Papa Mori believed that if a sitar player grew tired while sitting in that position, it was because the heart was uneasy, and when the heart is uneasy there will be pain in the legs, Wu said.
Wu also learned how to breathe properly while playing the instrument. He was taught how to slow down and that the most important training in learning the sitar was not physical but mental.
“As long as there was a sitar, there was no problem of communication,” Wu said, noting that he and his teacher did not share a common language.
Through Papa Mori’s teachings, he said, he came to understand that the pure and simple melodies of the sitar reflect the player’s state of mind.
Since he returned from that first two-month trip to India, Wu has been going back every year to improve his sitar skills and to reconnect with the vision of life that he found there.
“Before I went to India, I lived for no one but myself. But I have since found that man has unlimited potential, and I want to use mine to do something for my country,” he said.
With this goal in mind, Wu and Siyu Sitar started a program in 2007 to collect, refurbish and donate musical instruments to young people in Aboriginal communities, other disadvantaged teens and to schools that lack resources. They also give sitar lectures at universities and to community groups and visit remote areas to perform for elementary school students.
Wu’s studio in Taipei is open to youths who want to rehearse or learn to play an instrument. For some youths on the street, it has become a sanctuary where they can also have free guitar lessons.
“It is better that they hang out here rather than on the street, where they would be exposed to crime, drugs and gangs,” Wu said.
Despite all the charity work it does, Siyu Sitar does not accept donations, he said.
The band’s two albums, Heartbeat of Asia and River of Memories, released last year and this year respectively, are the first sitar CDs ever recorded by a Taiwanese group.
For Wu, the goals ahead are not to make money or to try to earn a living from his music.
“I just want to play music for the mountains, for the sea, even for the Formosan deer,” he said.
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