There is a raga in Indian classical music called Bhairavi that is almost always performed last, as a kind of farewell. Musicians say it carries the feeling of parting, of something beautiful drawing to a close. What Bhairavi reveals is something essential about classical music in Bhārat: every aspect of this tradition, from the choice of notes to the time of performance, is designed to speak to a specific part of human experience. This is music built not to entertain but to move, to illuminate, and sometimes, to say goodbye in the most beautiful way possible.
Every April, the wheat fields of Punjab turn gold. The winter crop, sown in October, has spent months drinking from the soil of the Majha, Doaba, and Malwa plains, and now it stands ready to harvest. At the same moment, something is happening in the sky: the sun is crossing the boundary into Mesha, the first sign of the zodiac. Bhārat has been watching this crossing for thousands of years, and it has never stopped celebrating it.
As we write this, eight of the world’s greatest chess players are locked in battle at a resort in Pegeia, Cyprus, for the right to challenge Gukesh Dommaraju, the reigning World Chess Champion. The 2026 FIDE Candidates Tournament is midway through its fourteen rounds, and already producing the kind of drama that makes the game irresistible. But few of the spectators watching online will pause to consider that this game, this ancient contest of kings and strategy, was born in Bhārat, perhaps as many as 1,500 years ago, in the courts of the Gupta Empire.
