Vikram Seth is greatly fond of flute music. He says that it is at once the most universal and most particular of sounds. There is no culture that does not have its flute. The different kinds of flutes are: the reed neh, the recorder, the Japanese shakuhachi, the deep bansuri of Hindustani classical music, the clear or breathy flutes of South America and the high-pitched Chinese flutes. Each of these has its specific fingering and compass. It weaves its own associations. For him, to hear any flute is to be drawn into the commonality of all mankind, to be moved by music closest in its phrases and sentences to the human voice. Its motive force is living breath: it needs to pause and breathe before it can go on.
