The Sound of Misunderstanding: Dhvanivala’s Sonic Explorations

A young Indian student arrives in Darmstadt in the early 1960s to do a doctorate in physics. Cold War. Atomic physics is the order of the day. It is the time of post-colonial sovereignty struggles. And what is going on in Darmstadt? After the horrors of National Socialism, efforts are being made to regain international face, experimenting with technical devices for generating sound. How does this electronic music sound to the Indian physicist?

In ‘The Sound of Misunderstanding – Dhvanivala’s Sonic Explorations’, composer, theatre maker and conductor Sandeep Bhagwati sets out in search of the traces of this student. They lead directly to the contradictions of that era, that conflict-ridden time saturated with repulsive particles and energies. The young man returned to India as a doctor of physics – but also as a sound tinkerer, inspired by his experiences in Darmstadt. Living this multiple identity requires several names. For Bollywood, he is Dhvanivala, the sound supplier.

Sandeep Bhagwati follows his tracks as they branch out, dissolve. As Dhvanivala becomes increasingly elusive, the contours of his environment become clearer, the movement between continents, classes, musical traditions and listening comprehension. The back-and-forth between contexts, life in a post-colonial situation, is not without misunderstandings, not without violence; the back-and-forth requires masks and a sense of the imaginary.