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My lighthouse: Tribute to musicologist Azad Rahaman Photo: Collected Azad Rahaman, my dearest Abbu, left for his eternal abode on May 16, 2020. He was laid to rest on top of his mother s grave at the Azimpur Graveyard in Dhaka. He passed away on the 22nd day of Ramadan last year, when the world was fighting against the initial waves of the Covid-19 pandemic. He had experienced postoperative complications following a surgery. His children were away in Australia. As I was finishing my remaining iftar just after the maghrib prayers, I suddenly felt a thud, as if something pushed me. I asked my daughter if she felt anything. She was surprised watching me shake, as there was nothing she could notice. ....
The composer’s transcultural experiments were always intense and persuasive “The Brahma-rakshasa needs more lines!” “The chorus can’t drown out the High Priest!” “The duet works, now shorten the moonlight aria!” For six years, between 2003 and 2009, enigmatic communications like these would fly across Mumbai by phone, by fax, and by courier between Vanraj Bhatia’s studio and mine. During those years, I worked closely with the legendary composer and music director on an opera, Agni Varsha (‘The Fire and the Rain’), based on Girish Karnad’s play, which the playwright had translated into English from his original Kannada. While I developed the libretto, Vanraj composed the music. In the process, I spent many delightful and sometimes exasperating hours with the maestro, listening as he played passages from our evolving work on the piano, imbibing a series of masterclasses on tempo, orchestration, polyphony, and the seemingly impossible project of cr ....