RONU MAJUMDAR: A Sacred Space

Ronu Majumdar

A Sacred Space

© 2005 Sense World Music (801786705925)

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This beautiful recording marks a new point in the work of the majestic flautist. If you only ever buy one Indian flute CD in your life, this sublime musical offering will inspire and satisfy for generations to come.

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A SACRED SPACE

Pandit* Ronu Majumdar plays the bansuri or venu. It is the subcontinent's defining side-blown flute, an instrument of apparent simplicity yet of enormous sophistication. It is also one of the few instruments (the violin being the other main example) that figures prominently in both of the subcontinent's classical or art music systems. Ronu Majumdar plays bansuri in the Hindustani or Northern Indian style. As a flautist, he is not only a superlative interpreter: he is also an important strand in a Hindustani narrative patchwork.

(* Pandit is a term of respect used to denote someone's achievements and contribution to their art.)
If the old stories are true, before deforestation rid Kolkata (Calcutta) and elsewhere of their famed bamboo forests, bansuri players would go to their local bamboo grove and select promising looking culms, as bamboo stems are the correct length for flute making. Then, in a twinkle of an eye, a bansuri was created from a single culm. Throughout Asia,
wherever bamboo flourishes, bamboo flutes are found. Japanese shakuhachi (vertical flute) makers, for example, elevated flute manufacture to hidden heights with interior lacquering. In the Indian subcontinent, bansuri was raised to devotional heights because of its iconographic depiction in images of Lord Krishna.

Born Ranendra Nath Majumdar in Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh on 28 July 1965, the fourth of seven children born to Dr. Bhanu Majumdar and Reba Majumdar, Ronu, as he is generally known, represents the third generation of Bengali flautists of modern times. Pannalal Ghosh (1911-1960) represents the first generation. Ronu Majumdar studied, like Ravi Shankar with Allauddin Khan, the musician that became his guru."Pastoral flute," as the critic Mohan Nadkarni wrote in 1995, had remained "a simple folk medium" until, that is, Pannalal Ghosh gave bansuri a new identity, affording it the status of an instrument worthy of the concert platform. Majumdar's father, now in his 80s, learned flute from Pannalal Ghosh, a fellow Bengali, as his son recalls, "he never played professionally, he just played for his own pleasure."

The family lived in Varanasi until Ronu was 11 before he moved to Mumbai (Bombay), the city in which he grew up. As a teenager he began building on and applying the lessons of vocal music learned from Laxman Prasad Jaipurwale when he began studying flute with Vijay Raghav Rao. As someone who has watched and noted his steady progress over three decades, one of the most inspiring things about Ronu Majumdar's music-making is the way he is breathing new life into an instrument of, at very least, Vedic antiquity. He is writing an exciting new literature for the bansuri, but, so importantly, adding to a book in which Pannalal Ghosh wrote the first entry in modern times.

Some observations on the repertoire:
Raag Bhairav:
Ronu Majumdar: "This portrays the mood of worshipping Lord Shiva. The ancient pakhawaj (Hindustani double-headed, barrel hand drum) plays chautaal, a rhythm cycle [taal] in 12 beats." Like the vina is associated with Sarasvati, the Hindu goddess of learning, wisdom and music, and the flute with Lord Krishna, the drum is associated with Lord Shiva.

Raag Kedar:
"A brief alap [opening movement] to a wonderful vocal composition by the late Pandit Laxman Prasad Jaipurwale with the tabla (Hindustani paired hand drums) playing teentaal, a 16-beat cycle."

Raag Charukeshi:
" This raag originally comes from Karnatic music. Lately it has become popular in Northern Indian music. I am playing a composition of my guru, Pandit Vijay Raghav Rao in the 7-beat rupaktaal, also known as mishra chapu in its Karnatic music form. Shridhar Partha Sarathy blends these two styles in his accompaniment on the mridangam" (Karnatic double-headed barrel hand drum).

"Chalo Man Ganga Jamuna Teer":
"The actual translation of the first line "Chalo Man Ganga Jamuna Teer" is, "O my soul, let us go to the Holy banks of the river Ganges and river Jamuna." The Ganga and Jamuna, as they are also known, are two of the most sacred rivers in Hinduism. Up-river from Varanasi, they meet at Prayaga, the present-day Allahabad. Mystical Hinduism claims their confluence is not that simple because Prayaga, Hindus believe, marks the junction of a third, invisible river called the Sarasvati. The bhajan is a category of Hindu devotional songs. "This is one of my most favourite bhajans by Pandit D. V. Paluskar based on Raag Pahadi in taal keherva, 8 beats. While recording this bhajan, all three percussionists were so inspired by this bhajan's melody that they all played simultaneously with me and created the real, old-time Bhajan Style."

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