In 1955, three men set out on a journey from London that would take them through Greece, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, among other countries, on their way to their final destination, Calcutta.On the way, they recorded the songs of locals on their tape recorders, collecting valuable material as part of their mission to build an archive of traditional music.Paris to Calcutta: Men and Music of the Desert Road is Taranasi-born Deben Bhattacharya’s impressionistic account of the six-month trip, which he undertook along with a British student of architecture, Colin Glennie, and part of the way with a French journalist, Henri Anneville.Paris to Calcutta: Men and Music of the Desert Road Deben Bhattacharya Introduction by Jharna Bose Bhattacharya, Robert Millis and W G Archer Sublime Frequencies, 2018With archival images, transcriptions and recordings – all contained in four CDs – this is the saga of an audacious adventure fueled by the passion of one man who wanted to explore the sounds of other cultures. During his lifetime, Bhattacharya, whom sound artist Robert Millis has described as ‘field recordist, poet, film maker and amateur ethnomusicologist’, released several albums of his recordings that have influenced several musicians including Frank Zappa. However, Bhattacharya, who passed away in 2011, has been forgotten in his native land.In this exclusive extract from the book, Bhattacharya recalls his experiences while travelling through Iran, where he heard local musicians but also had a scary experience on the road.§Tehran…in less than half an hour, I was face to face with my first Persian musician, and, giving me a friendly wink, Dr. Pirnia drifted away into the long hall of Radio Tehran as casually as he had come out of it.The fingers kept making an intricate pattern on the goatskin head of the goblet-shaped zarb drum: first melting into whispering dew drops and then crashing like a thunderbolt. Infinite varieties of rhythmic patterns doodled in my ears as I held the microphone. For nearly five minutes, the drummer improvised these rhythmic variations before he started his song of Baba Karam. Baba Karam was a mystic lover of Iranian tradition. Folk musicians have composed serious as well as light-hearted songs about him. This was a light-hearted one. Baba Karam was offering his love to Zulekha, begging her to be careful with her father, whose heart was only made of glass!Darioosh was playing on a santoor in the mode of isfahan, so called from the city of Isfahan in the south. Since my arrival in Iran, everyone had asked me if I was going there… .Also read: An American Collector’s Quest for Rare Indian Gramophone RecordingsI was told that the sky of Isfahan is petalled by domes, minarets and blue space. And as I watched Darioosh playing isfahan to me, I could almost see Isfahan the city visually reproduced through the santoor’s 24 sets of triple strings vibrating under the delicate hammers in Darioosh’s hands. Now there would be a proud vertical phrase of melody punctuated by a pause, a silence, and then, another sensuous melodic line would draw bold dome-like curves, followed by yet another pause, evoking space. A musician can successfully translate art and architecture into music only if he is not shape- and colour-blind. Gentle and quiet, Darioosh was as alive to the visual arts as to the sounds of his santoor. How else could he improvise music in the mode of isfahan in the city of Tehran?The throbbing of the zarb drum again, accompanying a high-pitched voice reciting the Shanameh, or the Book of Kings by the great 9th century poet Firdowsi, in order to inspire athletes in their free-style exercises. Suddenly, you hear him stop reciting the original poem. He begins to improvise rhythmic variations by counting from forty downwards to one and then rising from one up to fifty at an ever-faster pace while the athletes struggle to keep time. As he slows down, he stops improvising and picks up the words again: “I do not care for hope or frustration, because, O God, you are beyond both.” The poet then speaks of his beloved whom he compares to a flower and for whom he would sacrifice life itself. “The philosophy of this poem,” I was told by my translator, “is related to the oneness of love and war, beauty and man’s sacrifice for it.” The zarb certainly is an apt instrument for interpreting this realistic philosophy.Deben Bhattacharya recording in Afghanistan. Credit: Special arrangementThe mode mahour played on a setar – an inconspicuous four-stringed instrument – has a soothing delicacy. It is said to have been introduced by the dervishes after their movement had been suppressed. Though it is different in shape and size from the Indian sitar, it may have some connection with India through the Indian sufis. As the old master of the music school played mahour, I felt completely at home. Apart from the actual scales of the modes, the principles of classical music in Iran are almost the same as those of North India except, perhaps, that the raga system of India is more elaborate. It is interesting to note that as you get further and further away from deserts and rocky mountains, music blossoms. It is intimately connected with the character of the landscape… .Semnan – Sabzevar – Meshed “Road varies from rough to very rough and for long stretches it is a series of bone shaking corrugations. Spark plug leads are being shaken off regularly and the wheels and front suspension receive more shock than they can take. Shock absorbers have been smashed to pieces… .”“We had a very near miss just outside Tehran when an army lorry driving madly on the wrong side of the road (and in dust of another vehicle) took our rear-side mirror off. Two inches more and…?”I found these terse entries in the log book which Colin was keeping. We were bouncing and bumping through a mountain of dust when suddenly a lorry swung to the left of the road taking off our reflecting mirror, as Colin swung to the right. It was over in a fraction of a second, but it left us with uneasy speculations of what could have happened that afternoon behind the grey curtain.Excerpted with permission from Paris to Calcutta: Men and Music of the Desert Road, Sublime Frequencies, 2018.