concert? Is it not the responsibility of musicians to also introduce complex ragas to their audience and not just resort to popular ragas like Yaman, Malhar, etc? Why doesn't that happen too often?
The selection of raga mostly depends on the audience. I would choose complex or uncommon ragas for small private baithaks, where the audience consists of musicians, music students and connoisseurs. And ragas like Yaman and types of Malhars are not at all easy to develop. It takes a great deal of maturity to effectively render these vast ragas.
A public concert is attended by all types of listeners with different levels of exposure to classical music; hence the repertoire should be such that every listener could relate to. I feel it is a good idea to introduce a short piece in some uncommon raga in the post-interval session of the concert.
A musician also ought to be a good listener. How does a musician listen to music and who do you listen to and why?
A musician listens to music in a manner different from a music connoisseur. Each listening experience has to be a learning experience, enriching the knowledge base and adding to the raga vocabulary. There is a lot to learn, analyse, assimilate and reinterpret from all kinds of music. I generally prefer to listen to more of vocal music than sitar music. In addition to Hindustani and Carnatic instrumental and vocal music and its sub-genres, I listen to music of every kind. Elements from all the music that I am exposed to definitely influence my music.
Do you think your generation of musicians are more interactive, open to sharing of knowledge with each other?
I feel that Gharana boundaries and rivalries still exist, but are gradually fading because of the vast amount of recorded music freely available. I have been lucky to interact musically with a few of them and had a healthy exchange of ideas. I like to openly share what I know and do not hesitate to learn from anybody. One such fruitful interaction has been with sarod artiste, Arnab Chakrabarty. We have spent years practising together until he imbibed a lot of Etawah-Imdadkhani sitar repertoire and I absorbed a lot of Shahajanpur Gharana sarod repertoire from him.
The writer teaches literary and cultural studies at FLAME University, Pune
