Russell Hoban - Her Name Was Lola

As soon as possible she goes to sign up for private tuition with Hariprasad Ghosh. When she shows up at his studio he’s sitting crosslegged on a Kelim. He’s wearing jeans and a green sweatshirt on which is a gold-tinted photograph of a Kola bronze of Shiva Nataraja with the words DIAMOND HEART arcing over Shiva’s ring of fire. Mr Ghosh is a man of slight physique with a face that makes it difficult to guess his age. When he stands up to greet her she feels as if he can read her mind. His bare feet look ingenuous but not naive. Cushions and hassocks lie about. There’s a long table with various instruments on it, sheet music and music paper with handwritten notation. Lola recognises sitar, tabla, flutes. She’s been thinking sitar but now another instrument is talking to her. ‘What’s that one?’ she says, pointing.

‘That’s a sarod,’ says Mr Ghosh. ‘Like the sitar, it’s a thirteenth-century instrument. Eight main strings and this one has sixteen resonating strings. The body is hollowed-out wood but the top is leather and the fingerboard is metal. You use a coconut-shell plectrum. It’s not like the sitar, it hasn’t got any frets. You have to find the notes by yourself, as with a violin. Because it is more difficult to learn than the sitar it is not so popular here. It requires a good musical ear and hard concentration.’

Lola takes the sarod in her hands, feels the weight of it. It’s the instrument Clint Eastwood would choose, it’s the.357 magnum. ‘This is the one I want to learn,’ she says.

‘Are you a musician?’ says Mr Ghosh.

‘I play the piano a little.’

‘The sarod requires great dedication and patience,’ says Mr Ghosh. ‘It will take a lot of time.’

‘I’ve got the time, and I want lessons every day.’

‘It is my wife who teaches sarod,’ says Mr Ghosh. ‘If you wish to go ahead with this, she will see you tomorrow.’

‘A woman,’ says Lola. ‘Yes, I’d like to be taught by a woman.’

‘The fee is forty pounds an hour. You want to do this every day?’

‘Yes.’

The next day Lola loads Noah into his pram and returns to the studio to meet Indira Ghosh. She is a small woman in a red sari. She has a red bindi on her forehead. Her face is round, and at the first glance childlike. But it is the face of a child who cannot be fooled by anybody or anything. She smiles when she sees Noah and greets him with a little bow. ‘What is your child’s name?’ she asks.

‘Noah.’

‘A good name.’ Hearing this, Noah smiles.

Lola lifts the carry-cot out of the undercarriage and puts it on the floor so that Noah can see her. Mrs Ghosh notes this and nods approvingly. ‘You wish to learn the sarod?’

‘Yes,’

‘Why?’

‘I want to be able to compose a raga of my own,’ says Lola, ‘and I know that it must come through familiarity with a classical instrument.’

‘Ah,’ says Mrs Ghosh. She shakes her head. ‘This is not the way to begin. You are putting yourself ahead of the music, the lesser ahead of the greater. Humility is required here.’

‘Forgive me. I have an arrogant mouth but I am truly humble.’

Mrs Ghosh looks at her as if she, like her husband, can read Lola’s mind. ‘Why the sarod? Why not the sitar, which is less difficult?’

‘When I saw the sarod, it spoke to me,’ says Lola. ‘Something in me wants to make music with this instrument.’

Mrs Ghosh looks sceptical. ‘You may have formed an opinion of the Diamond Heart Centre,’ she says. ‘It is after all a commercial enterprise. There is a demand for Zen snooker and Zen poker so those disciplines are taught here. My husband and I are not commercial. We have to make a living but we are here to introduce those who have ears for it to the spiritual essence of Indian classical music.’

‘I understand,’ says Lola.

‘In this there is a tradition,’ says Mrs Ghosh. ‘It is called gurushisyia parampara. Do you know what that is?’

‘No.’

‘If you accept me as a teacher I become your guru. I become as a parent to you and must have your total trust and respect the same as your mother and father. And I must give the same love and education to you, the shisyia, as to my own child. For the shisyia there must be total surrender to the guru. And the guru must repay this trust with teaching that will guide and nurture the disciple in every way. This is something that will take years and it is a big commitment for both of us. Your son will already be starting school before you can think of composition. Will you be here that long? Do you have the dedication and the years to give this?’

Lola feels as if she’s standing on a mountaintop. All around her is the sky. ‘Yes,’ she says.

‘Then let us begin,’ says Mrs Ghosh. She takes up the sarod and assumes the playing position on the Kelim. The woman and the instrument become one, as compact and contained as a Tanagra figurine. She plays a scale, singing the notes as she sounds them: ‘Sa, Re, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni.’ In the acoustically dry room the sound of the sarod is surprisingly full and commanding. Mrs Ghosh’s voice, low and unforced, seems a quietly resounding string of the instrument.

‘Ah!’ says Noah.

‘It helps if you sing as you play,’ says Mrs Ghosh. ‘Because music is created in the mind before it comes from the instrument and the singing helps you to imagine it. The instrument is made by man; man has given it a voice, but our voice is from God, and through it we can learn a lot. Once you start getting the hang of the notes, then you bring the embellishments into your playing.’ The sarod sounds again, and with it her voice and the voice of what lives in her. Lola is transported. What she hears puts her in a place she’s never been before. Tears well up in her eyes. She is humbled, left with nothing to say.

‘Ah!’ says Noah.

‘Good,’ says Mrs Ghosh. ‘I see that both you and Noah are hearing what there is to hear. I think your son is hungry.’

Lola puts Noah to her breast and he shows that he is indeed hungry.

‘As your breast is to Noah, so must this music be to you,’ says Mrs Ghosh. ‘We will continue tomorrow. You may call me Indira.’

‘Thank you,’ says Lola. ‘Would it be possible to borrow the sarod so that I can begin to get the feel of it?’

‘No,’ says Indira. ‘You cannot borrow this one and you must not buy one. At this point you are not to touch the sarod except in our lessons. From the very beginning, your hands and your mind must only do what is correct.’

‘Is there a book I can get to help me learn the positions of the notes?’

Again Mrs Ghosh shakes her head. ‘I will teach you the positions of the notes. If you want a book, get Buddhist Wisdom Books, The Diamond Sutra; The Heart Sutra , translated by Edward Conze. There are several copies in the library here and they might have it in the shop as well.’

Lola and Noah are off to the library then. It’s dome-shaped but the straight shelves are chords to the arcs of the circle, so that in plan they form a hexagon. The endless wall is white, the shelves, floors, tables and chairs are stripped pine. There are only three other people there besides the librarian. No one is smoking but the reek of cannabis hangs in the air. Noah’s nose twitches a little but he’s not too bothered. A tall thin man with a scraggly beard and a prominent Adam’s apple comes over to Lola. He’s wearing a red poncho striped with black and yellow. ‘Hi,’ he says. ‘I’m Poncho.’

‘Hi,’ says Lola. ‘Lola.’ His handshake is wetter than she’d like.

Poncho sniffs her. ‘You smell milky,’ he says. ‘Can I have some?’

‘Go away,’ says Lola. She leaves him standing there with his ardent Adam’s apple and goes to the shelves.