Opinion Shivkumar Sharma was a musician’s musician – he thought music
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt writes: What I learnt from him was how to maintain the ragas, to distribute the beats and while doing all of that, to hold the audience’s attention and bridge the tradition with the contemporary.
Pandit Shivkumar Sharma passed away on Tuesday. (Express Archive) 
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Today ( May 10) is one of the saddest days for Indian classical music. Ek badi hasti ko kho diya hai humne (we have lost yet another legend) — yet another vein of Hindustani classical music, after Pandit Birju Maharaj and Pandit Rajan Mishra, is gone. At a time, long, long ago, when the sitar, sarod and violin dominated the Hindustani classical soundscape, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma’s great contribution, after a long struggle, was to establish the 100-string instrument — which came from Kashmir and was used as an accompanying instrument in Sufiana Kalam folk and Sufi traditions — as a classical instrument. This was some 60-70 years ago, when the santoor was a new thing, but Sharmaji was determined.
As it happens with every new thing — something that I, too, had to stand witness to — the audience was sceptical about the new instrument and apprehensive about how it will sound. How far can it go? Can it excel? They said that the santoor sound lacked the very essence of Indian classical music — meend (gliding of notes, the sound from one note to another without a break in it) and gamak (derived from Dhrupad). But it is to his credit that Panditji established the instrument, its sound – and in a way himself – in the classical pantheon with such aplomb that the audience forgot about the instrument’s deficiencies. He would slide his mallet on the stringed instrument with his right-hand thumb from the note ga to pa in such a way that it exuded the expression of gamak. The word most suited to the santoor is layakari. It is the display of intricacies in patterns. For instance, if he was playing Rupak Taal, a cycle of seven beats, Panditji displayed a range of layakari by playing a number of beats in that seven-beat cycle: The Jhaptaal (10 beats), Ek Taal (12 beats), Teen Taal (16 beats), you name it. His layakari evoked meend and by making his layakari prominent, Panditji beautifully camouflaged any shortcomings of the instrument. Gradually, the audience understood what was going on in his mind.
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt with Pandit Shivkumar Sharma.
He was a thinker, not just a performer. He used to think music. A man of few words, calm and quiet, polite and humble, Panditji would sit meditatively in greenrooms, contemplating on his tuning and what he was going to perform. When he would talk, albeit sparingly, he would inquire about upcoming artistes. He was very encouraging towards them. I never saw him criticise anybody. He also had a sense of humour. Once, when a journalist requested him before an interview, “galti ho jaye toh maaf kar dijiyega” (do excuse me if I make a mistake), he’s said to have replied: “maaf kar dunga, galti toh karo” (I shall forgive you, first make the mistake).
We would regularly meet at the well-known Saptak Annual Festival in Ahmedabad, organised by my sister and brother-in-law. My sister had recently called to tell me that Pandit Sharma had called sometime back to say I can’t wait till January, when the festival takes place, I will come and perform at a concert in May itself. I had goosebumps hearing of his never-diminishing enthusiasm. Some 25 years ago, when I had organised a concert in my father’s memory, Pandit Sharma obliged and said, Tumhare liye zaroor aaunga (I’ll definitely come for you and play), and didn’t even utter the word remuneration.
Sharmaji was a tabla player to begin with. One of the earliest memories our family had of a young Sharma was sometime in the late 1950s, when my eldest brother, the sitar-player Pandit Shashi Mohan Bhatt, was recording for an All India Radio show in Jammu, Shivkumar Sharma was playing the tabla there. Years later, he and I would run into each other at concerts. He only played duets with Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia (as Shiv-Hari), and I was only a junior artiste — Humne saath mein duet nahin bajaya (we never played duet). But we have been on the same flights touring to concerts at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, New York, for a video shoot for
A R Rahman’s Jana Gana Mana in Leh, Ladakh, and to Montreal. At the recording for a televised show hosted by Durga Jasraj, Pandit Jasraj’s daughter, when she mentioned my name, Pandit Shivkumar Sharmaji added “he (me) took the Mohan veena to all over the world”. This was something he had said in Montreal too. The year I won the Grammy (1994), he told me, “You have done great”. That was like an aashirwaad (blessing) from a senior.
He was the giant who showed us the path. He was a musician’s musician. Being a musician, we learn from him. If you listened to him for an hour, you’d realise there’s much scope in the instrument, and the heights it can touch. Soon, the raised eyebrows turned to approving smiles. Artiste jo create karta hai, woh uski khud ki imagination hoti hai lekin hum unke gyaan aur style ko seekhkar, apne style se baja sakte hain (An artiste creates from his/her imagination, but we can learn from Sharmaji’s knowledge and style and create something in our own style). Then comes the question of the suitability of the instrument. Kuchh baatein santoor se hi aa sakti hai (Certain nuances are only possible with the santoor). What I, among many artistes, learnt from him was how to maintain the ragas, how to distribute the beats, how many variations to bring into a composition, and while doing all of that, how to grasp and hold the audience’s attention and how to bridge the tradition with the contemporary. For someone trying to do something new, winning over a rigid audience is the toughest thing to do, but he did it with much elan, and in doing so, paved the way for many artistes like me to brave it and to think out of the box.
This column first appeared in the print edition on May 11, 2022 under the title ‘From him, I learnt to maintain the ragas’. The writer is a Grammy-Award winning Hindustani classical artiste.
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