Tamil - Lost Language of CM - Charumati Ramachandran

[vgovindan]

A write-up by Charumati Ramachandran on CM and singing in Tamil -
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 052199.cms

[Sundara Rajan]

Yes. She has a valid point. However, efforts have been made in the past by DKP, MMI and others to include several Tamil compositions of Papanasm Sivan, Gopalakrishna Bharathi, Oothakadu Venkata Kavi,AruNAchala Kavi,Duraisamy Thooran and others in their concerts. Tamil Isai Sangam was started with the sole purpose of encouraging use of tamil compositions in concerts. Still the bias in considering Carnatic music as a Brahmin music continues. Brahmin dominated Sabhas/organisations are also to blame for the situation. The only non brahmin vocalist to gain any acceptance by the Carnatic community was Maurai Somasundaram, even who was denied the Sangeetha Kalanidhi award solely because of his caste. However there have been many non brahmin instrumentalists who were quite popular. Another vocalist who was not accepted well was M.M.Dandapani Desikar. In the current picture, Sanjay Subramanian brings out a lot of tamil compositions. Even among current Musicians, how many have non brahmin disciples ? It goes both the ways. Non brahmins are not willing to learn, practice or even appreciate carnatic music. Go to any concert in December season and look at the composition of the audience. You may see more foreigners than non brahmins. The situation here in the US is somewhat better. I know of several non brahmin families here interested in carnatic music and training their children in the art. It will take a concerted effort by all sides to overcome the bias. If not for its bakthi component, carnatic music should be accepted by all as relaxing music and non verbal instrumental carnatic music should pave the way for wider acceptance/ appreciation.

[rshankar]

Actually, my take was that there was nothing new in the points made..they've been made before...I expected more from Smt. Charumati, who is normally a very incisive and clear thinker. This was more of an 'araicca puLi' (rehash of old stuff) IMO. She's capable of much better....

[mahavishnu]

Couldn't agree more, Ravi.
Additionally I find the use of the term "non-brahmin" makes me very uncomfortable. It is such a catch-all term that seems to represent these divisions in black and white. And the generalizations that follow are quite weak.