Anubrata Chatterjee: Reaching out with tabla, in beats & pieces

Krishnaraj Iyengar

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SON of tabla luminary Pandit Anindo Chatterjee, Anubrata is one of India’s finest young tabla maestros. Having inherited the traditional repertoire of Farrukhabad, Lucknow and Punjab gharanas from his father and also his guru, the legendary Gyan Prakash Ghosh, he is upbeat about his globetrotting career.

As a musician with a solid classical grounding and a contemporary outlook, he feels that audiences have significantly changed since his father’s era. “I believe music is just a reflection of society that we live in and is thus ever changing,” he opines.

Bridging the gap between gunijans or connoisseurs and lay people has been Anubrata’s endeavour. He feels a lay person can be transformed into a connoisseur if he is drawn to the details of Indian music through an appealing performance.

However, he feels too much emphasis has been laid on the fact that one has to fully understand classical music in order to enjoy it. He says a lot of young people in the past felt the pressure of not understanding the music, hence avoiding concerts. This, he feels, has been counterproductive. “It is absolutely alright not to understand the details of our art and yet enjoy it just like when you visit a movie theatre without the knowledge of cinematography or filmmaking and yet have an enriching experience,” he adds.

Having performed extensively around the world, Anubrata feels that western audiences research deeply any form of music that appeals to them. They respect Indian music and try to connect to its soul. While big centres like New York, San Francisco and London have witnessed a lot of Indian classical music over the years, Indian music is getting audiences even in places like Italy, China and South Africa.

However, international audiences have evolved over the years. Recalling an interesting anecdote, Anubrata says, “Once my father was performing with the legendary sitarist Pandit Nikhil Banerjee at the Wigmore Hall in London. It was 1975 and the audiences were hardly used to listening to Indian classical music. As my father was nodding his head in endless appreciation of Nikhilji’s alaap, a few audience members assumed there was some flaw in the music as the tabla player was nodding his head in disapproval and asked for a refund of the ticket money! Since then, Indian classical music has come a long way!”

He says the legends have taken Indian classical music to all corners of the globe and the awareness about Indian classical music is increasing. Anubrata is doing his bit through his organisation Matra that organsies regular workshops and shows in places like Delhi, Kolkata, Nepal, France and USA.

Vis-à-vis abroad, Anubrata finds performing in India, especially in West Bengal, Maharashtra and Varanasi more challenging and he deals with this in his own way. He tries to present pure classical music in a short time. “Every 15 minutes there is a new raag, taal, artiste and energy. I have only compromised on the duration and not the content of the music,” he explains.

His plans for this year were put on hold by the pandemic. These included his The Koto Tabla Project with Japanese koto player Yumi Kurosawa, which embodies the sound dynamics of koto and tabla. The two artistes have done over 15 shows in the US and got featured at the National Gallery in Washington DC. They were scheduled to perform 15 more shows this year, but Covid-19 changed the course of life across the world.