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Raja of rhythm
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Maverick tabla maestro Bickram Ghosh is the king of finger work, be it on the traditional tabla or the African djembe, finds BHUMIKA K.
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Lightning fingers Bickram Ghosh: ‘I guess every instrument travels its course like every individual’
An invasion of drums resonates from the same fingers that have given the tabla its flamboyance and a dramatic presence on stage. When Bickram Ghosh does things, style is definitely involved. Whether it’s a live concert where he breaks into acap
ella and keeps the audience hooked, whether the fingers are simply flying in an invisible flurry across the tabla, whether you’re listening to him accompanying Pandit Ravi Shankar, or whether he’s jamming with members of his group Rhythmscape.
“Drum Invasion” is the rhythm raja’s recent album (from the stables of Music Today), where he plays the classical tabla, mridangam, pakhawaj, kanjeera, dhol, khol, dholak, the African djembe, the Persian darboukka, the rek, and the Mongu drum, among numerous others. “This is a different space altogether,” says Bickram of the new musical venture. “I was being asked by people why I hadn’t done an essentially percussion album, being a percussionist. I thought that was a valid point. I started off as a classical tabla player and did that for 16 years. Then I started experimenting with multi-percussion kits. This album features hand-drums I’ve collected from all over the world. Currently the space I’m in and the life I lead is more fusion and multi-sound; I hang out with tribal musicians…and I felt the need for this to be translated into an album.”
“I’m not a master of these drums. I go with the sound; the finger-technique is my own. I can’t change my finger-work in one lifetime. I translate it into my own idiom, which is the tabla.”
He goes on to explain how Indian percussionists use each finger as one unit while in the case of western drums, each hand is one unit; providing Indian percussionists with so much more speed and variations in sound.
Having learnt the classical tabla from his father Pandit Shankar Ghosh, and then the mridangam from Pandit S. Sekhar, Bickram is known for being a favourite with Pandit Ravi Shankar (with whom he’s played for over a decade and performed on the Grammy-winning album “Full Circle”) and later Anoushka Shankar. He’s performed on the title track of George Harrison’s posthumously released album “Brainwashed”. His solo albums “Talking Tabla” and “A Tabla Odyssey”, fusion albums “Rhythmscape” and “Folktail” have done phenomenally.
With Ustad Zakir Hussain he’s seen as one of the tabla maestros who brought the instrument from being an “accompanying” one to the forefront of the stage; one which developed an image and an attitude all its own. “I guess every instrument travels its course like every individual. In India, the arts were generally outside society, then musicians became court artists, and even within that framework there was a hierarchy. But today everything is so democratic, you survive on sheer merit. A drummer has managed to give it a twist and is driving the show. Zakirji has shown the path and I’m doing my bit.”
While percussion never enjoyed centre-stage earlier, it’s come around full circle, he says. “Now worldwide the tabla is big…as big as India, the sari, the bindi…you can hear it in movies like ‘Mission Impossible’…”
Acapella (imitation of an instrument sound with your mouth), he says is the funkiest thing happening on the Indian music scene now. “It’s interesting that people have finally caught on to speaking the ‘bols’. Many music students were uneducated and this was a great way for musicians to teach their students,” he says explaining its evolution. “The West is fascinated by our acapella because we have a huge vocabulary of sounds.”
Apart from playing with his floating group Rhythmscape, Bickram Ghosh has been flooded with offers to compose film music. His fingers are flying harder, his hands are full and days are turning into marathon recording sessions at Kolkata, closeted in studios.
He’s doing three Bengali and two Hindi films — “Charu” is a new Hindi/English interpretation of Ray’s “Charulata”, “Neel Rajar Deshe” (a children’s film), “Piyali’s Password”, and Mira Nair’s latest production “Little Zizou”, among others.
He’s completed two collaborations on private albums — “Sunev” with Pete Lockett (the multi-percussionist who does rhythm design for James Bond films) and Djamel Beynelles, an Arabic violinist. He’s also finished “One” with the French band Mezcal Jazz Unit. He’s also working on “Repurcussion”, another album with Lockett and a yet untitled new-age album. He’s also scoring for “Naada”, Mallika Sarabhai’s next production.
But despite all his collaborations, and leanings toward fusion, Bickram still identifies himself passionately with the tabla. In “Drum Invasion”, his music spans techno, tribal, taking on sacrificial streaks… yet he comes all the way back home and signs off with a pure tabla solo.
“I’m an artist who’s made the journey the other way round.”
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