A Tribute To Bhimsen Joshi

The passing yesterday of Bhimsen Joshi, a towering figure in Hindustani classical music in the 20th century, has occupied many pages of the papers this morning with tributes, and many FB postings. I was very fortunate to meet Pandit-ji while traveling with Ali Akbar Khan in 1989, and through him I learned an interesting but quite unusual lesson about artistry. Our group, which included Ken Zuckerman and myself with Khansahib, went to Bhimsen-ji’s house the day after Khansahib had performed for the Sawai Ghandharva music conference – a series of all-night concerts held outdoors in the courtyard of a school for thousands of people. Anyway, after the usual introductions and tea, etc., Bhimsen-ji said that he wanted to show Khansahib a project he had started; I think it was a school for the arts. So we all piled into Bhimsen-ji’s car, which was a white 1962 Mercedes 220, a gigantic car on the Indian roads at that time. A grand car, befitting a grand maestro. Bhimsen Joshi was renowned for his love of cars and driving, and Khansahib told stories of driving all over India with him to festivals. Anyone who has been to India from anywhere else in the world is instantly struck by the swirling chaos of noise that accompanies all forms of motorized transport (and Indians traveling abroad for the first time are often overwhelmed by the utter silence with which the movement of traffic takes place in the West). It seems that basically everyone blows whatever they have for a horn as loud as they can just about all the time. However, as we drove in the Mercedes through the city traffic in Pune, pretty much plowing through anything smaller that stood in front of us, I began to notice something in how Bhimsen Joshi used his horn. I began to see that the horn was not random; that each sound was directed at a particular object or person, and somehow modulated to match the intended recipient. He was using sound to carve his way through the traffic, with what seemed a similar level of attention and expertise that he applied to shaping his musical exposition and improvisation. It was ART!