An article by Sanjay's uncle in today's Hindu

[sanjaysubfan]

An article by Sanjay's uncle in today's Hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/features/friday ... 221034.ece

Sanjay's blog post on the above article

http://sanjaysub.blogspot.in/2014/07/a- ... ylist.html

[kssr]

Very well written. Glittering like a Ganjam Diamond

[Rsachi]

Well written. I can see the GANJAM link.
I am only a bit surprised that after decades of eclectic musical appreciation, the gentleman still continues to surf and search. I have a theory (I wrote about it in my blog some time back) that one settles down as a serious music listener to one or two genres. You Tube is pretty unattractive for such a person because You Tube believes in throwing at you an indigestible and irritating array of choices, a sure indicator that they like you to surf and consume their ads rather than settle down to some serious music. Of course one can beat the system by creating playlists of one's own. But then you would have already been suckered to surf around a lot of trash.

[annamalai]

I do not understand the conclusion of this article or is it the musical experience of a rasika over time from 1960s GNB to 2010 artists.
If the message is Carnatic music was not popular in the 1980s; and only with the globetrotting current generation sabhas are full; ringing up the ticket counters; that may be true with influx of all NRIs flocking the sabhas and more crowds for sure.

I have not attended 1960 golden era of concerts - GNB, MMI or Alathur Brothers concerts. But during the late 70s and 80s, I have attended many concerts at Academy - MD Ramanathan - ?/ TVG (Kamalambam - Kalyani); KVN - MSG - VR packed hall at Academy (first time heard the 4-raga pallavi; Madurai Somu - LGJ - UKS concerts (thodi main); many DKJ concerts DKJ - MSG - UKS; Sree Valli Devasenapathe, Soundara rajam (Brindavanasaranga); Nedunuri Krishnamurthy / LGJ / Raghu (Vachaspathi), TM Thyagarajan; TVS with his ringing voice in his peak TVS - VVS - TK Murthy (Natakapriya), TNS / Chandrasekaran / Upendran (full house concert at Academy); packed hall for ML Vasanthakumari ( Azhaga Azagha (Suddha dhanyasi), RTP - Bhairavi); of course Maharajapuram Santhanam; N. Ramani (Meenalochana brova - dhanyasi); Mandolin Srinivas 1983 first concert at Music Academy 1.30 pm concert packed hall; Sethalapathi Balu - Kapali temple bhajan etc ... and I did attend the Thiruvaiyaru Aradhana once in 1980s; could not get inside the pandal for the Pancharatna session; but listened to DKJ's National Program of music @ Thiruvaiyaru - sitting on the steps of Kaveri river munching warm peanuts. The quality of music in the 80s seems very high to me.

[Vagadeeshwari]

annamalai, I completely agree with you. I have experienced the same in the 70s and in the 80s. I read the article as the author’s own experience and perhaps he took a hiatus from CM in the 70s/80s period or he didn’t live in our good old Madras Now in Chennai artistes seem to focus more on cornering (market) hence less time for creating I think.

[arasi]

Annamalai,
Yes, you illustrate your point well with examples, and your guess and that of Vagadeeshwari turn out to be right. The author lived in Calcutta (away from Chennai) in the seventies and the eighties and a bit of the nineties, if I'm right. He now lives in Bengaluru where as we all know, CM is alive and well, even hale and healthy.

I suppose, having lived away from India from the sixties, and in being part of the CM scene only in my senior years, I can understand his drift.

As a rasikA who was away from Chennai for many years, Suresh Subrahmanyan says it so well--about the way we, the 'far from the CM center folks' felt during the intervening years, and of our varied musical experiences in the meantime.

RasikAs can get even more by reading Sanjay's comment on his uncle's article.

What I liked even better was Sanjay's notes on his Tyagaraja album--a serious musician's jottings about each song and of his connection to them, of the gurus who taught them and the way in which he grew up with them. We struggle, trying to put together past history (of how musicians lived with their music) like a jigsaw puzzle with many pieces missing. We long to know more about music from their point of view.

What we have here is a fragment of personal history, a musician's relationship with his art--the kind which is of value to us and to the coming generations. All the thousands of recordings we listen to cannot reveal to us the relationship of the practitioners to their art, unless we are given a glimpse into their minds to know how they go about it. For those who still miss the Sangeetham website, this is a good read

Suresh,
If you are reading this, my compliments to you. Such good writing, with some stand out lines!
Forgetting music for a moment, the Subrahmanyan family can boast of good writers too...

[kvchellappa]

A good critique on Sanjay's comments on the kritis. I look forward to what Sanjay writes, but it is infrequent. In Margazhi Mahotsavam, Subhasri T mentioned how the rasikas look forward to Sanjay's answers eagerly.

[rupavathi]

what is his point, actually...? #:-s

[arasi]

It's his viewpoint, and I know he isn't a lawyer who has to prove a point

The Hindu is known for publishing many kinds of views in its pages regularly.

[hnbhagavan]

I continue to experience some opinions of several rasikas.For many,Carnatic music means either MSS or Balamurali or Jesudas.They would not have heard of any others.
If that were to be the case,carnatic music could not have survived.
Many do not consider mentioning Instrumentalists.Whatever Sanjay's uncle has written in the article is highly debatable.I too have attended music concerts in 1960's,70's and 80's.I know of overflowing rasikas in Lalgudi violin duet concerts or N Ramani's flute or MSG/TNK violin concerts.

[arasi]

Something came to light this morning. In a way, it gave me some idea about why an article like this made a few people uneasy. A friend had sent the material again as it appeared in the newspaper. I was surprised by its being headed by photographs of almost all the musicians the author had mentioned! Revered names in CM were mixed up at random with musicians from all genres of music, as if they were performing in one big world mElA!

If I were a purist, or if I had only a limited interest in anything outside of CM, I would have been a bit rattled too by looking at the page.

Even otherwise, I consider this canopy of stars over the written matter a bit of an excess.
When there are so many images hovering about, not to be distracted or be influenced by them while reading the essay can be difficult. Anyhow, that's how I feel.

Illustrations enhance the written matter in most cases. A patchwork affair which tries to include too many of the names appearing in the printed matter without much of a purpose is another thing, though most writers in my days when illustrations were far and few in a journal, longed to have their writing highlighted with an image!

[Nick H]

what is his point, actually...? #:-s

It must be a week ago now, and I only read it with half a mind. No point needed: it was a stroll through a musical life. I didn't know who the author was, and, if I remember rightly, that wasn't important to the article. It was just a bout a guy, steeped in carnatic music, rejecting it in youth, enjoying other musical genres, and bringing all together again later in life. It must have caused a lot of people to see their own musical history, and that, if any, was the point of it.

No big thing; no big deal; but no small deal either, because ordinary experience is good to read about too.

[kvchellappa]

A nice precis. Yes, I feel it is ordinary things that interest us mostly as we see ourselves in it.

[vasanthakokilam]

The title 'excess' was not tied together with the rest of the story neatly though the link is there: The excess becomes excessive when one has interest in many musical genres.

That article made me think of a different point: 'Breadth vs Depth' of experience. Some stick to one or two and go deep and others prefer to experience a lot of things but not so deep. This is also seen among us in terms of if one listens to both HM and CM or stick to one.

It would be great to have both breadth and depth but often times there is just not enough time in one's life for that. So a compromise a lot of us make is the 80/20 rule (pick your ratio ). 80% of the time in the areas we like deeply and the 20% for the rest for exploration. It is no different from food preferences I suppose.

I wonder if people who like different kinds of music also tend to like different kinds of food ( and the opposite ). When we go out to eat, I see two kinds of people. Those who pretty much stick to the same few things and those tend to walk the menu and try to taste many things at least once. The second group of people are driven by exploring 'what else is out there that I may enjoy'. Musical and food wanderings may have that common cause.

Sachi's hypothesis rings true. At some point in one's life, all the extra-curricular considerations take a back seat( like peer group opinions on music, the in-thing, 'listening to many genres is the right thing as a rule' etc ). People get in touch with their true feelings about what appeals to them and settle down on that.

[Vagadeeshwari]

The author sounds like a 'born again' CM fan

[arasi]

How nice to be born again to listen to good CM

[annamalai]

so much action over the weekend, phew ...

As vasanthakokilam points, some like their favourite item at a restaurant; my colleague would systematically order beef chimichanga, refried beens, chips salsa, and cold water and he was very happy, since he knew what he was getting. For me, 1980s - college days, nostalgic days, and then for several years, I was in Agnatha vasa, but would show up at Chennai alternate years. During the 80s, I have attended many of the free concerts some of those listed at (Anjaneyar temple, Sanskrit college, Mylapore, Kasi Viswanathar temple, west mambalam (MDR with TVG), Ayodhya Kalyana Mantapam so on ... and if I had money for Rs. 5 (which was steep), sitting on the stage at Music Academy.

As I mentioned in the previous note, it may be very well true that the NRIs are ringing up ticket counters, and moving the turnstiles at Sabhas. Good for the sabhas. Musically for a rasika, 1980s is nostaligic and was very enriching musically; how we forget the DKJ concerts, Somu and MDR concerts. As VK puts it, it may be my chimichanga, albeit a veg one

[arasi]

Annamalai,
Thanks for 'chiming' in. The dish of your friend's choice may not be palatable to many here, but the very sound of 'chimi changa' is musical (felt so ever since I heard the name of the dish).

The eighties seem to evoke a lot of nostalgia among rasikAs--about the music in Chennai then, which some of us have been deprived of (some, for more than one decade).

[ramamantra]

what is his point, actually...? #:-s

Even I wondered what the point was. It was just meandering around his nostalgia, I suppose, not a serious article as such (-| . The only thing I noted was how come as a person of the older generation, his name was a fancy Suresh. ymwhisle

Why bother if he was sanjay's uncle or subbu's...

[sureshvv]

I think the last couple of lines of the article, a quote from Shakespeare, delivered the "point" very well. May be our rasikas people find it hard to read the font (it was in italics, IIRC).

[kssr]

It is just a free wheeling sharing of a person's experiences, perceptions, biases, reservations, feelings of his long journey through various genres of music. It is very well written in a light hearted enjoyable way. That is all to it. There is good journalism in it. There is no other point. The way the article is conceived is not to emphasise historic correctness or technical perfection or narration of facts and nothing but facts. Good jolly reading for people like us, who enjoy, like the author, our experiences with music.

The title emphasising Sanjay's uncle distracts the reader from the real mood of the article itself, although factually it may happen to be true.