Bickram Ghosh: ‘With Zakir Hussain, the sun is gone; we’ve lost somebody who truly stood for something’

BC Manjunath (left) and V Suresh; Bickram Ghosh (right), the curator of River Raga at Serendipity Arts Festival 2024.

“The children are fine,” says Bickram Ghosh to Suresh Vaidyanathan, who playfully taps on the three differently-sized ghatams in front of him — a sound-check before the main show.  The stage is set in a cruise that set sail for its scheduled hour-long River Raag session on Goa’s river Mandovi. It’s 5 pm. The sun is about to go to sleep in a few lapses. The twilight glow is nigh. Audience is seated as they would have in a classical baithak. Ghosh was referring to the two mini ghatams — a fairly recent addition — alongside the big one, which Suresh calls “my girl” and “my two daughters”. Ghosh, who has been the curator of the River Raag segment at the Serendipity Arts Festival (December 15-22) for the last three years has, in a first in nine years of the festival, brought percussion to River Raag with renowned artists to present the other raga: the taal/talam (rhythm/beat/measure), without which there can be no music.

Tha dhi gi na thom… a vibrant BC Manjunath joins in with the Konnakol phrase, or the five-syllable rhythmic pattern used in Carnatic music, to describe multiple rhythms using the five fingers on his right hand and create myriad boli permutations with shrutis or pauses/sound frequency intervals to beats. Mridangam player Manjunath has just played a solo in a seven-beat cycle or in Misra Chapu Talam, says V Suresh, who explains how the five syllables (tha dhi gi na thom) signal the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and ether (or space). He further says that the ghatam, the unique instrument he’s mastered, is akin to the human body and is made up of pancha bhuta, all five essential elements of nature: clay/mud and water, baked in fire, and the air in the ghatam’s belly encompasses space (akasha) which reverberates thereby creating the musical sound.

The spectacular evening leaves not just the audience but the boat wanting for more. The artistes are done with the performance on scheduled time but the boat hasn’t yet reached the shore. An impromptu trio of the two with Ghosh regales us a little more.

Mridangam player BC Manjunath (left) and ghatam player Suresh Vaidyanathan at River Raag on river Mandovi, part of Serendipity Arts Festival 2024, Goa,

Edited excerpts from a river cruise interview with the Kolkata-based tabla artiste Bickram Ghosh, son of tabla player Shankar Ghosh:

River Raag 2024

What was special at the River Raag this year?

River Raag had its very first percussion performance in nine years [of the Serendipity Arts Festival]. I brought two brilliant artistes. On the ghatam was V Suresh (or Suresh Vaidyanathan), with whom I have collaborated for 25 years. And BC Manjunath on mridangam. He’s one of the finest in the country. These are two of India’s topmost percussionists. And, normally, River Raag is for junior artists, but I muscled these two into coming for this show this year because since this is the first time, I wanted it to be a dhamaka (blast).

River Raga 2024 on river Mandovi in Goa..

For the three years that you’ve been curating, how do you find the crowd to be? Do enough young people come?

The crowd’s brilliant. Every single vertical has a different kind of audience. So, the River Raag is one of the most popular ones. And, also, it’s a small space. It’s doesn’t hold a lot of people, and it’s ticketed. But look around. Look at the youth. The thumri performance at the Nagalli Hills venue had a massive crowd. At least, 50 percent of the crowd was below the age of 28 or 30. So, Indian classical music and Indian classical fusion is at its zenith right now. It’s so popular everywhere. We are performing in every city and those concerts are houseful everywhere. Everywhere people are coming to listen to classical music. I think it’s because maybe popular music is not giving them soul food.

(The crowds were overflowing at the Salim-Suleiman concert at the Nagalli Hills venue, following Parvaty Baul, and for the Grand Finale, the Three Divas concert featuring Usha Uthup, Aruna Sairam and Shubha Mudgal.)

Salim-Suleiman concert at Serendipity Arts Festival 2024 in Goa.

Can River Raag be replicated in the city of your birth, on river Ganga?

I have done a similar set performance on the Ganges along with [the late] Ustad Rashid Khan. It is possible, but it’s a lot of hassle. Somebody has to get all the permissions. I just curate.

The River Raag cruise on river Mandovi, Goa.

You are, perhaps, the most renowned name among tabla players in the generation after Zakir Hussain’s in India. What does Zakir Hussain’s loss mean to Indian music and to you personally?

See, the loss is what happens when the sun is gone. It’s darkness. There is no doubt that there are rays of hope. But for us, for me, I knew him all my life. From the age of 3. We used to live in the same house in America.

And he was somebody who would guide everybody. We are the immediate generation after him. So, he guided us and then the generation after ours as well. He was somebody you could go to and say, ‘I am facing a problem. Can you help?’ He had a big heart. We have lost our hero. For us, he was our hero. He was a star and the best of all. For me, he was a guide and a big brother. And, along with that, we have lost somebody who truly stood for something.

What’s your next album and when will it release?

My new album will release in January. It will be my collaboration with [percussionist, composer and Zakir Hussain’s brother] Taufiq Qureshi. It’s called Ramta, which means playful, and takes the ram from Bickram and ta from Taufiq.