Cultural and other artistic explorations
My scientific side of life is concurrently complemented with my keen interest in the arts: painting, theatre, films, music, philosophy and humour (in a constantly changing order..!!)
Performance-wise, I love to play North Indian drums – Tabla – in my own privacy and with other performers. I never had any formal training in tabla playing, but my bringing up and social interactions created ample opportunities to nurture this; and so, using the artistic alias “Shashi Maharaj”, I have been cultivating and enjoying this aspect for quite sometime now, and hope to continue doing this.
Here are some photos and other tid-bits from my musical activities:
– Shashi Maharaj – Suresh Rattan, Tabla accompaniment with Indian folk and classical singers, instrumentalists, and with Jazz and Reggae bands
surrealistic compositions of Suresh Rattan-Shashi Maharaj tabla playing (with Morten Grunnet, Harry Jokumsen, Bhai Baldeep Singh, BS Rattan, Jonas Stampe, Marya and Pervaiz Akhtar) in private sittings, public concerts, and in the corridors of science, Aarhus University, and at Saranglok Mohali
At father’s birth centenary with BSR, at SarangLok, Mohali (19 December 2009)
A session of seena-ba-seena tabla-ryaz with Ripudaman Singh –
In a book of interviews with famous and not-so-famous Punjabi writers, musicians, dramatists, painters and scientists…
poster and cover of music CDs “Fall and Rise of a Woman” with Pearl (2015), and “Smalltown People” by Harry Jokumsen, (2005 or so) in which a glimpse of my tabla playing as Shashi Maharaj can be heard in some numbers. Also, some recent tabla playing and some singing can be heard in some numbers, such as Mero Sunder, He was Happy, Ek Taal, Shashi etc on Harry Jocumsens’s website by clicking here or by going to http://bandbase.dk/zenit
Here are some video clips of me playing Tabla with Spiredon Kayyal on Diwali 2009; and with Tapas Bhattacharya, Sumangala and Sunirmala singing Rabindra Sangeet, May 2010, with Jonas Stampe on Sitar Aarhus. These and other videos can also be found in Youtube searching for Suresh Rattan