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Music & Dance
Excellence should be the watchword
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Neither the musicians nor the sabhas seem to be concerned about the dwindling audience. Why this complacency? As the music season begins, SVK offers an analysis.
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THE RASIKA-MUSICIAN equation was well brought out by an incident in a sabha where a popular vidwan was scheduled to sing. Two well-dressed middle-aged women got out of a Honda City and came to the entrance of the hall when one connected with the sabha informed them that the entrance fee was Rs. 20. "Let us go home," one of them said to the other and they walked back to their car and disappeared.
What are we to infer from this? Many thoughts emerge. Is a popular vidwan's music not worth Rs. 20 to the rasikas coming in an expensive car? Is the standard of music so low that it inhibits payment of Rs. 20 to hear him? Has music become so widespread and cheap that it is not worth even Rs. 20? Have the mushrooming music organisations offering "all are welcome" cutcheries contributed to the belittling of the status of artistes? How would the musicians in general take this insult when informed that ticketed performances mean a walk back to the car? Is the desire for enjoyment of classical Carnatic music inextricably linked to free entry? Has the co-existence of free entry and ticketed programmes led to this sorry state that makes sabhas take pride in the fact that they are patronising and promoting Carnatic music and on the part of the musicians the attitude that all they ask for is a platform? Don't musicians feel hurt when they ask for enhancement of fees to be told that their music does not ensure any respectable gate collection? Do rasikas attending free performances stay at least till the end of the concert which is 8.30 p.m.? Do any of the secretaries of sabhas find any new face among the audience except the twenty or thirty regular listeners? If at all any new rasikas are found, it is either the family members of the vocalists, violinists and mridangists or their friends who alone stay till the end to congratulate the musicians on their "splendid" recital.
Amidst these depressing thoughts, it is worth analysing why neither the musicians nor the organisations are deeply disturbed or concerned about this phenomenon. What factor has contributed to this complacency?
Some decades ago, the sabhas, a few in number, gained the reputation that they arranged nothing-but-the-best performances. Musicians too recognised that a performance in such sabhas gave a stamp of excellence on their music.
The attendance of rasikas collected round the year now would not match the number of listeners in those days for a single concert. None today seems to care for such distinction. If musicians have proliferated by the hundreds, will sabhas lag behind? So the reluctance of the two women to part with Rs. 20 to hear the music of a popular musician is not at all a matter for derision for they thought it was a waste.
Will Carnatic music concerts present a full house this season?
The truth is that the musicians or sabhas do not seem to be motivated by a sense of pride in their respective fields. If one sabha refuses (a chance to an artiste as short of standard) there are many in the locality to beckon him and the same kind of advertisement in the leading English daily appears with only the name of the sabha changed. All that the musicians and sabhas look for is an advertisement in the engagements column, not the quality of the recital or the number of rasikas in the hall.
Still the merry-go-round goes on enveloped in the smug feeling that as of today Carnatic music can hope for nothing more exhilarating than near-empty halls and unconcerned musicians.
This apparent indifference is deceptive. Like Buddhism leaving India, Carnatic music too has found a haven abroad.
Not only musicians, even sabha secretaries for their dedicated work in arranging "all are welcome" cutcheries with near empty halls are honoured by NRIs. It happens to be a two-way traffic: our musicians invited to perform abroad and NRI artistes offered chances in Chennai - monetarily beneficial to artistes and sabhas. What does Rs.20 put back in the purse matter when dollars fill the pockets of musicians and the coffers of major city sabhas? It may look malicious to beneficially inclined to comment critically on this development, but facts are sacred and no amount of cosmetic explanations can paper the cracks in the Carnatic music edifice.
The question boils down to this. Is earning abroad by musicians when the homeground is dry, wrong? The bottomline of human activity today is money. Musicians must earn from all quarters even as the Tamil proverb says, "cross the seas and seek fortune". The standard of living demands resources that city sabhas cannot afford. Music's quality can still be preserved even by putting money before music if only our artistes are true to their art. That would be a feather in their cap, for old vidwans stick steadfastly to standards and slipped in earning. Our artistes, thanks to the environment of annual calls from abroad, can win the double crown of money and music. That only requires a heart for music and a mind for money well balanced. The heart is the stage for devotion or depravity.
The case of sabhas is quite different. Huge halls were built when music was a big draw. Now the halls remain brooding and music has slowly declined. What to do? Go for a mini hall in tune with the miniaturised music. To occupy the mini halls are available many midget musicians and thus the noble role of the sabhas patronising and promoting Carnatic music is fully accomplished.
The air is thick with allegations that the dangling of money before the sabhas by dancers to be given a chance is slowly getting extended to the music enclosure too, with probably the NRIs having a preferential edge. All good things carry value only when they are scarce. Music today suffers because it has become a street show. There is an unwillingness to pay Rs. 20 because the next street offers in a week the recital of the same musician free.
The quality of music however remains the same whether ticketed or welcomed with open arms. On that account, can the newly started sabhas be asked to close shop? No, definitely no. While in the world there are umpteen colleges and universities, Princeton, Harvard, the London School of Economics and IIT here stand aloof in high reputation. Why not two or three sabhas emulate them? But who is to bell the cat? Unfortunately, even the few sabhas that once shone by standards, were once Princeton and Harvard of music have thrown open their portals to mediocrity buckling under the aggressive competitiveness by a plethora of sabhas in arranging concert series right through the year. So, the two well-to-do women unwilling to take out of their purse Rs. 20 and turning their back on the concert is symbolic of the prevailing scene in Carnatic music today.
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