I do not quite know why P.K. Bhattacharyya (PKB) invited me for the discussion on classical music on May 6 at Pragati Continental.

On the one hand, I am not one who has an ear for what can be called “classical” music, my inclinations veering more towards the off-beat, the unconventional and “non-purist”, if such a coinage is at all permissible.

On the other hand, I have never gone through the intricacies and the beauty of fathoming musical notations, something that every true-blue classicist believes in. I listen to Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Bismillah Khan, Amjad Ali Khan, Ravi Shankar and Hari Prasad Chaurasia, with a spurious understanding of their well-honed rhythm.

And yet there resides a harmony in the application of their marvellous fingers against equally marvellous strings or on beaten leather surfaces.

Years ago, strolling down that long corridor from my school classroom to the library at the other end, I would catch refrains of Beethoven and Mozart, Bach and Wagner, the notes streaming out from the open ventilator, as one of my teachers ran his nimble fingers over the school piano.

Remnants of sweetness pervade one’s lifetime; the smell of porridge and bananas wafting out of the long dining room (where boarders spent happy hours) to the long polished corridor, did not desert me the way some of my other childhood memories have. If music is the food of the gods, then the bananas and porridge still remain one of my favourite sources of musical nourishment.

I do attend musical evenings, from Sonu Nigam’s and Zubeen Garg’s performances, to the in-house gigs we have once in a while. But a discussion, with all its intellectual ramifications, was something I had not done before. “Do come,” PKB repeated. “J.P. Das and Bhupen Uzir will also be there.”

I felt better for I had known them for a long time and the inhibitions, to that extent, were lesser in the event of my contributing to a faux pas.

It was a spacious air-conditioned hall built on the terrace with an open patio designed as a restaurant.

There were over 30 of us with Arun Sarma (Arunda to me), well-known dramatist and Sangeet Natak Akademi awardee, presiding over the meet.

Flanking him were Samar Hazarika on the right and Santanu Thakur on his left. A while later, Pulak Banerjee came in, as well as Ganesh Deka, whom I had known for years.

“We have assembled here today,” PKB began, “because we need to revive a dying culture. For many years now, Guwahati, and I would say, Assam, has not given enough attention to the institution of classical music. Where have the concerts gone? Where have the evenings that were so sought after gone? What we have now is something that passes off for music.”

He paused for a while. “This gathering will seek to work out something that will enable us to revive classical music in Assam and especially in Guwahati.”

Speaker after speaker spoke on the increasing gap between popular music and what is termed “classical”.

“It is not just enough to have gatherings such as the one that is on at present,” said one of the participants. “What is equally important is to work out a comprehensive list of all such persons who would love to be present at a classical evening. What is more, every attempt should be made to drop invitation cards at homes where the aficionado resides. Advertisements carried in papers,” he said, “are not enough.”

Another spoke of the extremely poor attendance whenever a sitarist or a tabla-player from another part of the country was on stage. Was it the crass commercialisation of Guwahati by an insensitive business population, which prefer lucre to the arts? One has only to look at the soaring multi-storeyed apartments and the narrow lanes filled with muck.

And what about the organisers who invite well-known classical players, musicians and vocalists from other parts of the country?

“I remember,” said one of the speakers, “the time when an internationally recognised tabla player got down from the train, searched for a rickshaw and entered the Nehru Stadium complex where he was accommodated in a small, dingy and stuffy room. Would he like to visit Assam again?”

What about music schools? Do they churn out well-meaning, vibrant, soul-searching musicians or do they function simply because parents want that paper certificates (albeit legitimate), as just one more “achiever’s” milestone in the job-hunting race at a later date for their children?

Are the teachers creative enough to teach creative classical music to a generation living on the fast track of globalisation?

Are the teachers aware of their own inadequacies as teachers? Where has the famous guru-shishya fusion of yesteryears gone?

“Just as in world literature,” said Santanu Thakur, “where producing classics of Shakespeare’s stature has become a rarity, we see a dearth in the production of great classical music.”

I am not much of a music man. But I love music. Who doesn’t? From Xunor kharu nalage muk to Bhupenda’s soaring Bristinar parare to Bishnu Rabha’s Nahar phule nuxuai to Lakhinath Bezbaruah’s soulstirring mur aponar dex, I love them all.

Never has the Assamese language sounded so sweet as in the rendering of these incredibly sublime songs by gifted singers. I fall back again and again on the past, or in renditions of the past, perhaps in much the same way that a Bengali falls back again and again on Rabindranath Tagore or every other Indian on Lata Mangeshkar or Asha Bhosle or Mohammad Rafi.

Have I aged so much that I have gone deaf to the younger generation of singers? I think of singers like Sangeeta Kakoti and Mitra Phukan and their love for all things classical and of the way they offer homage to their gurus. No, I do not think I am deaf. But classical singers, like uncorrupted mathematicians, are a rare breed. They come but once or twice in a lifetime. And fortunate is the person who takes to them from one’s childhood.

The smell of bananas. The smell of wax on the wooden floor of a long corridor.

And just how “classical” is classical? I attended a recent soiree featuring pianist Neil Nongkynrih and Deepak Sarma, renowned flautist.

Of all musical instruments, the organ and the piano affect me like none other. And yet some of the romance of the evening was reduced, with Neil sitting up and explaining again and again each and every score.

Has anyone listened to the excellent notes of Partho Deb at the hotel Landmark pub? Who is truly classically inclined and who is not? I remember that evening only because of Deepak Sarma’s undiluted harmony and the three-minute croon on his inimitable flute. Let music be music, not compromised by verbosity. Did Gauguin write on his canvas? Did M.F. Husain?

I am not a critic who can write competently on music mainly because I have never gone into its depths the way some of us have. I write from instinct with music honed into me by my mother who could render Rabhageet and Jyotisangeet to the accompaniment of the harmonium years ago the way few could.

I grew up with our eccentric neighbour, Pierre, pianist extraordinaire, who died of alcoholism at a young age; Pierre, who would cry unashamedly whenever he played Chopin. I grew up in a music-crazy town where everyone played the guitar as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

I grew up with my schoolteacher Mr Menezes, and fellow students Pranjal Rajkhowa and Basant Bordoloi, unweaving happiness by cradling a fine-tuned violin.

And I grew up singing jaded Hindi, English and Assamese numbers during late evening fetes when rock bands ruled a non-commercial roost. I grew up listening to the late-night hymns from my father who lullabied me to sleep, the morning songs from All India Radio and the memorable lilting zikirs of Ajan Pir. Can all this frame one into a thoroughbred critic?

No. Critics do not come easy. They come when the feelings are sustained by an intellectual drive, without any elitist, casteist or snobbish connotations, for plumbing into the depths of any art, and that includes music. It is not just being what one would grandly call “serious”.

Even clowns in a circus can be “serious” in their clowning. Something more is needed. I would say, honesty on one hand and that rare ability to love one’s subject so passionately that there can be no return from the path taken, on the other, is what is needed.

But like surreptitious income tax evaders, who pontificate on corruption with all and sundry, how many critics are truly both honest and in love with all that they say and write?

No. One cannot be a critic on music unless one has genuinely plumbed the depths of this greatest of all human art. But for those who do write, says singer Sangeeta Kakati, “Let us have someone like Taffazul Ali and Nirmal Prabha Bordoloi who wrote with substantial depth of character.” Perhaps one day I will be able to write about the 88 varieties of folk songs of Assam that Gautam Sarma, secretary of the Sankaradeva Kalakshetra, is working on.

Yes, perhaps one day, when I can call myself a critic.