Death of karvai

The heart of carnatic music is manodharma. The monarchical aspect is what defines carnatic music, and distinguishes it from the other forms of music--it is the triumph of spontaneity over the rehearsed and perfected. That is why carnatic music lives on, amid the flood of veritably more mellifluous, more soothing light music or the roller coaster thrill of rock or pop. Carnatic music appeals to the intellect, to the brain, while the rehearsed forms of music sing to the ear.

So, the connoisseur doesn't care much for a coarse (Chembai) or nasal (Semmangudi) or husky (Sanjay) voice; nor does he place a premium on sweetness of voice (say, Mahati). He looks for manodharma. Imagine a painter splashing cans of paint onto a canvas, yet makes the paint adhere to rules even as it spreads itself on the canvas! That is carnatic music.

Oddly enough, carnatic music still did not lack in aural appeal. Vocalists of yore achieved this by precision plucking of micro-tones; their mastery over the art was so good that they dwelt on the micro-tones in long pulses, called 'karvai'. The karvai-based painting of the raga had a certain soothing effect and made for aural appeal. Imagine a dancer climbing up a staircase on the stage, with a marked dwell on each step, and then climbing down in a similar fashion -- as opposed to a mad rush to the top and then a tumble.

Today, what we are seeing is the death of the karvai. The emphasis on manodharma and in the rather arrogant display of it, carnatic singers have kissed the karvai goodbye. The grace of a tusker ambling up a mountain is gone; what we see is the mad jig of a drunken monkey jumping from crag to crag.

Take for example, the performance of Vishnudev Nambudri at the Parthasarathy Swami Sabha during the 2019 season. The artiste stunned the audience with an audacious twin-raga pallavi--in Kamalamanohari and Devamanohari. The raga, tanam and the swaras alternated superbly over the two ragas, neither influenced the other and the vocalist maintained the distinction. Not that this has not been done before. Only a week or so back, Sowmya presented her own twin-raga pallavi--Panthuvarali and Nasikabhushini. The four-raga pallavi 'Sankarabharananai Azhaithodi vaadi Kalyani Darbarukku' has been handled by quite a few senior artistes and I have heard Neyveli Santhanagopalan sing it brilliantly at Kalarasana in the 1990s.

But the problem with Vishnudev was the excessive use of brikha and the almost complete exclusion of the karvai. What was evident was the talented singer's grip over the art and his enormous manodharma; what was absent was the aural appeal. 

Vishnudev's was just an example, and it is unfair to single him out in this. Practically every artiste is like this. Palghat Ramaprasad, for example, seems to have fallen in the same rut. His Ritigowlai--oh, boy, Ritigowlai--was splendid in its stretch of imagination, but the intoxicating effect of the raga was missing. 

The second last of the karvai-based singers was Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, who is no more. The last is perhaps Madurai G S Mani, the hallmark of whose raga delineation is the karvai. The octogenarian Mani--still a powerful singer--is totally absent from the halls these days, regrettably.

A example in contrast to the ruling rocketry in carnatic, was a Kiravani presented by Malladi Brothers in 2015, in the music season that came on the heels of the devastating floods in Chennai. They declared that they were singing the pallavi (pancha bhuta shantim dehi parameshwara) as a prayer to the Lord for peace with the elements, and as such had to be subdued and modest. It wasn't a great Kiravani in terms of manodharma. The raga spread itself with the slow and sombre majesty of a hearse; yet it was so incredibly beautiful, so mood-lightening, so aurally sticky. It is the best Kiravani that I have ever heard. 

How different it was from, say, a Sanjay concert. You come out of a Sanjay's cutcheri feeling as though you have been punched all over the body; you come out of the hall and rush to grab a cup of coffee...to relax. People--including me--go to Sanjay's concert to soak in his phenomenal manodharma, but his concerts strain you, drain you out. We know that that is how it is, but we still go to him because we want that treat of manodharma. 

Yes, today's carnatic vocal musicians have killed the 'karvai'. I can only hope that the karvai is a phoenix and will rise from its ashes.

Why carnatic music needs a T-20 to survive

Vishnudev Nambudri, @Parthasarathy Swami Sabha, sang a fantastic twin-raga pallavi--Kamalamanohari and Devamanohari

While the quality of carnatic music--in terms of sheer talent of the artistes and their presentation, has improved substantially over the past few decades, the 'carnatic system' itself suffers from dwindling patronage, oversupply and the regrettable, continued reluctance of rasikas to pay.

On the other hand, newer versions of the music are always evolving--first came Harikatha, then Namasankirthanam and now, thanks to the efforts of people like Harish Sivaramakrishnan (who runs a carnatic rock band called 'Agam'). And newer channels of delivery are coming up too--YouTube, Zoom, etc.

Shashank and Ronu Mazumdar enthralled the audience with a delectable Charukesi

An emerging view among the connoisseurs, cognoscenti and the carnatic-leaning intelligentsia is that such newer versions and newer delivery channels are essential for the very survival of carnatic music and therefore needs to be encouraged--no matter what the orthodox might feel about this 'dilution' of 'purity' of carnatic music.

I published an article in my newspaper, Business Line about this. Please Read More....

Sowmya: A tsunami of talent

I'm unlikely to ever forget December 14, 2019.
My article profiling Sowmya appeared on the cover of our magazine section, BLink.
That afternoon, Sujatha (my wife) and I went to a concert of Sowmya, held in the Narada Gana Sabha hall.
In that concert Sowmya proved that it was not for nothing that she was awarded 'Sangita Kalanidhi'.
The first major piece was a Gowrimanohari. The alapana was elaborate and soon, Guru Lekha followed.
Then she produced a breezy Hamir Kalyani alapana, followed by a Dikshithar kriti.
Then came Makelara in Ravichandrika--no alapana but some galloping swaras.
So far....the concert was good. But the stunning aspect came only at this point.
Sowmya poured forth a nice Panthuvarali Alapana. When she stopped at the higher notes, an RTP was cued. She leaned towards the violinist, Embar Kannan and whispered something. I saw Kannan nodding.
Then, to our surprise, Kannan started playing a Nasika Bhushani alapana and played it up to the higher notes.
Sowmya picked up the thread and took the Nasika Bhushani alapana. Kannan followed it up with Panthuvarali.
Soon, they sang and played the tanam, alternating the two ragas.The effect was beautiful.
The pallavi had to contain the names of the two ragas. It went as follows:

'Dharmartha kama vardhini, dhanini, Nasika Bhushini"

Both neraval and swaras toggled between Kamavardhini (another name for Panthuvarali) and Nasika Bhushini.

The rendition demonstrated not only Sowmya's grip over the art but also Kannan's. It looks and sounds like pure magic. I can never understand how it is possible for a person to input one raga through the year and then immediately sing or play a completely different raga.
After the concert, I congratulated Sowmya. I introduced Sujatha to her in the manner I always introduce my wife: as a friend, philosopher and bride.
Sowmya threw her head back and laughed and said, "Good one".
As for my article on her, she didn't acknowledge it at all.
Maybe she didn't recognize me.
Maybe she hadn't seen the article then.
Or
Maybe she didn't deem it necessary to acknowledge the article.

I will never know.

I'm proud to be Hindu: Shashi Tharoor (Sorry, this is a non-Carnatic music post)

This is a transcript of my interview of Tiruvananthapuram MP, Shashi Tharoor, published in my paper, Business Line, today. Access it here:  goo.gl/dAQjM5 

Here is a Congress MP claiming to be proud to be a Hindu. I thought such outspokenness ought to be appreciated, encouraged and popularized. Hence this post, though out of place in a carnatic music blog.

Here is my raw, unedited portion of my interview. In the interests of keeping it short, I have only excised whatever he said about GST and the Budget session. Everything else is as was said.

He believes he is misunderstood often because he speaks too fast. Author and diplomat-turned-politician Shashi Tharoor has had to bear the brunt of trenchant attacks by his own colleagues in the Congress party for being not-so-trenchant in his criticism of the opposition, particularly of Prime Minister Modi. Yet Mr Tharoor believes the Congress is his best platform for serving the country.

Business Line caught up with him while he was in Chennai to speak at The Hindu’s Lit for Life festival. Excerpts from the interview:

(This interview took place on January 17, 2016)

At the recent The Hindu’s Lit for Life festival, you answered a question on the rise of atheism. Please amplify that, but first please tell us whether you are a believer.

The question was is there increasing atheism, no I don’t think so, if anything there was more atheism, agnosticism and disbelief even in the middle of the 20^th century particularly in reaction to the horrors to the first half of the century which had witnessed so many wars, conflicts, holocaust to Hiroshima, two World Wars, that I think that many people were much more willing to look at secular, non religious approaches to life. Whereas today, religion seems to be very much on the rise in people’s consciousness and I further asked the question why is it that religion has become a primordial part of people’s perception of their basic identity. Someone like Amartya Sen would argue that all of us have multiple identities and that those multiple identities are all as important, give equal weight to being an Oxbridge don or a cricket fan or a music lover as to being born in a Hindu family. But I think we have to recognise that people like Amartya Sen or for that matter myself are in a minority in today’s world and more and more people when they have to search for a sense of who they are seem to take refuge in religion as the principal identity.

Don’t you?

I’m very proud of being a Hindu. I am a worshipping Hindu in the sense that I pray and I have read, though admittedly in English translation a fair amount of the Upanishads, scriptures and so on, going back to my student days. I was genuinely, intellectually very curious and I have a fairly decent collection of books and translation about Hinduism. So, it is a religion that I have not just practised routinely, but have thought about it and valued its philosophical underpinnings.

Empirical evidence shows rise in atheism?

I’m not sure it is even statistically measureable. I know that in the Western world, there is a little greater consciousness of it, so you got people like Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens and few others writing extremely trenchant, almost polemical books against religion. But they have always been seen, I think, as a more vehement articulators of a fringe position, or at least, a minority position. If at all religious beliefs have declined in America, it would have declined from something like 88 per cent to 80 per cent—you are not talking about a colossal rise in atheism. And even that figure I’m just making up from the top of my head, I don’t know what the exact numbers are.

But in India, and in most of the developing world, and in most of our neighbouring countries, there is no doubt in my mind that there was a larger constituency for secular life and secular politics than there is today. Certainly, in my own lifetime I have seen significant changes. My father was a product of a nationalist generation. He gave up his caste surname because Gandhiji had urged he give it up in college. I grew up in an environment in which my parents never mentioned, let alone ask, never mentioned the religion or caste of any friend or classmate who came home to play, came home to a birthday party etc. We were never made to feel conscious of such differences. Today that would seem to me to be almost impossible. People are so much more conscious in India today of these markers of identity, particularly religion and caste. And I have been struck by the extent to which this has become more so than in the first plush after Independence, when national integration was the buzzword, secularism was taken for granted.

Is that becoming a problem?

Yes, it is a problem. Right now we are seeing it as a problem because … once these markers of identity have been used as instruments of political mobilisation then political polarisation becomes an option as we are seeing with one party seemingly deliberately using it as a tactic in the hope of winning more votes from a particular community as a result. That kind of an approach would have been considered reprehensible in, say, the 1960s India. Even in 1970s India. Today it is openly discussed as a legitimate political tactic. There is a decline, it seems to me, in the ground gained earlier by the secular forces.

But now that it has failed to deliver, do you see a change?

I think political circumstances would be a factor. For example, Ninan made the same point and I agreed, that when you have coalition governance you have to dilute extreme positions. Mr Vajpayee headed the BJP government which had 23 coalition partners of which only one, Shiv Sena, shared its Hindutva agenda. Otherwise parties like Telugu Desam and even the National Conference were totally different … and if you wanted to keep them together and carry them along you had to be anything but an RSS kind of leader.

Mr Modi feels no such compulsion. In fact, he doesn’t even need the Shiv Sena. I think in five years, it is going to be difficult to see the BJP, unless they develop a breadth of vision that they have not yet shown at the top of their party, it is difficult to see the BJP moving away from…

The narratives coming out of Pakistan, is that the Modi government has softened  after Bihar elections.

I’ll tell you why it is too early to tell, because this government has ….more ups and downs in Pakistan’s policy than a schoolboy’s yo-yo. If you look at the narrative of the Pakistan policy in the last 18 months of Mr Modi – in the election campaign you attack any opening of dialogue with Pakistan, you say talks and terror don’t go together, you say how dare our government serve chicken biryani to Pakistani leaders and then when you win the elections you call them for your inauguration, I don’t know if you served chicken biryani, probably not, but you also start exchanging sarees and shawls and exchanging sentimental messages to each other’s mothers, then within two months you are having firing on the border, disproportionate retaliation, heavy artillery being used, then you have the saarc summit in Kathmandu where the Prime Minister of India is photographer very ostentatiously reading a brochure while the Pakistani Prime Minister walks past, then you saw the scheduling of foreign secretaries’ talks which gets called off because the Pakistanis do what they’ve always done which is to talk to Hurriyat, then you have cold war or cold peace between the two countries suddenly broken unexpectedly, unpreparedly by ufa, then the conclusions of ufa as declared by our own government are repudiated within 24 hours by the Pakistani side, then out of the blue you have this warm dialogue in Paris .., then you have the unexpected meeting in Bangkok of National Security Advisers, suddenly you have the Prime Minister going to Lahore, so given this pattern over the last one and half years, it would be extremely difficult to discern any coherence out of this. Yet, if there is a new coherent approach to Pakistan, I think what we need from the Prime Minister—and I said this to him myself—is a ‘mann ki baat’ from him. He has to lay out his vision to the Nation. His own supporters are confused as to what the policy is.

But before and after Bihar…?

There were positives and negatives even before Bihar. My own view is that this government has realised that its Pakistan policy was going nowhere. But given the fact that everytime they tried a new policy initiative they’ve dropped it very quickly, until this policy proceeds for some time, it is going to be difficult for us to draw any definitive conclusions—let us give it some time to show commitment. I will agree, however, that the fact that they did not reflexively dump the whole process after the Pathankot attack is an encouraging sign. On the other hand, it is also true that Pakistan showed much more reconciliatory attitude instead of the usual denial and buster, they were looking to it, they have it investigated.

Do you think they are serious this time?

The problem with Pakistan is, we know, it is not one government. Pakistan is a country where the civilian leadership has very often given the impression of being either unable or unwilling to curb the so-called non-state actors who are the ones doing damage to India. From the Kargill war for a number of years we haven’t had Pakistani soldiers doing the damage, it has been the Pakistani terrorists doing the damage. It is assumed that they are armed, financed, trained, and perhaps even guided, by elements within the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence. There is enough circumstantial evidence to ….this as well as interviews with some of those survivors, Kasab in particular.

However, it is also true there must be elements even within the Pakistani military that are not privy to this policy. Widely believed that Kargill happened without the then civilian Prime Minister even being briefed about.

So, the question that comes up from this is, is it worth talking to the civilian government if they don’t call the shots. On the other hand, is it even enough to talk to the military government if there are elements within the military who are doing their own thing. We don’t really know fully where this is coming from.

My answer is, I’m willing to offer this as an alternative strategy which is a unilateral opening up of people-to-people contact. My logic is very clear. India can only gain by enlarging the space within Pakistan for a peace constituency which is otherwise only fairly narrow and limited. At the moment the number of Pakistanis who have a stake in good relationship with India is very small, because our trade is minimal, tourism is restricted, for a lot of people, India is essentially now a hostile territory whether you war with them or not have war with them nothing will change their lives. If India opened up this space, Pakistanis would travel freely and frequently to India, maybe even doing work here, selling their dresses, fashion designs, their movies, if we were even doing trade with Pakistan army-owned businesses of which there are many, it means they have more to lose from disruption and from military engagement. So, the idea is to enlarge the peace constituency in such a way that more Pakitanis have a stake in good relationship with India which circumscribes the options for those in Pakistan who want to disrupt good relations with India. Then what happens is, gradually, even the things that divide us will become less relevant. This is my argument and obviously there are many in Pakistan who have no interest in seeing this happen.

Pakistan has been saying, first Kashmir. Do you see it changing now?

It is changing. Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman, who was very much on the right wing of the spectrum made a statement which I have quoted in my book, Pax Indica, that the urgency of saving Kashmir now takes second place to the urgency of saving Pakistan. And that I think is an interesting kind of approach—let’s put our national interests first, Kashmir can follow.

There are so many Indian goods that are shipped to Dubai, repackaged and sold at three times the price in Pakistan. Imagine—if this could be traded directly! How much would Pakistanis would benefit. I’ve hardly come across a Pakistani national who has come to India and not gone away entranced or being fascinated by the country, enjoyed contacts, experiences—this is the neighbour very much they would like to be more

Third, I think that the people to people contact always has a very good chance, particularly between Pakistanis and North Indians, not only with them, but particularly with them, the affinities are far, far, far greater than … one sees this very easily abroad. Throughout my UN career, I was witness to very close friendship between Indians and Pakistanis which had literally tossed out the national identity issue completely. They were friends to the extent that if an Indian family had to go out of town, they would be happy to leave their child with the Pakistani family, or where a Pakistani family is going to a movie they would invite the Indian child to come along…I mean, this kind of relationship I have seen among some people, and I think that very often you people, for example, Pakistani taxi drivers in New York, when they realise that they was an Indian (passenger) they would not want to take money from. You are a brother. Only our politicians are divided.

Downsides of that is that it would make it easier for terrorists to sneak in, right?

This is the argument that is made, to which my answer is, did the terrorist of 26/11 apply for a visa? Did the terrorist of Pathankot apply for a visa.

But you still make it easier for them?

Look. If you find that there is this kind of a thing is happening, then your own basic security .. if a Pakistani applies for a visa, comes in by either road or train and his luggage is full of RDX then there is something wrong with your checking system. I would be willing to accept a rule that you check the baggage of Pakistani travellers more easier than others. In any case, I’d give visas to rather known quantities. I mean, there is a whole category of Pakistanis you know are not terrorists—diplomats, retired diplomats, there are business people with some prominence and visibility heading large companies. There are fashion designers, actors, journalists, singers, painters—there is a whole collection of people who are at the moment, sometimes find it relatively easy to get a visa but very often don’t—if you like, these are the kinds of people who are asking influential Indian friends to help them out. Let us make it easy for them to get a visa in the first place. Let us not have a ceiling on the number of visas. We cap it right now, at 6,000 of whatever it is. Lift the thing and say, who ever applies we see no reason…you know, somebody applies and it is known that his main credential is that he is a member of the Jamat-i-dawa, the parent orgnaisation of LeT, then you still don’t deny him a visa, but you make sure he is shadowed when he lands in India. He may even lead you to some useful handlers.

Do you think the perception of India globally has changed, since this government came?

Not so much since this government came, but…I went to America as a student, the image was still … beds of nails, snake charmers, at best Maharajas and the palaces. Today, every Indian is a mathematics wizard, software geek, ….guru or a doctor, that’s the sort of perception that has been created and that is very much reflected in the respect that India gets from Western countries and from the public.

Having said that this government has been good at a certain amount of salesmanship, Mr Modi has brought a lot of personal energy to the pursuit of foreign policy through his travels and speeches. But a salesman is only as good as the product he sells. He cannot indefinitely sell an empty package.

But isn’t the product good?

The economics he is selling has so far been only slogans and speeches. You cannot keep selling empty package indefinitely. Where have you re-written business regulations in this country? Where have you eliminated the obstacles to opening up business … to investing, to recruiting and dismissing labour, all the things that investors are looking for.  Where have you eliminated some of the hurdles in the tax system? You haven’t, you haven’t, you haven’t.

You have actually not lifted a finger. You made fine speeches but not implemented one.

Here is a perspective. There was nothing wrong with UPA’s governance, especially its economic administration. The only problem was corruption. Now, the Modi government is following the same policies as the UPA’s, and there is no corruption. Isn’t that progress?

Is it really true that there is no corruption?

Far, far less

Frankly, I’m completely innocent of all of this. I genuinely don’t know how much corruption there was, if you all say there was I have to believe you, my impression is that the daily texture of life of the people of India has not improved in that respect. That is, we can’t think of corruption only in terms of government contracts. That may or may not be there now, I’d like to believe you that it has gone down. But corruption is also of the poor pregnant woman who goes to a government hospital, and is forced to deliver on the floor because she can’t afford to bribe somebody there, or a widow can’t get her husband’s pension because she can’t bribe the clerk, or the son or daughter who loses father or mother, and can’t get the death certificate issued without paying somebody in the municipality. These are the kinds of corruption that are affecting the texture of the lives of a vast majority of our population. There, I’m not sure there has been much improvement.

Why are you with the Congress?

I was in my pre-political days been a critic of all the parties on various grounds.

I don’t see the party being fair to you.

That’s another matter. But I’m in the Congress when I was approached by all the parties when I stepped down from the Secretary-Generalship race and I was deciding whether to leave the UN or not, in fact the first party to approach me was the BJP in the form of a former cabinet minister in the Vajpayee government who came to see me in my office in New York. I said, frankly I have profound differences of principle with the BJP, what you might call ideological differences. Secondly, as far as the economics are concerned, they seemed to be saying India Shining, without really caring who India was shining for, whether it was shining for everyone. On the other hand, the Left—CPM is very strong in Kerala initially very friendly to me—the problem with them is that they say they are for the poor but they seem to obstruct every progressive reform that help the poor cease to be poor. The logic is clear: when the poor is no longer poor, then there is no one to vote for the CPM so why should you want to remove poverty? They’ve opposed everything—they opposed introduction of computers, they opposed introduction of mobile phones, they have a 19^th century ideology and a 19^th century mentality and they are simply not right for the 21^st century. The Congress, on the other hand, post-1991, was no longer the party of state-ism, bureaucratic control of the economy and of the Emergency. It was now a party that had liberalised India, and itself had become a socially liberal as well as economically progressive party that believed in economic growth because it had presided over economic growth, but wanted to re-distribute the fruits of that growth to the weakest of society. And that was an approach I liked. My intellectual traditions come from people like Rajaji and Masani of Swatantra party, and one of the principles of swatantra party which was not really a laisse-faire free-enterprise party but one whose core principles was social justice. I believe the Congress party today is the party that most embodies a commitment to both liberal economics and social justice.

I don’t make any bones about the fact that within the party in economic terms and other terms I’m probably being seen as being on the right of the party. But I’m not alone there. Not everybody in the party is like Mani Shankar Aiyar declaring himself to be a self professed Marxist, there are many in the party like Mr Chidambaram, Mr Manmohan Singh, who would not think in those terms.

Is the party allowing you to serve the country in the manner that you want?

Look, I’ve had my ups and downs, I’m not going to pretend otherwise and I have had my frustrations. But I still believe that in a democracy, Parliamentary politics is the best vehicle to bring about change. The alternative

If you had been with the BJP would you have been able to serve your country better?

In the BJP, I would have been in a party led by the RSS. There is no way I could have served my country better. There are people in the BJP I respect and can objectively say they are doing good work and are not burdened by the baggage of Hindutva. But the truth is that that baggage is so indispensable to the core DNA of the BJP that it makes it an unviable option.

And for me in any case, I do believe in political loyalty. Having come into the Congress party, having been given my opportunities by the Congress party, I’m strongly loyal to the party and its leadership and I don’t want to move away.

And you have been called a chameleon!

Wrongly. I think there was a profound misunderstanding of the things I said and wrote. For example, on Swacch Bharat, in my book on India Shastra, I wrote in entirety what I wrote that that time. No fair-minded person can say that I was an uncritical endorser of Mr Modi’s approach to Swacch Bharat. I said, as an Indian citizen it was my duty to honour an appeal, a non-political appeal from the Prime Minister for a national cause and I still stand by that.

 But I went in with my eyes open and the proof of that is what I had written at that time. It was on NDTV.com, it is now published in hardcover in India Shastra, please look at it, my position has not changed one bit and I was always…I know I was attacked from within my own party but people don’t take the trouble to read and had clearly not understood what I had said.

That ‘chameleon’ description of you was in the context of your ‘Modi 2.0’ comment.

You see what is interesting is I was setting the yardstick with which I was going to judge him. First of all, it was a question mark. In fact, it is amusing that some of my critics in the party used the very words that I used without realising they were my words, they only read Times of India’s paraphrase of my article, they didn’t read the original article in Huffington Post. I said ‘Is there a Modi 2.0? It is too early to tell’. That completely was left out by the Times of India. “Mr Tharoor hails Modi 2.0” without realising what I was saying was ‘is he heralding a change from the politics of identity, is he moving away from Hindutva baggage to sab ka saath, sab ka vikaas, this is the right message and we should support him for this, we should we judge him on this basis.

Are you friends with Mani Shankar Aiyar now?(It was Mani Shankar Aiyar who called Shashi Tharoor a ‘chameleon’.)

I suppose as human beings and socially, we are friends. He came to my wedding. I have been to his house for dinner, he came to my house for dinner. But politically clearly he has no respect for my views and I must admit that I have limited respect for his.

--ends--

Rare Raga 1: Yesudas’Amrita Dhanyasi, resembles Revathi

I’m a rare raga buff. Listening to a rare raga is like trying out a new sweet.

Whenever I hear a rare raga, I rush to consult Dr S Bhagyalekshmy’s ‘Ragas in Carnatic Music’, to check it out, get details. The book is very comprehensive, a ready-reckoner,  particularly useful when I have to do a review for The Hindu. But once in a while I get to hear a raga that is does not find mention (even) in Ragas in Carnatic Music.

I heard two such ragas in the last one month. One is Amrita Dhanyasi, sung by Yesudas, about which I’m writing here. The other is Padma Deepam, rendered by Madurai G S Mani, on which I will presently do a separate post.

Parthasarathy Swami Sabha concert, at Narada Gana Sabha hall, Feb 3, 2016. Yesudas was accompanied by his usual ‘set’, Mahadeva Sarma on the violin, Harikumar on the mridangam and Vaikom on the Kanjira. The opening piece was the Nattai varnam, Sarasija Nabha.

Soon after, Yesudas began an alapana, and it sounded a bit like Dhenuka. Perhaps Thodi should have suggested itself, but the ‘ga’ was delivered without the gamaka and it somehow reminded me of Dhenuka. Still, it did not quite seem to be Dhenuka. Sivaramakrishnan, my friend and a big connoisseur of carnatic music, also sat next to me, looking a bit flummoxed. In the upper notes, it sounded like Revathi, but there was very clearly the ‘ga’, which ruled Revathi out.

The alapana, a detailed one, ended and there was no applause—the hall was silent—everyone was nonplussed.

Then Yesudas announced the name of the raga. He said: This is close to something that we are all extremely familiar with—Revathi. This raga is Revathi with the ‘ga’ added. It is called Amrita Dhanyasi.

It is a derivative of Thodi.  It goes as: sa ri ga ma pa ni sa; sa ni pa ma ga ri sa, all lower notes. I noticed again that the ga was rendered straight, without gamaka.

Yesudas then sang another bit of alapana, in only swaras, making the raga definition clearer to the audience. My word, it sounded so beautiful.

Mahadeva Sarma picked it up effortlessly and provided a brilliant raga essay.

Yesudas then sang a song that began with the words Karunakarane Gananayakane, which is later said was a composition of Punidammal, who (he said) used to live in Sri Lanka and has composed many songs. Presumably in order to popularise the raga and go get rasikas familiar with it, Yesudas sang long and elaborate swaras, so much so that it almost began to look like the central piece of the concert. (But it wasn’t. The crown jewel was a delightful Panthuvarali—Raghuvara Nannu.)

Don't be scared of tala, says Sriram Parasuram

Mridangists feel dismayed when the audience walks out en masse when the tani begins, quite justifiably so. T M Krishna has often asked the mridangist to cease playing till such time as those who want to go, are out of the hall, as a sign of protest against such a practice.

I remember an incident. Once, T K Murthy was playing (for OST, if I remember right). This was in the Shastri hall, Mylapore. The tani began and a man began to walk out. Murthy stopped him.

"You are going away! Aren't we playing for you?"

To which the man said, rather sheepishly, "Sir, I don't understand laya much."

Murthy's reply was like the crack of a whip. I provide that in the original Tamil, for the effect is lost in translation.

"Ivar paadinadu mattum ungalukku purinjuducha?" ("As if you understood everything the vocalist sang!")

One can understand the chagrin of the percussionist, who is treated as though he is something to be put up with. But scratch the surface a little, it is easy to realize that rather than find fault with the rasika, there is a need to tweak the system a little.

Rasikas need to be made to understand the nuance of laya a bit. Perhaps it would help if the vocalist would give his running commentary on what the mridangist-ghatam-kanjira artistes are doing.

T M Krishna, since he is so concerned, should try something like this, rather than berate the audience.

The reason why rasikas leave at the beginning of the tani is the "fear of tala" says violinist-vocalist, Sriram Parasuram. He spoke on the nuances of laya in a lec-dem for the Chennai chapter of Music Forum, on Tuesday, January 2, 2016.  The lecture touched upon various features of tala, such as laghu, drutham, anu drutham, maatra, akshara etc, and eduppus, and gatis etc, and was quite interesting, but regrettably, due to paucity of time, Sriram could not demonstrate those essential aspects that would help one appreciate a tani better--thisram, misram, kantham etc. Sriram has promised to do so on another occasion, and I looked forward to it.

The Music Forum meets on the first Tuesday of every month to discuss, in the words of Mr R Thyagarajan, Founder of the Shriram group, "how to influence the environment" towards betterment of carnatic music.

The Forum meetings are followed by a lec-dem by Sriram.

In the question-answer session, I asked Sriram if accompanying violinists get flummoxed when the main artiste picks up a rare or complex tala.

"Oh, absolutely. It happens all the time," came the answer, without a moment's hesitation.

"But we don't see you guys in trouble at all. You seem to manage to carry on," said I.

"We are also good actors," said Sriram.

Guess who? - 1

You are looking at a picture of a 

very famous carnatic musician, 

one who would count among the 

best in the century. Can you 

guess who?  For a hint, scroll 

one post below. For the answer, 

scroll two posts below.

T M Krishna: John Nash of carnatic music?

The music was stunning; but regrettably so were the eccentricities.

TMK’s concert on January 14 for Kalaivizha 2016, at Kamarajar Memorial Hall, Teynampet, provided ample grist for anybody who wanted to profile him either as ‘eccentric’ or ‘genius’.

The music was unexceptionably brilliant, completely out of the ordinary. The Begada alapana and the padam, Yaarukkagilum Bhayama, seemed to be the main fare, even though technically the crown should be fitted onto the head of the Kalyani varnam, Vanajakshi, for the tani was attached to it. There was a Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda, Priye Charusheele, rendered in Mukhari, and between the opening piece, Thyagaraja Swami’s Sahana composition Emmana and the Priye Charusheele, came an explosion of multi-raga tanams, which TMK and violinist R K Sriramkumar took turns to lead each other…well, even the most fastidious adherent of tradition would have to admit, was bloody good! It was one of TMK’s finest concert. Ten days down the line, the Begada continues to buzz around my ears.

But the concert also seemed to throw up disturbing questions. Why does the man, so insanely talented, behave like a fruitcake?

For better part of the concert, he sat half-turned towards left, facing violinist R K Sriramkumar, who was seated next to him. RK was sitting next to TMK, facing the audience, and so the singer was turned away from them. Nothing wrong there, but it did create a sense of disconnect between the singer and the people who had gathered to listen to him. On a few occasions, TMK fell into silence, pausing for longish durations—during which periods there were nothing to listen to except the violin’s bow running on the string and the mridangam’s gentle tap-tap—his eyes closed, face expressionless, like a vague somnambulist. During one of such schizophrenic pauses, he rubbed his palms over his face and eyes, like a man stirring himself out of stupor. And, an hour-and-a-half into the concert, he asked the organisers, sounding vague and distant, till what time he was expected to sing. (It is to the credit of his fine music that someone in the audience shouted, “till 11.30” – the time then was around 8.15 in the evening.)

At one point, when he had taken the singing to a crescendo, there was an instant applause from the audience, but TMK, still eyes closed, grimaced, waved vigorously with both hands and said, “kai tatti keduthudadinga” (don’t upset it by clapping.)

TMK’s chin-up nonchalance and disregard for tradition is fine if there is a purpose behind it. When Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar established the kutcheri format that has since become the norm, it was to bring carnatic music in sync with the times. But if you sing a Sahana piece very elaborately, neraval and swaras and all (and oh, neraval at one point and swaras at another), and then after the audience has had its full and has applauded heartily and is eagerly awaiting the next treat, you pick up again Sahana for tanam? I mean, there seems no purpose behind vandalising guidelines of tradition and in the absence of a purpose it does appear that TMK is merely trying to act out his iconoclasm, rather aggressively, so as to say ‘I shall do anything I please’.

It is not so much the demolition of tradition that is disturbing—in fact, it is not disturbing at all. It is the attitude. Why? Why, after picking up a varnam in the middle of a concert, has to append kalpana swaras to chittaswaras? (The swaras were at the point of the last chittaswaram sequence, pa ma ga ga ri ri sa ri ri.) Why does this accomplished artiste, whose music can shock-and-awe and command respect, need any antics at all? Why – and what – is he so desperate to reform? As the Americans say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it—and there is nothing wrong with carnatic music today, so why fix it? Why does this accomplished artiste, whose music can shock-and-awe and command respect, need any antics at all?

Attention-seeking behaviour and exaggerated sense of self-importance seem to have become defining traits of TMK. One well-known instance is his agonizing over a belief that carnatic music is Brahmin-oriented, even as there are outstanding examples of non-Brahmin carnatic celebrities—MS, MLV, Palani Subbudu, Yesudas, Madurai Somu and a whole lot of Nadaswara vidwans, including muslims Sheik Chinnamoulana Sahib and his son Kasim—and when carnatic music is entirely open to anybody to take up. But there are other instances too. Remember when there was a spat between reviewer V Subramanian and Sowmya, TMK jumped in, uninvited, saying “I agree with Sowmya”? Or, his fulminations at the holding of the Season festival, using words such as “vulgar” and “insensitive”? 

As far self-importance, check-out his website, www.tmkrishna.com. Here is an excerpt from it: “Krishna’s pen is sharp, his words blunt. He thinks upon and writes about issues affecting the human condition and about matters musical.” I’m not sure if these are his own words, or someone else’s. In any case, they exist in his official website.

The January 14, 2016 concert was sparsely attended. The hall wasn’t even half full. I hope that it does indicate dwindling popularity. I hope the fact that it was a Thursday and was a priced concert, explains the thin attendance.

For, regardless of his oddities, his music is nothing short of great.

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Hint for 'Guess who? - 1'

This picture should tell you who he is.

If you still can't guess, scroll one post below to know who.

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G S Mani: A great artiste, unfairly overlooked for Sangita Kalanidhi award

I first heard Mani-sir on August 15, 1983—it was at Music Academy mini hall, with T Rukmini and Srimushnam Raja Rao. The main piece was Bhairavi—Syama Sastri’s Sari Evaramma. Yesterday (January 10, 2016) I again heard Mani-sir at Astika Samajam. The main piece was the same Bhairavi. 

Thirty-three years down the line, the vocalist’s voice had not lost even a tiny fraction of its timbre. Also, it was one of the finest Bhairavi alapanas I had ever heard, built-up at a leisurely pace, with long karvais on each note—an exemplary style, and vastly different from what rules today, which is to take off into a flurry of brikhas like a monkey touched on the backside by a hot-iron rod. Mani-sir took a moment to explain that the raga had influence of many nadaswaram Bhairavis he had heard during his formative years.

The concert was such a lovely one. It offered the listener so much. There was an elaborate vivadi—the 71^st Melakarta, Kosalam (Koteeswara Iyer’s Kaa Mugha). There was a rare raga—Padma Deepam, derived from the Hindustani rag Patdeep. Padma Deepam takes the swaras – sa, ga, ma, pa, ni, sa and descent the same as its mother raga, Gowri Manohari. Mani-sir sang a brilliant composition, his own. Then there was Thyagaraja swami’s Vijayavasantham, a derivative of the 54^th Melakarta, Viswambari. Nee Chittamu Naa Bhagyamayya was another piece that Mani-sir had sung on August 15, 1983. Then there was Ganavaridhi (Thyagaraja Swami’s Dayachudageeti). For those who wanted some familiars, there was a Kanada (own composition) and the good old Bhairavi. In between, there was a grand Suruti, with an elaborate, full-fledged alapana, followed by his own piece. And then, there were some scintillating thukkudas, including a Chandrakauns (naalai varum endre—his own), at my request.

The concert had something for every taste! 

As I was listening, I was wondering why Mani-sir was being overlooked for Sangita Kalanidhi. His merits are obvious, but to just recount:

• He has been a performing Carnatic musician for over 60 years
• He is well-versed in Hindustani music too
• As is well known, contributed hell of a lot to film music
• He has composed over 300 songs in Sanskrit, Telugu and Tamil

Few have served Music as much as Mani-sir. Yet year after year, he is overlooked for the Sangita Kalanidhi award.

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Answer to 'Guess who? -1' 

Yes !

Lalgudi Sir ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

But I would partly blame him too. He doesn’t sing enough kalpana swaras, and rarely sings neraval—though he is capable of doing both exceedingly well. For some strange reason he believes that singing swaras in elaboration is not necessary—but the listeners (me included) expect that. While that is no reason not to recognise his merits, it is a small and avoidable gap in his music.

Mozart Vs Thyagaraja Swami, in my book, Silence of the Cicadas

In my just-released novel, Silence of the Cicadas, I show (through one of my characters) why Mozart is nothing compared with our Saint Thyagaraja Swami. Reference to carnatic music is confined to just a few pages in the book, and this discussion figures in those pages. Here are the relevant extracts:

AM I RIGHT?

The strange style of Lalgudi G J R Krishnan

Mr R Thyagarajan, founder and (till recently) Chairman of the Shriram group of companies, an ardent fan of carnatic music for over seven decades, is an atheist. However, God for him is one person – Lalgudi Jayaraman. Thyagarajan-sir proudly calls himself a ‘Lalgudi extremist’, and loves Lalgudi’s music to such an extent as to aver that there is no need for anyone to listen to anyone else’s carnatic music.

Not surprising, therefore, that Mr Thyagarajan should have continued to love Lalgudi G J R Krishnan’s music, which he sees as an extension of the elder violin maestro’s. Thyagarajan-sir feels Krishnan’s style of alapana is, apart from being “refreshingly different”, is also highly intellectual and imaginative.

If GJR Krishnan’s performance at the Music Academy this season is truly a sample of his bow play, then I strongly disagree with Mr Thyagarajan. Intellectual it may be, but good it was not. For, Krishnan’s style appears to be to build the alapana almost entirely relying on micro-short phrases, each containing not more than four notes—the Todi at Music Academy was really one such alapana. The result was a raga essay that sounds more like a child rubbing its palms on an inflated balloon. It is somewhat like a person giving a speech, resolving that each sentence would not contain more than four words.

Since I haven’t heard Krishnan much, particularly in the recent years, I do not know if the Todi is a sample of his style, but Mr Thyagarajan says it is. I doubt it, because Krishnan played a Rasikapriya later in the concert, which was not as much a chain-of-small-links as the Todi was. (A better contrast to the Todi-style was provided by Krishnan’s sibling, Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi, who played a superb Madhyamavati, building up the alapana, brick by brick, with long phrases. It was a treat to listen to her.)

I wish Krishnan changes his style. It needs no mention that he, perhaps owing to being a Lalgudi scion, is exceptionally talented violinist. He can easily change his style—all it calls for is his willingness to do so.

His brilliant play was evident in all parts of the concert other than the Todi. The composition that followed the Todi alapana, Syama Sastri’s Ninne Namminanu, as well as a Kalyana Vasantham filler (Saint Thyagaraja’s Nadaloludai) were numbingly beautiful. As I mentioned in my review of the concert for The Hindu (http://m.thehindu.com/features/friday-review/befitting-a-lalgudi-scion/article8050189.ece) the violin almost spoke the words as he was playing Nadaloludai.

Sangeetha gnanamu…..bhakti vina?

Mylapore resident S Sivaramakrishnan, who has been listening to carnatic music with a religious fervour for half a century, often points to the difference in the colour of two Thodi’s he heard in the concert halls within days of each other. The Koluvameragada that Seetha Narayanan was like meditating, it filled him with peace. The other Koluvameragada, sung by a more accomplished, more famous, next generation artiste “was much better in terms of technical brilliance” says Sivaramakrishnan. “But it lacked that soothing aspect that Seetha Narayanan’s had.”

Sivaramakrishnan’s experience is but a sample of the reality today. As mentioned elsewhere in this blog, the 2015 saw a soothing, meditative Kiravani by Malladi Brothers, which was their ode for the Chennai flood victims. It was a no-frills, no-wild-imagination, fancy-brikha kiravani, but it stood as one of the best kiravanis ever head. On the other hand, a highly imaginative Mayamalavagowlai by Abishek Raghuram failed to produce that effect.

Is the core of carnatic music shifting from being devotional and meditative to more of technical excellence and egregious display of talent? Is the renaissance of ‘Namasankeerthanam’ the market’s response to this shift?

Few disagree, but views vary on whether it is necessary to hold on to ‘bhakti’ or just leave music to evolve the way it society demands. True, the revered saint-composer, Thyagaraja, stressed that music without bhakti can never be ‘sanmargamu’, or the ‘good path’, but fewer and fewer are today in pursuit of any ‘path’, and look to carnatic music more for entertainment.

Mylapore resident, nanogenarian, Vittal Rao, says music is no more for sanmargamu (the noble path), but sammanamu (award).

Veena artiste Balakrishnan Kannan, sets great store by ‘bhakti’. “Entertainment is the primary responsibility of a musician, but still,” says Kannan, who begins his concerts with a veda- recital, “entertainment should not be at the cost of the supreme meditative power of our music.”

For a diametrically opposite view, we come to R Thyagarajan, founder of the Shriram group, a big patron of carnatic music and a confirmed atheist. Deep devotion may open up creativity in a composer, but linking bhakti with carnatic music, says Thyagarajan, is “undesirable”.  With advances in science, man’s needs keep getting fulfilled and his ‘need’ for God declines. If music is entwined with devotion, it will lose its appeal when ‘devotion’ declines in the society, feels Thyagarajan. Besides, ‘bhakti’ weds you to words and lyrics, consequence of which is preference for vocal music, to the detriment of the instrumental. “Pure music shouldn’t have anything to do with words,” he says.

Between Kannan and Thyagarajan lies the world of carnatic musicians, musicologists, patrons and connoisseurs, each with a different preferred mix of meditative appeal and intellectualism.

Vocalist Sikkil Gurucharan represents the mid-point. “Our music is steadily staying in-between,” he says. “I do sing a lot of emotionally-charged songs and intend to get behind the mood of the lyrics,” he says. Yet, while on alapana and kalpana swaras, Gurucharan likens himself to “an explorer in a forest of notes”.

It might appear logical to assume that while older people bhakti-centric music while the not-so-old love the more cerebral, flashy, splash-on-the-canvas kind of creative music, but a quick sample shows that such profiling is not valid.

Samyukta Ranganathan, a ‘junior’ vocalist (and daughter of singer Aruna Ranganathan), an alumnus of Columbia University, carnatic music has an inherent tendency to be “extremely cerebral”, with alapana, calculations, nereval and so on. “I feel that emotion and devotion that was perhaps the original purpose of the compositions may get muddled underneath these feats of concert singing today,” she says. For her, the “main emotion” is devotion. “It is hard to sing a song that doesn’t draw out your emotions,” she says. On the core of emotion should be an overlay of intellectualism (or, vidwat).

What does our Sangita Kalanidhi Sanjay Subramanian say? Sanjay, never known to be a bhakti-guy, excused himself from replying to questions relating to bhakti. (“Not my cup of tea,” he said.) However, in an earlier, e-mail interaction with me he had observed that carnatic music had always afforded space for both manodharma (imaginative intellectualism) and meditation. “If manodharma (imaginative intellectualism) is the extreme left and meditation is the extreme right, I can be described as slightly left of centre.”

Well, while no musician will truly tell you, like Thyagarajan, that there is no need for the keeping up the meditation quotient, any regular at concert halls knows that not just Sanjay, but the entire world of carnatic music is shifting towards ‘left of centre’. Some believe that the space on the right vacated by carnatic music is being filled by ‘naama sankeerthanam’, which (unlike musical discourse or ‘harikatha’) seems to be on the rise.

“Namasankeerthanam has been topping the charts in terms of audience response for some years now and it is a really healthy trend,” says Sikkil Gurucharan. If artistes are finding a niche market in namasankeerthanam concerts, is carnatic music spinning off a part of it into a separate entity?

Long term rasikas shudder at the thought. “You can still enjoy a very cerebral music,” says Sivarakamrishnan. “But if you diminish the meditative aspect, you are extracting less value from music.”

Don't sway, when you ought to stand upright

Atteeeeen-shun!!!!!

Boots stomp the ground, click themselves into place. Then, the guys stand upright, till the next order is screamed.

These smart, upright uniformed chaps are a good metaphor for vivadi swaras—straight, slim, no swaying.

Vivadi ragas seem to be making a come back—why, have made a come back—to the concert halls. Till about a couple of decades they had been banished into oblivion by orthodoxy.  Today, barring a few old-fashioned, many artistes sing vivadis in detail, and that’s damn good for carnatic music. Sanjay, Yesudas, B Kannan…are some vivadi buffs.

But in singing or playing a vivadi, the artiste has to keep in mind the metaphor—the uniformed officer standing in attention. Do a gamaka on a vivadi note, you lose the flavour of the raga.

An example of this was given by violinist Bombay Anand. Anand was accompanying veena artiste, B Kannan, at Narada Gana Sabha. Kannan played a brilliant Kanakangi alapana and it was Anand’s turn. Rather disconcertingly, the violinist kept slipping into Todi.

Where did the mistake lie? In two places.

First is technical. Vivadi notes (as everybody knows) are like the upright officer in attention. You can’t do a gamaka on them. No sway. Anand swayed on the ‘ga’ and the result was Todi.

Second is non-technical. I asked Kannan if he had told Anand the choice of the raga prior to the concert. No. Kannan told him just before the concert began.

Kannan had a nice practice session the previous evening. Anand didn’t. Had he been informed, he too would have brushed up a bit and played neatly—after all, Anand is a talented violinist.

And therein lies a lesson. Lead artistes, if they intend to play the rare, should inform the accompanyists beforehand.