TAAL Se TAAL...
Apoorva Joshi, School Music Captain, on the recently conducted tabla workshop

Ustad Hashmat Ali Khan of the Ajrara Gharana visited The Doon School on February 16, and held a workshop. The workshop was till February 19, and was followed by a concert on the following day. This was the first tabla workshop ever held in school, and so it was quite an attraction.
On the first day, the Ustad started on an auspicious note by invoking a prayer, and then went on to the (literally) hands-on classes. Our first lesson was quite simple. It consisted of a few elementary techniques and nobody had a problem in playing the intended pieces. On the second day we moved on to more complex techniques. Ustad Hashmat Ali Khan himself played a few pieces for us, so that we could understand rhythmic structures. On the third day he asked some juniors to perform what they had learnt. Their pieces pleased the maestro so much that he promised us a treat the next day. The workshop wound up on the 20th morning, since the Ustad had to rest before the evening’s performance.
At 6 pm, the Music School auditorium was packed to capacity with an expectant audience of Doscos, guests and musicians of Dehra Dun. Vansh Bhatia, Secretary, Music Society, introduced the maestro, and the stage was then taken over by some 18 of us Doscos who, playing eight and a half matras in unison, pretty much made the walls resound! We were followed by the Ustad’s very young grandson, who had come from Delhi to perform. The budding maestro, who is carrying on the family name in music in the time-honoured tradition, impressed us with his lightning-fast gats.
Naturally, the last course of this musical banquet was indeed the best. We had all waited for this moment, when Ustadji himself stepped onto the stage. Playing teentaal , he began with peshkar and ended with rela . It was a performance which received a standing ovation. A fitting finale indeed to the evening. I know that I speak for all of us who participated in the workshop, that the entire experience was both exhilarating and humbling. It brought home to us that music, like the ocean, has unplumbed depths. We can only try to chart a course to gain understanding and knowledge.

information that can be used by anyone? Direct plagiarism is a problem that can still be dealt with, but the theft of ideas is a hydra-headed monster and something like intellectual plagiarism is much more difficult to tackle.
Copyrighting an idea is not as easy as copyrighting a music album. It is not an unusual phenomenon for students, even at the University level, to use a borrowed argument and palm it off as an original research paper. Like piracy, plagiarism is a matter of mindset and solving the problem is rather difficult. A lot of Indians face problems in foreign universities where copying as much as two words in succession can lead to expulsion from a college. In fact, some colleges go so far as to file a lawsuit against the students! Perhaps India needs more stringent anti-plagiarism laws and perhaps we need to realize that using someone else’s ideas is tantamount to committing a criminal offence.
On a larger scale, putting an end to a phenomenon like music plagiarism is more than a Herculean task. Who could be bothered to sue Anu Malik for copying the Beatles or the Aviator composer for passing Bach off as his original work? Who would want to prove that Rang De Basanti’s song Khoon Chala has a chord progression very similar to John Lennon’s Imagine? Laws are laws, but they do have their limitations. We cannot depend on the judiciary alone to exercise its powers and put an end to plagiarism. The more aware we are of this issue, the more we realize this is an issue, the closer we’ll come to solving it. It may seem completely harmless to just copy a few lines from the net for an assignment that’s overdue (and I speak from experience!) but just remember to cite your source. It’ll take maybe 30 seconds more of your time, but each time you stop and think before ‘borrowing’ we will all be one step closer to being rid of the problem. We all talk about morality, but I believe that being intellectually honest is the most stringent test of morality, integrity and strength of character. To paraphrase an old saying, if you are true to yourself, then it follows, as night must day, that you cannot then be false to any man.

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