Food for thought...

In the international arena, Delhi - the capital of India boasts of showcasing Indian culture to the world. Being a music enthusiast, a core Carnatic music lover, mention the word Carnatic and the Delhi folks look at you strangely! Apart from areas like Rohini and very few places in Mayur Vihar, haunted by lot of South Indians, and not to forget the Tamil Sangam and the Kannada Sangha that organize Carnatic concerts once in a blue moon, Delhi seems very 'thanda' when it comes to this form of music.

Here's a short story about my experience in Delhi.

Having learnt Carnatic music constantly, since childhood, my thirst to learn more always kept me motivated. I consider myself blessed, for having Meera Mam as my Guru throughout. I moved to Delhi after my marriage. My hunt for a music teacher started 2 years ago in Delhi. I did not want to stop practising and all I needed was a good teacher who can hone my skills further. After a lot of enquiry among people, searching on the internet, visiting all possible sanghas, I found a teacher with great difficulty. I was very happy. In the first class I realized that she could not even sing Hamsadhwani correctly. She would start in Shuddha Dhanyasi and land in Panthu Varali. She was too lazy and would refuse to explain swaras for her own compositions, which in reality were copied from older krithis. How can I call such teachers as Gurus? She did not even know enough about music, but was teaching a lot of students. I was completely disappointed and I quit.

After a while, I heard a lady sing in a Temple. She was great! Being a musicologist, a lecturer in Delhi's Music School and hailing from a family of very famous musicians, this teacher was excellent, but very biased. She was greedy when it came to money, and to her, rendering carnatic music in 'tamil' style was called singing and not any other style. I wondered if I had made a mistake telling her that I hail from Bangalore. What is this bias about regions? Or was I that bad? I lost my confidence to a great extent when she de-motivated me. I stopped singing for a few months, almost 2 months! That was the longest period till date that I never sang. I again quit music. But I learnt a lot from this experience.

After that, I again found another teacher, who is quite okay. I am currently practising with her. Although I am not too happy, as long as I am singing and singing correctly, its fine.

Why am I saying all this? My experiences taught me a lot which I thought was very important to pen down.

Lesson 1:

Acceptance is important. Why can't our minds accept certain things? Ask yourself. Sometimes, the attitude of being extremely critical, unwillingness to give way to people who want to explore, bias towards language, believing that only traditional south Indians have legal right over Carnatic music, has created a mind-block among common people that only the older generation or the very orthodox clan (like brahmins, iyers, iyengars, etc) are entitled to listen, learn and enjoy this form of music.

Lesson 2:

Music is an art. It needs dedicated people, time and money to flourish. While we have people and we can make time, we also need to think about money. Musicians should be paid what they deserve. Today, we see a trend among singers like Unni Krishnan or Sudha Raghunathan or Vasumathi Badrinathan perform more concerts abroad than in India? Is it because there are not enough rasikas here? Definitely not. Apart from their own reasons, monetary benefits draw people out of India. I donot want to debate about this topic since I believe that until 1 Dollar = 45 Rupees and 1 Pound = 70 Rupees, this trend will always exist. When software engineers can migrate and earn more, why not musicians? However, music in India needs money and more enthusiasts. With so much of revenue, can't we have good music schools in all the metropolitan cities atleast? A thought that needs a lot of action.

Lesson 3:

How can we contribute towards music?

• Lets not boast about knowledge, let knowledge find its own way to unleash.
• Lets not be greedy and make business out of music. It is important to make money, but let us encourage doing this the right way and be ethical.
• Lets not be biased about music.
• Lets not make music only ours, lets learn to give and learn.
• Lets allow people enter the fraternity and explore, it is about letting music live.
  
  While my search for a good music teacher still continues in Delhi, I hope I could induce some thoughts on how to value a divine art form that needs dedication from us youngsters, so we can take it ahead and not let it fade away.