‘Pour la joie que cela nous donne’ (‘For the sake of the joy that it gives us’)

AVToday: How did your musical journey start?

Pushkar: As a child, it started with the love for singing. When I was five, I got a little organ that sits on the floor. When playing it, I remember feeling inspired, like something beautiful was happening to me. I remember this experience of entering into a magical world. Maybe for me it had a connection to The Mother’s organ music, because even though I was in Italy at the time, my family was connected to the Ashram and The Mother was shown pictures of me as a baby.

When I was seven, I moved to Pondicherry and shortly after joined the Ashram school, where recorder classes were compulsory for all the children. I enjoyed that very much. Eventually, I discovered that there was a piano in the school, and very eagerly I started playing it and getting some lessons. By the age of 13, music took over my whole life. I started dedicating all of my free time to music because I wanted to be a concert pianist. I started my preparations in order to go to a music conservatory in Spain, and then I moved there with my family for a few years.

During that preparation, I was playing five hours of piano every day. I didn't have a piano at home, so I would wake up at 5:30 a.m. to go to the Ashram school to practice, since that was only possible during non-school hours. It required extreme discipline, but I had that enthusiasm. I often was the first to open the school at 6 a.m. and the last to be sent out when they closed at 9 p.m.. Whenever I could, I was glued to the piano, even Sundays weren't an exception.

My piano teacher was good and attentive, but I had to prepare my own lessons, and if I wanted to know something, I would have to ask him. It's beautiful to have the chance to do that, of not having things imposed on you, of deciding what you want to do. There was no radio at that time, no TV, no internet. The only way I could discover a piece of music was if I played it. I became proficient at sight reading, I had so much thirst for music, every book I could get my hands on, I played.

I've heard you say that Auroville is special and that only here you can teach, perform, and compose in a certain way. Why wouldn't it be possible anywhere else?

It is not only important to have a good teacher, but also the support of the society that surrounds us. And I don't separate teaching, performing, and composing. They go together. The people around us have to support us in what we are doing, conceptually. The importance of changing the standard parameters is crucial. In the outside world, everything is based on the parameter of quantifiable success, whether it is as a teacher, a performer, or a composer. That is what I feel is erroneous. Even in my education at Oberlin College (USA), everything was always based on that. There was something very beautiful about being there, because at times it felt like this place could be like Auroville. But there were things that were unfortunate: the focus on time and success, the attitude that time is money, and that everything one does has to be successful.

Sometimes I would go for walks in the moonlight in the middle of winter, and tearfully think… if only we could have these musical opportunities in Auroville, or that freedom of Auroville at Oberlin; that mentality that nobody has to know how good you are, that others do not decide whether you're learning something or not. Only you are the judge of that. There is no external recognition or prize, your personal growth and progress is your only reward. This alone can change the parameters. The following lines express it best; they were printed in French on every notebook at the Ashram school and we often recited them in the mornings before starting the day: 'It is not for our family, it is not to secure a good position, it is not to earn money, it is not to obtain a diploma, that we study. We study to learn, to know, to understand the world, and for the sake of the joy that it gives us.' (The Mother)

Because this approach is not a utilitarian mentality, it is rare to find it anywhere else in the world, and I believe it to be the foundation of the education system of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. This is what Auroville needs to give the space for. And if children decide that they want something else, that's also okay. But at least this possibility is there.

And then the question of how to go about it arises. If, for example, the parents want their child to become a musician, and if I were to get financial remuneration for my classes, and if that child would be stuck on the same lesson for two years, that would be a problem in the outside world. But here it can be an opportunity. I had a student like that, and I could have given him a medal for his perseverance, because he wanted to keep trying to play the same piece for years. His goal wasn't to become a skilled player; he just wanted to put his fingers on the piano and play. And that's enough for me. In this situation, if the parents felt that they are paying so much money for the classes, they would want to know if he is going to become a pianist. And in this case, I would have to say, no. But this would take away from this child the opportunity to hammer on those keys and to let his fingers dance, which was maybe something important for him. Maybe it was a yoga of the fingers, because if you hit one key and you are meditating on that key, it becomes the whole universe, in that silence.

This is a very Eastern mentality, which by the way, gave birth to the 'zero'. Because that emptiness is everything. This mentality is fundamental for me, and from this place of joy, this child wants to do it.

It's difficult if the society around you does not give you this possibility. In the West, for a teacher not to spoil his reputation, he would have to select only the students who will succeed. And then these students would be forced to do certain things in a certain way, within a specific timeframe, as it was for me at Oberlin. Although I enjoyed studying abroad, I sometimes wonder if it was a good choice for me. With the system of teaching there, the examinations and merit-based scholarships, you become good at memorising only what gives you a good grade. There is very little room to explore things, take them apart, go beyond the set requirements. By having spent time in that system, I feel that I lost the opportunity to learn certain things in a deeper and more meaningful way. Maybe the space to be unsuccessful allows you to go deeper and more truly into your search, especially when you realise how little you know and how not good you are, you allow yourself to become truly open to something else.

When I was 14, I also became career-oriented. I wanted to become a concert pianist, and I lost a lot of that joy of making music from the previous years because suddenly, someone told me that I need to make my music ‘perfect’ and produce results. Even here in Auroville sometimes the parents interfere by saying things such as ‘What are you going to do? You’re already old enough, you have to go to a conservatory, don’t waste your time, I don’t see any progress’. But that’s how progress works, it’s like a frozen river; there is a current that is ever flowing under that still surface, and at some point, there will be a breakthrough. That applies to both my students and me. And I don’t approach my students as students. I consider that they are knowledgeable in their regard, and that they are in control of their world. So they have that chance to discover things for themselves. There are techniques they will have to learn, but maybe they can do that with their own approach. So I try to see where they want to go, and never take the attitude that I know more than them. If I want them to discover something new that I don’t know, I can’t impose on them the ways that I’ve explored myself. So I push them to discover their own path. Like with rock climbing, you can teach them how to climb a rock. But if they follow your every step, they will not discover a new path on the mountain. And because I want them to forge their own path and make new pieces of music, I encourage them to be creative right from the start. That is why most of my students also compose right from the start. They compose things to be creative, as this is an art in itself.

I also notice how my teaching style evolves over the years. It went from systematic, to completely free, to knowing exactly what are the things that need to be taught, so that the students are perfectly equipped with the best tools to keep exploring themselves. I always tell them that they are colleagues of mine.

But the parents have to be very careful not to impose their ways. They should of course support and nurture the child, and give them all the possible opportunities, but without telling them what they ought to do. I always tell my students they shouldn’t be trying to please me, they should become responsible for their own progress and growth. This is the beauty of it, they should not want authority from somebody else, they should never accept that.

What is most precious to you?

What is most precious to me is that there is something wonderful behind everything. And if that does not exist, then nothing is worth living for. One can express it through music, through other means, or through nothing even, simply by existing. That is what Sri Aurobindo and The Mother bring me towards. They connect me with ‘that’. It’s such a simple answer but it is an extremely difficult thing to do. In my compositions I’m mostly interested in seeing if I can make the piece connect directly to what is most important in life to me, that ultimate Ananda, that joy, that beauty. You can feel it, this is what art should be able to create. I’ve started composing in a way that is new to me, trying to find out how much of ‘that’ can be translated into a form that you can experience. But we are constrained by rules of the material plane, and I have no idea what these rules are. I’m trying to see how much the mind can help and allow things, or block them.

For Sri Aurobindo to manifest Savitri, a very good knowledge of English was necessary. So maybe when translating that source into musical sounds, to convey that thing of beauty and harmony which one can hear in Savitri, it has to take a form that has these material rules. And then the question remains of how to not crush it with the mental rules. Some musicians talk about spontaneity. When I’m spontaneous on the piano some nice things come out, but mostly, your fingers go into patterns that they have already learned, and that have become instinctive.

Even when you’re improvising, there are rules. With a raga, for example, the rules help bring out its essence. If you change something or break the rules, the essence is lost, as if you were smelling a rose, and suddenly, it becomes a jasmine. The beauty of the rose is that it’s so quintessentially itself in all of its elements. The same happens with music, it has a fragrance, it appears to follow logical principles. It’s a constant exploration to see how inspiration can take form within these logical structures. To follow these structures while composing, I created formulas that wouldn’t let me fall into a pattern where my ears are pleased only with what they are familiar with. I want to create something that my ear says ‘yes!’ to. And sometimes, suddenly it’s like a completely new sound to me.

In February last year, I experimented during the Auroville birthday week. I spent nearly 100 hours on something that turned out to be completely useless. So then I just put it aside, because I was falling into patterns of hearing that were already familiar. These things have a specific place in history and in the evolution of music, which I wasn’t interested in developing. Instead, I focus on what is behind. At the present time in Auroville, that’s all that matters.

And that ties right back into what you said about success and society’s expectations…

I always thought that there should be a university of failures. Failure takes away the pressure of pretending to be something one is not, and it also allows one to be more true and humble. This is indispensable to be able to connect to others and to the essence of life. If you were to tell a child: ‘You need to fail at the piano’. What would they do? Maybe they would discover a new world? We already know where the trodden path goes. But a different way of doing things can connect us to that world, where you can always be in contact with that emotion of the Beyond, that incredible Ananda that unifies everything. We’re so lucky to be surrounded by so much of that here. But even in a place where there are only concrete buildings, it’s all still there. The idea that you’re breathing ‘it’, simply that you ‘are’ breathing… That is the essence, a life force of love and joy, our hearts wouldn’t be beating if it weren’t for that. As artists and musicians we don’t often live up to that, and it makes me wonder, what are we aiming for then?

Often I find that the first thing I need to learn is to eliminate myself. I’m not aiming for personal pleasure, but for something completely different. Personal pleasure has a place, but it is a small one. But one also can’t be arrogant or feel superior because of this. Rather feel that one is incapable of anything. And in some cases, I look back at a composition of mine and am surprised by the beauty of it, because I know that I would be incapable of composing such a piece ordinarily. And then you realise that there is something else, and it is not just something unconscious. It’s not an automatism, because that is the first thing that gets eliminated when you study, so that you are paying attention to things you were never paying attention to before. And those things that once mattered, suddenly don’t anymore. You’re not even thinking what’s next, you’re just there. And suddenly, the whole world comes out of one single note. And you know it, and you’re just paying attention to where it wants to go, what it wants to do…