This is the story of two journeys, one tinged with an inescapable sorrow, the other pregnant with the renewal that lies in every tomorrow.
Written By Sharad Kohli
Mohabbat karne wale kam na honge, teri mehfil mein lekin hum na honge
– Hafeez Hoshiarpuri
I returned to Kuwait, the land of my birth, in 2018, almost 28 years after having been forced to abandon the life my parents had assiduously built in this oil-rich country. Back in August 1990, when the Iraqi army laid waste to and occupied the emirate, father was in India on business, leaving us – my sister and I, teenagers then – in the emotionally capable care of mother, for an uncertain and often frightening one-and-a-half months. Nearly three decades on, with mother having passed on, father, well into his 80s, had been held against his wishes in Kuwait for close to 10 years, his future in an agonising limbo.
The decision to go back, to see him in the flesh after so long, was necessitated by his hospitalisation after a fall. But he was never one to let a little adversity weaken his bravado, and was in fine form, railing against anything and everything, against the fates that had conspired to betray and ultimately break him.
Wish you were here
I returned, then, with mixed feelings, and found myself looking within, replaying in my head the life that had made possible this ‘homecoming’, content with my lot but with a sadness nagging away at me, pining for the certainties and safe spaces of childhood, when father was protector and provider of tough love. How could I ensure that he would live out his final days back home, unburdened by regrets?
Kuwait had changed beyond recognition. So had I, of course, in the intervening period. I came with no plan, just going where my mind and my heart took me. So, when I was not with father – trying to make the most of every minute and hour with him, not knowing when or if I would see him again – I was with myself, letting those memories come flooding back, attempting to map the physical and emotional contours of my boyhood, the streets, the hospital where I was born, the shawarma shop and the grocery store next door, and the school that must have done something right to send this lad on his writerly way.
The Kuwait Towers were still there, the one landmark this small nation punching above its wait is known for. I could spot them from the Salmiya waterfront, shimmering in the heat haze of a late-spring afternoon. Just as blurry were my recollections of the past, of a quiet and introspective kid gingerly trying to find his way in the world. But for all their fuzziness, my hippocampus wasn’t about to let me down. For a moment, for several moments, I was back to being a lad, a little moody, very curious, seeking comfort in music and words (as I still do).
Don’t they say that you should never revisit the place you grew up in, for fear of being crushed by a reality that has disappeared all (or most) markers of your childhood? Indeed, so much – too much – around me had changed, but I chose to embrace what I remembered believing the chance might never come again. As much as this land felt alien to me, like a friend grown distant and estranged, I determined to squeeze everything out of each memory, to linger under the date palms, to stay awhile with that cup of coffee, to saunter the streets in the hope that something from my adolescence pops up, to search for that shy 10-year-old and that bookish 15-year-old, to soak up the experience before it shifts imperceptibly like the desert sands not too far away.
For all the novelty I felt at setting foot on Kuwaiti soil again, the sense of melancholy of how much longer father had before time ran out on him, never left me. Nor could I shake off the desire to bottle up everything – the sun and sea breeze on my face, the Adhan that assured me all was right in the world – so that I could remind myself of a time we never want to forget, to drink once more from that fountain of youth.
Was this farewell to Kuwait also an Allah hafiz to father? With each passing year, the inevitability of the former becomes more likely; the latter became heartbreakingly true 28 months later.
I travelled to Kuwait to see my father, a man whose own journey through life brought a sense of immense fulfilment but, latterly, a little too much despair. Only 16, he was one of many thousands who crossed over during the blood-soaked frenzy of Partition, the scars of which perilous passage refused to go away. Another brutal separation, 43 years into the future, made him lose pretty much everything he had worked hard for, the life he had made for us.
Uprooted and traumatised, we – mother, sister and I – left Kuwait, journeyed to Jordan via Iraq, and then on to Bombay before landing in Delhi, where we were reunited with father, in circumstances none of us could ever have imagined. For father, self-made and proud, there was to be no recovery from, and no closure to, this rupture. Exiled in the land that was the making of him, it was his destiny to board that final flight back home having breathed his last.
On the afternoon of 1 May 2018, as the aircraft circled above the waters of the Persian Gulf, the Kuwait Towers agleam under the midday sun, I was circling back to my roots but unable to reconcile with the change in fortunes of a man who was never afflicted by doubts. Still, as much as those desolate final years might have tormented him, father didn’t deserve to be defined by the journey he couldn’t make. And in my eyes, he was no less a hero for that.
A raag casts its spell
As much a journey is the one a writer takes to bring alive an episode or an individual from the past, digging deep to unearth the backstory. It’s what I did when asked to write a children’s book, whose subject I chose as Tansen, one of the navaratnas of the court of Emperor Akbar.
Tansen, because of the myths that surrounded him, one of which referenced the power of his voice and how it could summon rain (Raag Megh Malhar), myths that added as much to his humanity as they did to his mystery. And because Hindustani Classical music formed part of the soundtrack to my youth, the motifs of which would become lodged in my memory.
Besides indulging my love for research, writing this book did many other things for me on a personal and emotional level. It got me recalling what a raag first evoked in me, even if the understanding and appreciation of it would come much later, when I began covering concerts as a journalist. For, being immersed in a raag is akin to embarking on a voyage in which the mind turns into a canvas that is filled with colours (the literal translation of the word raag, which comes from Sanskrit).
Researching and writing ‘The Story of Tansen – Master of Melody’ also allowed me to visit (at least, in my mind) the city of Gwalior, with its magnificent fort; this is where Tansen (and his legend) was born, where he lies entombed. And it enabled me to ‘travel’ to Vrindavan and Fatehpur Sikri, the other places that figure in the life of this remarkable man of music.
More than anything else, though, working on the book gave me a new perspective on the wonder that is Hindustani Classical, and sparked my interest in the gharanas and their legacies, shaped and enriched by the distinct stylings and moods of vocalists and instrumentalists (the known and lesser known) over the ages. It was a journey that rekindled my love for India’s musical heritage.
Of course, listening to a raag is in itself a journey that reaches deep inside of you, that transports you to a place of calm. For, the very foundation of each raag comes from the rhythms and patterns of nature, which echo in every nuance of the human voice, in the throbs of the pakhawaj, and in the notes and strains of the sitar, shehnai, or any of the instruments that lend this centuries-old music its richness and transcendence.
Moreover, I wrote ‘Tansen’ to place in front of today’s youngsters the fact that such a genius once existed, and that comfort, joy, and sukoon can be found by giving yourself to the music he so elevated. It’s a practice that demands commitment, imagination, a spirit of discovery, and complete surrender, qualities that the young students of Sangeet Gurukul, for instance, have shown they possess.
This gurukul is devotedly run by Rupi Mahindroo, a classically trained singer, performer, and educator whose endeavours will ensure that our musical traditions are not lost to time. Rupi transforms a challenging art form into one that’s creatively fun to learn, and you only have to see her shishyas to understand how her enthusiasm rubs off on them, how her firm yet gentle nudging brings forth their hidden talents. Proof of that was a soulful performance the children recently gave in ‘Rut Rang Bhari’, a heartfelt tribute to tender yet fleeting spring.
A postgraduate in vocal music from Punjab University who trained under the sisters and national awardees Sulochna Brahaspati and the late Dr. Saryu Kalekar, Rupi is also a one-time artist with All India Radio who has recorded two shabad albums and has been associated with SPIC MACAY as a former national vice chairperson and head of the Uttarakhand chapter (she is presently heading the Gurgaon chapter). Rupi taught children classical music in Mumbai, then at Welham Girls’ School in Dehradun for almost two decades, before bringing her empathy-imbued pedagogy to Gurgaon and empowering the city’s young rasikas to bloom.
Our paths met when she set my words to music one summer evening, the voices of her students bringing the story of Tansen magically to life. Indeed, that has been the one constant in Rupi’s journey: a dedication to keep the flame of Shastriya Sangeet burning. Just like Tansen, she knows how life-affirming and spiritually uplifting it is, offering both balm to troubled minds and solace to bruised souls. For her as much as for me, there is little to compare with the language of the raag, which is both time travel and a portal to a better world, a journey worth embracing.