After reading the above piece published in The Hindu today, I ask myself if anyone is really standing in his way if TM Krishna, the musician, goes ahead and teaches “a whole generation how to unshackle art from orthodoxy” … Who is really denying him his right to to do whatever he wishes to nurture “diverse forms of artistic expression”?! Who cares really ?
It’s not TMKrishna’s ends that are objectionable to many rasikas like me.. it’s the means he employs that we find highly repugnant.
The real problem is that Krishna has an exaggerated notion of himself and thinks that the way to go about revolutionising Carnatic Music is to make “diverse expressions co-exist in harmony” but only on his very own terms, his own worldview and style which must overpower all others .. by “others” meaning, the very same past values and heritage that made Carnatic Music into what it was meant to always be : a vehicle for Bhakti Maargam for one and all, and much more than simply an evolved art-form…. Refer in this regard to the line in the anupallavi in the kriti “mokshamu galada” : “saakshaathkaara nee Sathbhakthi sangitha gnyaana viheenulaku…”.
TMK however chooses to arrogate to himself the haughty position, manners and deportment of a “Che Guevara of Carnatic Music” .
TMK thinks his mission in life is to usher in a new order of creativity in the world of Carnatic Music! He’s a new messiah! And that brave new order will be sustainable only if he also makes sure he destroys the old order — that which is being called in this The Hindu article as the “shackles of orthodoxy” … a highly pejorative term that is an unmistakable euphemism for Brahmin values, mores and worldview .
As an ordinary rasika , TMK’s prodigious artistic prowess impresses me too… but then so what?! The musical prowess of a Michael Jackson stage-performance too once used to impress me a lot when I was young … But I ask you, what is musical prowess in a Carnatic music if it is bereft of spiritual pith?
I found it so amusing that The Hindu article begins with a line hailing TM Krishna for his “unpredictability”…. “The unpredictability is what makes a T.M. Krishna concert special”….
Well, if “unpredictability” is such a big virtue in a man, I reckon Donald Trump ought to be hailed as the greatest President in history ever to rule America, shouldn’t he?
Sudarshan Madabushi