Copyright 2010 Sonali Barua All rights reserved TUNERS OF SOULS: MUSIC GURUS AND REBEL DISCIPLES IN 20TH CENTURY INDIAN ENGLISH LITERATURE by SONALI BARUA A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School – New Brunswick Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program of Literatures in English written under the direction of Professor Brent Hayes Edwards and approved by ______________________________ ______________________________ _______________________________ _____________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey May, 2010 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Tuners of Souls: Music Gurus and Rebel Disciples in 20th Century Indian English Literature by SONALI BARUA Professor Brent Hayes Edwards This dissertation examines 20th and very early 21st century Indian English writing that thematizes music and musicians. I argue that Indian English authors who engage with the question of music write in response to the phenomenon of guru worship both in India and abroad. The many works that turn to music in a bid to depict, defend, or as in some cases, turn away from Indian musical culture, present a complex range of reactions to guru worship and its consequences. Within these works, while the auto/biographical writing often tends to replicate older patterns and postures as part of the process of postcolonial cultural self-fashioning, the fiction attempts to break away from the rule of the guru to gesture towards more contemporary possibilities. My secondary argument relates to the much-debated question of whether or not Indian English fiction is relevant to the Indian reality. In this connection, I shall show how the deployment of themes and motifs from Indian music allows authors like Shashi Deshpande and Kiran Nagarkar to make meaningful contributions to current Indian discussions on religion, politics, gender, and class. Chapter 1 analyzes E.M.Forster’s Indian works, Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, and the lectures of the vina maestro and Sufi teacher Inayat Khan, mapping the intersection of notions about Indian spiritual and musical gurus on the early 20th century international stage. In Chapter 2 I read a selection of musical novels and fictionalized ii autobiographies in an attempt to understand the crucial roles of the raga music guru and of musical autobiography in the process of postcolonial self-fashioning. Chapter 3 deals with Indian authors’ handling of western musical forms, specifically pop-rock by Salman Rushdie and art music by Vikram Seth. My emphasis is on the unique methods by which each author seeks to virtualize the role of the maestro/guru. Finally, my focus moves in Chapter 4 to bhakti or devotional music, its relation to Gandhian thought, and its use by Kiran Nagarkar in a project that attempts to outline a progressive version of Gandhism for 21st century India. iii Dedicated to Baba, my father Prashant Kumar Barua, who hoped very much to see me get this degree iv Acknowledgements Having completed a dissertation on gurus, I begin this section by tracing my own intellectual debts to them. The earliest of these is owed to Bulbul Benjamin, Sujata Bose, and Judy Brown at La Martiniere, Kolkata, who taught me to love words and how to use them. At St.Xavier’s College, Professors Tilottama Dutta, Pranati Bose, and Rohinton Kapadia led me on more intricate journeys into the joys of English literature. The most amazing teachers inspired my efforts during my MA studies at Jadavpur University including Professors Supriya Chaudhuri, Indira Chowdhury, Amlan Das Gupta, and Abhijit Gupta. I must thank Amlan Da in particular, for so completely living up to the mentorship I thrust upon him, for unstinting generosity with time, for helping me reacquire long-forgotten student skills, and for first showing me how music and literature could be studied in conjunction. Deep gratitude for my initiation into the world of music and my understanding of its musical and political subtleties is reserved for my own music gurus: Pandit Sunil Bose, Pandit A.T.Kanan, and Vidushi Subhra Guha at the Sangeet Research Academy and to Torit Chowdhury for a brief but incredibly rich introduction to the singing of Rabindrasangeet. At Rutgers I have been fortunate enough to take courses with Professors Ed Cohen, Harriet Davidson, Josephine Diamond, Richard Dienst, Brent Edwards, Leela Fernandes, Jasbir Puar, Josie Saldana, Larry Scanlon, and Shuang Shen. To Richard, special thanks for agreeing to be on my oral exam committee. Professors Sumit Guha, George Levine, John McClure, and Sonali Perera very graciously permitted me to audit their courses. My academic advisors, Professors Kate Flint and Jonah Siegel, gave me valuable inputs on how to customize a program for myself. Several writing seminars I attended, led by v Professors Emily Bartels, Michael McKeon, Richard Miller, and Jonah Siegel helped to give my writing shape, and my schedule structure. This dissertation is much the better for insightful comments and suggestions from several fellow seminar members, and informal dissertation group readers including Sean Barry, Liz Bredlau, Megan Lau, Michael Masiello, Michelle Phillips, and Paul Yeoh. At least three semesters were financially smoother on account of the Mellon summer travel grant and the two writing fellowships awarded to me by the English Department. I am obliged to Professor Kurt Spellmeyer in the Writing Program, as also to Tisha Bender, Darcy Gioia, and Michael Goeller, not just for a lot of what I now know about the teaching of writing, and for invariably being amenable to all kinds of scheduling requests, but also for the spontaneous teaching support many of them put in during the difficult days after my father’s death. No graduate student of English at Rutgers would ever have made it through to a degree if it hadn’t been for super-efficient paper management in the Graduate Office, and constant advice, friendly support, reminders, and candy from the three amazing ladies there: Courtney Borack, Eileen Faherty, Cheryl Robinson, your names should be up in letters of gold on a roll of honor in Murray Hall. Sincere thanks to Dean Srinivas Aravamudan at Duke for agreeing to be my external reader. And finally, the members of my dissertation committee, Professors Brent Edwards, John McClure, and Sonali Perera, have been everything that ideal dissertation guides should be: attentive readers, illuminating and encouraging respondents, and reassuring senior colleagues, always pointing me in the most productive directions. To Brent - who supervised this work from its small and tentative beginnings to a whole dissertation, and who has had to contend with a move vi away from Rutgers, new students at Columbia, a new home, and a new baby meanwhile! – my heartfelt gratitude. Several friends have sustained me through the years of my graduate studies. I could not have made all the huge changes necessary without the continuous caring support of dear and long time friends from my days in India: Surabhi Garg, Madhumita Goswami, Ranjana Rowchowdhury, and Tabassum Siraj. Here in the US, for cheering me up on rainy days and always saying nice things about my cooking, affectionate thanks to Anannya Dasgupta, Shakti Jaising, Nanda Kerkar, Eui Young Kim, Ellorashree Maitra, Harriet Margolis, Liz Reich, Purba Rudra, Anantha Sudhakar and Sumati Sundaram. Thanks also to my cousins: Rohini Gandhi for being both family and friend, and Prabhas Moghe and my sister-in-law Ameena for their warm hospitality and continuing concern and support. Sudha and Dr.Sharad Nayampally, my aunt and uncle, have invested much hope and caring in me and in my work. My sister Saloni Shome encouraged me to return to school, and gave me both unconditional love and the nerve to resign a secure job to be able to pursue this midlife Ph.D. My husband Narayan Nambudiri has been incredible: as constant loving helpmeet and companion, as crossword rival and twenty-minute cook, as first and most astringent reader of my chapters. My mother-in-law Radha Nambudiri has been a source of quiet hope. There is nothing my mother Monica Barua has not been ready and willing to do to make my life easier and happier; no words are good enough. And to my father Prashant Barua, who sharpened my first pencils, whom I could never beat at scrabble in three decades of trying, and whose caring memory becomes even dearer as the years pass: Baba, this is for you. vii Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements v Introduction 1 Chapter 1: The Spiritual Guru: 32 Early Indian Music in the West Chapter 2: The Music Guru: 90 Hindustani Raga Music, Auto/biography, Postcolonial Self-fashioning Chapter 3: The Virtual Guru: 159 Displacement, Cultural Birthright, and the Orphic/Dionysian Chapter 4: The Political Guru: 222 Gandhi and the Contemporaneity of Bhakti Music Works Cited 301 Curriculum Vitae 314 viii 1 Introduction In this dissertation I examine 20th century Indian English writing that thematizes music and musicians. I argue that Indian English authors who engage with the question of music write in response to the phenomenon of guru worship both in India and abroad. The many works that almost compulsively turn to music in a bid to depict, defend, or as in some cases, turn away from Indian musical culture, present a complex range of reactions to guru worship and its consequences. Within these works, while the auto/biographical writing often tends to replicate older patterns and postures as part of the process of postcolonial cultural self-fashioning, the fiction attempts to break away from the rule of the guru to gesture towards more contemporary possibilities. The secondary argument I will thus also make, in small in Chapter 2 and then more substantially in Chapter 4, relates to the much-debated question of whether or not Indian English fiction is relevant to the Indian reality.