Part 10: THE YOUNG RHYTHM MASTERS (Zakir Hussains) TALE: (part 4) When I was seventeen I went on my first chilla, which is a ritual retreat. A musician is supposed to do three of them. A hut is prepared for you in a remote region, usually near the village of your gurus ancestors. For forty days you live in that hut, doing nothing but playing music. The first one I did I thought would be easy. I bathed, recited the proper mantras, and then played my instrument for fifteen hours. A breeze. A drummer can take one rhythmic cycle, or tal, per day, or just play one tal for forty days. By the second day the vibrations of the constant drumming were beginning to work on my consciousness. I saw things in the music that Id never seen before, new combinations, new patterns. By the third day, however, I was starting to get bored. By the morning of the fourth day I did not want to touch my tabla. I forced myself to play. From the fifth day on I have little memory. I dont remember when I took a bath or ate. As soon as I began playing the visions would start. Everyone who does a chilla has these visions. They are an extension of the emotions, so that if I felt good, then the visions would be good. Id heard stories of people who had had many bad experiences in life and when they went to do chillas their hallucinations were so scary that they screamed - and the chilla was broken. On the twelfth day, my father appeared to me. He was there beside me. I could hear his voice saying, Dont do it like that, do it like this. This is the way to do it. Okay, now try this combination. I dont know how many days my father sat there with me, but eventually he changed into a very old, sagelike person. He was still my father, but now he had a long white beard and wrinkled skin, and eyes that were strangely radiant. Do this, do that, try this combination, said the new vision. I would have kept playing in this trance state perhaps forever if my father hadnt come to bring me home at the end of the fortieth day. I ached, I could barely walk, my eyes were big staring hollows. I recuperated for two days, then my father asked me what Id seen. I saw you teaching me, I said. I wasnt there but I was thinking of you a lot. And I saw a very old man. My father asked me to describe him and when I did he said, I believe that is your great grand-guru, Kader Baksh, who was my teachers teacher. The way youve described his face, it sounds just like the way my teacher described him. That was the end of my first chilla. -Zakir Hussains tale Mickey Hart, Drumming at the Edge of Magic ~TO BE CONTINUED!~
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 20:33:30 +0000
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