HYDERABAD: It was for the first time that the ‘Citi-NCPA Aadi Anant from here to eternity’ came to Hyderabad. The three-month long travelling music festival, which started in Pune ’15 had been to Chennai and Mumbai before making its stopover at Shilpa Kala Vedika in the city. The festival featured acclaimed sitar player Niladri Kumar accompanied by artistes such as Satyajit Talwalkar, Gino Banks, Sheldon D’Silva and Agnelo Fernandes. Niladri Kumar is a distinguished artiste who plays the sitar and also the zitar, the electric sitar. In fact, he played the zitar in Hyderabad and made a memorable impact. Excerpts from an interview with Niladri Kumar.
Tell us about your experience at the Hyderabad concert?
The crowd response in Hyderabad was something that we musicians always cherish when playing this music. I was very happy that we could connect with the only language we speak and that is music.
Your zitar (electric sitar) is supposedly a 100-year-old.
The zitar is not 100-years-old. The sitar that I played as a 7-year-old was 100-years-old. I played that with for the concert with the kids. I played my electric Zitar in Hyderabad.
You recently spoke about sitar being like the wand in the Harry Potter series; that the sitar player and the instrument have to mutually choose each other. Please elaborate.
A sitar is a dynamic and alive instrument. In Harry Potter , there’s a wand choosing scene where the wand and its user need to have a connect. The sitar too broadly works in a similar style. Only after the instrument and the artiste warm up to each other, the musical spark begins and the magic starts to flow. There are times where I feel my sitar revolting against me and at times when I feel it blending as a part with me. It’s a relationship which is the closest I share with anything.
Recently, in association with an NGO Vision Rescue (through its Social Group ‘ExploreYou’) and music director Arjun Nair, you had taken up a challenge to musically empower a group of 12 girls from a Vasal orphanage in Mumbai. Please share the experience.
Arjun Nair is a music director, although for the Stay UPRooted concert, he came on board as the arranger and music and vocal trainer for the kids. Being the arranger for Vocal Band Voctronica, we felt it most fitting for him to train the kids with me. He initiated most of them from scratch to music and moulded each one of them. His contribution along with Prince Mulla was very important without which this piece of music would not have been possible. The 30-day challenge we took, was a real transformer for us and the kids. As far as my experience to see them sing finally on stage with me, the confidence, excitement and the feeling of standing up and showcasing their art was a sight I will take to my grave. We’re still in touch with the kids and they have worked on a new project that should hopefully release soon.
You also give pure classical concerts besides collaborating with guitar legend John McLaughlin. How do you balance?
Collaboration is not the right word here. I was given a chance and opportunity to be featured in one of the songs of an album called ‘Floating Point’ of the guitar great John McLaughlin. It was also nominated for the Grammies that year. It was a big blessing to be part of his album. Playing classical music is the most natural progression for me and the music that I learned and imbibed. For everything else that I do, my basis still remains my classical tradition.
There is a sense of exhilaration which one comes across in your concerts. As someone who grew up in an environment where you had to listen to only Indian classical music, how did you connect to the two different worlds of music?
It’s a good question but to give you a short answer, I can only say that the need to communicate with my generation and the next was the basis for me to do whatever I tried. I don’t think I still have connected to both the worlds yet as much I would like to and there remains much work left to do and the time is short.
Fusion music connects more with youth. How can one enhance this interest and help them appreciate different forms of music, especially classical music.
Today’s youth is extremely intelligent and very quick to understand and decipher things they like or interest them. As long as good classical musicians in India have enough opportunities to connect with the youth with their music - whether in classical or other forms, somewhere somehow there will always be people who will be moved and drawn towards our great heritage and music. I believe the talent in the youth we have both among musicians and listeners just needs to be connected.
Tell us about your future endeavours?
I hope to release a few albums this year. A couple of songs in movies I hope will see the light of the day. I look forward to my new website that will launch in February end. Also I am passionate about food so I hope that the project Zitar, a music restaurant takes off. Also I hope, as I answered in one of the previous questions, that I can connect to people more than I have been able too in the past.
