AT the age of 70, most people would look back on a life well lived, filled with vivid memories, and look proudly upon their achievements.

Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, instead, prefers to hone his skills as a flautist, never mind the fact that whoever has heard the music he creates, believes him to be an absolute maestro.

"I still visit my guru and learn from him whenever I have the opportunity to. It's an important ritual for me, and it has nothing to do with age. Music is an illusive goal. The more you learn about it, true knowledge remains at a distance. It's never-ending," he remarked.

When he turned 70 on July 1, a special function held in his honour turned into a semi-confessional, as Panditji spoke about his childhood, his life and some interesting memories.

Having been born in a family of wrestlers, he credited his years at the akhada as helping him become the master flautist that he is, though he couldn't quite bring himself to take the sport so seriously. In a special discussion with singer Sonu Nigam, he spoke of how hours of much-disliked training at wrestling pit gave him the stamina to play continuously, admitting in jest that there were times when he felt like showing off a bit of wrestling skills to people in Bollywood.

Having begun training in classical music at the age of nine, Panditji picked up the flute at the age of 14, and never looked back. And he also confessed to having picked up a flute belonging to another boy, simply because he was "mesmerised by the sound of it".

His own school, named Vrindaban, is something of an institution in itself with students learning music under the most traditional form of schooling, a reality he rather interestingly gives credit for to his family.

"In India, women are easily the most remarkable people in the fabric of society. Nothing happens without their consent, and the same is the case here. I decided to live in the gurukul, as tradition, and be with the students, and teach them music, and my wife supported it whole-heartedly saying if it made me happy, I should do it."

In the last 52 years, having created music that is considered divine and having dabbled in making music for films, there is a possibility that an individual may just have run out of targets to achieve. That's hardly the case here "I am very happy with all my work, but there is always this feeling, that everything could have been better. There's a restlessness I feel when it comes to how much there is still left to be achieved in terms of the music I would like to create," he said, when asked about his best work.

The dedication and restlessness probably stems from the fact that music has never taken on a meaning greater than just pleasure. After nearly 60 years of playing the flute, he still refrains from calling it a career, preferring instead to call it 'devotion'.

"It's very difficult for me to think of this as a profession or a business even now. All these years that I have played music, it just never crossed my mind that it was a profession. I played music simply because my heart and soul believed in it, and because for me, it was a form of expressing my devotion to God."

Lotus, Indigo

Film-maker Smita Kudva talks about her movie on Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia

"The number seven has always been a special number in cosmic terms, and seven is the number of films that I plan to have in my series of films on maestros of Indian music. The first film, Lotus Indigo, is on Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia.

The title of the film has also been selected to match him. Indigo because it is the colour of Lord Krishna, and Lotus because apart from symbolising creativity, a lotus grows in muck. Panditji has also had very humble beginnings, and he has grown out of them to become an achiever.

When I was very young, I would tour a lot with him on his concerts, as part of his team, playing the tanpura, and I often wondered what went on in his mind when he played.
Why he played certain ragas, and what would be going on in his head. I asked him about it one day, and he just said, "If I start thinking during a performance, I won't be able to perform." It was that simple.

During the making of this film, there are many things I learnt about him, for instance, his regret at losing his mother at such an early age. He lost his mother when he was four, and it is something that still hurts him somewhere.

For me, quite simply, he has been an inspiration. Even now, as I work on my projects, I often consult him when I am faced with a problem and rely on his advice. He is, after all, a genius."