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Rattan Gujadhur

[Rattan Gujadhur] Ode to Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma ji


Rédigé par Rattan Gujadhur le Mardi 17 Mai 2022



[Rattan Gujadhur]  Ode to Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma ji
In the delightful documentary called Sadhana, he says at the very end, like an inkling of his implacable imminent demise, to come almost 30 years to the day of the very same program, that he had created the music of the valleys with Hari Prasad ji, as an offering, a prasad, to the landscape of his childhood, the highlands of Jammu & Kashmir. The call of the valley, the music of the mountains, soundscapes & valleys and many of his high mountain classics cannot be listened to without them transporting one to this spiritual true abode that once existed, a place we all call Kashmir.

The very same Kashmir of Utpaladeva, Abhinavgupta and Laksmanjoo. A paradise on earth, not as a temporary product sold on gross transactional tourist ads, but a true space in our inner heart where philosophy was dwelt into, with a keen eye for the nectar of pure non duality, so that the truth of the ultimate could seize us by storm, a time of harmony between races leading to an explosion of verses only Utpaladeva could capture in his hymns to Shiva, with unmatched humanity and love: 

I bow to the eternally sacred abodes,
Whose deity is Hara,
Whose activities are worthy of Hara,
And whose very breath of life is dedicated 
Only to Hara.

When the whole universe
Honors just this much of your splendor --
The mere play in the world --
How infinite indeed
Must be your bliss!

I bow to those who,
Going nowhere and renouncing nothing,
Yet view all this as your glorious abode.

What else remains to be desired
By those rolling in the wealth of devotion?
For those deprived of it,
What else is worthy of desire?
(Source: Rhodes Bailey) 

…….a rise of this same art of the love of the refined, also seen in Kashmiri cuisine which unabashedly made use of the high taste of Islamic cuisine mixed with local tribal taste and added to the subtlety of the pandits and their quest  for all things undiluted and unique. Panditji’s music is a shelter that we enter into trance like, often to shield ourselves, despite our sorry realization that Kashmir and the Jelum have become rivers of our own blood whether Muslim or Hindu or Christian, because of the ignorance of men on all sides, who failed to recognize their own abject temporariness, their own flippant ‘milli less than a second’ presence on a stage, that is the fabric and property itself of the one we call Shiva Allah Karim Rahim Ram. Why fight bicker seems to say, his music to us, when you yourself do not belong to yourself. What beauty must Panditji have dreamt of, to come up with his Marwa, Khamaj, his delightful Jor. Upon listening to him, we the listeners surrender in love, yes we die and rejoin that dal lake of divine consciousness, where now resides the maestros and rishis of old, the Amirs, the Jasrajs, the Girija’s, the Ramanas and thr Allama Prabhus, who only seem to have lived for one thing: love of the other 

Good bye Pandit ji. Thank you for the valleys, the mountains, Kashmir, the taste of kawa, your santoor sound is that pure wine we fearlessly indulge with to enter the tavern of love that once existed. That Kashmir of our deep dreams. Thank you for the shelter shield you created and gave us, a rampart against racism, wars and pointless endless strife over this and that conceptual creations of men ! Against the endless strifes you stood up with your Santoor !

A propos de l'auteur : Rattan Gujadhur   left Mauritius for higher studies in the US in 1999. He has practiced in the Pharma and Biotech world for over 29 years and is a Dr in Chemistry. He remains deeply in love with Mauritius and has published reminiscences of Mauritius via a poetry collection and a novel.


Mardi 17 Mai 2022


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