Vanaprastham by Shaji, Zakir hussain Speaks
In case if you have missed this, A movie to watch and proud about it
Zakir hussain for Kathakali with Mohanlal
A whole new beat
Soon after Uttam Singh trotted down south to
set the music for Hariharan's Prempoojari, comes
Zakir Hussain, the great tabla maestro, to
fashion the background score for Shaji N
Karun's latest film, Vaanaprastham.
It was a charged up Zakir Hussain we met at the
Prasad Color Lab. But if he had music on his mind, that
never stopped
him from being polite to a fault. Here, in an interview
with Shobha
Warrier, he discusses the film and the music he's
composing:
Vaanaprastham is based on the story of a Kathakali
artist. How
different was it for you to compose music for such a
film?
The core of the music is traditional. It has to be,
considering the character in
the film and the subject. And so I studied about
Kathakali. For the past six
months I've been listening to a lot of Kathakali music,
meeting a lot of
Kathakali artists, going to the sets, listening to the
musicians, watching the
shots being taken etc to get the feel of the art.
In that sense, it was a much more involved project than
a normal film. The
challenge here, of course, is that there are no songs
in the film. So you don't
have something to catch the audience right away. You
have to catch them
with the emotion of the music. So the music has to be
very emotive and
expressive and it has to bring out all the subtle
nuances that exist in the scene
itself.
Shaji is very particular about how he wants a scene to
express itself on the
screen. Whatever I had to do should not disturb that
expression but enhance
it. We have to be very careful with the music.
What we have done is, we have divided music session
into two different
zones. One is the music that is going to focus on the
core of the traditional
Kathakali music. And the other is modern approach to
film music, creating
music that could be presented on a CD.
Won't the traditional and the modern clash in a film
like this?
It won't. After all, the same 12 notes are used
everywhere in the world, the
same rhythm is used everywhere. In that sense, it won't
clash, and we have
been doing it. To a large extent, we have been doing
this kind of
configuration -- or interaction of different musical
ideas on film -- for the last
40 years.
Is it because you, a modern man, is
involved in
the traditional music that you
thought of fusing
the traditional and the modern?
The man may belong to any age but if
he is
presenting a traditional art form, he
is going to be
that and he has to be that.
You mean he becomes traditional only when he is
presenting that
particular art form, don't you?
Yes, when he is presenting the traditional art form, he
has to be only
traditional. So when we have the Kathakali music in the
film, we are using all
the traditional instruments, like the chenda, the
idakka, the maddalam and the
veena... A lot of western music or pop music use a
sitar for a second or a
tabla for a second just for the sound effect. But we
want to use them to
express themselves, to do the thing they do the best.
What I am doing is, just
building around these musical forms, a nice frame, a
supportive frame, that is
going to display this incredible Kathakali tradition.
Whatever music I am composing deals with ragas and they
are all Carnatic
ragas so that they relate closely to the musical
melodic form of Kathakali
music. So the emotional content of the music is
actually pretty much all they
provide. You may hear a violin there, you may hear a
drum roll there, or you
may hear some kind of a symbol, but it's all going to
be decorative, just
propping up what already exists.
It's difficult to keep the raga's structure, not
disturb them and still work in
harmony, still work with the melodic content which is
more modern. It's a
challenge.
Is it difficult?
It's very difficult, especially after meeting the
French people involved, the
production people. You are not doing it for India alone
because it will be
presented all over the world. They are used to pop,
rock, jazz etc. So we
can't give them what the regular film industry in India
provides; because they
already have that.
We have to show them what we have and make it
possible for them to understand it, feel the emotion
the way we do when we listen to a particular raga.
To achieve that, we have to bridge the musical gap in
such a way that it does not disturb our tradition but
at the same time explains to everybody else in the
world what we are all about.
Is this not the first time that you were composing
music based on
Carnatic ragas and using south Indian instruments?
I have studied in Rishi Valley and spent sometime with
the great mridangam
vidwan Palghat Mani Iyer. I learnt something from him.
I have spent the last
20 years of my life in close contact with great
Carnatic musicians like my
great friend Vinakram Riku. What I am saying is that I
am aware of these
instruments and I know what they do. I have heard these
drums play the
traditional pieces of music.
In some ways, I guess they feel I am the right person
for this because I have
seen both sides of the coin and I have been able to
study them. So I
probably could be the person who would know how to make
the twain meet
without stepping on each other's toes. Working with
these drums like the
chenda is such an exciting experience.
I went to Kerala for the shooting and the chenda master
(Mattannur
Sankaran Kutty), who has acted in the film too, did a
performance for me
and I can only say, Wow! These musicians get up at six
o'clock in the
morning, and I feel it's incredible. It's a great
inspiration to hear these masters
and to see what they do. It helps me and inspires me.
In some ways, the
ideas just come up. It is not like I have to sit there
for 10 days and figure out
one little note. No, it just comes out because the
music is showing the way.
Did you instantly say 'yes' to Shaji when he asked you
to compose
music for Vaanaprashtam?
Actually, yes. Because I'd seen his earlier films...
Both films?
Yes, yes. Those films are quite well known in the film
world. I go to France
often and I have seen his films there too. When I heard
that Lal was working
in the film, I felt it was a challenge.
You knew about Mohanlal earlier?
Of course. Come on, doesn't
everybody? [laughs].
In north India, we are not that
isolated from the
culture from this part of the
country. We have seen
it. We have known it. I know about
Lal's ability too.
And his performance in this film was
incredible?
Stunning! The kind of dedication, devotion he has o
this character is amazing.
The way he worked on it, the way he learnt the
Kathakali mudras ... I feel
only a person with an artistic mind and a keen interest
in music and dance
would be able to actually do that. Not only him,
Suhasini too has done a
wonderful job. Kuku Parameswaran is so beautiful. Her
face is so bare
without any make-up but she looks like a beautiful
apsara. I am bowled over
by the film itself.
Do you feel the outside world feel mesmerised by the
bright colours
and the electrifying music associated with Kathakali?
Kathakali is already a well-known art form abroad. The
people in the west,
and especially those in Europe, are mesmerised by
Kathakali. The reason
why the French people got involved in the project was
because Kathakali is
well known to them. And I think one of the reasons is
the use of vibrant
colours.
Yes, the Kathakali music is electrifying. But the
colours, the visuals, are
incredible. The colours used by Van Gogh are influenced
by the Oriental, the
Japanese, but in some ways they are close to the
colours of Kathakali -- the
great red, the beautiful green etc. Visually it is so
stunning that the music has
not much to do. I think it is a very unbeatable
combination.
The protagonist of this film suffers from various
crises in life, of
parenthood, identity etc. So how did you stress on
these crises while
composing music?
We have come up with some musical themes that magnify
each character.
Kunju (Mohanlal) has one theme assigned to him. So does
Subhadra
(Suhasini), Kuku and the child. And the theme has to
express a whole
canvas of emotions throughout the film. Sometimes when
Kunju is happy, the
theme is happy. When he is sad, the theme is sad. His
anguish also is
expressed through the theme music. You may see Subhadra
in the scene but
you hear Kunju's theme. That means she is thinking
about Kunju.
How she is thinking about him is also important. Is
she thinking about him in anger, longing, love or
passion? The theme will express all that. That is what
we are doing. We are trying to create musical ideas
for each character and take the musical idea through
the whole journey that the character is taking. It
could be a journey of confusion, a journey of
indecision, a journey of love or
even a journey of anger. So, you will be able to
identity the character and the
feeling from the music even if you close your eyes.
Do you feel every artist goes through this kind of an
identity crisis?
I definitely think, yes. We all suffer them. What the
film points out is that we
have to try to rise above it. Yes, we all suffer from
it.
Do you also?
Some of us are blessed. Some of us have more positive
things in our lives
than negative. I think that I am one of those blessed
ones. My father is a
great artist and he is happy with what I do. I have my
wife who loves me, my
kids who love me. So things are at a more positive
phase for me.
Yes, as a child, I may have gone through some negative
situations. Yes, there
was an identity crisis -- trying to establish my own
identity as opposed to my
father's. He's a genius. I was lucky enough to get to a
point where I am
recognised for what I am.
In this film, it is a little different because an
artist is looking for recognition
from a non-artist. Even when the artist becomes great,
the recognition isn't
there and it makes it all sour for him . The same thing
happens to Kunju's son
too.
I will say this identity crisis does exist. We all go
through it -- on a more large
global level now. Like Indians who don't look like
Indians. An Indian who
does not look like an Indian is not sure where he is,
where he should go and
who he is. He may think, 'Why is that I am living in
America and have an
American passport but the Americans think of me as a
non-American?' So,
this crisis does exist for everyone, even if we were to
take the message
through a larger canvas, a panorama of global
uncertainty in humans.
Photographs of Zakir Hussain performing by Jewella
Miranda;
photographs with the Vaanaprastham team by Sanjay Ghosh
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