Paradise Found In The Isolated Austerity Of Himalayan Hideaway
Illawarra Mercury
Wednesday January 8, 2003
LOCKED IN solitary confinement in the remote Himalayan mountains, Sam Evans toiled deep into the night.
His wrists ached, his hands grew callused.
Exhausted, he collapsed each night on a coconut-husk pallet.
He didn't see or speak to anyone for two weeks.
``It was wonderful," the Austinmer drummer said.
Determined to study under a master Indian percussionist, Mr Evans cheerfully paid the price.
With only his tabla - traditional Indian drum kit - for company, he retreated to a spartan cell in the Indian mountains, playing just two complicated rhythms, 12 hours a day.
A bowl of Tibetan porridge was left on the floor in the morning, dhal and vegetables for lunch and vegetable soup for dinner.
Mr Evans had entered a chilla, a traditional Hindustani musical retreat, a chance to either go nuts or chill out and become very, very accomplished.
A seasoned drummer - he spends half each year in India - Mr Evans still found it tough.
``I started to develop calluses. By the end of the day your wrists are exhausted," he said.
``But you know you are doing something not quite right if you are too sore. You have to be incredibly relaxed to play the tabla, to get the speed and clarity."
Playing up to 41/2 hours without a break, Mr Evans got what wanted: profound focus and concentration.
He also won an audience with the man widely regarded as the world's master tabla player, Anindo Chatterjee.
``I was fresh from the retreat and I think it had a big effect," he said.
After a gruelling screening process, Mr Evans was accepted into the master's school.
``It was an ordeal. He only very rarely accepts western students," he said.
But Mr Evans has put in the hard hours, studying in Indonesia and Africa and working with another Indian master, Debashish Brahmachary.
He was travelling on a hotly-contested Australia Council for the Arts grant, and has returned to Australia to become Monash University's ethno musicology program's first tabla player.
Tabla is complicated. Unlike western music's standard cycle of four beats to a bar, the tabla demands 16.
© 2003 Illawarra Mercury