Maverick Musicians: Ustad Vilayat Khan & Vidwan S. Balachander

Both were feisty, given to making controversial statements & thought themselves under recognised.

The two accessible biographies of them are "The Sixth String of Vilayat Khan" by Namita Devidayal & "Voice of the Veena -  S. Balachander" by Vikram Sampath. They shared many common views. Both liked cars & perfumes, "Brut" being the Veena maestro's favourite. Both disliked Pandit Ravi Shankar (or his popularity!). Vilayat Khan refused all Padma awards. Balachander was never awarded the "Sangeeta Kalanidhi", the highest honour of the Music Academy, though he was awarded & accepted "Padma Bhushan" from the Central Government.

Balachander was a polymath, being a film director, chess player, good in Billiards & Snooker also. He was a self-taught genius, unlike Vilayat Khan who traced his musical ancestry to six generations. Both made many innovations in their respective instruments, the Veena & the Sitar. Surprisingly, Balachander first learnt the Sitar on his own & gave a radio recital of Carnatic music played on it. Later he switched over to the Veena.

Though Vilayat Khan's legacy is being continued by numerous sitarists of his gharana, Vikram Sampath writes that Balachander's legacy is being forgotten, except by his last disciple Vidushi Jayanti Kumaresh.

Is Hindu Centric view the only way to tackle Euro Centric View?

Primarily due to colonisation, the Eurocentric view of the world became prevalent. As more & more countries threw off the Imperialist yoke, their indigenous culture blossomed with new vigour & the tendency to view everything from an European viewpoint became irrelevant.

Hinduism, being one of the oldest civilisations, had no doubt, the lion's share in philosophy, culture & religion to contribute to mankind. But as per an ancient saying, it held that "Sarvey Janah sukhino bhavantu" i.e. let all mankind be happy. This was in stark contrast to the Semitic religions' attitude. The Jews believed that they are "The Chosen People" as if God was a stepfather, discriminating among his children. The  Christians came up with Christian/Heathen dichotomy. Islam divided people into Believers & Kaffirs (Unbelievers) with Jannat (Heaven) being only open to the Believers.

Amidst all these divisive ideas, Swami Vivekananda, espousing his master Sri Ramakrishna's belief, boldly proclaimed that ALL religions are true. This is also rational in that God, being omnipotent by definition, could have created only a single religion, but didn't choose to, presumably to cater to different races with different needs. 

With the above background, replacing Eurocentrism with Hindu-centrism, as is being done now by a section of Hindus, may not be quite accurate. A more balanced approach may be to consider a multi-centric approach, where all civilisations get due credit for their unique contributions.

This in no way takes away the enormous contribution to World Culture by Hinduism.

Civilising Influence of Culture

Human nature being what it is, after the basic needs of food, clothing & shelter are satisfied, the mind wanders to the lowest common denominator of sensual pleasures like drinking, gambling or worse. To get out of these dehumanising influences, Culture is the only ennobling alternative.

The human mind has to be trained from a young age to appreciate the fine arts like literature, classical music & the graphic arts. Unfortunately, these are mostly acquired tastes, which have to be nurtured from a young age. One cannot wait to be prosperous & retired from active work to pick up these, as it will be too late & one will have lost the taste for them. These have to be life long preoccupations to have any meaningful effect. If they are pushed to the bottom of the list of priorities, they may drop out of it altogether, leaving one a dyed-in-the-wool philistine, no better than an animal.

Realising this, the developed west has made these mandatory in the curriculum. Even an aspiring doctor has to learn to play a musical instrument before he/she enters University. The Chinese, who in their foolish "Cultural Revolution" destroyed records of classical music (as shown in the film "The Red Violin") quickly realised their blunder & now many world class virtuosi are Chinese.