| There is no Greatness Without Pain
Ustad Shahid Parvez
He was a child
prodigy who gave his first professional performance
at the age of eight, and today Ustad Shahid Parvez is
considered one of the greatest sitar players in the
world after Pundit Ravi Shankar, and yet in an exclusive
interview he recalls that the road to the prodigious
success that he enjoys today was filled with blood,
sweat and tears.
You started learning vocal music and tabla at a tender
age of 3 before switching to sitar at 4 and were touted
as a child prodigy by 8. Did you even have a childhood?
I had to do only two things — play sitar and study.
I never ever played outside, never had a normal childhood.
I would practice from 10 at night till 4 a.m. in the
morning, then slept and then would wake up and go to
school. But you really cannot achieve much without that
kind of hard work. It is not enough to just take lessons
and practice. The involvement should be so deep that
your music and you become one. Often my mind is full
of music even when I am asleep. People draw the best
from experiences of pain and difficulty; without experiencing
the pain you cannot achieve greatness. My training was
tough and my father was very strict, demanding and very
impatient. He was an artist and not a teacher. He’d
say I don’t care if you don’t have talent. I want you
to play like this and I will make you play like this.
At times my mother would bring food and she would leave
and the food remained and he’d forget and would be so
involved in teaching me that after a while, though I
was just a child, even I would forget that I was hungry.
There are times I have practiced 10-11 hours at a stretch.
I decided to teach a lot of students and learn patience,
and an understanding that not every one is at the same
level. Till today my father has never told me what he
thinks of my playing or that he is proud of me. One
day I asked him you have worked so hard on me and I
have worked so hard on myself and even if after so many
years, I have not been able to please you enough for
you to say even once, “son you played well,” so what
do you get out of it? He said once a father and son
made idols. What the father created sold for 100 bucks
what the son made sold for 200. The father for a long
time never ever told the son, that he created a better
idol than his father. One day finally the father could
not control his pride and said “Son you make idols far
better than I do.” Since then not one person even paid
50 rupees for his son’s work. He probably felt it would
go to my head and I feel that fame and flattery have
to be taken in stride. If an artist can stay humble
and focus only on his art, he rises way beyond his talent
and his craft. And if it goes to his head, he is a very
small man. Whatever I have learnt is so miniscule compared
to what I still feel I have to learn that I see nothing
to be arrogant about.
You are one of the few artists who sing and play
both, and have incorporated the “gayaki ang” and the
“tantrakari ang” creating a unique style and universal
appeal.
I think to play an instrument from your soul, you have
to learn to sing first, because music is expressed to
the maximum through singing. I started with vocal music
when I was three and till today I sing in my performances.
I feel until you sing it will not transfer to your playing.
More than even the technique and other things, you need
to sing. You play an instrument with your hands but
the sounds really emanate from your heart.
In today’s
world of short attention span, what future do you foresee
for traditional classical music. You are perhaps a rare
artist who can play and still hold people spellbound
after hours as a purist, and a lot of the audience is
not very knowledgeable technically.
Yes, I’m a purist and I don’t believe in taking short
cuts in music. Our music is not just for entertainment
purposes only. If the stories are true about how Mian
Tansen sang and animals came to hear it’s obvious that
great music is a pleasure you enjoy even when you don’t
understand it. I have such faith in my music that I
am confident it doesn’t need short cuts.
Zakir Hussain and Ravi Shankar are so good at what they
do that anything they create or play is appreciated
and yet deep within my heart I feel that perhaps even
they enjoy themselves the most when they play the traditional
music they were brought up with. Of course it’s another
matter that occasionally we digress or innovate and
at times just experiment to see how it feels to blend
two styles together. I want to remain a purist even
though I don’t mind innovating or experimenting by working
with other artists.
In the early days the audience was a very trained, they
were the true connoisseurs and you did not have to explain
your music to them, as they knew the technicalities.
The number was not very large, but they were the real
music lovers. It was tough playing before them because
you could not afford to make a mistake. On the other
hand it is as tough playing before an audience that
knows nothing about Indian classical music. Today there
is a mixed audience. The ones who know, the ones who
do not know, so it’s hard to please everyone. Fortunately
with instrumental classical music, things are a bit
easier, where it can touch the heart, even if you don’t
know the technicalities. But I’m very encouraged by
what I see here. There is great interest and people
are learning a classical art form with great enthusiasm
and dedication. I have also noticed that between India
and here, a regular guy here has a deeper appreciation
and understanding of Indian classical music. Here people
miss what they have left behind so the appreciation
is deeper.
What do you prefer — playing live or recording spectacular
music in the solitude of a recording studio?
Live concerts inspire an artist to raise the quality
of music simply because of audience response. However
the quality of recording is better in a studio. Of course
if you want to record peacefully then studios are the
havens. I try to make it natural by trying to record
at the time of the raga and invite some close friends
and music lovers to be a part of it. I still feel some
of the live concerts turn out to be so amazing and that
even if the recording quality is poor they should still
be captured on CD.
Have you ever created a spontaneous raga?
I don’t believe in creating ragas. There are so many
good ragas now that it is now impossible to create ragas
as per our traditional way of creating them, but once
I was to play at a concert at 2.30 a.m. it was neither
night time nor dawn and I was wondering what do I play.
There is no raga, which has been created for the time
between the night ushering in the dawn. But there is
a night raga Kaushikdhani and a morning raga lalit.
I spontaneously blended the two.
What have been your most memorable concerts? And
is there something about Ustad Shahid Parvez that no
one knows?
It was an honor to perform before my uncle Ustad Vilayat
Khan. I played on his 60th birthday. And then once Ravi
Shankar came to hear me perform and he heard me with
love, and at the age of 11 before Bade Ghulam Ali Khan
who gave me Rs. 5 as prize.
I have never told anyone this before, but I have a son
who is 16 and a sitar player, but I decided I will never
promote him. He must take all the time to learn, to
create his own path and carve a niche for himself by
his own talent and hard work. He is not going to get
anything on a platter. I have never even mentioned him
prior to today or even encouraged him to perform with
me on stage. If he even understands a fraction of the
hard work involved , the tough discipline true musicians
need to follow, he will make me proud.
--Kavita Chhibber Narula
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