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The sound of a soul
Carl Muller meets Sri Lanka’s one and only Sarangi player Indrapala de Silva
The weary itinerant physician made his way through a North Indian forest. The wind was playful and made that soft, sighing sound as the branches bowed. Then he heard the sound - an almost human sound; a singing sound that seemed to call out from the tree before him. Looking up, he saw a length of string, pulsing between two branches. It throbbed and it sang - an eerie music that entranced him.

He realized that the string was a length of intestine, the gut of some arboreal creature: a monkey, to be sure. Climbing, he disentangled the dry but pliant gut and carried it away. Behind him the song ceased.

In his home, the man attached the gut to two wooden blocks, tautened it, then touched it with his fingers. It sang. Excitedly, he obtained two more lengths of gut. He found that the three could make a full-blooded melody. Yet, they each responded in their own voice. He had to make them sing together. Orchestration of tone and tenor could only come with the addition of 'support strings' - brass or copper that could echo as the pitch of the main guts demanded.

It was a time of enthusiastic experimentation. The wooden bridges were lengthened, some strings made finer, some thicker. At length, there were 37 tone carriers and three gut tonal pitches. The sounds were divine, unearthly and called to the listener. It captured the minds of all who heard it. No other instrument could make such an angelic sound - the sound of a fluting, calling apsara. The sarangi was born.

Today, one man in Sri Lanka plays the sarangi. He is W. Indrapala de Silva of Bandaragala Estate, Weuda, in the Kurunegala District. To the initiate, the very sight of the instrument could be disconcerting. It is constructed from a single block of wood, is two and a quarter feet high, hollow-bodied with a one inch thickness at the top and bottom and less than half-an-inch across the body.

A vertical shaft within the belly strengthens the instrument and this 'belly' with its air holes and its waist covered with goat or sheep vellum, is the 'sound box’. The forty strings are affixed to four bone 'bridges'. The player wields a horsehair bow in his right hand and uses the fingers of his left to make the strings sing.

"This," says Indrapala, "is what makes performance on such an instrument so euphonious. It is a complex instrument. You get little drama out of it, but you will get what I could best describe as 'soul-song’. Oh yes, the sarangi has plenty of soul. To hear it is to hear the singing of a soul and, you know, when a soul sings, the universe listens."

In Sanskrit, 'sarangi' means 'spotted deer', and in Hindi it means 'hundreds of colours.'
Indrapala extends the long, lean fingers of his hand. "Do you know how often the foot of each of these nails have bled? Yes, but I kept playing and the blood seeped between my fingers.

My fingering technique was wrong. I didn't realize it then. It was only when I underwent a short period of training under Pandit Ram Narayan of Mumbai that I learnt how the metal strings needed to be controlled. There is a technique. You must use the middle of the nail. The middle finger is used most of all, then the index finger. On rare occasions, the little finger is also used. My introduction to the sarangi was, shall we say, rather painful, but I persevered.

In earlier times, I learned, the sarangi was an accompanying instrument for vocalists, but for a long time thereafter, and especially after the invention of the harmonium, the sarangi, with all its expressiveness, was ignored. As Indrapala explained, the very sound of the sarangi is practically vocal. This put vocalists out of favour with it. Also, there is the task of mastering such an instrument. "That," he said, "is a daunting one."

Indrapala grew up on his father's estate in an atmosphere of song. "My father was managing Dodantalawa Estate, Weuda. He then moved to another estate. There were weekly dinner parties and singing, and I did enjoy those carefree musical evenings. We would go to the temple every Monday and I would listen to the chanting of the priests - the gathas so sonorously sung. I think I was first impressed by those religious cadences. At the Matale Pattini Devalaya I would stay to listen to the Mirindagam playing bell, the timpani and the kovil bell. I could stand alone and voice these sounds.

However, his practical side made him accept the family decision to enroll him in the Technical College, Ratmalana, where he followed machine fitting. He was a member of the band there as well. Music dogged him wherever he went, in whatever he did. When just over 17, he was pressed into service with the 2CLI marching band that was mobilized for the Queen of England's visit in 1953. He played bugle and fife.

Later, when at an exhibition at the Heywood College (now the College of Fine Arts), he met Sangeet Visharad Somadasa Elivitigala who was performing on the sarod. "I was enchanted. I think that was when I made up my mind to really learn music. I applied to Heywood and was accepted in 1956. There, under Dr. Lionel Edirisinghe, I learnt to truly vocalize and began on the rudiments of the sarangi. There were 60 in my class but only five of us passed out in vocals and instrumentals."

It was while he was a senior prefect at the College of Fine Arts that he first came in contact with India's legendary artiste and composer, Ravi Shankar. "It was incredible," Indrapala said. "Ravi Shankar is India's most esteemed musical ambassador and he commands love and respect both in India and in the West."

He learned to play the tamboura under Ravi Shankar and was privileged to accompany him at his recital. Much later, Indrapala organized a sitar concert by Ravi Shankar at the Trinity College Hall, Kandy, the Weerasingham Hall, Jaffna, the Hotel Oberoi and the BMICH, Colombo. The maestro was accompanied by Ustad Alla Rakha on the tabla and Kamala Chakravarti on the tamboura. That was in March 1980.

So much music crammed with sheer perseverance and dedication into one life! Indrapala was selected by Professor Ediriweera Sarachchandra to play the role of King Udayana in the play 'Hastikanta Mantare'. What was so special was the chant - the mantare - which Indrapala rendered with stirring rhythm and strong rhythmic control. "The chant was a highly classical raga and I gave to it all I could," he said.
It is only natural that Indrapala has received so many ardent encomiums.

The Principal of Vidyartha College has spoken effusively of his services as a music teacher to the school for five years... He was also music teacher, Nugawela Central College and also assisted the SLBC in organizing village centres for the recording of Sinhala traditional music and folklore for the Corporation's Music Research archives.
In 1984, Indrapala received an Italian scholarship in Music and Fine Arts and followed a course at the University of Bologna.

He was the first musician from Asia to specialize there in aesthetics, elements of harmony and counterpoint, the ethnology and philosophy of music. Professor Roberto Leydi of the university's Department of Music and Performing Arts was most impressed, and more so because Indrapala successfully took a course in Italian language and literature as well!

This, again, was the man who also composed the lyric that welcomed Pakistan's president Zia- ul-Haq to Sri Lanka in 1985. Soon, Indrapala will be leaving for Mumbai.
He will spend a year at the feet of sarangi virtuoso, Pandit Ram Narayan. Soon, who knows, Sri Lanka will not only have its only sarangi player but one who will also be a true musical ambassador, carrying with his forty strings, the very soul of Sri Lanka's feelings and thoughts!

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