A Chakra To The System

I could barely conceal my excitement when I saw the news that the
legendary Ravi Shankar was performing in May at the San Francisco Opera
House. It's been 35 years this month since I arrived in San Francisco
and stayed. I still don't know why. Intransigence? Poor judgment? My
residence here has had all the turbulence of a long love affair.
Sometimes living in San Francisco is like being locked in a bad
marriage with no sex. Other times, the city sweeps me off my feet. The
idea of seeing Ravi Shankar again stirred feelings in me that I thought
this old jade had lost forever. The same feelings I had when I first
saw this jewel of a town in June, 1970.

George Harrison described Ravi as "the Godfather of World Music." On
stage with him was his gifted, cool, beautiful daughter, Anoushka, who
is a sitar genius in her own right. You might know Ravi has another
accomplished daughter -- Norah Jones. That would be a great jam
session. With progeny just around the corner, it's likely Ravi Shankar
will also be the "Grandfather of World Music."

Seeing Ravi takes me back to my adolescence. He's always been a hero to
me. As a teenager, I was mesmerized by the Indian music that the
Beatles brought to their audiences. In New Jersey, I begged my mother
for the $200 to buy a sitar at the 4th Street Music Store in Greenwich
Village. Even Dylan bought his guitar picks there. So it was tabernacle
of coolness. My mother gave in. My heart was racing as I produced the
money for an amused fellow behind the counter who saw the sparkle in my
eyes. Awkwardly schlepping the long, lithe, beige instrument with the
large tuning pegs on top and a million strings that were stretched over
a gourd, slipped gingerly into a saffron-colored woven cotton bag, I
made my way to the subway with this oddly-shaped cargo tenderly
clutched in my arms and then on to the bus at the George Washington
Bridge Terminal. Crossing the Hudson River, (it was the Ganges that
afternoon), I took my treasure home to New Jersey.
"You're lucky to have such a beautiful instrument," my mother said with
some kind reverence.
I played and played that thing until after an interminable two months,
I felt I was ready for public performance. Never mind that I used a
flat pick (that's hopelessly gauche) or that a guru in New York told me
it was required of a serious student to learn how to sing all of the
literature in Indian music in a sort of solfeggio. Forgive me, but I
can't quite recall how the "do-re-mi" goes in the Hindustani system. To
learn this, I was told, takes about seven years. Only then you may pick
up an instrument. Seven years? You gotta be kidding.
I was ready now. "Now" is one of the prime words in a teenager's
lexicon. It usually is preceded by the phrase, "Give it to me." I got
my hands on a Manhattan Yellow Pages and called every Indian and
Pakistani restaurant in the directory and asked if they needed a sitar
player. Believe it or not, after only about forty toll calls, a man on
the phone said in a wonderful thick East Indian accent that I should
come see him. He sounded like Leo McKern as the renegade Indian fakir
in the Beatles movie, "Help."

I actually got hired at the age of 16 to play the sitar on weekend
nights at the Kohinoor Pakistani Restaurant on 2nd Avenue on the Lower
East Side. Yes, with the flat pick and made-up melodies that sounded,
well, Indian. I would wear a Nehru shirt and black dress shoes. All
these years later, I still marvel at the nerve of that 16-year old.
Wistfully, I only wish I had just a wee bit of it today. I think I
lasted four or five weeks at the gig. Let's be grateful for small
miracles.
"My sister-in-law does not like you and does not think you are very
good," the Kohinoor owner explained apologetically. (Cherchez le
sister-in-law.) "Perhaps you could learn 'Never on Sunday.' It was
Number One on the Hit Parade in Karachi." I went home, learned "Never
on Sunday," played it in the restaurant the next week about twenty five
times a night and got fired.
It's one of my favorite memories.
I got to meet Ravi Shankar twice, in the Green Room at Lincoln Center.
On the second occasion, I stood in line behind The Young Rascals --
also Jersey boys -- who meekly requested sitar lessons from the master.
Shankar politely -- even gently -- turned them down.

These memories were keeping me company as I took my box seat at the
Opera House, expecting a lovely, meditative evening. No so fast. I
forgot that San Francisco in many ways has become the Honyak capital of
The Coast.
And what is a "Honyak"?
I'm not sure -- but I know what a lummox is. He was seated in front of
me -- wreaking of dope and patchouli -- tweaking and squirming in his
box seat all through the performance. He actually waved his glass of
cheap red wine in the direction of the musicians and played "air sitar"
along with the master. My friend, Paulette Millichap, the publisher of
Council Oak Books in Pacific Heights, would call this behavior
"devolved." No respect for the "Godfather of World Music." Wordsworth
came to mind, "The world is too much with us, late and soon." I was
distracted from the concert and my childhood remembrances, of course,
and kept fantasizing about how I could nail this inebriated jackass
into a box of his own. Even at this stage -- Ravi Shankar turned 85
last month -- do people not have a clue that the master, Ustad Ravi
Shankar and his colleagues, Anoushka, and the great Tanmoy Bose on
tabla, provide serious classical music? Does anyone play "air cello"
along with Yo-Yo Ma? These days, they probably do.
I mentioned this annoyance to an usher. She said, "These are not opera
people here tonight. Opera people do not wave their wine glasses
around."
Well, it might be tolerated, even encouraged, during the raucous
drinking song in "La Traviata." Or during an Ouzo-soaked party where
they play "Never on Sunday."
But when it comes to a private, hypnotic, meditative excursion into
kundalini, let's keep the party polite.

Bruce Bellingham is the author of "Bellingham by the Bay" (Council Oak
Books, San Francisco). He's toying with the idea of retrieving his
sitar from the New York apartment of a friend and becoming a serious
pupil -- at his advanced age -- of Indian music. If Bellingham can sit
still long enough. Meanwhile, e-mail him at bellsf@mac.com.

Blogsite by kimberly kubalek, www.kubalek.com