Purbayan Chatterjee on Musical Collaboration

For Purbayan Chatterjee, Indian classical music is not something frozen in time. It is alive, restless and constantly reshaping itself through the musician who performs it. Sitting down for a conversation ahead of his upcoming India tour with flautist Rakesh Chaurasia, the sitar maestro speaks with the ease of someone deeply rooted in tradition yet entirely open to the sounds of the present.“The beauty of raga music is that every time an artist performs a raga, it is a reimagination of sorts,” he says thoughtfully. “Usually what happens is this is Gurmukhi Vidya. It is taught in the Guru Shishya Parampara. The guru tells you these are the phrases. But the right guru, the Sadguru, will tell you to find your own phrases within the parameters of the raga.”To explain the idea, he reaches for a simple analogy. “It is a little bit like the Hansel and Gretel story. Everybody tells that story. The story does not change, but every person has a different way of telling the same story.”That search for individuality within tradition has shaped his own musical journey. Even after performing with Rakesh Chaurasia for nearly three decades, he says familiarity has never turned into repetition. “We can approach the same Yaman or the same Bihag and yet it will sound different on a different day. That freshness is what I admire about him as a musician.”The chemistry he speaks about extends into his collaborations beyond the classical space too. His recent work ‘Feathered Creatures’ with guitarist Mark Lettieri began not in a studio but during a casual backstage interaction after performing with the Grammy-winning band Snarky Puppy in Mumbai.“He was sitting in the vanity van and asked me to show him some things on the sitar,” Chatterjee recalls with a laugh. “Then I asked him to show me something on the guitar. We instantly became good friends.”For Chatterjee, that friendship is not incidental to collaboration. It is the foundation of it. “To create good music together, you have to have good chemistry together as people. How else will you have an effective dialogue on what you want to create?”At the time, he was already composing ‘Feathered Creatures’ with Nakul, but it was Snarky Puppy frontman Michael League who nudged the project in a new direction. “Michael told me, ‘I think your album needs some guitars.’ So I thought, great, let me ask Mark. That’s how one thing led to another.”Even while experimenting, Chatterjee remains deeply anchored in his classical training. He speaks of his early talim under his father, Parthapratim Chatterjee, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty as something that continues to simmer within him. “All that learning is constantly churning in you,” he says. “At the same time, I live in today’s world. I hear guitar players, I see their techniques. Somewhere unconsciously, it makes me synthesise and think differently.”That intersection between tradition and technology is also reflected in his use of the electric sitar. Though he uses it sparingly in ‘Feathered Creatures’, the instrument has helped him connect with younger listeners in surprising ways.“The electric sitar is just another sound. It is another way of expressing the same raga through something electrified,” he explains.He points to ‘Garaj Garaj’ from Bandish Bandits as an example of how sound can bridge generations. “That overdriven rock sitar sound made it relatable to young people. The song existed in the first season too, but in the second season it really went viral because the younger generation connected with that sound.”At the same time, he is careful not to romanticise either the past or the present. Asked about the current music landscape shaped by social media, AI and short-form content, Chatterjee avoids dismissive criticism.“People often ask me whether musicians who play in one-minute reels are incapable of playing for one hour. It’s not that they are incapable. It is just a different skill set.”He compares it to condensing an epic into a summary. “You can narrate the entire Ramayana in detail or you can explain it in two lines. It depends on your ability to make something precise and crisp.”Beyond performance and composition, Chatterjee is also nurturing younger talent through his foundation. Recently, that role took an interesting turn when Farhan Akhtar approached him while preparing for an upcoming Hollywood project that required him to learn the sitar.“He is an incredibly talented man,” Chatterjee says warmly. “Because he already plays the guitar, he learns very fast. But at the same time, he is a beginner when it comes to sitar.”While Chatterjee guides him over calls and messages, his student Rithvik regularly monitors Akhtar’s practice sessions. “We are treating him like we would any other student, but of course Farhan bhai is a very special man with a special talent.”For now, much of Chatterjee’s attention is fixed on ‘Feathered Creatures’ and the upcoming Saath Saath India tour with Rakesh Chaurasia. The duo’s album had unexpectedly found a second life online, especially with younger listeners creating reels around their Yaman track.“We realised there is now a proper gig economy in India. There are professional touring agencies that help standardise production, sound and visuals across cities. So audiences everywhere get the same experience.”Yet perhaps the most revealing part of the conversation comes when he speaks about collaboration itself. He remembers a lesson from the late Ustad Zakir Hussain that continues to guide him.“Zakir saab used to say, if we have to make music together, we need to be friends. If you keep calling me Ustadji all the time, there is distance between us.”Chatterjee smiles as he recalls it. “You have to be easy and chilled out and friends first. Then you can really communicate musically and create a common language together.”Watch: Purbayan Chatterjee on Why Classical Music Must Keep Evolving | DC Conversations



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