Rudra Sage, 40, is the only musician to play The Beatles' classic repertoire on sitar, a lute-like traditional Indian instrument, in Beijing. Sitting cross-legged on carpet in a dimly lit room, the Filipino strums to the delight of a small yet intimate audience at a café nestled in the historic Nanluoguxiang Hutong. He sings of life, nature and the universe in a style he defines as "psychedelic folk world music" inspired by his stints in India.

To make ends meet, Sage also plucks other popular tunes from the 1960s on his sitar and guitar at a restaurant in Sanlitun. Among the most popular songs he performs are those by The Beatles, particularly "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" and "Within You, Without You" that both specifically feature sitar compositions. As one of the few sitarists in Beijing, Sage has a unique love affair with the instrument that dates back more than 300 years.

Striking a chord

Born Raymund Fulgar in the Philippine capital Manila, he adopted his stage name Rudra Sage while traveling in India in 1998 on a quest to find his purpose of life. The moniker is inspired by Rudra, another name for Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction and renewal, and Sage, a hermit and philosopher of the religion. "I was traveling in China and was supposed to go to Shanghai in 2002, but there were only three train tickets left to Beijing," he recalled. "I liked Beijing and stayed for two months."

He returned in 2003 eager to discover more about the city, particularly its music scene. "People are more respectful of my music here. Chinese audiences are fascinated with the sitar because it's something new for them," he explained. "They have a natural curiosity and are more attentive and interested in listening to it than Western audiences, whom are usually more talkative."

Sage only plays the sitar twice a month at 69 Café, a small bar in Nanluoguxiang that suits him because it's "not too commercial."

"The sitar doesn't work at bars where people want to go to drink and chat. It is syllabic music originally destined for meditation at temples, just like mantras," he said. "The sitar demands concentration and a reflexive atmosphere. You must be one with the instrument to deliver an emotional performance. I appreciate silent audiences, people who recognize the work and art involved in the rituals of sitar playing."

Teaming up with other musicians is also a challenge due to the nature of the sitar and the local music scene, noted Sage, who used perform in a duo with a Mexican tabla (Indian drums) player before he left Beijing.

"There's a preference for commercial music in Beijing, and the avant-garde music that you find can be boring at times. Some musicians claim to be innovative, but even improvisation requires more than mere self-expression," he said.

Local band Last Three Minutes, which Sage compares to hit 1970s British psychedelic rock band King Crimson, and ethnic Kazakh folk musician Mamer are among his favorite acts in Beijing.

Learning from India

Most week nights, Sage alternates between the sitar and guitar to play songs by The Beatles and 1960s folk music. "I started out as a folk singer and musician in the Philippines at 19. Most of my influences are British bands from the 1960s," he said.

Sage's live improvised version of "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" often spans 10 minutes.

Sage's Bengali sitar teacher in India was the neighbor of Ravi Shankar, the legendary Indian sitar virtuoso who taught The Beatles' lead guitarist, George Harrison, to play the sitar. "The sitar contaminated my way of playing guitar. I play The Beatles with Indian flavor and compose music that is more mystic," he said.

A vegetarian who doesn't drink alcohol and doesn't smoke, Sage is just as stringent about his purity in his music. Although he has twice performed on television and at Christmas parties at Peking University, he refuses to teach and has reduced his public appearances in recent years.

"Indian music is close to a sacred ritual. The instrument becomes part of you; it is meditative music," Sage explained, adding that his main purpose for playing sitar is for the sake of the music and not to earn a living.

Sage admits he never enjoyed his schooling. He enrolled in a vocational course for computer encoding, but knew from his teenage years that music was his true passion.

Strings of desire

While working as a caretaker in India, he grew fond of Hindu philosophy and incorporated meditation into his daily life.

"Indian philosophy and spirituality offer broader explanations about one's destiny and the order of the world. Nobody forces you to believe in anything - you experience it," he said of his inner-peace acquired from meditation.

While living with an Indian family, Sage began learning to play a sitar that he had bought in 2002 in Delhi. "I had always been curious and fascinated by the sitar's sound because it was in sync with meditation and different from the guitar, but I didn't know how to play it so it stayed in a corner," he recalled.

Soon, he started playing Indian music at temples and temporarily abandoned Western music.

"One day I was meditating at a temple when a guru came up to me and he took me in as his sitar student," he said, explaining how he gradually learned the 20-stringed instrument from eight-hour daily practice sessions. Every year Sage returns to India on a learning pilgrimage to visit his master and improve his skills.

Sage released his first solo album featuring folk music songs on the guitar, Eight Petals of Eternal Dawn, in 2010. Cosmos, his sophomore sitar album, came out earlier this year.

Currently, he's working on a third album that he hopes will have a Central Asian-infused flavor with cooperation from musicians from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

"I didn't notice it's been nine years already. The feng shui (Chinese system of geomacy) in Beijing is different from other cities," he said.

"Beijing is always changing and renewing its energy. My plan is to settle in India at some point in life, but as long as I have a job I'll stay here playing the sitar and the guitar."