When his turn came during the introductions, at the fusion music extravaganza organised in Thiruvananthapuram on October 2, Mohan Veena player Poly Varghese, the long-haired, kurta-clad Hindustani musician, took the mike to announce that he was actually a Malayali from Thrissur. Till that moment, few among the audience knew him or his instrument.
A disciple of Grammy winner Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Poly has performed all over the world and collaborated with leading musicians but is a relative unknown in his home state.
In fact, a sense of alienation has been accompanying him since childhood.
He started learning mridangam and Carnatic vocals from an early age and would listen to concerts on the radio.
First in the family to take an interest in classical music, the boy would sing in his high-pitched voice and neighbours would take little Poly to be wailing. “The crying continues as I have no life without music,” jokes Poly.
Formal education came to a halt with the tenth after which he indulged himself in poetry and music. At 20, he left home to join the Kerala Kalamandalam, the school of arts.
There, he mastered instruments like mridangam and chenda and got exposed to various arts including Kathakali and Ottanthullal.
“My mind became open,” says Poly, who happened to see a clip of Vishwa Mohan Bhatt playing Mohan Veena on the tiny black and white television set at his guru’s house. He felt a tug in his heart and decided that some day, he would learn to play this instrument from him. He even found out his address and wrote to him but no reply ever came.
He used to play at concerts and for radio but wanted to go out and explore new facets of life and music. He knew a teacher who had moved from Kalamandalam to Shantiniketan, so took a train to Kolkata with just '500 and no other means of financial support.
At Shantiniketan, he enrolled for a course that included tabla and Hindustani vocal but learned whatever he could — Bengali language, Baul music, drama and so on.
Life was tough and nothing was sure including the next meal. He acted, sang and played instruments to support himself. “I have even played tabla at the brothels of Sonegachi,” he says.
The course was nearly over when he heard that Vishwa Mohan Bhatt was performing in Kolkata. Travelling 180 km, he met him and the guru asked him whether he was the same person who had once written to him.
Though reluctant, he agreed to teach him if he would shift to Rajasthan. Then followed five years of rigorous gurukul type education where he learned the Maihar gharana style of music from scratch.
“I found out that it was a versatile instrument that came closest to the human voice,” he says. There are no frets and the sound is made by rubbing the tuner rod on the three strings. Later, Poly added one more main string so that he could get the effect of mantra panchamam (the deep ‘pa’) and to balance it a chikari string was added too.
The guru agreed with his innovation but not with his gypsy lifestyle. Bhatt, who considers him as his adopted son, arranged his marriage with Chennai-based Sabeena and finally Poly got an address. They have a five-year-old daughter Mitra, who can identify many ragas already.
The instrument that Poly has is one of five that the guru has made for himself and his disciples. No one else can make one or do the final tuning and each instrument is considered a family heirloom which either has to be passed on to an able disciple or back to the family.
Poly has tried his hand in film music in the past — in Malayalam, he scored the music for a film called Jeevan Mashai — but expresses an aversion to the kind of stuff that is being churned out.
But he has now scored the music for a transnational film in the pipeline called Mayya. He is working on an album called Weeping Souls with violinist Manoj George and has a collaboration in his mind with Grammy winning guitarist Jeff Peterson.
And, oh yes, he wants to play more in Kerala, perhaps a Carnatic concert with the Mohan Veena.
