Uday Bhawalkar at Cornell

Had been to Uday Bhawalkar's Dhrupad concert at Cornell today with Vasudha, Kedar and Sarita.

He started with Raag Bhoop, followed by Sohoni. After the interval, a Holi-bandish in Chandrakauns and finally, "Jagat Janani" in Bhairavi.

Went up to talk to him during the interval -- he asked me where I was from, and his face lit up when I told him I was from Bhilai. Said, "Main Ujjain ka hoon". He was trying to explain the meaning of his first bandish "Taan talwar", but gave up after a point saying, "I cannot explain it any more. My education was not in English medium, whatever English I know it is from coming abroad like this". This brought up in my mind the discussion I was having with Anand the other day about why we don't have Premchands or Shakespeares any more. I think it is a case of the gain-bandwidth product remaining constant. You go for bandwidth, you lose gain. You want high gain, then you necessarily have to limit your bandwidth. The tendency these days is to go for bandwidth.

But then occasionally there are people who violate the gain-bandwidth product. They scare me.