A scene from the documentary Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
European music of the 18th century traveled across the world, taking different forms and creating unique sounds in India and America. In India, it crossed language barriers as the famous Carnatic classical composer Muthuswami Dikshitar (1775–1835) wrote Sanskrit lyrics to colonial tunes that came with the British East India Company.
documentary, colonial interval, By US-based Kanniks Kannikeswaran, the intersection of two diverse musical traditions is highlighted. It celebrates the life and music of Dikshitar, the Cincinnati musician, teacher and educator who pioneered fusion music.
musical journey
Kannikas Kannikeswaran Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The 37-minute documentary directed by Kannikeswaran was recently screened in Hyderabad (at Saptaparni), Chennai (at Sahanas) and Mumbai (at the National Center for Performing Arts). It includes footage of the temple cities Tiruvarur, Kanchipuram and Madurai that are central to the Dikshitar story, festivals, and interviews with folk music artists from the Cincinnati area. The documentary was filmed and edited (collaboratively over Zoom) at Studio A (Big Short Films), Chennai.
It takes the audience through Dikshitar’s travels to holy sites and explores the differences between traditional raga-based compositions and raga-based compositions. notuswa literature (Sanskrit songs written on Western tunes).
Inspiration
Muthuswami Dikshitar Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Kannikeswaran, considered a pioneer in Indian-American choral music, had considered the story for more than two decades. Hearing ‘Rake of Mallow’ on the radio or watching the ‘God Save the King’ anthem in a movie Gandhi It was in 1983 that he realized for the first time that Dixit’s composition ‘Santatam Pahimam’ was based on this tune (‘I had heard ‘Santatam Pahimam’ before I heard god save the king,
He remembers 2001 well when he read it for the first time Gamut Notations of Dikshitar’s tunes in an English book, Works of Mudduswamy DikshitarCompiled and edited by TK Govinda Rao. She felt a strange connection; Recalling the phone conversation, he recalls, “It was an aha moment, like a light bulb going off.” Correlating what he was reading and the veena his grandmother played, he was reminded of his childhood. Memories became fresh.
He taught these tunes to his two daughters Vidita and Sukhita and budding musicians; He also organized a concert with other Celtic (Irish) musicians. Describing them as ‘moments of realization’, he says, “There was something in common between us and the dedicated musicians of the colonial period, whom we didn’t even know about. The fact that Dikshitar touched these tunes a hundred years ago is also significant. amazement, His album containing these recorded compositions was released in 2008 by Swami Dayananda Saraswati in the United States and in India by filmmaker Rajeev Menon.
Kannikeswaran said that the story should be told in a specific way because ‘these works should not be seen in isolation.’ He explains, “One has to look at the context in which they may have been written, to which temples they are addressed, and the parallel critis In different ragas.”
Some scenes in the documentary were filmed in Cincinnati just before the pandemic, with Western musicians providing another perspective.
colonial interval It was exhibited in Phoenix and the Cincinnati Art Museum in the US and in Singapore. It won the Best Short Documentary Film award at the Indian Film Festival of Cincinnati 2023, where it was the closing film of the weekend. It also received the ‘Best Documentary Film’ award at the Indian International Film Festival of Boston, USA.
Calling the documentary ‘a window to Dikshitar’s world’, Kannikeswaran hopes that even people who are not deeply into Carnatic music will discover the composer for who he was. “People will see Indian culture for what it is: because it has the innate ability to absorb outside influences, to be open-minded, and to do something with it at any time; Dikshitar is an excellent example of this.”
Kannikeswaran plans to release the documentary online in 2025, on the occasion of Dikshitar’s 250th birth anniversary.
published – January 01, 2025 02:09 PM IST
