Q: You have been conferred the second highest civilian honour. How do you feel?
A: Do you want me to be candid? The Government presented the Padma Bhushan in 1987 and I wasn't exactly ecstatic. I think the Government has been 14 years late in conferring the Padma Vibhushan. It is absurd. However I will not refuse the award. I will accept it as a token of love from my rasiks who are the embodiment of Raghavendra Swamy. If my mother were alive, I wouldn;t have accepted it though.

Q. For all her impressive credentials, your mother, who passed away recently, was a low-key person ....
A: My mother was a simple, peace-loving person. We lived in a chawl and she was the sole bread-winner and was very generous. She told us that even if we have four groundnuts, we should share it with others. Once she gave 36 tolas of gold to her guru, Ustad Alladiya Khan, unconcerned that we had nothing else. That generosity is what makes us prosper today.

Q: You are a disciple of your mother's. Now is the importance that you attach to the guru-shishya parampara a result of your own experience?
A: You must know what a guru is. One should sit in front of him or her and learn. That is our Indian parampara. Guru bin kaun batave vat, our saints once said. Have faith in one guru and imbibe knowledge. But our youngsters are eager to learn from different gurus—Taans from one, Bandishen from another, laykari from the third. That is not our parampara. You
d only your guru can provide that. But if you are more keen on assimilation, you will remain restless souls all your life. Music is a blissful experience. Indian music is spiritual and will lead you to ultimate peace.

Q: But haven't institutions and music colleges taken the place of this parampara?
A: Institutions are teaching Indian classical music with a western outlook or concept. How many institutions have produced the likes of Bhimsen Joshi, Kishen Maharaj or Pandit Jasraj ? If they had learnt in institutions they wouldn't have attained great heights. Music is only taught this way: I sing and you repeat. Not just by asking questions or reading notations in books. Students who have completed M.Phil or Ph.D flock gurus. Why? Because they are not satisfied with bookish knowledge and don't feel complete. I wish there was a concept of a guru teaching 500 students with economic assistance. By touching a guru's feet, his vibrations travel to your body. Is this taught in institutions? In my opinion, institutions are a sheer waste of time and money and the outcome is zero.

Q: You have to atleast give credit to institutions for producing rasiks or listeners.
A: If you listen to good artistes, there will be good listeners. Listeners are not developed. Listen to the cuckoo or papiha. Do we need to train ourselves to enjoy its music?

Q: Given the rapid proliferation of institutions, how long do you think the guru-shishya-parampara will continue?
A: I don't know. This whole issue of Indian pop music is awful. The truth has to be spoken:
all classical musicians who are jumping into the Indi-pop bandwagon are only prostituting themselves. Today's youth is intelligent and we have to channelise their energies. I have not come across one institution which has taught one raga fully. I am appalled at the syllabus-prescribed ragas in the first year. These are the ragas which I shudder to sing even at mehfils.

Q: You always emphasise on swar, notes rather than words in compositions ...
A: Notes are my language. What make music. They are the manifestations of various feelings. I belong to the world of swaras. Every note is my mother and a personification of God the Almighty. Likewise every raga is a sublime feeling.

Q: You have composed popular bhajans, Maro Pranam, Ghat Ghat Panchi Bolta and so on ...
A: Over the years I have composed and sung Meera and Kabir bhajans at concerts. My compositions are also sung by others but never acknowledged. I feel hurt but then I say God bless them. Now I prefer not to sing thumirs. These are different aspects of music. In fact Mai never alowed me to sing for films. The only film song I sang was for Geet Gaya Patharon Ne.

Q: What lies at the core of alapchari, your very own creation?
A: How will you express sublime feeling without alapi? Only with taal? Beats or taal take shelter under notes. Rhythm too cannot exist without notes. Now people say I have contributed to the Jaipur Gharana with alapi. But actually I have gone astray from my gharana. Gharana is like a keeping Ganga water in a bowl in a temple. But the Ganga is vast and a gharana must try to merge into the ocean of music. Gharanas are like different castes like Brahmins, Vasihyas, Kshatriyas and Shudras. The bottomline is that they are all human beings. I try to reach out to that humanity. Am I wrong?

Q: You are considered a rebel ...
A: I am not a rebel. I am a person who strives to speak the truth. If you call that rebellion, I accept that am one. You can call me a murderer of gharanas. Call me anything. I am not going to change. I have seen and experienced the sublime part of music.

Q: What is it like communicating with the spiritual?
A: I sing for the soul. That is why I shut my eyes. I have to eliminate my existence to create that awareness. The audience is not a set of bodies for me, but souls. My singing is a conversation between my soul and your soul. Even the rhythm comes in the way of expressing my feeling in that raga. That feeling has an innate rhythm without the tabla.