From the curator's desk...

Rajan P. Parrikar with nephew Yash and niece Saraswati (Goa, January 2008)

Namashkar.

It is now well-known that only a modest fraction of the recorded music of India's great music masters of yesteryear has been published commercially. A large body of mehfil recordings lies out of public earshot, locked away in the vaults of private collectors or mothballed in the warrens of the Indian government bureaucracy, unavailable to the common rasika. These civilisational treasures ought not to be any individual's fief. Even in the happy instance when a collector is willing to part with his kitty there attends the familiar logjam: copyright and related legalese are a fact of contemporary life. It is, therefore, unlikely that these priceless cultural documents will see the light of day anytime soon. Perhaps in the long run the troves will be pried open and their contents disbursed, but as the great economist John Maynard Keynes famously observed, "in the long run we are all dead." The simple truth contained in Keynes’s apothegm furnishes the imperative for this library.

Our shelves hold excerpts of old recordings, most of them hard-to-find or unpublished. Many of them are documents of live performances and therefore may not have the kind of audio clarity obtained in a studio setting. It is hoped that you will look beyond the uneven, fractured sound, the hiss and other imperfections in the audio quality. For discussions on structural details of the ragas featured here, please refer to the articles in the SAWF Repository.

Our holdings are divided into two areas: the Carnatic wing and the Hindustani wing. V.N. Muthukumar and Dr. M.V. Ramana serve as advisors to our Carnatic section, and with their counsel we look forward to expanding that area.

The SAWF project on Indian Classical Music owes its existence to the indefatigable Anita Thakur. The technical expertise for the entire site, its conception as well as its upkeep, has been generously provided by Vijainder K. Thakur. Romesh Aeri, Dr. Ashok Ambardar, and Dr. Ajay Nerurkar have been steadfast in their support. Of the kindness showered on me by each of these individuals, I shall remain in perpetual appreciation.

Our - your - library takes its name after my mother, Smt. Vijaya Parrikar, whose sacrifices and blessings made it possible for me to study and take delight in music, that "nourishing pasture of both the heart and mind" (the last phrase adapted from Professor John A. Wheeler's essay on Hermann Weyl).

Warm regards,

Rajan P. Parrikar

November 10, 2003
Mountain View, California