Rushdie’s niece in Mumbai with Chopin

“Don’t sit like that. It doesn’t convey the right position,” the mother gently chides the daughter as she places the bench at a 45-degree angle to the keyboard, as requested by the photographer. “You can stand by the piano. Best, pose sitting at it.”

Usually, 18-year-olds don’t brook such parental interference. But Mishka Rushdie Momen is different. Not because her mother is Salman Rushdie’s sister. But because she is like Mozart: as a child, blessed with a gift of music.

“We had a piano at the house, which our elder daughter used to play. Mishka, without prodding, took to it by the time she was five,” says Sameen Rushdie just when Mishka finishes with a pose standing by the instrument.

The pianist is in Mumbai for a recital at the NCPA on Friday, April 2, her first in India. On Wednesday, after her arrival in the city, she went straight to Banoo Mansions, Cumbala Hill Road, for a rehearsal.

“She learnt to read music notation by herself in just a week. ‘This is serious,’ we thought, and took her to music schools for gifted children,” Sameen says.

The photographer now tells Mishka to pose with her fingers on the keyboard. She starts playing the first movement of Chopin’s B minor sonata. As she sounds the heavy chords of the martial opening, a magnificent sound fills the room. But the picture is one of contrast: Mishka, petite, delicate, and the instrument, beastly, domineering; pianist and piano in constant struggle, in which the latter must always submit.

Mishka has perfect pitch: she can identify any musical note without reference. It’s an ability, experts say, that can be developed to varying degrees in children, but has been tested in the West to be naturally prevalent in less than 1 in 10,000 people. Mishka is among those less-than-1 people.

Does her gift make her feel special? “I don’t think too much about where I stand in the scheme of things. I remain focussed,” she says modestly. “The piano is an instrument that gets you completely involved. I feel the excitement in the harmonies… faster and faster, more and more dense…”

At six, Mishka became the youngest pupil to be admitted to the specialist Purcell School in England. At 15, she secured full scholarships at all of London’s leading conservatoires, including the Guildhall, where she is a third year student. Her debut piano recital was at 10, and she went on to perform at the most prestigious of London’s concert venues. At 13, she got the first prize at a top international contest in New York. This year, she will be the youngest of six pianists to perform at The Chopin Society UK’s recitals to mark the composer’s 200th birth anniversary year.

Mishka has selected Chopin for the entire second half of her Mumbai recital: Ballade No 2 in F major and Piano Sonata No 3 in B minor. The first half will comprise Debussy’s L’Isle joyeuse, or The Island of Pleasure, and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 21 in C major, ‘Waldstein’.

Discipline has been the cornerstone of Mishka’s upbringing. Which means six hours of practice and zero minutes of pop culture. “Classical music is so vast… Unless you are completely focussed, you can’t excel at it,” she says.

Focus is a must to overcome the immense challenges of piano playing. Every concert piano, being handcrafted, is a different individual. “Each one has a different feel,” Sameen says. Then there is acoustics. “Playing that sounds good in a room can sound awful in the concert hall. One has to adjust one’s playing with the instrument and the venue all the time,” Mishka adds.

Ah, yes! Can we have the fleet-fingered finale of the B minor? “Don’t make her go through the complete movement. She hasn’t warmed up yet,” Sameen says with motherly concern. Mishka just smiles and starts taming the beast once again.