Ravi Shankar at 24fps

Ravi Shankar 1920-2012

I am sitting at my desk with iTunes open and listening to Ravi Shankar.  If you download his music, one track could very easily be over 28 minutes.  That’s a quarter of the time it takes to watch a feature-length film or half of an hour-long documentary.  28 minutes could be a journey, a distance, an entire movement.  If you watch the music instead, it’s a cinematic birth. Maybe it has five acts? There could be a pre-amble, there could be a birth, a death, a walk in the park, voices in the chorus, landscape unfolding from the window of a train, beautiful love making in daylight, exquisite meals happening, contemplations, conversations, dreams, desires of a young man named Apu? Mahatma? dances in the court with the Indian girls, intrigue, murder, intoxications of all kinds and then the denouement, the rest and relaxation, and sleep…for another departure is around the corner.

David Barsamian

I don’t know much about ragas, but David Barsamian does.  You hear his voice on KGNU and 125 other radio stations.  He is the founder and director of “Alternative Radio” and maybe you see him riding his bicycle around town or shopping at Ideal.  He never seems to age. He knows how to listen to a raga and he knows how to talk about it.  Really.  So go to him if you need the facts.  I only have the stories the music can tell me.

Waning Crescent

Ravi passed on December 11 - that was Tuesday this week.  Tuesday was a waning crescent at 4.6% in Scorpio.  The moonrise was at 5:11am and it set at 3:17pm.  They say being born is like the rising sun and dying is like the setting moon.  Ravi was 92.  It’s wonderful to live that long, right? He died in San Diego, California.  Have you ever been to San Diego?  The light is soft and the air is infused with seawater. There are rosemary plants the size of bushes along the sidewalks - unthinkable here in tough-to-grow-rosemary Colorado. Dr. Seuss lived in San Diego.  It is the land of Horton, that famous cat with his hat, and grumpy Grinch. The flora and fauna of San Diego could have easily inspired a doctor like Seuss.  Can’t you see Ravi’s music flowing out of San Deigo, moving 

Lorax Scenery

with the ocean air currents and slowly, magically, growing?  It’s moving across the continent and kissing you with tenderness and planting a story in your mind.  It’s bidding us farewell, for now.

It’s cinematic music. 

I’m not alone in re-imagining his music for the 24fps crowd. Richard Attenborough and Satyajit Ray worked with Ravi and I’m sure Wes Anderson’s “The Darjeeling Limited” has some roots in Ravi.

Ravi was nominated for an Academy Award for his score of Richard Attenborough’s  “Gandhi” in 1982.   He lost to John Williams, for E.T.

Satyajit Ray

He composed the music for Satyajit Ray’s “Apu Trilogy”.  Have you seen these films?  They are so beautiful.  I mean really stunning.  You watch one of his films and feel the tremendous burden of love, death, desire, and peace.  You have the realization that sadness and happiness are a construction.  You will never know the whole story of why.  It is better to be at peace than to struggle.  You are finally allowed to say, with your whole heart, “Everything will be ok, no matter what!”  And that is Ravi’s music too.  

Ravi composed the music for “A Chairy Tale,” which was nominated for an Academy Award for best live action short in 1957.

And of course we all know about the mutual love affair of Ravi and George.  As my sister said in her recent FB status: “The great band in [the] sky keeps gettin' better 'n' better... It's just down here, that it seems a bit empty...”

Ravi, I’ll be listening and watching your music. Peace to you on the journey.