Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
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Thiruvananthapuram
Source of cultural and spiritual inspiration
M.V. RAMAKRISHNAN
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The more it grows, the more it seems to grow, but still there’s no great difference between our sense of saturation then and now!
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Margazhi mood: Devotees gathered for the Thiruppavai chanting in the early hours of the Tamil month of Margazhi, in Triplicane.
Have you ever owned a suitcase which was big enough to let the contents not overflow usually? Probably never, like me or anyone else! No matter how much bigger it is than the one you used to have earlier, a suitcase will always seem to be too small f
or whatever things you happen to be packing at any given time.
And the winter music season in Madras-alias-Chennai is just like a suitcase in this sense. Do you remember the good old days, long, long ago, when we used to think it was a hectic affair? But actually it was much less voluminous than the maha-mega festival of recent years. The more it grows, the more it seems to grow, but still there’s no great difference between our sense of saturation then and now!
Viewed superficially, this annual overflow of music may seem to make us mentally fatigued; but in reality it’s a tremendous source of cultural and spiritual inspiration for us.
Probably the main reason for this is that from ancient times the winter month of Maargazhi in Tamil Nadu has always been associated with the flow of sacred music. Long before any of us had heard about the Music Academy or the music season in Madras — when today’s senior citizens were all very young children — we used to wake up before sunrise every cold winter morning to the sound and echoes of pedestrian devotees going on a procession in the street outside singing devotinal songs in a chorus and clanging small bell-like cymbals called kinnaarams. And often we used to run out and join the procession and the singing. That’s the the kind of musical spirit we had absorbed in our subconscious minds as children and it continues to condition our cultural outlook and interests today, even getting transferred in subtle ways to our children and grandchildren.
In the previous article in this column (December 7), we had noted the precise reasons why the original spirit and character of the Maargazhi music festival in Madras continues to survive in spite of its relentless expansion as well as the remarkable changes which have materialised in the whole environment of Carnatic music during the past 50 years or so. It is an intriguing fact that the progressive expansion of the festival itself has been caused by such transformation in the environment.
Altered lifestyles
The most relevant aspect of such transformation in this context is the gradual but far-reaching changes in the lifestyles of the musicians as well as the rasikas. There used to be a time when even the most popular Carnatic musicians did not have many opportunities to perform outside South India. Some of them did travel extensively, but usually they went to perform only in various places in the Southern States. Occasonal tours to Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta — which were usually in response to invitations from the South Indian communities there, and were more rewarding in terms of experience as well as income — were important landmarks in their life.
But today not only many of our senior musicians but also many younger ones have endless opportunities to go abroad and perform for the ever-expanding South Indian communities in foreign countries. Some of them are also able to use such contexts to develop close contacts with foreign musicians with whom they can venture on bold cross-cultural experiments in music. And many of the best Carnatic musicians supposed to be living in Madras – whether they are old-timers or youngsters — are so deeply preoccupied with such concerns that they have very little time to spend in their own home city.
The changes in the lifestyles of the most popular musicians are well matched by equally remarkable changes in the lifestyles of the average rasikas. There is the constant exodus of many of our young people to foreign countries, which in many cases even affects the lifestyles and outlook of their parents and grandparents who tend to become frequent international travellers. And the young people who do live in India are professionally far more preoccupied than before, and more and more of our young women prefer to work outside rather than remain homebound. And all of them usually tend to enjoy their Carnatic music in recorded form rather than in live programmes.
But the winter season in Madras creates an opportunity for all the missing musicians and music-lovers to converge on the city and its sabhas simultaneously. And naturally, in order to turn such massive concentration into effective experience of live music for all concerned, there have to be many more events than ever before.
Two important factors which make it possible to organise the season’s music on an ever-widening scale are the emergence of more and more organisers and sponsors of Carnatic music. Let us examine those aspects in the next article (January 7).
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
|
