Kirtan Blues

A trip to Rishikesh, and a new song melding Kirtan and Blues, for you to download and enjoy

A recent trip to Rishikesh with a couple of friends (disclosure: a senior member of this magazine’s editorial committee was one of them) brought me in touch with the deep spirituality of Indian culture and heritage. A pilgrimage destination of great importance to Hindus, Rishikesh has become, over the years, many others things including outdoor adventure destination, Yoga capital of the world, and ashram retreat for those in search of spirituality and self-discovery.

The drive from Delhi takes you through a landscape of dust, rubble and brown earth along the highway that passes through the pretty cantonment town of Roorkee, home of the second oldest school of engineering in the country, ugly ghetto towns and highway rest stops with upscale coffee bars and international fast food chains.

Like with many other aspects of India, the ancient and the modern sit side by side in Rishikesh. The backpacker area just slightly North of Rishikesh, where we have hotel rooms overlooking the river Ganges in Tapovan is a hang-out for modern-day hippies, yogis and consciousness-seekers. There are signs everywhere for rafting, zip-lining, bungee-jumping and flying fox expeditions – most of them way too adventurous for me.

The bathing ghat downriver in Rishikesh town is your quintessential small town in north India – dusty, filthy, and crowded – where pilgrims from all over the country come to pray for salvation and sprinkle some Ganges water on themselves to wash off the sins of a lifetime. The daily Ganga Aarti in the evening is an event to behold, they say. Narrow suspension bridges connect the North and South banks of the river – meant for pedestrians, but used freely by motorists on two-wheelers, and donkeys carrying their burden for the local friendly Garhwali folk.

We drive further north to a campsite along the river and choose to go white water rafting, to be touched and redeemed by the icy waters of the Ganges – pure, green, frothy and unpolluted in this upstream stretch of the river with pristine river sand beaches and campsites on either side of the fast-moving waters – and take in the awe-inspiring views of the majestic mountains of the Himalayan foothills on either side.

Rishikesh has a transient population of foreign spirituality junkies and Indian salvation seekers.  We meet a young British couple from London who are there for a week-long Yoga camp at one of the many schools that scream yoga at you from every hole in the wall. They are headed to Corbett National Park after the yoga retreat. European tourists sit around in hippie coffee shops with names like Little Buddha Café that overlook the river and are decorated with psychedelic art on their walls. It all feels like a throwback to Kathmandu in the early seventies.

Early in the morning, I see an elderly white couple walking slowly, hand in hand, their backpacks and sweatshirts printed with the picture of a missing young man, Jean Baptiste Talleau, presumably their son. I look him up online later. There is a page on the French Embassy website that mentions he has been missing since 2007. I feel really sorry for his parents. Later in the day, we visit the long abandoned ashram of the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, now in ruins and in the hands of the Indian Government after reaching the dizzy heights of sixties counter-culture and briefly achieving fame as a spiritual retreat for the Beatles. The ashram today is a reminder that sex, drugs, and rock and roll don’t necessarily harmonize well with yoga and Hindu spirituality.

There was no specific reason for us to do this trip. Just as there was no particular reason for me to explore the interconnection of cultures through a creative project with musician friends from grad school to meld western and Indian musical traditions and write and record a song that I am about to present to you, the reader.

The song, Kirtan Blues, was the result of a transcontinental collaborative effort with a group of individuals with whom I go back a long way. I composed and wrote it to merge two distinct but connected, musical forms – Kirtan and Blues. The song speaks to our need for spirituality in an era of increasing social inequality and religious conflict worldwide.

The blues originated in the African American communities in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The blues form is characterized by a call and response pattern, a trance like rhythm, and a repetitive effect. Kirtan, which originated in India’s Bhakti yoga (yoga of love) devotional traditions, also follows a call and response chant form. Both Kirtan and the blues contain stories, narratives, and ballads. Both are spiritual in nature.

The Kirtan movement has been gaining ground steadily in the West, as has Yoga in general. India, in turn, has long been a devotee of rock and roll music, and has a tradition of integrating western blues and blues-rock forms into popular film music.

This song was born from a vision that reflects who we are and what modern India is about —global wanderers, adventurous spirits, curious experimenters, and confident optimists. My co-conspirators and myself in the musical project believe that life is short, and that while you do something for a living, you also need to do something for a life. We recorded this song over several months, with individual tracks being laid down across the world from wherever we were. And we present it you, dear reader, as our dedication, offering, and gift to everyone who has touched and influenced us in some way.

Enjoy it, download it, and spread the love.

https://soundcloud.com/clearstrings/kirtan-blues