East meets west, north meets south, classical meets contemporary, young meet old and timeless meets timeless.
Not only does Shakti symbolise all of this but is also the pioneering group of all that is contemporary fusion.
Remembering Shakti, a concert for the very noble Shakti Foundation, was a concert that truly took one down memory lane.
More than 30 years ago, when classical music was dominated by purists, and fusion was considered a travesty, Shakti emerged as a happy and accepted experiment.
Perhaps, only wizards and geniuses like Ustad Zakir Hussain, John McLaughlin, L. Shankar and Vikku Vinayak Ram could have pulled this off at that time.
In the late 1970s, predating even Ilayaraja, the master of fusion, Shakti became a rage not only in India but the world over.
Shakti and its music gains significance in today’s conflicting and fragmented world. Over the last 30 years, the musical river of Shakti has meandered across continents and embraced artistes across genres to constantly charter new pathways and discover new musical territories.
In a sense, Shakti has done what culture alone can do: blur the conflicting geo-political boundaries to redraw new harmonious cultural territories.
At the Chennai ‘Remembering Shakti’ concert, the timeless wizardry of Ustad Zakir Hussain, John McLaughlin and Vikku engaged in a musical conversation with the young. When Ustad Zakir Hussain and Selva Ganesh share a scintillating rhythm, one experiences utter joy that goes beyond the boundaries of religion.
When Mandolin U. Srinivas and John McLaughlin strum the most challenging nuances together, music becomes a vehicle to harmonise across the man-made challenges of regions. When Shankar Mahadevan throws in some electric vocal gymnastics, he seems to give a voice to that collective consciousness.
And when Vikku takes to the stage impromptu, the soul of Shakti culminates. What comes to the fore is the shared musical history of Vikku and Zakir.
And one wonders, could any other medium have brought them together? Could any other medium have enabled them to create a universal sound that the world would unquestioningly celebrate? Perhaps not. Such is the power of music.
The writer, with abiding interest in fine arts and folk art, is a director whose debut film earned national awards.
