Story /poem / interview of the week
Two Questions with Tabla Maestro Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri
By Swapan K Banerjee
Your music reflects a free flow of divine feeling. Some listeners say that they feel a sort of stirring of God in them when they listen to your music. How do you create this sublime effect on the mind of the audience?
When you visit a temple, and stand in front of the deity, some inexplicable power takes hold of you. Indian classical music is of meditative type. If you take your music as a form of prayer and surrender yourself wholeheartedly to it, some sort of miracle takes place. You completely forget your own self, and so does the audience. I believe that if your performance is stunt-free, you always reach out to the heart of the audience.
About Swapan K Banerjee
Swapan K Banerjee is a freelance writer specialising in literary features. Banerjee realised his calling as a writer when the author Ruskin Bond sent his articles and poems to Boston University’s Special Collection Library. His literary write-ups have been featured in several anthologies. Swapan K Banerjee is known for his books Rusty & I: Up-close with Ruskin Bond (RUPA) & People Who Meet People: Interviews with the Stars (Tranquebar).
You got us to open doors which we thought had been rusted shut many years ago.
Hugh Gantzer
Relationships matter for me more than poetry that brought you over to Cuttack. Am grateful for your inherent goodness. That is perhaps why you see the 'good' in others.
Jayanta Mahapatra
I've seen a copy of your interview, which I think is excellent.
David Davidar
Thank you for your kind email and the lovely poem (published in Poetry Society of India). Always follow your dreams and fight for them with faith.
Paulo Coelho
Your articles as always make for interesting reading. Wish you continued success with your lively interviews. You have the knack of elicitating the deeper layer of a writer’s urges. You remain a fond memory to us all.
Bill Aitken from Mussoorie
Thank you for your nice words!
Acclaim from Nobel Laureate Mme Wislawa Szymborska (1996)
Swapan K Banerjee is a Boswell of sorts - a Boswell not just to one writer, such as a Dr. Johnson, but to many men of letters, musicians and others.
Ruskin Bond
You have a keen eye and a voyager's heart. I like your work. You are so attentive. All power to your pen.
I Allan Sealy
