Music to my ears

I have been chilling in Madras for sometime now - amidst all the heat, humidity, auto bargaining, and the music season. Four concerts a day, the odd lec-dem, CD shopping, musical instruments shops, sabha hopping, canteens, filter coffee, vegetarian thali meals, idli-vada-dosa. The following is a collection of what I wrote sitting at the not-so-inspiring concerts - as in, wrote with actual pen and paper.

On Neatness

When I was much younger, a friend of mine got this formula Hollywood movie involving some cheerleaders and their rivalries and told me that it was a "neat movie". Many years later, someone, while commenting on an upcoming vocalist described her as having "neat presentation". When I watched the movie, and listened to this "neat" vocalist, I realised that "neat" meant 'insipid' or 'characterless' or 'unimaginative'.

No term has irritated me more than 'neat'. Because 'neat' means that you have set formulae that you stick to, and execute well. Artists aren't high school mathematics students who apply a set of given formulae. They are mathematicians who create formulae. And we, as the consumers of art need to give these artists space - the space to make an error once in a while in their search for new boundaries in art.

We need to allow Darren Aronofsky to make The Fountain - magnificent in scope, but a little flawed in execution, hoping that amidst three Fountains, he makes one Requiem. The same way, we need to allow the younger musicians to make a mistake or two in trying something new. It is like raising a child - at a young age, we stamp the child's ability to innovate, because we're intolerant of its mistakes.

In the afternoon concerts, usually of younger musicians, we must raise the bar, and challenge them to do something extra. Instead we expect them to not slip anywhere, and execute whatever they are looking to execute competently. Because of this expectation from the audience, the afternoon concerts are turning into lethargic affairs where nobody is stretching the limits of their creativity, nobody is trying to do anything new, lest they fail.

It is like watching Shiv Sunder Das bat each afternoon, and thinking, 'This guy has potential'.

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The Thin White Line

I was in a concert when the news of Modi's victory came. For some reason I remembered the meaning of the colours in the national flag - sacrifice, peace and prosperity, they told me. Such nonsense. When I realised what they actually stood for, I couldn't help thinking that it was the white that was the most crucial - because it was this white that keeps the saffron and the green from clashing. When I heard of this victory, I almost imagined the saffron bulging, and the white line getting thinner.

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The Slip

The little boy was excited. His father had just bought expensive tickets to the Violin Maestro's concert in his little town. The boy stared at his textbooks all day without absorbing a word. But he knew he had to study, else he wouldn't be taken to the concert. Every time he read abouty objects falling under the force of gravity, he would think of the Maestro's dexterous fingers falling down the violin producing that free-fall effect - as if the note just fell and landed on the one below.

He kept staring alternatively at the clock, his textbook and his violin at the corner of the room. And then he couldn't contain himself anymore - he picked up his violin, tuned it and played Shankarabharanam at lightning speed slipping ever so often, and hoping that in the evening, when the Maestro played, he would play Shankarabharanam, and when he played at lightning speed, he would watch how someone could play it woithout slipping!

When he reached the venue with his father, he ran upstairs to the hall, and grabbed two seats on the front row - he put a handkerchief on the seat next to his lest someone grabs it before his father ambled up the stairs. On his other side, a stern looking, middle aged man seated himself. The boy smiled excitedly at this man, but got no response. It was as if the man had only one expression - the one where he looked like he had not seen good times in years.

The concert started with the majestic Bhairavi Varnam. The boy's fingers moved with the Maestro's. He kept pace until the Meastro started indulging in mathematics and fractions. He hadn't heard anything like this before in his life. He had heard hours of tape of the Maestro, but listening to him live was something else - he could follow every small twist and turn of the Maestro's hand, and he could see hundreds of heads all around him swaying to the music.

But there was one head that remained still. It was the man sitting next to the little boy. The same disgusted expression - as if his face was cast in iron.

As the boy had been hoping, Shankarabharanam came. And it was the most glorious Shankarabharanam ever. Each note acquired a life of its own, and each phrase lived and breathed of Shankarabharanam. Every minute oscillation, every grand phrase, every set piece was just right. The audience was nearly in tears.

All except one. The man next to him was still unmoved and had the same expression on his face, though the boy thought there was this slight sense of irritation creeping in now.

And then the tempo increased. The slip never came. The boy watched with wonder, and imitated the Maestro's hands as he followed them closely. The patterns began to get more and more intricate, to the point where the boy could not imitate them anymore, and just watched in amazement. He kept telling himself that he will get there one day.

He turned to look at his father. Was he in tears? And just for contrast, he turned to the other man. Still the same. What was this man's problem?

The boy turned his attention to the Maestro and his spectacular taanam, and remembered what he was playing that afternoon - such a contrast! He closely watched the hands now. And suddenly, he saw the Maestro slip, just for a millisecond. The audience, who were swaying stopped suddenly. His father came out of that trance. How did that happen? The more the boy thought about it, the more he was convinced that this was done on purpose. What was he trying?

The boy looked at the Maestro, who just smiled. The Maestro then looked at the stern man and said, "You heard what you wanted to hear? You can leave now."

He then turned to the boy, winked and continued the Shankarabharanam as the man left in a hurry.
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