The Marghazhi Music Festival Season in Chennai is fast turning into a jamboree of circus stunts by various performers. And the audiences today who go to these performers go there not to enjoy true classicism of Carnatic music but to be entertained by the travesties of it delivered by so-called young “innovative” , “revolutionary” Vidwans and Vidushis who have come to believe that the surest way to protect preserve and propagate this ancient art form of music is to “un-shackle” it from the clutches and grip of classicism and hallowed “sampradaya” “paattantharam” and “popularise” it instead in the manner and high-voltage, high-decibel gusto of a rock-star concert . And the audience — irrespective of its demographic or gender or age profile — is seen drooling over it and applauding it all with equal gusto .
This performance of Trichur Brothers on stage at the Krishna Gana Sabha Chennai is an outstandingly outrageous example of de-Classicisification of Carnatic music kutcheri form . It’s a form of “creeping debasement” of tradition in the name of “generational re-culturing and gentrification” of Carnatic music .
I know now that immediately some ardent fan of the Trichur Brothers will rise to defend them by trying to rubbish my opinion expressed above . “What’s wrong with singing this exciting, lilting Tamil light-music album song based “tukkada” piece in a modern kutcheri?… Especially, if it pleases the audience ? Why, in the olden days , didn’t Madurai Mani sing the “English Note” piece ? And didn’t Muthuswami Deekshitar himself compose many pieces with a touch of Western music elements ?… Why this “Rasika attitude of bigotry”…. Why this needless , mean-spirited , surly , grumpy , sour-puss clinging to old world notions of classicism and purity?”
Madurai Mani Aiyer was one of a kind of musician … he was “Sui generis”… He was so exceptional that anyone trying to follow his example and style would only end up insulting his genius.
But I know well that modern Rasikas will reject all these my protestations as “rubbish”.
Against all such stout doughty arguments , I have really no forceful riposte … I have to concede that I’m an old-timer , a prisoner of anachronisms and outdated views of what classical Carnatic music is and ought to be . I just find myself unable to wise up and learn to “go with the flow” of the time and age . There’s nothing permanent except impermanence, and nothing more fashionable than the latest. As a fossil-age Rasika, I thought it better for me to give up the world of Carnatic music realising that it already has given me up.
Which is the reason why , in the last few years , I have stopped attending Marghazhi Music Festival Season kutcheris which I now regard as now being no more than razzmatazz , glitz , glamour and IMHO … pure new age schmalz.
I have therefore conceded defeat gracefully and distanced myself silently far from the madding crowd of present-day Rasikas .
In reclusion , there may be desolation …. But sometimes in desolation there is also comfort of great consolation.
Sudarshan Madabushi