The spontaneity and improvisation in Indian classical music makes it the most contemporary form of art, feels Dhrupad exponent Uday Bhawalkar

It might sound ‘out-of-the-box’ for those who have been conventionally tagging music as a performing art, but for Dhrupad maestro Uday Bhawalkar, music is not a performing art but instead, very personal. It originates and ends in the performer’s heart and the involvement of the audience is just coincidental, feels he.

“Sa Re Ga Ma is just a medium to give shape to swara. In the actual sense, swara is beyond the mere sound it carries. It is pure, sensitive and has an independent existence. Real understanding of the note can be gained only when one looks deep within. And then, music does not remain a performing art. It becomes a very personal representation and a dialogue between the performer’s soul and the almighty,” says Bhawalkar, a disciple of legendary Dhrupad exponents Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and Zia Fariduddin Dagar.

So, does this mean that every performer performs for himself or herself? “Yes,” says the singer, adding, “Every performer performs for himself, his own vision, his own discovery. Glamour, audience, appreciation do play an important part in a performer’s life but these are in fact, the initial botherations that slowly fade away as the performer grows musically. And what persist are the self-realisation and his own discovery of music. Then, it does not matter whether there are five people sitting in front of him or 15,000. For example, when Pt Bhimsen Joshi plays with the same swarawali multiple number of times, the audiences might not understand why he is doing so. But rather than the audiences’ applause, every performer first tries to reach up to his own expectations from himself.”

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