Waxing Lyrical

Kiran Ahluwalia’s ghazals have a lot of Western influence, including a harmonic structure based on jazz and Western classical music, writes Mathures Paul

Born in India and brought up in Toronto, Kiran Ahluwalia is a musician who doesn’t resist Western music from influencing her vocal style. A trained exponent of the ghazal, she finds inspiration in the poetry of Indian and Pakistani poets living in Canada. After giving us albums like Kashish: Attraction and Wanderlust, she is once again in the studio recording her next effort. In an exclusive interview to The Statesman.

As a student of Vithal Rao in what ways do you implement his lessons in your projects?
I learned ghazal gaayaki from him ~ basically how to sing a ghazal. Vithal Rao is a maestro and so he doesn’t really have a method of teaching. He simply sings for you and it is up to you to ask and learn what you can. I also learned many things about composition but I am not able to articulate these in words ~ they are more intrinsic ~ they are things you learn just by having spent so time listening to your teacher. Vithal Rao ji is my ghazal guruji. I received my Indian classical training from Padma Talwalkarji in Mumbai.

When you were studying Indian classical vocal music, did you ever think of moving towards other forms of music?
I started studying Indian classical music in order to be a better singer of ghazal and Punjabi folk song. My parents both had a passion for ghazal and also film and folk songs. They had both studied Indian classical music so they knew the benefits of training. They are the ones who first got me started in music when I was about seven in India. Then we moved to Canada in the 1970s where they found an Indian music teacher for me in Toronto. After I completed my Bachelors at the University of Toronto (in International Relations), I came back to India to study music full time.

The going is tough for classical musicians in India. While a student of music in India, did uncertainty bother you?
Not really. When I was studying music in India ~ first in Mumbai and then in Hyderabad, I never thought I would be able to make a career out of it ~ especially since my permanent residence was in Canada. For more than ten years I kept returning to India to study music full time for long periods of time ~ and I did this purely because it was what I wanted to do. I didn’t really think about where it was going to take me. I would stay in India for a year to do music and then go back to Canada and work for a year and save money only to come back to India and spend it all on another year of music.
In 2000 I released my first commercial CD Kashish: Attraction. I thought that after the CD was done I would return to work of another nature. But the CD brought me to the attention of a manager, an agent and radio stations in Canada. These three things helped me launch a career even before I had a chance to map things out. I’m so thankful it happened that way.

Ghazal or folk music has a spiritual link. How important is spirituality in your music?
Spirituality is important in my life. Sometimes it informs my compositions and my choices but at other times I am influenced by totally different things. In terms of my music ~ the importance of spirituality is up to the listener. If listeners find a spiritual connection with my compositions that’s great but there are many other types of connections that are equally valid.

While collaborating, what is that particular thing/aspect you look forward to in other musicians’ works that attracts you?
I simply have to like the aesthetic of a certain type of music to want to include it in my own Indian style of music. In my latest CD, Wanderlust, there is an underlying current of harmonic structure coming from jazz and Western classical music. Beyond that, I fell in love with Portuguese fado and African trance grooves. I liked all these and composed my songs in ways that would make it possible to embrace these styles. I recorded with Portuguese musicians in Lisbon and with African musicians in Toronto.
In terms of my philosophy, I think it is harder and harder to find cultural purity; in food, art, technology and in our very beings we are influenced by things outside of our geographic borders and our cultural heredity ~ Bollywood music itself and so many other aspects of life; of being an Indian in India are influenced by things happening outside India. At the same time, people in other parts of the world are influenced by things in India. The idea of authentic cultural and artistic purity is I think just not valid anymore. Mixing musical styles and ideas certainly speaks to that and embraces the combination of influences already within us.

How do you go about composing songs?
I read a lot of poetry. Poems, both ghazal and folk, are often the lyrics of what I compose. After my first CD, I made an important discovery ~ I found Indian and Pakistani poets living in Canada writing fresh poetry in the ghazal and Punjabi folk genres. A whole new world opened up for me. Instead of having to constantly look back to India and try to find poems in published books, I had hit a spring of fresh poetry in my backyard. The lyrics of many compositions on my second CD, Beyond Boundaries, were penned by Urdu and Punjabi writers living in Canada.

How challenging is it to sing ghazals and folk songs before an audience that primarily features foreigners?
It’s funny that you use the term ‘foreigners’. I was born in India and grew up in Canada and I do identity with Canadian culture ~ I call myself Indian but I also call myself Canadian. Not to call myself Canadian would be to deny the reality of the influences that have shaped me. So to me, Canadians are also ‘my people’ (just like Indians) and not foreigners.
Having said that, the challenge for me is singing ghazal and folks songs to an audience who doesn’t understand the languages that I sing in ~ Urdu and Punjabi. (There are also lots of young Indians in the audience who do not understand any of the Indian languages). I listen to music where I don’t understand the words ~ Portuguese fado, Italian love songs, African grooves with vocals. I connect with the emotion in the music as it is presented as a whole and I think that is what my audience is connecting to.
Also my ghazals are not really traditional ~ they have a lot of Western influence in them including a harmonic structure based on jazz and Western classical music ~ and so for Western audiences there are windows to enter the music.

(To know more about Kiran Ahluwalia, visit www.kiranmusic.com)