In Mumbai, the city of his childhood, to perform with the Symphony Orchestra of India, renowned conductor Zubin Mehta spoke to Karan Thapar on his life and experiences. The interview was a freewheeling chat on Bombay of yore, Mehta’s father, and how he inspired his love for music.At the end of the interview, Mehta significantly alleged that The Times of India had removed just one line from an interview he recently gave to the newspaper – in which he said that he wishes Muslims in India are able to live in peace forever. The Wire‘s report on this can be read here.The full text of this interview is given below. Karan Thapar: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Before I begin my conversation with Mr Mehta, let me say that magical music performance is living proof that the spirit of India survived 2014. And this young generation, this young generation will keep the spirit of India alive no matter who rules us or for how long they rule us. And can I add, sir, your father would have been looking down from heaven smiling and he would have said to himself these children have given my Foundation life, meaning, and specific beauty. I thank you. That was the most magnificent thing I’ve seen in the last nine years. Ladies and gentlemen, before I actually start talking to Mr Mehta, I’m going to tell you a story about the very first time I met him. He won’t remember, I can promise you. It was 30 years ago, 1994-95, you’d come, sir, with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, and in those days there was no such thing as private television in India. There was no independent television. We would make programs on videos, and the one I worked on was called ‘Eyewitness’. Doordarshan got in touch and said could we collaborate to do an interview with Mr Mehta, and I said of course it would be a pleasure. And since it was Doordarshan’s idea, the interview was arranged and fixed by them. And they chose nine in the morning, and I said to myself that’s an ungodly hour of the day! But since Mr Mehta has agreed, nine in the morning it is. And then I discovered that the night before was your grand performance in Delhi. So I said he’s going to have a very short night of sleep before he comes to me. So we arrived, we set up, the crew and I were ready, and I think it was the Meridian Hotel where you were staying. And they’d given us a room for the recording at the other end of the corridor from your suite. So at 8.30 we were ready, and we waited. 9 o’clock came but Mr Mehta didn’t. 9.15 came but Mr Mehta hadn’t. 9.20, 9.25, 9.30, and at 9.30 I said to myself I wonder if something’s gone wrong. So I walked down the corridor, gently knocked on the door. No reply. I knocked a little harder. No reply. I tried the bell tentatively, it rang once, nothing, I tried it again, nothing. By that stage, I was ringing the bell, knocking on the door, calling “Mr Mehta”, and then suddenly the door opened and there he was – in your magnificent pyjamas and dressing gown, rubbing your eyes and you said to me, “Christ! I am going to be interviewed by the only man in this country who comes on time!” I will never forget that. ZM: Where was it, in Bombay? KT: No, it was at the Meridian Hotel in Delhi. ZM: Delhi! KT: I think it was on the 30th floor, if I remember. KT: Mr Mehta, let’s start at the very beginning. In your autobiography, you write I was a perfectly normal young boy, cheeky and in no way averse to the usual pranks and fights. You also say you had a loving, tenderly caring mother and a wonderful father. So was the young Zubin naughty, and was he pampered? ZM: I don’t think so. My brother was naughty, the young one. He gave my mother a bad time when he was very young. Later on he changed. But tell me, did I put on some decent clothes after that? KT: You did! I mean you said give me 20 minutes, and you’d had a shave, you’d had a bath and you came smelling of the most magnificent aftershave because I remember the cameraman said to you sir you smell good. [Laughter] ZM: Really! KT: So you were the goody goody in the family? You were mummy’s pet? ZM: I wouldn’t say that. You ask my brother that. He wouldn’t agree. KT: You describe your family as an old-fashioned Parsi family. At another point in your autobiography, you call it a traditional Parsi family. ZM: That’s absolutely true. That had to do a lot with my grandparents too. Every night after dinner, my grandfather had my brother and myself, and he taught us our prayers and he taught us arithmetic. KT: And are you good at it? ZM: Yeah, in those days I could say my 17 times tables, my 19 times tables, and he was that typical Parsi educated, counting on his fingers, and I still only counted Gujarati. I can’t do it any other way. KT: That is terrific. What is 24 in Gujarati? ZM: That came from my grandfather. My father taught me music and taught me to appreciate music, because he sat with me on a daily basis also, and we would play records. He had a wonderful collection, so when I went to Vienna, I knew a lot of music that I had heard at home. I knew more than most of the students in my class because I had heard these recordings of Toscanini and Furtwangler and Stokowski. The records in those days were terrible sounding, but their Tempe, the speed of the music, that was correct. I heard from my youth, and the first time I heard an orchestra in Vienna I thought my ears popped open, I had never heard anything like that. So there was quite an evolution in my hearing and I that became my emblem, my axiom, all my life. KT: I want very much to talk to you about your father’s influence on your music, and also his gramophone. But first I’m going to talk to you about school. Your parents sent you to Saint Mary’s High School. ZM: No, first to Campion School. KT: Okay ZM: Five years, then I went to Saint Mary’s. KT: And it was run by Spanish Jesuits. ZM: Yes. Catalan Jesuits. KT: Catalan Jesuits. Yes, that’s very important! ZM: We didn’t know the difference in those days, later on when I went to Barcelona for the first time with an orchestra where we were on tour, about three or four of the priests that taught me in my school came to my concert. It is when I found out that they were all Catalan, I didn’t know the differences. KT: And did you recognise them afterwards? ZM: Of course, yes. Yes. KT: In your autobiography, you write a wonderful thing. You said your class had 40 students, and they came from some six or seven different religions. ZM: That’s right. KT: But you add, nobody tried to convert us to Catholicism. At a time when Anglo-Indian schools are going through a pretty hard time in India, and they’re frequently under attack, how do you remember Saint Mary’s? ZM: Very positively, because our teachers were both priests and secular. I learned my first Shakespeare in school, of course mathematics and history were my favorite subjects. And we played Cricket in the breaks and then I have only good memories. KT: Your great cricketing body went on to become a major industrialist, didn’t he? At school one of her closest friends was Yusuf Hamid, who went on to become chairman of Cipla. ZM: Wait, he was not in my class. He went to Cathedral. KT: Okay, so you better tell your biographer that some of the things he’s put in his book about you are incorrect. ZM: In my class was Cuffe Parade for whom I’m performing now with the Mehli Mehta Foundation day after tomorrow night. KT: But I gather you and Yusuf Hamid would play cricket at the Oval Maidan. ZM: Yes because he was my neighbour at Cuffe Parade. He lived two houses away. In fact I have to tell you all, I spent one of the most depressing afternoons of my life today, because after the rehearsal I wanted to look at my old house which I always do when I come to Bombay and I go there with Yusuf. But he’s not in Bombay just now. And we take a picture there every two or three years, when I come. You won’t believe it but my driver, professional driver, could not find Cuffe Parade. He could not find it. And I couldn’t find it. The slums that he had to go through and I don’t know where he landed, he just went around in circles, circles, GPS, nothing helped. And then I told him I said listen, look for the Afghan Church, that must stand still and he looked it up and about 15 minutes it took him to find the Afghan Church which we could hardly see because it’s all covered with bamboos and little forests in front. From there I carefully, we finally found Cuffe Parade and there are three houses left of what I remember my house, Yusuf’s house, and another one. I just couldn’t believe what I was looking at. My house, so dilapidated. The people who own it, I believe, still live there. They have let it fall, I mean they are not proud of their ownership of this wonderful house on Cuffe Parade. Then I discovered that in front of the house where there used to be the ocean, of course, in my youth then there’s a fishing Village, that fishing village is gone, there’s a beautiful garden there now, that was good. Wonderful to look at. I was very pleased, but I came home I told my wife all this, what I went through today, and Khushru was with me, Santok, and he couldn’t find it either. KT: Describe to me the houses you remember, not the house that you saw today which is dilapidated. ZM: That’s the house I grew up in for 18 years, I never knew another house. I was born in one of the first buildings of Cuffe Parade, but before I was two or three my father moved to this house and that’s what I remember. KT: Your father, of course, is the person who introduced you to music. He founded the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, he founded the Bombay String Quartet, but tonight, sitting in the Taj Hotel, the important thing is that he was also part of the Palm Court Sextet. Tell us about that. ZM: Well I never heard it, because he used to play for the dinner crowd, and I was not once asked to go at this to that but I listened to his quartet. He didn’t ever have to introduce me. I just had it whether I liked it or not, I don’t remember the first time I heard music, it was part of my existence since I’m two or three or even earlier. But he practiced his violin, he taught his pupils he had his quartet that he rehearsed with and when he had orchestral concerts, that he would conduct he would call sections of the orchestra to my house to rehearse with them. First violence, Viola separately so I would hear all that whether I wanted. KT: You know the other amazing thing about your father, and I suspect most people in the audience… ZM: I’m glad you’re talking about my father so much. KT: I’ll come to you in a moment’s time, I promise you. ZM: No really, because he was the Leonard Bernstein of Bombay. KT: But he wasn’t just the Leonard Bernstein, he also did something that most people aren’t aware of, he played the violin in the all India Radio famous signature tune. Most people don’t remember that signature tune, you probably do. ZM: They still play. I’ll tell you, I went with my wife and my children to Amarnath on a yatra, I don’t know in the early 70s and going to Amarnath we were in a Dak Bungalow on the way there about 13,000 feet high, I was sleeping at night and suddenly the people outside who were in charge of putting us on horses every day to take us to Amarnath, they switched off the radio just before that I heard my father play at 13,000 feet. I told my children, ‘This is your grandfather playing the violin,’ and it still goes on and sometimes I tell people in America who all know this little tune. It was composed by a Czech Jewish composer called Walter Kaufman, who is a refugee and he was in charge of classical music at all India Radio, played a lot of chamber music with my father, and he composed that tune which is still used. KT: It’s a haunting tune, isn’t it? Once you’ve heard it stays in your head forever, yeah. ZM: I’m very glad you mentioned it. KT: You write, and I’m quoting you, “Now I was wrapped up in and surrounded by music with my father practicing in the living room and with musical scores scattered all around the house, but the most important thing was Daddy’s gramophone and Daddy’s records.” Is that right? ZM: That’s right. That’s right. And that’s where my orchestral education happened. By the time I went to Vienna when I was 18, I knew a lot of music by ear. I had not studied it with a score in front of me, but I knew it by ear and then I heard the Great Vienna Philharmonic play the same music, which a sound I had never imagined existed because the orchestra I heard in Bombay was not of the same quality, of course. Today I must tell you I am very pleased with the Symphony of India, I am rehearsing with them every day. I hope some of you come to the concert. But they are playing beautifully, they have a very good standard, I don’t know how many Indians are in the orchestra, not too many, but they are Russian-speaking, Spanish-speaking, etc. But they play very well, I’m very pleased. KT: Tell me about those days when you taught yourself music and the love of music that came with it, listening to records. Who chose the records that you listened to? Was it daddy or did you just pick them up? ZM: No, after dinner every night I chose a record and my father sometimes had so much music behind him during the day he didn’t want to listen to music anymore, and he would tell me that, and I would plead with him, to let me hear. But then what happened was he went after the war with the first ship that went out of Bombay, he went to New York to study. And he stayed there for four or five years in New York, and that’s what I educated myself with this recording collection. I played it every single time and my mother never objected.KT: At that age, because you must have been in your early teens at the time, what were your favourite composers? ZM: I would play all the Beethoven’s symphonies, especially the Brahm Symphonies, my favourites. Opera. My father had no interest in opera, and hardly any operatic records. So we didn’t have that education…that came for me in Vienna, etc. Listening to the Vienna Opera from the standing room. Those five years. By the time he came back from New York, I knew a lot of music that I had educated myself in. KT: So, in a very real sense, one could say Zubin Mehta is self-taught. ZM: In the beginning, yes. Audio taught, yes. But then I studied with the music in front of me in Vienna. KT: I gather your career as a conductor, the very first time you conducted, was when you were 15. Yehudi Menuhin had come to India, he was playing with your father’s Orchestra, the Bombay Symphony Orchestra, and during a rehearsal when your father was playing the solo part in Brahm’s violent concerto, you got an opportunity to conduct. Tell us about that. ZM: It was a nightmare, because I knew it by ear, I had not studied. And my father in order to train the Orchestra played the solo part, because he was a good enough violinist to play the Brahms Violin Concerto. But he would play and he would scream at me in front of the orchestra that I didn’t give the horn a cue, I didn’t give the clarinet a cue, etc. Playing the concerto, and of course I was a complete amateur, I just knew it by ear and he shouldn’t have put me up there. KT: But is that when the desire, the ambition to be a conductor, was born? ZM: Yeah, I always had that ambition. But my first time I really conducted with him was at the all India Radio concerto by Bach, with a few strings that I had studied and I conducted with him playing the solo part. KT: How old were you at the time? ZM: That was 15, yeah 15 or 16. Then by 18 I went to Vienna. KT: But the amazing thing is that when it came to choosing a career your family wanted you to be a doctor. ZM: No, my mother, not my father. My mother probably saw me playing with the thermometer when I was young and you know I a middle-class Parsi family chooses the professions for their children, so I was chosen to be a doctor because I played with the thermometer or something, and my brother an accountant, and he became a chartered accountant, and I gave it up after two semesters at St Xavier’s College. I couldn’t do it. KT: At St Xavier’s, where you were studying medicine, one of your friends… ZM: That was pre-medicine, I never entered the medical part of it. KT: … but one of your friends at St Xavier’s, was Ajit Hutheesing, Nehru’s younger sister Krishna’s son. ZM: No, he was with me at St. Mary’s also. KT: So, he’d been with you for many years. Now he said something very interesting about you, he said “in his teens”, he says “in his teens ZM was socially uncomfortable with girls.” I find that hard to believe. just look at the look at the attention you get from the ladies, I can’t believe you were ever uncomfortable. ZM: I don’t know if he said that. We were in a boy’s school, there were no girls around us. KT: So, you weren’t used to flirting as a teenager?ZM: St. Xavier’s College, it was mixed, but I wasn’t there long enough. KT: So, the art of flirtation was something you learned in Vienna. ZM: You don’t learn those things. KT: There’s a wicked smile on your face, you’re remembering something. ZM: No, I remembered that I should tell you about my first concert in Vienna. Because that was something that I can’t forget. It was the Hungarian revolution in 1956. And I gathered a whole group of students made a small Orchestra, and we went to the border with Hungarian refugees, you know, really running across the border, flying from the communist regime, and we were given a dining room to play the concert in a British camp, and that’s where I did the first concert of my life for the Hungarian refugees. And after the concert, a Hungarian priest came out, and in Hungarian that we didn’t understand of course, he blessed us all and I feel that blessing has carried through all my life. KT: How old were you when you did your first concert? ZM: I was about 19, I think. KT: Your biographer, Bakhtiar Dadabhoyhas, has an enchanting story to tell about how you went to your father to tell him, ‘I want to go to Vienna,’ you chose your movement very carefully, you did it when Daddy was praying…ZM: Oh really? Probably. KT: You don’t remember it? ZM: No, but I had a cousin in Vienna who was a very good pianist, who was a child prodigy pianist, living with my father’s brother in Shanghai, and they ran away after the Communist invasion. And he landed up in Vienna. So my parents had at least my cousin who was three years older than me to send me to Vienna, that he would take care of me, and so my father agreed immediately. KT: And did your cousin take care of you? ZM: Well yes, sure. We are still in touch. She’s now 90 years old, and still plays piano. Very good pianist. KT: Vienna changed your life. You were a different person, a New Horizon opened, and you became world famous with every passing year. But there’s something your biographer says about you, he says no matter what Orchestra he conducted, no matter what honour he got, Zubin was a Mumbai boy at heart. ZM: Possibly, yes. That I’ve never changed. My love for my country, my love for cricket. I still drive my wife crazy when the test matches are played in Australia. Then I’ll watch it in Los Angeles with the time difference, and I have to get up at three in the morning. Recently I got up at three in the morning for three nights in a row, and it was raining in Manchester. So I was waiting in Los Angeles for it to stop raining in Manchester so that the Test match, between the Ashes, would go on. KT: In your days when you played cricket, were you a bowler or were you a batsman? ZM: More a border actually, a leg spin. A medium paced leg spin border. KT: And over the years, has the fascination with cricket remained undiminished, or has America attempted due to baseball? ZM: No, no I watch baseball too. But it’s cricket. The main sport. Then of course you know I was six or seven years in Montreal, I became a big fan of ice hockey. That was really something, that one of the most exciting sports you can imagine, is seeing the Montreal Canadians play Ice Hockey. KT: Do you follow the fortunes of the Indian cricket team? ZM: Yes, I know what’s going on. KT: And were you disappointed when they lost the World Cup the other day? ZM: Yeah, but then I read in the Indian paper. You know the American papers never report cricket, that’s my failing. I have to go online or whatever it is, or I phone Yusuf in London and ask him what the scores are. Anyway let’s not talk too much about that though. KT: In your autobiography you write, “I consider myself an Indian even now, this is also why I never gave up my Indian passport.” That’s laudable, but it must have made traveling very difficult. Everywhere needed a visa. ZM: Yes, thank god now we don’t need a visa for every European country. You know this Schengen agreement, I have one visa for the whole of Europe, that helps a lot. Otherwise I would go from one Embassy to another for visas. That was very troublesome. KT: How do you like Mumbai today? It’s a very different city to the one you grew up in, even the name has changed. ZM: I heard today that it has 22 million people, is that true? KT: Probably, I’m sure it’s true.ZM: I can’t believe it. 22 million people. The other day, 15th of August, I looked outside my window of the hotel, I saw about one million people standing in front of the Gateway. They were just standing, they were not doing a thing, there was no place for them to move around. There was no nobody selling food, nothing, they were just standing there. Came to be in the open air I think. And that day that evening when I went to a dinner they were all going back, to wherever they came from. Probably they were going to Churchgate catching the train wherever they were living. But I’ve never seen anything like it.KT: Our question, Mr Mehta, and I ask you deliberately, because you are still an Indian, you’re proud of your Indian passport, you love your country, what do you think of the sort of country we’re becoming? I’m talking about the treatment of minorities, Muslims in particular…your friend Yusuf Hamid is a Muslim, I’m talking of the treatment of journalists.ZM: Listen, I’ll tell you frankly. I gave an interview to the Times of India over the phone from Los Angeles two weeks ago. A very good interview, and I read it, it was verbatim, perfect. The last sentence I told the man – and I met him recently, and he admitted they took out – the last thing I said, “I hope my Muslim friends can live in peace forever in India.” And that was not printed in the Times. It was cut off and the writer couldn’t give me a reason why. Also read: Times of India Removed Quote on Wanting Peace for Indian Muslims From Interview: Zubin MehtaKT: They don’t want to offend Mr Modi and the government. ZM: How would that offend anybody? KT: Because it’s BJP supporters. ZM: Yes, this morning I read that they were burning churches in Pakistan. One has to get over this madness of religious persecution, and hopefully things will change. KT: Does your heart sometimes cry for India when you read about intolerance, when you read about journalistic freedom ending, when you read about minorities being treated this way? ZM: I hope, really, that the present government in Israel will change very soon, that’s an unbearable situation. I don’t know one person in Israel who supports this government, but I don’t know those ultra-conservative Jewish people, I don’t. They are not part of the public that I play for. But whoever I spoke to, they cannot wait for the present government to change. KT: Two of the countries you love the most, India and Israel, are both going through bad times. Does that upset and hurt you? ZM: Well, is India going through bad times? KT: It depends upon who you talk to. ZM: Yes [someone from the audience shouts: no!]KT: It depends entirely on whom you talk to. Ask Indian Muslims, they’ll give you a different answer. Ask rich Indians, they’ll give you a different answer. There are a lot of them here. Ask journalists you’ll get a different answer. Ask politicians from the opposition, you’ll get another answer. Ask them over there and you’re hearing they’re no. ZM: You all have opinions here. Let’s end with that opinion. KT: Mr Mehta, thank you very, very much for regaining us with those wonderful memories of Bombay and your childhood. ZM: A pleasure to talk to you.Transcribed by Adi Roy.