chartandwaters

The next photos are in Nagapattinam, where we'd soon set up camp. We spent the day visiting schools to find out their interest, then in the evening visited a friend of Gandhi's, a famous Sufi singer whose name you would probably like me to be able to give. When we came in he was watching TV and he seemed eager for company. He is in his late 70s and still sings; he would have been at a performance but there was something wrong with his throat.

The front room of his house had a raised perimeter about 8 feet wide and an opening in the ceiling over the unraised part--through which the late light was coming in, hence the dramatic lighting. But a lot of homes and businesses use paint in these beautiful seaside blues and greens, all warmed and brightened in the coastal light. I was trying to capture this when I photographed the sewing machine.

He taught me the scale Karnatak (a kind of South Indian) music uses, which is identical to the 8-octave scale in the West though he didn't know it--he was thus impressed when, as he sang up the scale, I predicted the 8th note! He also showed me how counting is done in Karnatak music, in 8; I knew just a bit of this from a friend who studied it in college, so again he was pleased. It made me happy I'd gone to a school that did a lot with non-Western music. Amid all the theory he also managed to explain briefly why Islam is the true religion.

He said Western music doesn't understand improvisation, the way Karnatak music is different every time it's performed, and I tried to explain that jazz did understand but he wasn't very interested. In this way he reminded me of the few other famous performers I'd met, how they'd become used to presenting their stories with the same careful drama they would use on stage, and how they were no longer accustomed, if they had once been, to being contradicted. He was very kind and so eager for conversation.

His animated ways, the way he opened his eyes very wide to talk and lifted his head slightly, reminded me very much of my Grandma Alice. In fact, his face and mannerisms seemed Eastern European (my Grandmother was from Romania), a thought I would have repeatedly in Tamil Nadu.