Artist Reflections: Pandit Hindole Majumdar (tabla)

Today I had the unique opportunity to interview Pandit Hindole Majumdar, tabla player, who is currently visiting Austin and will be accompanying the world-renowned Hindustani classical flutist, Pandit Rupak Kulkarni, on Friday, October 15th. Here is the concert information. Then they head to South Bend, Indiana to perform at the University of Notre Dame. Tickets for this concert are available here.

Welcome. First off, I would like to ask what you feel the connection between religion and spirituality is.

“Religion and spirituality are not connected at all. I believe in spirituality but not in religion. Religion is made by human beings. It is a barrier we create.”

How did you first become inspired to learn music?

“I started getting inspired with music by my maternal grandfather Sri Chitaranjan Roy, who used to be a businessman by profession but was an ardent music lover. He was a sitarist and to some extent a tabla player. He used to help musicians a lot. His friends were Sangeet Acharya, Pandit Tarapada Chakroborty, and Gopal Banerjee. These were great vocalists of that time. He used to be a member of Tansen Sadarang Music Festival. My mother was a dancer of kathak, but not by profession. She was a disciple of Pandit Ram Gopal Mishraji and Jay Kumariji. I learned from Sri Shib Shankar Karmakar, an ardent disciple of Ustad Keramatullah Kansab and then went on to learn (at present) with Pandit Sankha Chatterjee.”

How did your family first encourage your interest in music?

“As a child I used to play pots and pans and buckets, whatever I used to get. Seeing that my mother and maternal grandfather gave me a dholak in one of my birthdays, I think it was my second or third birthday. The very next birthday I was gifted a tabla from my maternal grandfather.”

How do you compare life in Kolkata to life in the US?

“Life in Kolkata is very busy and full of pollution. Here life is very quiet. There are lots of things to learn here.”

What was the experience of learning from your guru like?

“My Guruji, Pandit Sankha Chatterjee taught us a lot about the technique. Hand techniques and aestheticism.”

What was your most memorable concert?

“It is very hard to say because I have a few memorable concerts. One of them is of course in India when I played Dover Lane music conference in Kolkata with Shahid Pervez. Another concert I played with Rupakji and Indrajit Banerjee, the Chicago World Music Conference.”

What does the concept of raga mean to you?

“The concept of raga is a bundle of notes put together. It is a framework, a scale for me, which ends up in different compositions with tabla, Raga is a combination of different notes.”

What is your life outside of music like?

“Outside of music, I love sports like cricket. I love to see movies a lot, Bengali as well as Hindi as well as Hollywood movies. And also sightseeing and dealing with gadgets.”

If you were to give advice to someone who wants to learn Indian classical music as a beginner, what would you say?

“For people who are young and want to pursue indian classical music, my advice would be to regularly listen to good music first of all, and also build up a knack or a taste for this music which will help them to build up their vibration better in the years to come.”

Thank you very much for your time.