Me and Balaji Shankar

Last Friday we were at a friend's, sipping wine, listening to Carnatic music and discussing his massive collection of songs and concerts. Suddenly, I requested that he play a Balaji Shankar concert. I had not remembered how good it was. I sat there completely spellbound. I beseeched my friend to record all Balaji Shankar recordings in his possession on an MP 3 for me. Over the past week, I have listened to nothing else in my car, driving sometimes with the top open the strains of music escaping to fall on strangers' ears.

Who is this guy? Better yet, where is he now? I don't know the answer to the second question, which adds to his mystique. He is a Carnatic vocalist whose prodigious talent was discovered at an early age, so he could learn under the tutelage of the great D.K. Jayaraman. He took to the stage early, first accompanying his teacher and then later by himself. Pleasant looking and earnest, he had everything going for him musically -magnificent voice at once majestic and tender, with precise adherence to the convention of a raga, purity of tone and accuracy of beat. It is also rare for such an artist to become one with the song, submerged, egoless and spontaneous. And he became all that. This brought a heady quality to his music drawing the audience into a world where everything begins and ends with the music. A fan of radio and news I have been loath to switch over to the radio so immersed as I am in my own private concert in the car. His bilahari is the finest I have heard as also his abhogi and karaharapriya. He takes us on this surfboard that dips and rises always landing perfectly on a note, confident and assured. He sits on the shoulders of his guru and that great musical tradition of a disciplined rendition infused with devotion. These must have been his finest hours since what followed was an abdication of this gift as he disappeared into obscurity. It is rumoured he had a nervous breakdown from the pressures and politics of being a first rate artist. Others say he lost the love of his life and a few others that he gave it all up for a career in IT. He has not been heard from or seen since the early 2000s, when he was in his mid to late twenties. For now we are having to stay content with YouTube postings where other fans like me have bemoaned his departure. Musicians are dime a dozen these days and there is no dearth of talent in a vast country like India. And yet nothing has quite moved and enthralled me like this young man's music. Can someone please locate him and bring him back on stage?,