Hastamudra

Shivpuri Colony

Varanasi

The stomping of Kanchan’s feet transports me back to my 17-year old being. Kanchan is my landlady. She is an accomplished Bharat Natyam dancer, teacher, and incidentally has a masters in music from BHU, as well as training in conflict resolution and political science.  She moves her hands perfectly, reflexively gesturing with one of the 28 mudras, or hand gestures, used in classical Natya, or dance.  She is an elegant, beautiful lady, and her laugh is captivating.

Dhai. Dhai.  She demonstrates. Her feet hit the ground evenly, creating a gentle but thunderous clap that is practiced and perfect.  I wander back to the pink mosaic-tiled floor of Jhorna-di, my teacher in Kolkata, and her demands that we place our feet properly to get the requisite sound. After one week of steady practice, I had learned how to sit on my haunches and pound my feet for the even thunder that is strong.

Kanchan smiles and explains the asanjukta hastadimudras.  Asanjukta means unjoined, or in this case, a single hand.  Hasta means hand and mudras are hand gestures.  

She tells the first, Hast-bhinaya (hah-stah-bin-a-yah), hand gesture. Pahtaka
(Pah-tah-kah) is the most basic position and has many uses: a flag, rain, a shower of flowers, cutting, pride, patting the arm, happiness, cutting a creeper.  Depending on the pointing of the fingers, different meanings are indicated.

Written as early as 100BCE, the NatyaShastra is the earliest known dance text and is designed in its 36 chapters to cover all aspects of medieval dramaturgy - dance, music, acting, costumes, stage construction and many other theatrical techniques. There are slokas that teach us each of the hand postures, their meanings and their uses.

Kanchan, who I now will call Bou-di, demonstrates the Utpalapadma, or Sola-padma, the full blown lotus.  Her lotuses are perfect. My hands, 30 years later, require some practice to remember what they knew so well.  The gesture enquires, 'who are you?', or indicates emptiness of information. The gesture is made by imagining you are encircling the underside of a watermelon. 

There are more to learn, she promises.  In time, I will show you them all.  Mridula, the protagonist of the novel I am completing, awaits… with open hands.

Forces of Nature

Shivpuri Colony
Lanka, Varanasi

Tonight I ate my dinner by moonlight. It was very romantic. Amid pearly clouds in a pitch dark sky, the moon dazzled, pleased to be of use.  This ambience was created by the eight hours of load shedding daily. Load shedding is the Bengali-English “Banglish” term for black-out, where the city decides to turn off the electricity to certain parts of the city in sequence for 1-2 hours, in order to shed the load of need for electricity.

In Benaras, one learns that electricity is a luxury, not a necessity, for life continues even without it.  One learns what is really important, how to time activities with the forces of nature and utilize light, wind, water, soil and sound in ways that support one’s needs. 

Life becomes very purposeful. It slows down to the pace of conscious accomplishment of small things, like having clean water and having a clean place to bathe.  One learns when to keep doors closed to keep out mosquitoes at sunset, and when to open the doors at sunrise to let in the breeze.  One knows to wash clothes in early morning if the sun is shining, and to shelter them on the verandah if there are cloudy skies. One knows not to hang clothes indoors because the dampness attracts mosquitoes. We sweep the window sills, then the furniture, then the floors in the morning after the cool air becomes warm, when the doors and windows close to shelter the room from the oncoming blistering heat.  We cover our beds to keep dust from settling, and we wash dishes immediately to keep ants – and in my case, monkeys – away.

What is impressive is that despite all these challenges, ambitious and intellectual people are accustomed to accomplishing what they need without letting the need for comforts get in their way.  They keep laziness at bay. Professors will teach class and delve into the material despite sweaty eyebrows and no AV aids. Doctors will see patients, in the heat of a crowded room, using only sunlight to guide their examinations. Sellers will sell their vegetables, and porters will port their packages.  Life moves forward, due to the amazing willforce of man that we call survival of the fittest.

Got Milk?

Lanka, Varanasi

Uttar Pradesh

Early in the morning, the naughty cows and bulls dance in the nearby forest of the Aaj House, bellowing their love tunes. Anyone sleeping with windows open will hear their calls.  In the morning rush hour traffic, cow, bulls, buffalos, and oxen move into the streets, as the traffic slows and is not as dangerous for them as the night-riders are.  People very respectfully drive around the cows, taking time not to touch them or provoke them.  An occasional servant will throw a basket of leaves, peels, and skin over the side of a rooftop, or out a window into a grassy pitch below, knowing this is a buffet for come bovine passer-by.

In this land of roaming cows, I have finally gotten my first glass of fresh, undiluted, non-GMO, non-Bovine Growth Hormone –injected, non-homogenized, non-pasteurized, non-“enriched with Vitamin A and D,” non-reconstituted milk.  It has a cream layer on top, is always drunk warm, and has a rich, sweet taste.  It is real M-I-L-K.

I have a lot to say about milk.

My father was a veterinarian, and we grew up with fresh, unadulterated milk. For several years of my life, cows lived upstairs from our penthouse on the roof. My mother would walk upstairs twice daily for a fresh supply and fill us with every possible recipe that can be made with milk. 

Milk, however, is villified in the USA. Vegans retort, “milk is for baby cows, not baby humans.” People are anti-milk and have created an industry of soy milk, rice milk, almond milk to replace their favorite dishes.  Many doctors tell patients they have milk allergy, or casein (milk protein) allergy and forever forbid them from the land of dairy, throwing in eggs somehow (?!) in that calculation.  

It is not the milk that is causing the problem. It is processing of the milk and our treatment of the cow. 

Ayurveda has great wisdom about how, when, and why to drink milk, but in its Sanskrit sutra, Ayurvedic wisdom is not yet accessible to westernized Indians and people in the West.
Pure cow milk provides Lactobacillus, bacteria that are symbiotic and healthy for humans. These bacteria can survive a soft boil and they are one of the best things that can come to reside in your gut.  The biochemistry of our gut and vaginal microbiome depends on the molecules produced by the Lactobacillus species which trigger cell-signaling pathways for absorption of nutrients.  

What does pasteurization do then to these little friendly critters? It explodes them with the sudden increase and decrease in temperature, allowing fast-forming water crystals to pierce their walls, leaving carcasses of Lactobacilli throughout the milk.  Of course, this happens with all the bacteria – good and bad – that are in the milk.  So the immunologist in me wonders how all these antigens and dead bacteria floating in my milk can be good for my immune system.

Ayurveda says milk is not to be drunk raw, … or hyper-heated. It is not to be combined with other cows’ milk; it is to be soft-boiled; ginger is to be added when a person has low digestive fire; turmeric is to be added when anti-inflammatory effects are required; and buttermilk made from yogurt is the best relative of milk and the best for medicinal effects in healing the gut.   

The proper pathway of making milk products is milk–>yogurt–>buttermilk–>butter–>ghee. 
There are many, many rules for how to use milk as a nutrient and as a curative medicine….  
 
When made properly, milk boosts Ojas (~immunity) the fastest of any substance, because it seems, our immune system responds to the cow antibodies quite well. I have been using home-made yogurt and buttermilk “takra”  to help people cure themselves of IBS for years. Cream is an instant coolant and soother for bites, bumps and boils; Ayurvedic energetics says it is not the temperature of the milk, but the inherent property of pure milk that makes it cool the body. 

The problem today is that we are processing milk in all kinds of ways without questioning its utility. Yes, Mr. Khurian of Amul used mass production and factory farming to help end starvation and Vitamin D-deficiency diseases.  But the techniques were developed without respecting Ayurveda’s wisdom, respecting animals, and before modern industry and medicine knew about the role of the gut microbiome.  With the new tyrannical farm laws in the USA, consumers cannot even report on the treatment of cows, the conditions of factory farms, and attitudes in farming. Beyond criticism, the cow lobby is now free to torture cows and feed their parts to other animals. In addition, one hundred years after these techniques are creating millions of jobs and supporting crores^ of people, noone wants reform and injection of new knowledge.  

The Ayurvedists are too quiet and too late.

If we really believe in evidence-based medicine, we should do a real study of what is left behind in the milk when it is pasteurized and homogenized and pooled with 10,000 other cows’ milk! We should also study what happens when we add sugar as a “natural” preservative.  Ayurveda’s pharmaceutic division, the field of Bhaisajya Kalpana, tells us how to cultivate, process, and store milk so that it remains therapeutic.  We could design a study and test the effects.  However, some dairy lobby will suppress the evidence.

Ayurveda believes in **practice-based** evidence, watching millions of people over thousands of years, drinking the products of milk that are properly cultivated and produced, and not suppressing the evidence. In America, studies have been done to show that homogenization of milk makes it difficult for the human gut and liver to separate the fat properly into an HDL, and thus it goes into an LDL. This physiology, mechanism and connection of homogenization to atherosclerosis and heart disease is well-known, but suppressed. 

Ayurvedic vaidyas don’t even get involved anymore in the argument of new techniques, because their clinical evidence is so strong that they don’t need to prove anything to anyone. They quietly go home, and drink their milk and feed their children and make their medicines only from pure milk.  If they are kind vaidyas, they bring you milk-sweets once in a while.
If you REALLY want to understand milk, go sit quietly in front of one of them, and l-i-s-t-e-n. 

You may see then that what we are drinking in most urban areas in the world is cow poison, not MILK.


^1 crore = 10 million

Core strength

Kashi-bashis (those who live/baaśh in Kashi/Varanasi) have an amazing sense of balance.  Their awareness on the streets and on vehicles is like bees moving around a beehive, carefully avoiding others while attending to their own tasks efficiently.

It is inspiring to see the confidence and elegance with which people manage themselves on two-wheelers.  ‘Two-wheelers’ in Kashi refer to motorcycles and scooters.  Most every woman knows how to ride side-saddle, holding a week’s shopping, two or three children, infants, and sometimes maneuvering a piece of luggage between her and the driver. Most everything can be transported in Kashi on a two-wheeler: furniture, bicycles, huge bags of linens, hardware, 20 Liter water bottles, and of course, an entire happy family of five or six members.  No helmets, no frozen gapes of shock. Just the dance of Varanasi traffic and a gratitude that the road is open. They are at peace with, and at one with, the environment. And in fact, they are safer per capita and per journey than in America.

This awesome balance is perhaps because daily life requires maneuvering that actively involves the thighs and core muscles of the abdomen. Most Varanasi toilets still require squatting for daily ablutions while facing north.   Hindu mythology also actively mentions the importance of thighs: Bhim had thighs that destroys his enemies in battle. Humans in the West pay good money to “strengthen their abs,” funding well-developed new industries of pilates, home gyms, countless home exercise gadgets, modified and trademarked yoga lines that emphasize core strength, as well as tummy toners, surgery specials, and belly blasters.  In the meantime, Kashi bashis just live daily life, getting on and off two-wheelers.

One weekend I venture to Delhi, whose traffic had shocked me years ago as I wove through streets with no sense of lanes, little respect about direction of traffic, and a variety of vehicle types and paces.  Now, it seems in comparison like orderly movement, and I have to think hard to distinguish it from New York traffic. It gives me confidence as I pull out the key to my new Honda scooter and attach it to my keychain, as I tighten my core muscles.

rupang dehi jayang dehi

As the day awakens, the skies remain a gainsboro gray, from Cyclone Phailin spinning its web of karma 600 km southeast of this fortress city on the Ganges. Gentle rains continue to drizzle on the lush green trees that live for the winds from the Ganga. The temperature is pleasant for me at 24C/75F.   Shankhs and pujas continue to resound through the cool air, as Durga puja mantras pepper the breezes that come wafting across my drenched marble verandah.

Today is Vijaya Dashami, when it is time to give Durga to visharjan and let her melt away. 

Chandipat

One of the books forbidden for handling by us when we were little, with our constantly soiled playful hands, was the Chandipat. It lay quietly in its fierce red cover, in our altar room, lined with its many pictures, all icons of the facets of our inner selves, my mother told us.  One sister loved the long-haired, lovely Lakshmi, sitting on her lotus throne, pouring gold from her hands; she is now an epidemiologist and consultant living near Malibu. My baby sister mused at the elephant god, humming Henry Mancini’s Baby Elephant Walk when she could barely walk herself; she now removes obstacles as a family lawyer. Another sister loved Shiva, with his fountain of water, his meditative pose and view of the Universe, and his comfort in sitting still til it was time to act; she is now an astrophysicist.   But I loved Durga.

Nava-ratri

The nine nights of Navratri (nava=nine or new, ratri=night), celebrated in some parts of India, are also known as Durga Navratras or Ashwain Navratras, as they are observed during the Hindu month of Ashwin, from mid-September-mid-October.  Navratri is divided into three sets of three days to adore three different aspects of the Supreme Goddesses: Durga as Kali, as Lakshmi and as Saraswati. The first three days she manifests as the spiritual force of Kali, to destroy our impurities. The second three days, she is adored as the giver of spiritual wealth, Lakshmi: true spiritual wealth has the power of bestowing those devoted to Spirit with inexhaustible material wealth because they learn how to transmute energy into matter.  The final three days are spent worshipping Saraswati, the symbol of wisdom, which is steady and triumphs all evils. To have well-rounded success in life, we must look inside and develop all three aspects of the Divine feminine.

During Navratri, especially Durgāshtami, one can achieve very high energy fields if worship of shakti is done properly. This includes fasting with only fruits and clean water, ingestion of sattvic foods that will allow one’s energies and chakras to flow smoothly.  During these nine nights, Durga will give special attention to ghosts and spirits, resolving their ignorance and darkness and transforming them into good things.

Narrated in ‘Devi Kavacha’ of the Chandipatha scripture, the nine names of goddess Durga are Shailaputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmānda, Skanda-mata, Katyayani, Kaalratri, and Mahagauri, and Siddhidatri.  The 9 Durga forms celebrated are the symbols of the 9 powers we have within. These 9 incarnations are worshipped during Nav-ratri and symbolize strength, austerity/brahmacharya, awareness, sacrifice, simplicity, knowledge, fearlessness, patience and seva(service to others).

 ❧  

The Echo of Ashta Bindu

Every time another scientist or physician writes about man’s new discoveries of medical science, I stop to wonder why Sanskrit-knowing Ayurvedic physicians remain quiet. 

Do they not live on this planet? Why do they remain unwilling to reveal to the world that evidence validating these ‘new’ discoveries were written 2000+ years earlier by Caraka or Sushruta using metaphors of nature, and keen observation of jungle animals, patients, and livestock?  

Prevention is not the best Cure.

BHU, Varanasi

The head of one of the departments is engaged in a deep debate with me about the value of Ayurveda. He decidedly states that Ayurveda is only preventative, but cannot intervene on diseases: that is why modern medicine has succeeded and is superior.

It is a well-paved argument, one I was taught at Columbia and Harvard: the power of modern medicine is in its speed and scientific precision.  He cites the advent of antibiotics as the cure-all since WWII.  His colleague is seated with us, did a fellowship in New York, and willfully agrees.  

They discuss fever and diabetes. “You will have to admit that paracetamol (aka acetaminophen/Tylenol) works much faster than anything we have in Ayurveda. When you cannot wait for the fever to come down, you have to get it down. If my son has an exam tomorrow and he develops fever in the night, I can’t risk him taking Ayurveda which will take 2 days to take effect. Paracetamol will have his fever down in 2 hours, and then he can take his exam. This is the way of modern life.”

Indeed. Modern life.  The long term effects of paracetamol are not cited, but the short-term action is celebrated.  I ponder, as I cannot deny his truth. 

“And there are no drugs in Ayurveda to lower blood sugar. Modern medicine uses insulin very effectively to lower blood sugar, quickly and effectively.”  My mind echoes the same thought: what is happening to the body while we are precipitously countering its actions and reactions, pretending to understand its ecosystem by analyzing a few molecules and proposing a mechanism? 

I pause, waiting for my turn for rebuttal. The rules of academics in India require that we listen and never debate with persons much senior than ourselves.  The Fulbright faculty status has exempted me for these months: I am allowed, expected to engage in debate, in the activity of “faculty interactive discussions.”

As I begin to cite some biochemical mechanisms, patient cases, and some Ayurvedic roga nidana (pathophysiology), he rocks suddenly in his chair, calls abruptly for tea, and stops the conversation.  It is an indication, another indication that when someone is ready to hear, only then can he hear.   I politely leave, actively engaged in this example the Universe has provided for debate. I have to get sharper, more deep, more able.  Down the marble steps, I walk across the length of the yellow-painted megalith, pondering.  Are there really no drugs in Ayurveda for fever and for diabetes?

The issue is diagnosis and keen observation and examination. All the clues are there and only need to be perceived accurately. This requires that we have a still mind, acutely clean senses.  There are many modalities in the ecosystem of Ayurveda: herbs, surgery, metal medicines, pranayama, mantra, gemstones, marma, yoga, ahara (diet), lifestyle,….  The most potent, according to the wisemen, is Pathya, or appropriate and clean intake of food.   Diet is not only what you eat. It also includes where the food comes from, how it is cultivated, how it is prepared. The detail required to teach this to each and every patient is what prevents Ayurvedic doctors from doing it, well. 

Vrana-ropana^

Around the corner from the expansive, dilapidated Ayurvedic Hospital is a courtyard made of sand leading like a ghat to three new marble stairs. Inside the wrought-iron accordion gate at the top is an entry hall freshly-painted, covered on one wall with a beautiful mural of Ayurvedic surgery, and as elegant as any Manhattan office building …. except ….. that it is teeming with people in every corner,

A rusted, L-shaped wheel jack handle

One of the professors in our department sends out articles from time to time.
Usually they are on metals, or policies in Ayurveda.  Sometimes they discuss health care.

But today, he sent out a link to a column that gnawed at me very deep inside. It was a blog of a guy discussing his intentions to teach his growing child how to look at women. 

Plays Well With Others

Annual Teachers Day
BHU, Lanka, Varanasi

Since I can remember, my aunts and uncles have been arguing with each other and with my mother, vowing never to speak again with each other, over important issues such as colors of cars, and lending money, and who took who to America. The tiffs have lasted for decades among the siblings, but never with my mother.  They will argue and insult her. She will forgive them. They will come running back, calling her as though nothing had happened and forgetting their shame of bad behaviors. 

My mother is my biggest Teacher. She forgives them for all their petty hang-ups, biases, lies and blasphemic vows, and she embraces them again and again.  

living.... simple

Ganga-ji arrived at our doorstep and entered that day. (This means that the river flooded and moved inward onto the streets, and into the land, and into our homes!)

We saw water rising suddenly on Sunday around 7am. It focused on the forests around the house, and the park. But mainly it filled the street that led directly to the Ganga, as though she had decided to talk a walk and come to our houses.

To Clean or Not To(o) Clean

Shivpuri Colony

near BHU, Varanasi

I am on house arrest.  Not only from leaving India (Fulbright contract does not permit grantees to leave during the grant) but from leaving my house.  Since yesterday, the waters of Mother Ganga have moved inward and now they have come past my doorstep to the first step up.  Floods happen. In this part of Varanasi, the last huge flood that entered into homes here was twelve years ago.

Ganga-ji

Shivpuri Colony
Lanka, Varanasi

My morning tea was accompanied today by a smile and “Ganga-ji aaye!” Respected Ganga has come.  I replied, “Kya matlab?” What does that mean?
The house butler walked over to the edge of the veranda, beckoning me with his eyes.  Two stories below, the water was filling the streets, travelling steadily inward. It was now waist-deep outside our house walls.
I am glad I refused to take a ground-floor apartment.
Apparently, this last happened over ten years ago. Noone knows why she comes to visit our doorstep. It did not rain profusely upstream or here. 

The Reyaaz of Tabla

Shivpuri Colony
Lanka, Varanasi

The waft of the taal of tabla spills tears from my heart suddenly as I am washing the dishes from lunch in this intense breezeless heat in my open-air kitchen.  The house next door, or someone living below, is a musician.  He is practicing a tekha, with the same rhythm playing again and again in cycles of 16. The bayan is soft and accompanies the darts of the tabla, pulling me back to an all-night spontaneous concert by drunken Ustad Shahid Pervez and Pandit Kumar Bose a decade ago, in the living room of a student settled in the foggy hills of Jharkhand.

The tabla is a percussion instrument, created by stretching cowskin over a conical cylindrical frame of teak and rosewood, and securing it with leather stitches.  A central black area, called the syahi, is created with flour and iron fillings, rubbed with stone onto the skin, and placed slightly off-center to give it different tones. The brass or copper drum, larger and more round, is called the bayan, baya meaning left. The tabla was introduced only recently in the 1300s by polymath Amir Khusro and popularized in the courts of the kings to add a rhythmic sensuality to voice, sitar, or dance. 

Music is an integral part of Bengali and Benarasi culture. It is rare for a family not to have some member who cultivates music.  In my family, my mother sang Rabindrasangeet, my father played violin, my sisters played flute, my niece the clarinet. I believe I was cursed in an earlier life: I am surrounded by music but have yet been unable to maintain proficiency. My flute of life has too many odd holes to hold a tune.  Krishna’s disappointment in me in obvious. 

The tabla continues to beat over the hot afternoon air as I head back to the office for afternoon classes. When I return in the early evening, after a strong rain has flooded the streets, he is still practicing, the sign of a strong reyaaz.  My many musician friends who came to Benaras to devote a portion of their life to authetic study share their stories of daily 8-10 hours of practice.  This is the way of reyaaz:   dedication and discipline, living the adage that practice brings perfection.

Diplomatic Pouch

Shivganga Express
Train from Delhi to Varanasi

The lull of the train rocked me through a strong eight hours of sleep. I had awakened at my usual 4:30, but the cabin was full of snoring neighbors which lulled me back to silence and a three extra hour doze.  Aakri, the end of the month of Sravan, is celebrated in Benaras today with pujas and rituals of color. As I make my way back to Lanka, I smile. My trip to Delhi was eventful and productive, but I am excited to be home.  My workout after a long, lazy night on the train is to lug 2 suitcases and 4 boxes of books that arrived by diplomatic pouch to the Delhi Fulbright office to my rooftop apartment.  Hansraj arrives and smiles and easily lifts the last 40lb box up to the room, as I stand with sweat on my brow, determined that my biceps and core muscles should look more like his. 

My books complete the apartment and make it mine. There is a sense of guidance and mentorship I feel with the books here.  My elders are with me.

Rain and Raga

Delhi

The rain starts around 4:45pm, and I am due at Gita’s home by 5pm. I call to say I will arrive from the 30 minute drive a few minutes late. At 5:30pm, the rain is not stopping, and Sachin, my expert Delhi driver, is weaving past soaked auto-rickshaws, mopeds, bicycles, drenched cows, motorcycles, SUVs, and other cars. At 6pm, we encounter a HUGE traffic jam, and 25 minutes later inch past a fallen tree with a live electrical wire soaking in a large lake of roadside water, which people are slowly traversing with great care. A large-bellied executive is standing knee deep in his white collar, volunteering and directing the one-lane passage and 5 lanes of awaiting traffic until officials can arrive.  I feel very pleased to see an MP with a twirling red light sitting in his car helpless, and can only fantasize his electric execution if he were to push ahead like a bulldozer into the wires, as he does in his daily corrupted life of activities.

We pass the crowds and slowly edge toward Gita. She knows there is no time for a leisurely Saturday evening dinner, and she hastily enters the car as we turn back for a drive through the waterways to the India Habitat Centre, where she has tickets for the four-day concert celebration of India’s independence. 

We settle into seats, slightly drenched and entirely humidified, and wait for the air-conditioning to suck the extra water from our bodies.  Both of us love Indian classical music. We have made the effort, as is customary, to create the proper ambience for imbibing this medicinal music of the Ragas by dressing sensuously. She is in a Madhubala printed kameez, and I am wearing a simple khadi kurta and lots of jewels. 

We arrive amidst the alap, the first interface of one’s being with something in the Universe. Alap is the term “First Contact” from Star Trek.  Hindustani vocalist Bharathi Prathap is giving us parichay with the raga she will be singing. The alap is sensuous and still, yet quaking in its eagerness to be seen.  We are called to the green room to meet my friend, so we take a quick escape from the main hall, and arrive behind the stage, only to hear the vocalist even more resound and colorful.  In the green room, several people are crowded around the reyaaz of Tejendra-Narayan Mazumdar and Mohammed Akram Khan.  We greet him then return to our seats voyeuristically during the intense jhal or climax of the vocalists.

Mazumdar is probably the best sarodist today, technically and in character. Several other sarodists are on the scene, but most of them use politics and other nefarious techniques to edge others out. Mazumdar just plays.  His technique is excellent, and his hands precise. Like an auctioneer that can keep each sound distinct when announcing bids at miles a second, Mazumdar keeps his notes clean, with no reverberations or echoes on the strings, which one can commonly see in other sarodists during the jhal. 

With a polite introduction, he plays four pieces, of which one is Raga Jhinjhoti. One can visit http://www.itcsra.org/sra_others_samay_index.html and get a nice introduction to the Ragas and when to play each.  Jhinjhoti is a raga for late night, but can be played at any time. It captures the essence of warmth and exudes a magic that envelops the room.

Mazumdar and I are connected by sound. His wife, a PhD in music and current principal of Bengal Music College, is a scholar and a singer.  He and I have been discussing the ragas intimately for years, as I try to feel a world in which deep secret medicinal magic is locked.  Mazumdar has some working knowledge of the medicinal effects and tries to converse in these terms, awkwardly trying to speak a hybrid language from his native tongue of fingers on strings.   
He and I are bonded from one reyaaz on a late night in Calcutta in 2010, when I witnessed him develop a few notes, inspired by my stories of love, aspiration and longing for Ayurveda. The way he interpreted my heart and played it on the strings bonded us, as I knew he knew that I knew what it is to be lonely yet entirely fulfilled. He played it for me and my long-lost love, who was in the room. Of course, destitute-hearted people will interpret such intimacies inappropriately, but the land of music knows what was shared.

Mazumdar continues into the alap of the last piece. I see people move to the edge of their seats, some sit rocking with eyes closed, some are tapping feet, hands, shoulders.  Everyone is affected.  In India, expression of the audience is part of the energy of the room and contributes to the live piece. In contrast, western classical music captures and recaptures sequences of notes created by dead people long ago: the audience reflects it.  At the end of the jhal, Gita takes a deep breath, “Wow.” 

We enter the cool, wet, post-rain evening, look at the moon as it moves toward fullness, and drive home through sweat-filled streets.