Raga

One, two, three, four, five, six.

One, two. One, two.

One, one, one.

To be received like this in a foreign land...

my God... it is overwhelming.

I have never felt so much warmth and openness,

so much love for our music.

It inspires me so.

But I wonder how much they can understand.

And where all this will lead to.

There's so much in our music

that goes back thousands of years.

The prayers in our temples...

..the pain and struggle of life...

..the sound of the rivers...

..the timeless chants.

So many things that are within me

whenever I play...

..whatever I do.

CHANTING IN BACKGROUND

CHANTING IN BACKGROUND

THEY CHANT

TRAIN HORN BLARES

It is strange to think of seeing Baba again.

Returning to his little village after so many years.

Baba, my music guru.

Whenever I think of him I have a mixture of fear and awe.

For us, guru is sometimes greater...

even than God.

He's the teacher through whom all knowledge is passed on.

When I first came to Baba in Maihar, he was shocked to see me.

I was a dancer in Paris, in my brother Uday's troupe

Uday taught me many things during those years.

He gave me a great love and respect

for the beautiful traditions of my country.

But I was young in those days and very spoilt.

Everything excited me.

Dance, painting, music.

I used to fiddle with many instruments in those days

including the sitar.

I dressed like a dandy and chased girls all the time.

Baba would always say to me...

"..In this life you must do one thing, and one thing persistently...

"..but you, you are like a butterfly...

"..if you want to learn music, you must leave everything else...

"..when you feel you're ready, then come to me."

For a year and a half, I struggled with myself.

Then finally I left Paris and came to Baba in Maihar.

Taking a guru was the biggest decision of my life.

It demanded absolute surrender...

..years of fanatic dedication and discipline.

I stayed with Baba more than seven years.

He was a tyrant absolutely.

And I was always frightened of him.

Now, I thank God for bringing me to Baba.

What he gave me...

is all my life.

Baba must be almost 100 years old now.

It's like returning to my own family.

I wonder how he will receive me.

WOMAN SOBS

THEY SING IN OWN LANGUAGE

Those months, years we spent in his little room,

on one piece,

one raga,

until it became alive

and we both would shed tears.

ANOUNCEMENT IN LOCAL LANGUAGE

AUDIENCE APPLAUDS

I am always afraid when I play.

I pray I can do justice to my guru,

to my music.

THEY SPEAK IN OWN LANGUAGE

For me, there is always that sadness in a raga.

That wanting to reach something...

..that I know beforehand I never will.

And each note is like crying out...

..searching.

SHANKAR PLAYS THE SITAR

CHANTING IN BACKGROUND

I feel all the richness of India in our music.

A raga reflects the spiritual hopes of our people.

The constant struggle for life.

It is drawn out of the prayers in our temples.

Life on our rivers, the Ganges.

In the holy city of Benares,

sound is everywhere.

As a child I would spend hours filling myself

with the vibrations of this place.

Our music reveals to me the whole process of creation.

From the childbirth to the death.

BABY CRIES

MAN CHANTS IN OWN LANGUAGE

WHISTLING

CAR HORN BEEPS

BELLS RING

We are struggling with so many problems today.

Living with the past...

..trying to adjust to new ideas.

Modern ways.

Our patterns of life are changing everywhere.

It is happening so fast.

It must affect our beautiful traditions.

Our music,

our dance.

It takes years to train for the dance...

..four hours to put on the make-up.

A performance can go through a whole night.

The great dance ways of Kathakali are still presented from time to time.

It has survived for hundreds of years.

I wonder about tomorrow.

SINGING

BELLS RING

I am so much in love with the past of our country.

It gave me all the beautiful things that I see

and feel when I play.

But our traditions...

..the very soul of our music...

..they seem to be slipping away.

They are losing a certain depth

which was there even a few years ago.

And there is so little concern...

..such indifference.

The young people are drifting away from their roots.

They care so little for their heritage.

I suppose this is inevitable in the modern world.

But this makes me very sad.

At times, I feel I don't belong today.

My roots are so deep in the past...

..that sometimes I feel like a stranger,

even in my own country.

I see myself in this young boy.

He comes to me as I went to Baba so

many years ago to become his disciple.

I feel all over again the joy of those years.

This young man waited five years to become my disciple.

But he's born of a different time.

He cannot come to me with the same spirit.

This initiation ceremony

can never really mean the same thing.

It has become more of a ritual.

But I believe in this tradition.

It's so important for me to keep alive all I have learned.

And pass it on.

HE SPEAKS OWN LANGUAGE

BELL RINGS

THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

In the past,

this moment was the beginning of all learning.

The tying of a great spiritual bond between the two.

But perhaps it is not enough to live in the past alone.

For the future, I want to keep the traditions pure.

But at the same time, I have creative urge.

I have to always experiment with new things.

SINGING

Once more. One, two, three, four.

No, no, no, no. Stop it, stop it.

One, two, three, four.

No, no.

No, no. One, one, one, one.

One, two, three, four.

Since the days in Paris with my brother Uday...

..I always dreamt of bringing our music to the west.

Now that it is possible...

..I'm filled with doubts

and fears.

Throughout my life, whenever I have reached these moments of confusion,

I look to the great yogi...

Maharaj

..my spiritual guru.

All that transpires with spiritual guru is something very intimate,

something very personal.

To me, (?) Maharaj,

he is not so much a living person

as a great force in my life.