R&GCO

M O K S H A: Poems of Liberation 

by 

Vijay Raghav Rao

M O K S H A – Poems of Liberation is available in digital, paperback and hardcover editions beginning December ’25.  Below is a piece based on excerpts of interviews with Pt. Vijay Raghav Rao and family on topics that add context and meaning, enabling a deeper appreciation of its contents.

Q. Why would one care about liberation, especially in a book of poems?

Answer: Call it a gift or a bane, our species is unique in that it can think for itself.  No matter who we are, this ability to think allows each one of us to discern the difference between who we are and what we can be. In our own ways we decipher what keeps us from becoming our better selves. We begin to understand what holds us back. Deeper thought aligns us more with sages and philosophers who have tracked such gaps in one’s life to a fundamental spiritual aspiration. Liberation encapsulates this urge, often unstated, to break moulds that hold us back. It is a universal human aspiration.

Poetry is a beautiful medium to capture and express emotion in ways unique to art. I feel I can express otherwise complex ideas aesthetically through poems. The economy of expression allows for deploying a broad palette of ideas consistent with the theme of liberation. In its current form, M O K S H A - Poems of Liberation came to fruition in no small part due to the literary talents and efforts of Steve Elchuri & Sailaja Rao.

Q. How can a book of poems about liberation lead to realizing this aspiration of breaking moulds that hold us back?

Answer: This is in fact the raison d’etre for all arts, is it not. I allude to this challenge in some poems in M O K S H A as well, where I explore what, indeed, is a poet’s calling. The fundamental objective of this book - and I humbly say all art - is to highlight the context in which the artistic offering dwells, raise pertinent questions that challenge the status quo, then spark thoughts and ideas in one’s imagination that provide constructive seeds for realizing paths that significantly improve upon it. As T.S. Eliot said, poetry “is not the assertion of truth, but the making of that truth more fully real to us.” 

A simple analogy, if I may. Observe the human anatomy: each limb, indeed every cell, is designed with a purpose that science has, to a large extent, adequately fathomed. Collectively, the cumulation of such purpose is designed first for survival, but more for a healthy body, and ultimately for a mind that is in tune with spiritual bliss. Our true nature, as the Upanishad clarifies, is pure and free, full of genuine bliss not burdened by physical, mental or worldly attributes we acquire. When our body and mind function to their fullest potential we begin to realize such bliss. Liberation from that which holds us back, preventing us from realizing this bliss is what M O K S H A is about.

Q. M O K S H A, the book, contains re-imaginations and translations of original poems in Telugu, Hindi and Bhojpuri. Why would they be relevant to an English-speaking audience?

Answer: To me the best art is rooted firmly in an authentic milieu so its expressions are genuine, its emotions human and therefore relatable to any man or woman anywhere. I firmly believe in the oneness of our being, regardless of geography. A book of poems that speaks to liberation from that which binds us - preventing the realization of our true selves - would be relevant to any human being, regardless of language. Some of the most profound works of art – in music, in literature, in painting, in dance, in cinema – cut through artificial divisions of citizenry, dogma, language, perceptions and convenient, self-serving beliefs to express something that speaks to us anywhere in lasting ways. The open secret, if any, is to be honest, to be yourself - in thought and what you express. That enables a simple yet everlasting connection between one being and another, between an artist and his/her audience.

Q. What drove you to write poems, when a large part of your vast renown is due to music?

Answer: I write a poem about something because I feel that is the most appropriate medium to convey the emotions I feel about it,  because I believe the poetic form would best express the emotions in ways that are best understood. Good art, I like to believe, breaks new ground to pave a unique, aesthetically satisfying path between the artist who creates and an audience that appreciates the creation for what it is. Musical notes, words in a sentence, a sequence of shots in a film, colors in a painting, or perspective in a photograph are the wonderful tools we have to make such meaningful connections. 

As one matures as an artist, one begins to understand that such gifts we have access to are in fact inseparable, that they complement each other, that the more one understands how to use one gift carries into a better understanding of how to use others. I write better because I make music. I am a better musician because of what I write. The simple yet profound key is to choose a medium that allows you to relate to your audience in ways that are genuine and heighten the emotional impact of what you want to convey.

Q. M O K S H A, a book of poems, can be construed as a manifesto for societal change. Was that an intention when you wrote the poems?

Answer: The poems in M O K S H A were written over a period of decades at various points in time. They reflect reactions to a range of external circumstances in the very real context of my own life. It is a summation of me, my circumstance, my relationships, the society I lived in. There was no attempt to write poems that have political points of view. 

In fact I happen to believe that an artist such as a poet can at best only hope to exercise any power over his society in a structured, conscious way: his/her ability to achieve change happens not by design but through subtle, often undetectable influence due to work in the medium in which he/she excels. Art can serve society in constructive ways if the artist enjoys a natural, unaffected connection to his environment. His art then can become a rallying point around which his society converges. If M O K S H A does elicit reflection, debate, dialogue and change for the better it will more than justify the effort that brought it into being.

Written by Steve Elchuri. Special thanks to Smt. Lakshmi V. Rao & family.

On Poetry & Music

A Conversation with Pt. Vijay Raghav Rao

On a pleasant afternoon in early March of some years ago, we visited with Panditji in the balmy sun room of his home in Springfield, VA. He sat in a well-worn armchair exuding contentment and a wizened demeanor that only a lifetime of accomplishment in the arts could endow. Scattered around on the floor were pages of handwritten notes, an unfinished song and poems written in English and Telugu, his mother tongue. Mildly surprised that he was not with flute in hand as we had seen him often in the past, we broached an extempore conversation on the matter in evidence. 

Q. Why do you write?

Answer: It is this natural urge to express by breaking new ground. If such expression makes connections with my fellow beings, that urge is its own justification. As sage Bharata Muni wrote in his treatise Natya Sastra, composing verse, playing a musical instrument or using the body to dance are gifts of neverending, plentiful rivers from the same fountainhead that is Lord Shiva, the originator of the arts as we know it. 

When I play the flute it is but me, the being, that is expressed. When I write, it is but the same soul - blemished, perhaps; torn at the edges by experience, maybe; enlightened even by the process of living, observing, imbibing, analysis and cumulation - but me nevertheless - no more, no less. I don’t speak for others in the arts, of course, but I find that writing poetry makes me a better musician. My music, as a corollary, makes me write better.

There is undoubtedly sound rationale for some progressive schools of artistry - be it music, dance, painting, sculpture - to require that those desirous of excellence in one art develop a keen understanding and become proficient in other arts. It enables perspective. It sows the vital seeds for growth further downstream in their profession of choice.

Q.   What is the role of influence in what you write?

Answer: Influence is a teacher. It is a divine gift everyone has. Some use it to discern and learn. Some grow to let it shape their outlook. Some open their natural defenses so it shapes and reshapes their expression continuously. Some refine their intellect so much so that they are able to balance highly individual points of view with diverse influences. That is where an original artist resides. He / she is capable of unique expression that breaks barriers, ventures into unexplored territories, touching and connecting with others in meaningful ways, even as he / she is keenly sensitive to vital influences that provide contexts in which his / her original artistry blooms. 

My father was a farmer and a litterateur who appreciated the arts. As a child I was greatly influenced by the work of Telugu poets who on evenings and weekends frequently visited my older brother, the editor of Soviet Land, a left-leaning magazine. I picked up the basics of musical notes by hearing a cousin take lessons on playing the Veena, a stringed instrument. As a young man I read poetry in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada by poets who rebelled against the status quo. When in college I ventured outside to watch dance performances of Bala Saraswati and Rukmini Devi, and Chokkalingam Pillai who was amused to see an honors student wanting to learn Bharat Natyam, his style of dance. To dance better, he told me, you need to know music. That was a revelation. As I grew as a person and an artist those words meant the world to me. I listened better, I explored other arts more, I grew as an appreciator. I developed an artistic aesthetic that has defined me uniquely, unconsciously, allowing me a place of pride alongside my influences in poetry, dance and music. 

As in life, so in music. A genuine will for appreciation knows no barriers. When you have willing eyes and ears knowledge is limitless. When cultural appreciation is seen as a means to a more meaningful way of life, barriers are a thing of the past.

Q. Who are your influences?

Answer: I hesitate to answer only because I would have failed to mention some who have been equally influential as those whom I do. In addition to those whom I have already mentioned there are many I can recall. My wife, who played the flute before we married. Her father, an attorney by day, a playwright and stage actor performing Shakespeare’s King Lear and Hamlet by night and on weekends in small theaters in and around the city of Eluru, Andhra Pradesh. Poets who wrote in the local dialects of south India. The poet Kalidasa. Rabindranath Tagore. The saint Thyagaraja, equally adept at music and poetry, a skill that he artfully harnessed to exemplify the immanent presence of God in our own lives, loves, aspirations and actions. Abdul Karim Khan, whose music broke artificial boundaries between musical systems. Tolstoy and Pushkin. Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Hitchcock, Picasso, Mehdi Hassan, Ravi Shankar.

Q. That is a diverse list of names. What is the common thread, if any, between their work and for much of what you are renowned?

Answer: I believe in the evolution of one’s own art over a lifetime. My art, if I can call it that, is a symbiosis of expressions that are unique to an original artist, like those whom I mention. If there is one thing it is not, it is sameness or similarity to their art. To me genuine artistic expression worthy of one’s own unique aesthetic comes through honing one’s own emotions and skills in an environment of unregulated, free interaction between diverse expressions, untainted by categorization and strictures of medium and message. One has to be strong and grounded in one’s values and its power of expression so one can effortlessly listen, see, appreciate and imbibe authentic, alternative expressions across diverse media, unrestricted by conceptual boundaries. While geography and politics should never be a limiting factor to the appreciation of artistic expression, my evolution as an artist of whatever renown (good or bad!) is, by choice, independent of conceptual or systemic form and categorization. Imagination and the ability to manifest it through unlimited, deeply felt emotive power is the common thread, if you want to know, in what I do and my esteemed influences.

Q. Three of your more popular anthologies of poems are in Telugu, a language that not many outside of south India know. How, if at all, can others in the wider world relate to what you write? Should they at all relate?

Answer: I strive to be as true as I can be in what I write. If nothing, an honest, unvarnished sentiment is more important to me than anything else in what I write. My poems in Telugu, or in English for that matter,  present an authentic point of view about a people, their spiritual underpinning, values, beliefs and ways of life that are, in essence, intrinsic to the human species. We are real creatures born of the same singularity, cut from the same cloth, all said and done. That is the only basis I know of that others outside in the wider world rely upon to be interested in what I write.

Q. In that same spirit, pardon our boldness as we ask that you read to us what you have been writing today.

Answer: I will read to you a poem capturing my sentiments that bridge - in my own humble way -  my music, words and a feeling of liberation.
 

Divinity & Music

A naïve belief in the divine, boon to the simple and the knowing

Affection to music, heptarchy’s prince charming - my path to the divine

Puriya, our maker’s gift, celestial inheritance, essential manifest of divinity, the seeker and the sought    

The notes of Amritavarshini, keys to freedom from the cycle of dearth, craving and wish fulfillment

Jansammohini’s song, a sooth for lovers vexed by the pangs of separation, answer to riddles springing from doubt   

Megh, the extolling of a cloud’s might, promises bold, giving, laden with dream and ulterior hope 

Malhar, divine benevolence, quencher of earth’s thirst, giver of life from tiny seed

Hamsadhwani, call of the swans, subliminal affirmation of oneness - we, our nature, despite our forms

In the darkness of my soul Deepak sparks eternal will - to find, to know, to overcome my own self

Darbari, epitome of the majestic hereafter, the beacon of essence, a glimpse of the ethereal and the beautiful

Hori, exemplifier divine living among us, the dance of the convivial, matter enlightened, untainted effervescence

Bhairavi, the sum of all emotion, a feeling of completeness, the full circle, an inviting sign from the other world

Music, my door to divinity, the seed of life, intuition’s gift, certitude of liberation.

Divinity & Music, excerpt from M O K S H A - Poems of Liberation by Pt. Vijay Raghav Rao. 

Article written by Steve Elchuri. Special thanks to Smt. Lakshmi V. Rao

On Progressive Music

A Conversation with Pt. Vijay Raghav Rao

Selections on the albums SYMBIOSIS (2023), DEVI: Homage to Goddesses (2021), CELESTIAL (2019) and ODE TO PEACE (2022) represent compositions and renderings that have been acclaimed for innovative ideas and creative progression that advance the art and performing craft of Indian classical music.  Below are excerpts of thoughts by Pt. Vijay Raghav Rao on such topics.

Q: On SYMBIOSIS and also on the previous album DEVI: Homage to Goddesses you have delineated compositions that span the rare spectrum of bold, innovative and progressive classical music. What is the motivation for such expression?

A: We live in a world where art is in danger of being relegated to a pastime. Given the demands on life and sustaining livelihood people everywhere find little precious time to understand, and even less, to make artistic expression an integral, necessary part of living. That is not as it should be. From time immemorial we know a life without music is bereft of the sensitivity that is unique to the human species. From the beginning of time art has been the essence of living with the full palette of God-given emotive sensibilities that human beings deserve as a natural right. 

I believe it is my duty, a calling, to bring forth in my creations the essential truism that artistic expression is a life-breath, full of relevance to who we are, who we can be, who we are not. My creations in Indian classical music, for example, strive to make this point. Adhering to the strictures of tradition the compositions on the two albums you mention venture into new realms that call for imaginative exploration with integrity. What is deemed traditional in these times was once considered progressive. I stay away from labels and categories. What I practice is essential to my sense of who I am, what my responsibility as an artist is, and my humble role in elevating the human experience.

Q: All of the compositions on SYMBIOSIS, on DEVI: Homage to Goddesses - indeed most of Indian classical music - lack formal, published notation. How then can that music, acclaimed as it is, be embraced and propagated widely?

A: From over two thousand years ago when the first traceable examples of classical Indian music were found, it has been passed on and grown and evolved through the guru-shishya parampara, that is, through the tradition of maintaining a sacred bond between teacher and disciple. The propagation occurs through the sharing of knowledge by a teacher with his/her students. The sharing occurs through a lifelong relationship spanning all facets of life, including, but not limited to, the learning of music. 

The more accomplished students – who are also de facto the better propagators of a teacher’s music – are those who have lived their lives in the company of their teacher - serving him/her across all aspects of life while learning, understanding, absorbing every facet of the teacher’s music. The notes and scales of a composition are but the essential building blocks. Unwritten emotions, larger abstractions, worthwhile influences, ideal realizations, the total, desired impact of expression, for example, are matters that can only be learned through living a life serving the teacher. It is great evidence that music is but an integral part of life, not a standalone skill that can be used for a livelihood. This thought is a pillar of Indian classical music, and, in my opinion a better way to propagate musical creations than through published notation. 

Obviously, the world of today demands that such traditional precepts be adapted to life as we know it. Also, as I write more and more for orchestra and for film, I do feel the need to evolve tradition in the sole interests of preserving it for the noble precepts it represents. As such, I have developed a notational system that is uniquely suited to documenting, preserving and propagating my music, and to some extent, the music of some of my contemporaries. I use this system when I write for film and orchestra, as well as for some of my students. A few of them have some of my compositions available in such notation for practice and propagation as well. Be that as it is, I can’t agree more with the assertion that to be a genuine exponent of Indian classical music there is no better avenue than to live a life serving a teacher.

Q: There is a case, would you not say, for a more formal system of notation in Indian classical music, like in the system of western classical music?

A.  The point to keep in mind is that the western classical music system is a lot more reliant on harmony, whereas the Indian classical music system is predominantly based on melodic improvisation. Then there is the matter of attaining excellence in collective expression (as in a symphony) in comparison to an individual’s alone (as in the performance of a Raga). Even if a system that notated Indian classical music were widely prevalent, the improvisatory aspect of music - which is, to a large extent, the lifeblood of artistic excellence in the Indian classical music tradition – would require imaginative leaps and innovative, expressive power not captured by definition in a written score.  As a matter of lifelong exploration, I read notated scores of many of the western composers I admire, even as I write my scores and compose for soloists and orchestras predominantly founded on the precepts of Indian classical music. While I continuously try to delineate on paper the more abstract, emotional aspects of my music through notes and idiosyncratic notations, the nature of our music is such that it is best left to the performer to make magic out of nothing but his/her understanding of the piece he/she is performing.

Q.  What about rhythm? In your compositions on SYMBIOSIS, DEVI: Homage to Goddesses, CELESTIAL and other recent releases, you explore a wide variety of rhythmic cycles. Three, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen beats per cycle, for example. How does that compare to the use of rhythm in the western musical system?

A. I find a lot in common between the two dominant Indian musical systems and the music of the West when it comes to rhythm. The exploration of time in music is a universal pursuit. One only needs to be an appreciator of Jazz, for example, to see commonalities in rhythmic patterns across musical systems. As and when I have had a chance to work on jazz music, I have deeply enjoyed sharing rhythm-driven ideas effortlessly, without much explanation – largely because our traditions have stressed the vital importance of rhythmic expression in conveying the gamut of shared emotions. Some of my work in Jazz-based orchestral composition has influenced my solo work inasmuch as I have performed traditional Indian classical music pieces set to exciting rhythmic cycles (of say nine/eight, fourteen/eight beats). As the Vedas say Swara Mata, Laya Pita i.e. ‘While the notes of music are a mother, rhythm is a father.”

Q.  Extrapolating from what’s in SYMBIOSIS or DEVI: Homage to Goddesses, even ODE TO PEACE, for instance, can we expect more innovation and more progressive ideas in your music in the future?

A. Frankly, I don’t know. What I like about my profession, my calling, my lifelong duty as an artist, is that it is like a perennial journey. From my own self - as I was when I first started - to exciting new self-evolutions; of different, enlightening versions representing growth and forms of which I am self-consciously and humbly proud. It is like finding a larger, subtler being of myself, less like how I was at the beginning and more in tune with an all-pervading completeness, a universal soul representing what is, what was, what will be - despite who I am. If there is one thing of which I am sure, it is that this journey of growing and assimilating with the forever, infinite source of creativity will continue. 

Special thanks to Smt. Lakshmi V. Rao

Written by Steve Elchuri