Rhythm and pulse are a part of us. The human body is a biological wonder that is in constant motion. And I do not mean just the sounds that one produces vocally. If you have undergone an ultrasound, or an echo-cardiogram, I am sure you would be fascinated that sound, pulse and rhythm are constantly accompanying our body’s non-stop functioning. There is also flow of blood of liquids, of constant transmission of signals from and to the brain. Whistlers find music in the breath. Sound, rhythm, beat and pulse is the very makeup of one’s being.
Soon after they are born, and for a while in their parents’ laps, or in the cradle or a hammock, babies listen to lullabies or thalaattus. [A famous one in Malayalam is Iriayamman Thampi’s Omanathingal Kidavo usually sung in Nilambari or Navroj] Music accompanies us in our daily household chores, the splash of water hitting the utensil, the fork and spoon on a steel plate, the clinking of glass, the sound of the scrubber on the surface being cleaned – they could be producing just sound or plain noise to the untrained ear, but music and beat for the trained one. Those who have listened to the band Stomp perform, will agree. We are told of flute Mali once synchronising his rendition in the Krishna Ganga Sabha with a train whistle rather than let it upset his rhythm. Both joy and grief are expressed through music. Who can forget Shudha Kantho (Bharat Ratna) Bhupen Hazarika’s stirring rendition of Dil Hoom Hoom kare in Raag Bhupali for the film Rudali, which incidentally translates as a weeper – much like the Oppari. There is, of course, music in death. Mozart’s requiem is a masterpiece that has immortalised that genius’ music for generations to come.
When we get together to celebrate, we sing – very often, together. It could be a popular anthem at a football stadium, or Beethoven’s 9th Symphony being performed in a metro station in by a flashmob. In our spiritual gatherings too, the margazhi unjavrithi, the namasankeerthanams, or even the Christmas Carols. It is not just the choirs that sing collectively, Qawwalis are usually performed by a whole troupe as is the music of the manganiyars of Rajasthan. People create songs at work. Women farmers and farm workers sing harvest songs. In the world dominated by social media, a peanut seller in Bengal, Bhuban Badyakar, found his Kacha Badam song going viral. He became a celebrity. Folk music in every country in the world, has inspired so many a classical musician. Here at home, we have Pandit Ravi Shankar and Pandit Kumar Gandharva, at different stages, drawing on the vast repertoire of Indian folk music. Bharat Ratna Ustad Bismillah Khan elevated the folk instrument shehnai to the world stage as an exemplar. The saints of the Bhakti movement, the peers of the Sufi movement, suffused spirituality with music. The Bauls of Bengal have drunk deep in the well of spirituality thanks to their ethereal music. It was Jalaluddin Rumi who said:
Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.
We have fallen into the place where everything is music.
In nature, in the living present, if you are mindful, you can sense rhythm, beat, pulse and music of not just the birds, insects and animals but in the rustling of the leaves, in the sounds of the woods, the rolling of the waves, in the flow of the river, in the sonic boom of space, in the clap of thunder and the flash of lightning. It is indeed thrilling to listen to the music of the whales in the deep ocean and to hear dolphins make music underwater. Thailand even boasts of an elephant ensemble. In a related context, Bharat Ratna Birju Maharaj in an interview explained how profound the word ‘naach’ was: hava lagne se ped ke patten nachte hain, sagar ke lehar are in constant motion: aaroh and avaroh, Aaksh me graha nach rahe hain, Prithvi nachta hai, Nach chhota shabd hai, magar uske andar puri duniya hai. This echoes Kavingar Kannadasan’s lyrics in Tiruvilayadal’s paattum naane: Asaiyum porulil isaiyum naane. Or Rumi who said: “We rarely hear the inward music but we’re all dancing to it nevertheless”.
Music evokes memory. It is an inseparable part of nostalgia. It could be the yodelling of a Kishore Kumar or Kundan Lal Saigal’s babul mora, MKT’s Soppana Vazhvil, KB Sundarambal’s pazhaniappa or even something trivial as a Dollar Biscuit jingle. Listening to the mellifluous voice of the visually challenged Vaikom Vijayalakshmi a few years ago, stirred a nostalgic emotion reminiscent of the immortal kaatrinile of MS Amma. When Pandit Kumar Gandharva sings udjayega hans akela, that voice is not from this world. To borrow Steven Spielberg’s description of John Williams’ music, it is as if it has descended from the sky and enveloped him. Music is an integral part of films, not just the songs, but most importantly the background score. Many of our generation were spellbound by the music of Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T and Schindler’s List, each of which earned a best background score Oscar for the incomparable John Williams. He, and many of his tribe, have shown us how music can transform the experience of the celluloid by enhancing the mood of the scene several-fold. Music can herald a changed weather, a festive mood, alert us to dangers, heighten the suspense, make us weep, exaggerate the violence, deepen the horror, set the tone of peace and serenity. Music can also be liberating, and make you sense freedom. Music is also about commerce, copyright, imitations, piracy, cover versions and re-mixed versions. AI generated music is not fiction. It is here and now. And yet the human soul yearns for the pure form of music.
Pure music is a shared experience. It needs an unselfconscious performer and the unselfconscious listener to be in sync. Once I happened to be present when Sangeeta Kalanidhi TK Govindarao rendered, in a chamber concert, an unblemished alapanai of Brindavana Saranga. Afterwards, he said: Oru idathila unna ariyama thalai asaicha. Andha idathula daan pure music irukku. It reminded him, he said of the renowned Nadhaswara Vidwan T N Rajarathinam Pillai recalling that the best ever compliment he received was when playing a todi alapanai in the procession of a temple deity, the man ahead of him with a petromax light on his head, unmindful of its weight, lifted it and said aha. What is it about music that stirs the deepest emotions? Sergiu Celibidache, the much admired conductor of western classical music, maintains that sound has a non-interpretable relation to our emotional world.
Music transcends religion. Bismillah Khan was a great devotee of Goddess Saraswati, our dear Sangeetha Kalanidhi Sheikh Chinna Moulana Saheb offered a moving nadaswaram tribute every morning in Srirangam to his favourite Lord Ranganatha. In Sabarimalai, accompanying the closing event everyday is Harivarasanam sung by Padma Vibhushan and Ganagandharvan Kattassery Joseph Yesudas. Dasettan performs Sangeetharchanai every year to Kollur Mookambikai. A favourite composition of mine is Samuel Vedanayagam Pillai’s Chittam Eppadiyo in Nadanamakriya. In Orissa I was fascinated to learn of the devotional songs on Lord Jagannath of Puri by his Muslim devotee Salabega. In our generation we have been fortunate to have in our midst Ilayaraja who has found his spiritual calling through music. And yet, there have been, and there certainly are, amidst us, wonderful exponents of the purest classical music who are atheists. Believe me, they can move you to tears with their versions of the slokams and viruttams.
Music can lay bare human hypocrisies and shatter false moralities. Its purest forms emanated from the voices of many a haveli singer behind the purdahs. ‘Gramophone girl’ Gauhar Jaan, coming from the world of tawaifs and India’s first recording superstar, recorded more than 600 songs in 10 languages between 1902 and 1920. She popularised the thumri, the kajri, the dadra, the taraana, the chaiti and the bhajan. Abrilliant exponent of the purab ang thumri and the tappa was Rasoolan bai of the Benaras gharana, whom Bismillah Khan acknowledged as his inspiration. The subtle eroticism in the Ashtapadis of Jayadeva, or in the nayakibhava longing of the lost lover in Amir Khusro’s poems movingly essayed by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan saheb and Begum Abida Parveen, or the sensuality portrayed in the padams and javalis so flawlessly rendered by Brindamma or the sensuousness of the songs of Bharatiyar or Ambujam Krishna have only enhanced the purity of the music, not diminished it. Indian music tells us who we really are as Indians. It defines our core selves.
Music can heal and can bring warring worlds together. The musical wizard Daniel Barenbhoim and the Palestinian academic Edward Said brought together in 1999 Israeli, Arab and Palestinian musicians in a West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which has since been institutionalised in Seville in Spain with musicians from many more countries joining. In 2016 it was designated as a UN Global Advocate for Cultural Understanding. While Barenbhoim may have limited his ambition to creating “a platform where the two sides can disagree and not resort to knives”, an Israeli musician there saw it as “a political statement by both sides”. It was “a human laboratory that can express to the whole world how to cope with the other”. Music and politics are not as separate as some of us may believe. Wagner’s music cannot be played in Israel, as his music was played at Nazi rallies.
Music could be a form of protest. The emergence of jazz, hip hop, rap, Rastafarian music was as much a political statement by the repressed African Americans as it was artistic. The antiwar and civil rights movement in the US used the songs of Bob Dylan [Blowin in the Wind; The Times They Are A-Changin] as anthems. Woodstock, a music festival organised in a New York suburb, in August 1969, had 460,000 people attend and was a symbol of the counterculture of the 60s. Boycotts of events, return of awards, calling out institutions for their structural and systemic biases, are all not new to the field of art or of music. The politics in academies, not just of music, is another story altogether.
Music is a tried and tested vehicle for the expression and transmission of culture across continents and generations. Beginning with the 50s India has had many cultural ambassadors, including our own MS Amma and Pandit Ravi Shankar, who very early on took our music to the western world. Bollywood music has been a rage in the Soviet Union since the 50s. The Beatles have launched many an adrenaline rush since they arrived on the scene in the 60s. I couldn’t believe, till I actually saw on YouTube the multitude of cover versions, across countries and cultures, of the Tamizh film song Balleilakka. Clearly, Rahman’s music appeals to audiences worldwide. These days, subaltern culture is conveyed through B Pop, break-dancing, and rap music. Thanks to the internet, these myriad forms of music are able to be appreciated by a global audience.
Music can also, sadly, incite violence as Dalits periodically find in our country. In many parts of western and northern India, a Dalit groom riding a horse on his wedding to the celebratory music of Disc Jockeys very often invites extreme violence at the hands of the upper castes. It is routine for Dalits, if they have to celebrate in public, to seek police protection and avoid main roads to escape the upper caste wrath. This has however not deterred the braver among them to find newer forms and platforms to express themselves not just to domestic but to international audiences. Amar Singh Chamkila was killed for his songs. Today they are among the most popular in Punjab and among the Punjabi diaspora. Arivu and Dhee created history with their Enjaai enjaami, becoming a social media smash hit. It had an international resonance. Dalit rap has a wide following. The parai which was associated earlier with the dirge is now a common percussion accompaniment in many a successful cinema song. Among the Chennai platforms that showcase subaltern music is the Urur Olcott Kuppam festival. It hosts performances of villu paattu, parai aattam, amba paattu by the marathukkaarar fisherfolk, gaana paattu and even mottai madi music. Elsewhere in the country, the songs of Dalit poets played by Dalit music groups, including the Kabir Kala Manch, have faced brutal police action and suppression. They continue, undeterred though. Music has given the Dalits the freedom of expression that society denies to them. Hopefully, they no longer have to fretfully ask, as Gopalakrishna Bharathi’s Nandanar did, in the evocative Manji raagam, Varugalamo Ayya?
That brings me to the musician that the Music Academy honours today. Krishna has made clear choices – musically and politically. He is prepared to face the consequences of such choices. He has a precedent. Madurai Shanmugavadivu Subbulakshmi, MS Amma to many of us, also made clear choices, and courageous ones at that. Her opting, very early on in her musical career, to sing Tamizh Isai landed her a five year ban from this Academy. Thankfully, it made amends and honoured her with the Sangita Kalanidhi in 1968. Krishna may have ruffled feathers here but has won the admiration of many across the country who, like him, have chosen to be guided by constitutional values. Krishna unshackled himself when he stood with those protesting against the CAA at Shaheen Bagh and sang Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s immortal poem Hum Dekhenge. Krishna left the trodden path for the less travelled one when he lent his voice to the protests against the state and corporate capture of the commons at the Ennore Creek, setting to tune Kaber Vasuki’s song Poromboke unakku illai, proromboke enakku illai, poromboke oorukku, poromboke bhumikku. He is among those that make the Urur Olcott Kuppam festival happen. When I read his book Sebastian & Sons I was struck at his attention to, and caring for, what surrounds him. He was basically asking who creates the instruments that produce wonderful music? Also, he was reminding us that the creation of music is not an individual act, but a collective effort. Kutcheriyila Kala kattaradu he has learnt from his guru Semmangudi Mama. From all accounts he encourages his disciples, two of whom are already frontline performers, to chart their own course.
Krishna knows well, as we do too, that political choices and going against the grain come with a price. Mozart’s genius was not enough to avoid the wrath of the establishment he took on. He died a pauper. The McCarthy era persecution of Hollywood actors and film makers is only too well known. The comical genius Charlie Chaplin, whose films entertained millions over generations, and continue to do till this day, was not honoured by the Academy of Motion Pictures in the US till 1972 in the 7th decade of this long career as a frontline entertainer. We should compliment the Academy for not adding Krishna’s name to the list of those stalwarts who ought to have been honoured by it in their lifetime: Veena Dhanammal, T N Rajarathinam Pillai, Flute Mali, M D Ramanathan, Lalgudi Jayaraman, S Balachander, and so on. If Krishna makes his detractors uncomfortable, and even angry, it speaks well for our democracy.
A music festival such as this, and these days the city is bustling with a plentiful of them, undoubtedly showcases talent. The best in the field and those that are aspiring to be. And inevitably causes heartbreaks to those yet to be acknowledged. There is something for everyone. For the connoisseur looking for something more than a performance, seeking to understand the science and the grammar behind the art. For those wanting to know more about the performers behind the performances. For those diligently attending the lec dems in the mornings. For musicians of all ages who want to know what works and what doesn’t and the myriad ways of presenting the difficult krithis. For the critics who call out both good and not so good performances, spot the stars on the horizon and tell us whether the good are getting better. And the multitudes of Rasikas, from far and wide, who don’t seem to have had enough, and the newbies basking in it all, including the gourmet delights from the canteens. I never somehow fail to notice the anxiety of the listeners around me in a kutcheri nervous about making a mistake when the opening phrase of a raagam is sung or played: Is it pantuvarali or gamakakriya; Nayaki or durbar; sriranjini or abogi; khamas or harikamboji; Husseini or Bhairavi. And the glee in telling your friend that she missed the best ever concert by a top form artiste. One can’t help also notice the display of power and status, the latest in the traditional dress and in wealth, the disapproval, the disappointments, the joys of meeting a long lost friend or relative, and of course, the gossip.
The performances on this stage for the next 15 days might help us discover the art within each of us. But for that to happen we must be prepared to let the music unpeel the layers below which it lies hidden and allow our artistic self to introduce itself to us. It can happen if the music is listened to, not just heard or watched. And it can happen if we don’t let our knowledge of music come in the way of our enjoying it in the present moment. I have to end by agreeing with John Williams when he says there is music enough for a lifetime but a lifetime is not enough for music. As the musical exemplars of the past knew, and those present will acknowledge, music is greater than the musician.
Thank you Academy, for this opportunity. And to the star of the occasion let me say Sabaash Krishna.
Published – December 16, 2024 12:50 pm IST
