October 2018 13
Ananda Sangbad
Devil Plays Violin | continue from page 12 erotic, and outright immoral. Therefore, Church authorities, as the arbiter of European societies dubbed violin, with its origin in the Middle East as the instrument of the devil. Soon myths relating devil and fiddling started flying. Rumor spread far-and-wide that people who played violin were in tryst with Satan. The first devil or Satan in the biblical texts is the serpent in the Garden of Eden that enticed Adam and Eve to eat the proverbial apple and commit the ‘first sin’ by the humankind. By the middle ages, devil’s imagery became wildly varied and colorful. In depictions after depictions, Satan has horns and forked legs of a mule or a goat, wings and often a tail. In some other images devil is decidedly more monstrous with protruding incisor teeth, multiple heads and often a pitchfork in his hand, depicting the tormentor of sinners in hell. These images are very similar to those of Rakkhowsh-khokowsh, Bhut-Petni, Brahmadotyi of Indian mythology. Even the description of ‘narak’ and tormenting of ‘papi’-s is remarkably similar, as described in the accompanying 14th century French depiction of ‘two souls tortured in hell by demons’. Since violin was the instrument of devil, violinists were often seen as entranced by devil, or devil themselves. Rumor has it that in 1655, after a virtuoso violin-performance by Thomas Balthazar in London, a professor of music in Oxford stooped forward to inspect the feet of the famous German violinist whether they were forked hoofs! Myth about devil plays the fiddle has lasted through the nineteenth century and beyond. Niccolo Paganini was a legendary fiddler of the nineteenth century. He played his violin with an unmatched skill and tonality. Therefore, people often thought that he possessed by Satan. The following description of his performance in London comes directly from Addison Nugent’s article with implicit permission from the author. “The audience should have been filled with hushed excitement that spring night in 1831 at London’s King’s Theatre as they awaited the debut of a renowned violinist. Instead, the air was marked by nervousness and fear. Ladies fanned themselves and glanced over their shoulders, while gentlemen stared fixedly ahead, crossing and uncross-
ing their legs. Their anxiety was born of rumors that had been spreading throughout Europe: Niccolo Paganini, the virtuoso violinist about to perform, was possessed by the devil. The lights dimmed and a tall, hawkish figure dressed in black took the stage. Muffled screams could be heard as Paganini’s slender, grayishwhite fingers grasped the neck of his violin. Then, wielding the bow like a weapon, he attacked the first chords of his opening concerto, “Il Streghe” (“The Witches”). The maestro played with wild abandon, his long black hair flying as he sweated over his wailing instrument. In a review for Athaeneum, a music critic referred to Paganini as “Zamiel” (a mythological demonic huntsman) and said of the performance, “The poor violin was a transformed victim in the demon’s hand, uttering the anguished complaints of his inflicted torture.” In 2013 biopic, ‘The Devil’s Violinist’ an image of horned and longrobed satan rises behind David Garett as Paganini, playing Caprice 24 (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=YCsVEsQlm7o), while women are seen fainting in ecstasy. Paganini was a known womanizer. Therefore, myth has it that G-string of his Amati violin was made of innards of a woman he murdered! Niccolo Paganini died in 1840, but the Church denied him a Catholic burial because of his rumored personification of Satan. After thirty-six years of delay that included appeal to the Pope in the Vatican, his body was finally buried in 1876. In 1896, his body was entombed in its final resting place in Parna, Italy, the birthplace of the ill-fated violinist. That evening, after a sumptuous meal and a generous helping of my favorite Pinot Noir I picked up my violin to play. I had David Garett and his Paganini’s Caprice 24 in mind, but I do not have his genius nor his skill, and I had not practiced for ages. Therefore, I fumbled through several songs to produce a decent tone, miserably failed to shift to third and fifth positions, and finally gave up. Next morning I woke up late with a thumping headache. I took some aspirin and dosed off. An hour later, I woke up with a persistent nagging headache. While combing my hair with my fingers for relief, I touched something hard on both sides above my forehead. In addition, there was a funny feeling at the end of my tailbone. I closed my eyes in horror lest I wanted to inspect my feet!
Didn’t Receive Your Copy of Ananda Sangbad?
If you are a Life Member or an Associate Member, but didn’t receive your copy of Ananda Sangbad, it may be because we do not have the correct address on file for you. Please send an email to Guru Chakravarty (guruchakravarty@yahoo.com) with your correct address, and we will send you another copy.
Recent Sahitya O Alochana Sessions at Ananda Mandir Reported by Subrata Bhaumik
S
ahitya O Alochana (SOA) is a monthly literary and topical discussion forum under the aegis of Ananda Mandir (AM). It completed its 10th anniversary in January 2018 and will have organized one hundred and eight (108) sessions - including the Literary Seminar at NABC 2018 by the time this report goes to press. These monthly sessions feature exciting and illuminating discussions on diverse subjects including literature, art, theater and movie; history, philosophy and religion; science and mathematics; economics and business; and social issues, sports, and current affairs. Below is an account of the recently held sessions.
June 2018 This was one of our away from home sessions (we had one before in late 2016 in New York). The session took place in Atlantic City as a part of NABC 2018 – which was organized by Ananda Mandir. This event was an astounding success that delivered programming content in excess of 12 hours spread over two days featuring discussions on Literature, Drama, impact of digital media, and 4 hours of uninterrupted poetry and prose readings by the stalwarts of contemporary Bengali literature and Indian English Literature (IEL), including Chitra Divakaruni, Amit Chowdhury, Srijato Bandyopadhyay, Tilottama Majumdar, Angshuman Kar, and others. Attendance was very strong and averaged about 125 each day. Based on the feedback from the attendees and the writers, it could be deemed the best literary seminar in the 38-year history of NABC. A ton of thanks goes out to the volunteers and organizers of the Literary Seminar.
July 2018 In July we were able to take advantage of the continued presence in the US of a couple of star writers from the NABC Literary Seminar and we presented an event entitled An Evening with Srijato and Angshuman. This event featured reading of the works of these two very famous poets in contemporary Bengali literature who are also the joint editors of “Krittibas,” the venerable Bengali poetry magazine stirred up quite a bit of excitement amongst the local literary enthusiasts. Attendance was really robust with more than 50 people; the atmosphere was inspiring; the mood was intimate, infused with breathless expectation on the part of the audience. And boy, weren’t the blown away? They marveled at the wondrous literary work that was shared
with them: Srijato, along with some of his prose-poetries (including the famous “Najam”), read a selection of paragraphs from his very famous new novel “Tara Bhora Akasher Niche,” an adaptation of parts of van Gogh’s life, while Angshuman read several of his famous poems. The experience was fantastic, almost bordering on surreal. A ton of thanks goes out to Srijato and Angshuman.
August 2018 In August we had session that focused on the life and works Raymond Chandler – the famous detective fiction writer. Chandler, an American, who spent his formative years in Britain returned home in early twentieth century as a young adult just to find that he had to relearn the American way – thinking, expressions, slangs, baldly plain worldview, and the contemporary crime riddled society. Embarking on a writing career at a relatively older age, he focused on pulp writing with hardboiled plots. His fame gathered slow but serious inertia as he established himself as a mystery writer with an eye for intricate, sometimes poetic, details, who also shunned the affinity in the established mystery writing world for inordinately complex plots that demanded highly intellectual and objective solutions. On the contrary, his plots and characters including the famous detective Philip Marlowe often had a human angle, although sometimes prejudiced, and a touchy and feely side to them. His famous novels include “Farewell, My Lovely; The Lady in The Lake, The Long Goodbye, The Big Sleep, among others. Some of his novels were made into movies including The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart playing the role of Philip Marlowe. This was a wonderful session and attracted a completely different crowd who love mystery novels. A ton of thanks goes out to Abhijit Gupta.
Future sessions Quite a few interesting sessions are in the pipeline for next several months. They feature eclectic topics including a discussion on business environment in India, one on theory and the concept of lineage in Indian music, a session on Block chain, and an event showcasing local writers. The friends of Sahitya O Alochana would like to thank Ananda Mandir for its continued support for the forum’s contribution to the cultural enrichment of the local Indian and Bengali communities.
