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Vikku Vinayakaram, bare-chested and with an auspicious mark on his forehead, seats himself before a shining orange pot. He pats it tentatively. He slaps it, tickles it, fists, rattles and strokes it. He throws it in the air. He shakes his head and smiles. Suddenly a right palm is flopped meatily down on top of it, the life is beaten out of it, a bright tremolo, a bass boom, a niggardly "tup!" and a shattering "thwump!" are vigorously rung from it. He is in his stride. It is 40 minutes of the most staggering clay-pot playing we have heard.

Vinayakaram, from southern India, played in an all-night, all-star concert at the Royal Festival Hall. The concert is perhaps still going on. The appearance of the ghatam and accompanying band of bass and tenor tambourine, jew's harp, two-headed south Indian tavil and north Indian tabla was delayed by three and a halfhours. The concert was called The Eternal Spirit and the clock was always bound to be a nuisance - but who cared? As the regional manager of Air India, one of the sponsors, had pointed out: "My lords, ladies and gentlemen, this concert is an experience unparalleled in the history of music?'

A concert of Indian music should drive one to wild hyperbole at least once in the evening. Sophisticated circus amazement - fantasy vocalising, physically improbable plectrum technique, arm-stretching stamina - is part of the fun. A Concorde flight of whirring hands and fingers ends in punctual touchdown at a precisely preordained time, a note soars on a single breath, bending and curling unstoppably in the air: the audience know a masterfully achieved feat when they hear one. The performers on stage encourage each other with nods and hissed bravos: a conspiracy of connoisseurship.

Can the non-Indian listener understand? Who couldn't relate to the Rag Yaman of Ustad Shahid Parvez? The young master of the Etawah sitar school, bearing the responsibility of a tradition dating back to the 16th-century Mogul court, began in swimming, rhythmless, introspection. The drummer joined him in gradual, tentative community. The pair flowered in graceful ornamented virtuosity. Battle was joined for the title of most absurdly daring Indian instrumentalist of the year: the rag lasted an hour and a half; not excessively long. Only in an extended context could its full effect - from sleep, to arousal, to ecstatic release - be felt.

Five to one in the morning. Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, from Pakistan, has sung sweetly through a closed mouth, produced coquettish embellishments through his nose, and shaken us to the core with a bass C that seemed to issue from the Festival Hall's organ. His performance has been encored and the low note repeated. The woman in the green sail raises her palm to the audience to forestall the whoops and whistles she anticipates will greet her next announcement.

"I have heard only one other music which is as meditative, serene, powerful and yet equally joyful as that of Dr L Subramaniam." She is quoting an unnamed critic. Celebrated California-based players of the south Indian violin and British politicians - Dr Jack Cunningham, Dr David Owen - are, I reflect, among the few who insist on keeping the "Dr". And the music which alone bears comparison with Dr Subramaniam's is? "That of Johann Sebastian Bach."

Dr Subramaniam would prefer to be elsewhere, perhaps. He ambles on with his violin still in its case. He fails to look us in the eye. He plays with mechanical joylessness. It is twenty to two in the morning. Even Bach nods. Reflecting on the nature of time in music, I go home.