Musical moments

A monsoon of music
Mitra Phukan
Penguin
2011, pp 419
Rs. 450

Seeking logic in the life of a musician which is based on emotions that go beyond the regions of mind is a self-defeating effort. That is the strict lesson we get when Mitra’s heroine Nomita takes her decision at the end, realising well what the outside world would say. That is what makes the novel a welcome imprint of Kali for Women.

The plan of A Monsoon of Music is deceptively simple. A brilliant sitarist, Kaushik Kashyap straddles the east and the west, and gets engaged to a small-town musician. An accident to his hands looms like a killer-sword above his future and his betrothed decides to call off the engagement and go to the United States with her IT friend. With the first chapter opening to the crashing down of a chandelier on the stage when a music programme is about to begin, we understand that Mitra is ready to weave a world of music, shadowy goings-on and metaphorical crashes galore. We are ready for a lot of interesting stuff as the blurb has tempting hints about an extra-marital liaison that the lovely music teacher Sandhya Senapati has with a tea-planter and how the glitzy Kaushik has always an Italian girl with him as his student. 
 
Mitra tries hard but her coy pen will not move into Lady Chatterleyish pathways. None of the things mentioned by her can really shock the contemporary reader as a “deep, dark secret”. There is nothing in the novel to show that Lucia means anything more to Kaushik than a student from Italy. Deepak Rathod and Sandhya looking at the sunset during a boat ride is no marital felony! Besides, the story teller in Mitra gets  repeatedly sidelined by the music critic:

“Without sacrificing any of the meditative spirituality that formed the bedrock of this genre of music, the flamboyant Kaushik Kashyap had also managed to include an awareness of different worlds, different systems, different cultures even while being very faithful to the tradition in which he had been groomed.”

What is the real reason behind Nomita’s calling off her engagement? Was it the ponytail sported by Kaushik? Or the feeling that if she makes a name for herself as a singer, the credits would go to the backing by a rich, famous husband? Or that Kaushik’s lithe hands will never be the same again for playing sitar? Having created a heroine who is devoid of the ability to remain decisive, the last turn is astonishingly abrupt. As a story, A Monsoon of Music is an artistic failure.

But, not as a “musical novel”. Mitra brings to life the scenario of classical music in Kolkata-Assam, the problems faced by artistes, the discipline of the art that calls for a rare dedication bordering on the spiritual. The guru-shishya parampara that is the very backbone of classical music is projected in an unobtrusive manner, highlighting the immense reservoir of Indian tradition. Often a turn of phrase (“the helmet sitting on the table between them like a polished black skull”) reveals the acute observer in the author. A special word for the cover: one can almost hear the self-lost heroine essaying megh-malhar!