​Pt Ravi Shankar & George lived in an energy bubble: Pt Bickram Ghosh

A recent session at the literary meet saw dance exponent Vikram Iyengar in conversation with tabla maestro Pt Bickram Ghosh, dancer Jacek Luminski and director Suman Mukhopadhyay. The plight of Bengali theatre as well as topics such as cross border cultural exchanges, virtual collaboration were addressed in the discussion.

Remembering the Legends
Emphasising on the need to understand a fellow artiste, Bickram recalled the time when he had recorded Chants of India with Pt Ravi Shankar and George Harrison. “I’ve seen how they were truly considerate of each other’s preferences. George spent three years learning from Ravi ji, like a student sitting at his feet. Ravi ji on the other hand was an extremely curious person, who was constantly learning from George too.”

We recorded the album at George’s house, where we stayed for 10 days. The cultural exchange that happened there, and the experience of being in that energy bubble was truly fascinating
– Pt Bickram Ghosh

On theatre artistes needing supportHighlighting how grants to 18 Bengali theatre groups have ceased in the past two months, Suman Mukhopadhyay said, “Even if 25 per cent of the money that goes into film festivals is invested in theatre festivals, we’ll be able to invite lots of global artistes for a deeper cultural exchange.”

Music as the universal language
Speaking about music as the binding force, Pt Bickram Ghosh said, “It’s interesting how the entire world’s music is set to seven notes and these notes are common to all. The fact that these notes have co-existed everywhere for over 1000 years, is the meeting ground for collaborations. This is why so many collaborative works have been so successful over time.”

I’ve been travelling across the globe since the 90s and have met many directors. I realised that language has never been an obstacle, it’s always the artistic truth they are looking for
– Suman Mukhopadhyay

Real-life collabs require one to know the co-artiste, their culture and mannerism in person. These aspects, energy and commonality is missing in virtual collabs
– Bickram Ghosh

Diversity is important, as that stimulates cross cultural collaborations and this diversity is a result of the richness of humankind
– Jacek Luminski, choreographer