Sumana Chandrashekar’s Song of the Clay Pot: My Journey with the Ghatam is a book one wants to treasure, so one can soak in the richness of the musical heritage it offers.
Chandrasekar’s journey with the musical instrument ghatam is told with passion and eloquence. From the very first moment she feels drawn to the sound of the clay pot to the moment she masters it, she holds the reader in thrall. “I must have been asleep for about three hours. Suddenly, I sensed my fingers were moving on my belly. As they moved, I heard the sound of a pot. The smell of earth had engulfed me. I woke up with a start. No rain. No petrichor. And the night was warm and still,” she writes. And thus begins Chandrasekar’s involvement with the clay pot.
What makes this book a comprehensive whole is that the author weaves the history of the instrument into her own story. The ghatam started as a vital percussion instrument, but gradually slid down the hierarchy, falling far below the mridangam and being relegated to the back of the stage.
Yet, she presents enough evidence to show how her own teacher, as well as the ghatam maestro Vikku Vinayakram, helped bring the clay pot into focus, its eloquence sounding out loud even on the international stage. Like the humble bamboo flute that Krishna played, the simple clay pot, despite its humble beginnings, can stand up to the most accomplished musician and provide all the variety of sounds that a rendering of the most complex ragas might demand.
The chapters on how ghatams are created, the soils used to ensure perfect resonance, the creation of various pitches, and Chandrasekar’s own experience of witnessing the process make for fascinating reading. Even as the instrument is mainly played by men, Chandrashekar sees it as a soul sister, a friend, and a companion through life.
Her search leads the author to realise that the sacred clay that creates sounds worthy of the stage is fast diminishing. Entire tracts of this special soil have been cemented over for the creation of new buildings, and the hands that once crafted a musical instrument are now working at odd jobs in towns and cities.
In a chapter on musical censorship, she writes about how the incredible power of music to heal body and mind led to musical instruments becoming a means of oppression. Till quite recently, in Carnatic music recitals, the ghatam was never offered a microphone when such aids were still rare and reserved for the singer and, among percussion instruments, the mridangam.
A wealth of musical and social information lies between these pages. The author uses a simple, candid style to share her thoughts and discoveries, leaving the reader much richer in knowledge about an oft-overlooked instrument.