KSLF opens with a mélange of ideas, thoughts in Kasauli: ‘India the forgotten heart of the ancient world’

The KSLF began with keynote speaker — historian and author William Dalrymple — in ‘Past Perfect’ session taking the audience on ‘The Golden Road’, ‘How Ancient India Transformed the World,’ chronicling Indian innovations that travelled and transformed the world. “I remember I lived in a barsati in Delhi and had to cross Khushwant Singh’s flat many times, and we met at literary events, and shared many ideas,” recalled Dalrymple.

With photographs from the recently released book, with deep insights, exhaustive research, and a lifetime of study of Indian history, Dalrymple talked in detail about how India is the forgotten heart of the ancient world. From Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics, the author highlighted India’s position as “the heart of ancient Eurasia”. The spread of Indian ideas across the world, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific, Dalrymple mesmerised the audience, taking them from the largest Hindu temple in the world at Angkor Wat to the Buddhism of China, the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of numerals, with an emphasis on zero. How India transformed the culture and technology of its ancient world, and the world today that we live in.

World-renowned violinist L Subramaniam

From history to music, it was none other than world-renowned violinist L Subramaniam, who charted his extraordinary journey in the session ‘Golden Melodies: Bringing the East to the West.’ In conversation with Namita Devidayal, the maestro talked about his new book, ‘Raga Harmony: Harmonic Structures and Tonalities in Indian Classical Music’, and explained how he integrated the Indian raga system with the harmonic structure of Western classical music.

“The book is written for musicians and students of music,” said the violinist. Music, believes the world’s leading authority of South Indian classical music and violin, brings people together, and cultures on the same page. Having collaborated with India and the world’s foremost musicians, he has performed and recorded Carnatic classical music and Western Classical Music and created the global fusion concept in the 1970s. In the early years, the violin icon trained under his father, but went on to study medicine.

“Violin was at the time an accompanying and not a solo instrument, and my father wanted to take Indian raga to the global stage and create scientific systems and original techniques. My father wanted me to study and reach wider audiences and so I went on to pursue medicine,” recalled the violinist, adding how his mother made sure that he completed his MBBS, registered as a general practitioner, and only then pursued his Master’s in music from the United States.

The maestro recalled how he wanted to do compositions to bring Indian music to the world stage, with historic collaborations with George Harrison, Stephen Grappelli, Pt Ravi Shankar, Yehudi Menuhin, Steven Seagal, Ustad Bismillah Khan. Fusion, he explained, can only create magic, “if we know the other artists, their system of music, and their work”. “You must have an open mind, and understand the emotion and ornamentation of music and there are many layers that make a raga,” smiled the violinist, recalling several enriching encounters and collaborations with Yehudi Menuhin.

Intuitively and unconsciously, musicians know the essence of music, and that, he added, gives birth to great collaborative work, and bringing together different forms on one stage. With his wife, Kavita Krishnamurti, he has done an amazing body of work, and he says music is what binds the family together, his wife, children and granddaughter. Responsible for bringing Indian violin to a global platform, L. Subramaniam has been writing and performing orchestral compositions.

The military has always been an integral theme of KSLF, as it is devoted to the Indian soldier, and one session that celebrated this was, ‘Courage Under Fire: Tales of Valour and Adventure.’ In conversation with Maj Gen Ian Cardozo (retd), and author Probal Dasgupta, was editor and author Manraj Grewal, with the session highlighting the resilience of our soldiers, highlighting the human dimension of war. The conversation centred on Dasgupta’s book, “Camouflaged: Forgotten Stories from Battlefields, Heroic Tales from World War I to 26\11”. The book presents stories from India’s military past.

Maj Gen Cardozo, author of 1965: Courage Unleashed, short stories on the Indo-Pak war, and the human dimension of conflict, with little-known facts about the war through personal insights, said: “History informs us of the past and present, and what we need to do is keep an open mind, ears to the ground, and not be in denial. Sadly, history is written by the victor, and a lot is left under the carpet.” Maj Gen Cardozo is a war-disabled officer who commanded a battalion, brigade and division. Other sessions of the day focused on an award-winning museum, the future of politics, art and films.