Padma Vibhushan N Rajam reflects on Banaras, music and a lifetime with the violin
A city untouched by modern politics and held together by diverse cultural and musical traditions; the famed Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb that once imbued into music, language and the fabric of daily life.The texture of that time is captured in a grainy video recording from the ’80s available on YouTube, where one sees Rajam play Maithili poet Vidyapati’s Piya mora baalak (My beloved is a mere boy), on the banks of the Ganga. It is the anguish of a young bride mourning her wedding to a child with no scope of companionship and no place for desire played in Pilu, a fluid raga with longing at the heart of it.For Rajam, born and raised in a Tamil-speaking family in Chennai, this was her ode to the writing and composition of the 15th-century poet/composer still revered in the Purvanchali belt. Khan and tabla giant Pt Kishan Maharaj, sitting on either side of her, listened in sheer delight as Rajam, bent over her violin, took a deep dive into the popular folk piece. But her violin did more than just render a beloved melody. It echoed the quintessential Banarasi lehja, the unhurried grace of its cadence, in turn becoming inseparable from the city she had come to call home then. Khan is heard saying ‘wah’ at regular intervals. He joins her with his shehnai, extending the melodic thread. Khan had heard her play a solo at the university and was struck by the evocative nature of the young violinist’s music. That is when he decided to collaborate with her.
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