The interview which appears below, was originally published on Times of India in February 2018. ©The rights to this material are reserved to the owner. If you have any concerns or comments, please send an email to info@rahmaniac.com.
Though Joshua Pollock holds a masters’ degree in music and is an accomplished violinist, music has taken a back seat for him for the time being. Reason? Now, he’s is busy as a heartfulness trainer and practitioner. Joshua, who now resides in Delhi, was in the city recently. The city, he says, is very close to his heart, for, he’s someone who lived in Chennai for five years and has even worked on the soundtracks of A.R. Rahman’s films.
‘I got introduced to heartfulness in a strange way’
I have been practicing heartfulness since 2002. I got introduced to it in the US. There are so many people in the US who practise it. I tried different things, but either they didn’t work for me or I wasn’t good at them. I got introduced to heartfulness in a strange way. I was going to the grocery store one day. I happened to have a chat with a stranger on the road and he told me about this. I remembered about it a few months later and tried it. It attracted me and I kept it going.
‘Poses in yoga are only to help meditate’
Heartfulness is based in the Raja Yoga tradition. There are different approaches to yoga. But when we think of yoga, we only think of stretches and poses. But yoga is essentially a meditative tradition. And there’s a lot of mystery surrounding yoga. The reason for that is simple — to know it, you should experience it. Also, poses in yoga are something that help you meditate. But if you adopt difficult poses, it may even get in the way of meditation. Heartfulness is only an inner approach and it has nothing to do with poses.
‘I met my wife first in Chennai’
After my first stint in Chennai, I went back to the US. I missed this city so much that I came back again. I have always felt at home here. I felt very comfortable and relaxed. And I found it easy to relate to the people here. I lived in Chennai for almost five years. And I met my wife first in Chennai. I was working for Rahman’s conservatory and met her at a concert organised by the US Consulate in Chennai, where she was working.
‘Rahman is an easy-going person’
Playing for the soundtracks of Indian films was completely a different experience for me. With Rahman, the recordings would be at night, mostly. Rahman is a very easy-going person. He would give me the score and I would play it. He would allow one to be creative and never micro-managed the artistes. But I rarely knew the names of the films I worked on. I would only be focused on the music part of it. But I must say that I really enjoyed working on Ghajini and Delhi-6. Of late, I have been doing music only for fun. For the last few years, I have only been focusing on co-authoring a book on heartfulness.
