This generation talk is depressing. Most of us embrace music and such pastimes to alleviate the pain of ageing and God bless, we are endowed with the maturity ro enjoy art. (Wilde: Youth is wasted on the young)
RSachi
You will like this . As much as I did
IT is currently said that hope goes with youth and lends to youth its wings of a butterfly; but I fancy that hope is the last gift given to man, and the only gift not given to youth. Youth is pre-eminently the period in which a man can be lyric, fanatical, poetic; but youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged. God has kept that good wine until now.GKC
OF all the tests by which the good citizen and strong reformer can be distinguished from the vague faddist or the inhuman sceptic, I know no better test than this -- that the unreal reformer sees in front of him one certain future, the future of his fad; while the real reformer sees before him ten or twenty futures among which his country must choose, and may in some dreadful hour choose the wrong one. The true patriot is always doubtful of victory; because he knows that he is dealing with a living thing; a thing with free will. To be certain of free will is to be uncertain of success.
GKC - Introduction to 'American Notes.'
Varsha,
You're priceless. You're a reincarnation of some merchant famed in history for selling gems and jewels on the main street of Vijayanagara, a little distance from the Virupaksha temple. I know him to have been rather generous and always a giver.
GK Chesterton. What a man. What a writer.
Last edited by Rsachi on 01 Aug 2016, 16:03, edited 1 time in total.
Here is a view I received in mail. Though I am uncomfortable about the comparison even in contrast, I decided to go ahead and post it.
"Below is the citation for the same award to MS. How in her citation CM is pure and helps people connect with deity and how in TMK award the same award cites that CM divides society!
The award foundation itself is just controversial...
Dear Varsha, and KVC, and others who fancy such writings, here is a quote from G K Chesterton's 1909 biography of George Bernard Shaw:
This combination of the widest kindness and
consideration with a consistent ungraciousness
of tone runs through all Shaw's ethical utterance,
and is nowhere more evident than in his
attitude towards animals. He would waste
himself to a white-haired shadow to save a
shark in an aquarium from inconvenience or
to add any little comforts to the life of a
carrion-crow. He would defy any laws or
lose any friends to show mercy to the humblest
beast or the most hidden bird. Yet I cannot
recall in the whole of his works or in the
whole of his conversation a single word of any
tenderness or intimacy with any bird or beast.
It was under the influence of this high and
almost superhuman sense of duty that he
became a vegetarian; and I seem to remember
that when he was lying sick and near to death
at the end of his Saturday Review career
he wrote a fine fantastic article, declaring that
his hearse ought to be drawn by all the
animals that he had not eaten. Whenever
that evil day comes there will be no need to fall
back on the ranks of the brute creation ; there
will be no lack of men and women who owe
him so much as to be glad to take the place of
the animals ; and the present writer for one
will be glad to express his gratitude as an
elephant. There is no doubt about the
essential manhood and decency of Bernard
Shaw's instincts in such matters. And quite
apart from the vegetarian controversy, I do
not doubt that the beasts also owe him much.
But when we come to positive things (and
passions are the only truly positive things)
that obstinate doubt remains which remains
after all eulogies of Shaw. That fixed fancy
sticks to the mind ; that Bernard Shaw is a
vegetarian more because he dislikes dead
beasts than because he likes live ones.
By the way, I discovered that the "Famine" joke of Shaw which I had read before to be about Hitchcock was more likely about Chesterton. Chesterton weighed 300 pounds. The photo below shows Shaw, Belloc and Chesterton.
The good-natured debates and repartees between Shaw and Chesterton are famous. Here is one:
Chesterton:"I could have swallowed you, Mr. Shaw, and never known I had eaten a thing." Rebutted Shaw, "In that case, you would have more brains in your stomach than you ever had in your head."
Dear MKR and others,
I agree that ranting is only mildly effective. It irritates those fhat disagree with the rant, or are bored with the subject. It vindicates those who think likewise. But it is not aiming at anything.
Here is an opportunity for affirmative action. We can all draft a simple petition to the Magsaysay Committee, and send it via change.org. We can copy the petition to Indian bodies like Sangeet Natak Akademi, The Music Academy, and the Department of Culture under HRD. If at least 70% of members of this forum sign it, the Magsaysay folks will have to wake up. It will also get media attention. That will garner several more signatures.
What will the petition seek? To remove/amend the award citation that is repugnant to facts and inimical to the interests of Indian classical music. Finally, if TMK gets the award without his original rant, it may become a beneficial turn of events ti further the cause of Carnatic music.
What say? I will send the petition, but a few of you will have to draft the petition.
The healing power of music is an idea that often does not rise beyond being a platitude, a comfortable truism. But a young artist in India is showing that music can indeed be a deeply transformative force in personal lives and society itself.
T.M. Krishna was born in 1976 to a privileged, Brahmin family in Chennai and was trained from the age of six in the aristocratic Karnatik music under masters of the form. Though he earned a degree in economics, Krishna chose to be an artist and quickly rose to become a highly-admired concert performer of Karnatik classical music. An ancient vocal and instrumental musical system, Karnatik music started centuries ago in temples and courts but was subsequently ‘classicized’ to become the almost exclusive cultural preserve of the Brahmin caste – performed, organized, and enjoyed by the elite who have access to it.
While grateful for how Karnatik music has shaped his artistry, Krishna would question the social basis of his art. He saw that his was a caste-dominated art that fostered an unjust, hierarchic order by effectively excluding the lower classes from sharing in a vital part of India’s cultural legacy. He questioned the politics of art; widened his knowledge about the arts of the dalits (“untouchables”) and non-Brahmin communities; and declared he would no longer sing in ticketed events at a famous, annual music festival in Chennai to protest the lack of inclusiveness. Recognizing that dismantling artistic hierarchies can be a way of changing India’s divisive society, Krishna devoted himself to democratizing the arts as an independent artist, writer, speaker, and activist.
In the 1990s, he was president of the Youth Association for Classical Music, that took Karnatik music to the youth and the public schools. To further diffuse classical music, he is at work on a curriculum for teaching Karnatik in schools and communities that have no exposure to it. In 2004, Krishna and a colleague created Sumanasa Foundation, that identified gifted, rural youth who lacked the opportunities to develop their talents, and brought them to Chennai to train under well-known artists at the same time that they were getting a college education. In 2008, Krishna and a fellow artist started the Svanubhava movement to bring together students of diverse social backgrounds to interact with renowned artists and learn about different art forms, in a program of lecture-demonstrations, film showings, and performances. Held annually in Chennai and featured in various cities, this unique platform has involved thousands of young people from some thirty schools and is now a movement directed by young artists and students and supported by India’s Ministry of Culture.
During the period 2011-2013, Krishna brought his passion and artistry to war-ravaged northern Sri Lanka, the first Karnatik musician to tour that region in three decades, and launched two festivals to promote “culture retrieval and revival” in that country. More recently, he conducted, with a prominent environmentalist, a free festival of “art healing” on the beach of Besant Nagar in Chennai that brought together a divided community of dalits, fisherfolk, and upper-class residents, to commune in performances that richly combined musical and dance forms formerly exclusive to the upper class and the dalits.
While much of his work is still ahead of him, he is embarked on an important path. Krishna is resolved to break barriers of caste, class or creed by democratizing music, cultivating thought-processes and sensibilities that unite people rather than divide them. Now a leading advocate in India of “music for all and music for a better quality of life,” he says: “Music and the arts are capable of bridging cultures and civilizations and liberating us from artificial divisions of caste and race.”
My proposed changes:
The healing power of music is an idea that often does not rise beyond being a platitude, a comfortable truism. But a young artist in India is showing that music can indeed be a deeply transformative force in personal lives and reaching it to some newer sections of society.
T.M. Krishna was born in 1976 to a privileged, Brahmin family in Chennai and was trained from the age of six in the aristocratic Karnatik music under masters of the form. Though he earned a degree in economics, Krishna chose to be an artist and quickly rose to become a highly-admired concert performer of Karnatik classical music. An ancient vocal and instrumental musical system, Karnatik music started centuries ago in temples and courts but was subsequently ‘classicized’ to become the almost exclusive cultural preserve of the Brahmin caste many sections of whom in South India performed, organized, and enjoyed Karnatik music accessible by one and all, without any restriction of access either in temples or in concert halls.
While grateful for how Karnatik music has shaped his artistry, Krishna would question the social basis of his art. He saw that his was a caste-dominated art that fostered an unjust, hierarchic order by effectively excluding the lower classes from sharing in a vital part of India’s cultural legacy. He questioned the politics of art; widened his knowledge about the arts of the dalits (“untouchables”) and non-Brahmin communities; and declared he would no longer sing in ticketed events at a famous, annual music festival in Chennai to protest his perceptions of the lack of inclusiveness. Recognizing that dismantling artistic hierarchies can be a way of changing India’s divisive society, Krishna devoted himself to writing articles and giving speeches encouraging a wider reach of an art form which is already quite democratic, if practised only by a few sections of society due to their cultural preferences, as an independent artist, writer, speaker, and activist.
In the 1990s, he was president of the Youth Association for Classical Music, that took Karnatik music to the youth and the public schools. To further diffuse classical music, he is at work on a curriculum for teaching Karnatik in schools and communities that have no exposure to it. In 2004, Krishna and a colleague created Sumanasa Foundation, that identified gifted, rural youth who lacked the opportunities to develop their talents, and brought them to Chennai to train under well-known artists at the same time that they were getting a college education. In 2008, Krishna and a fellow artist started the Svanubhava movement to bring together students of diverse social backgrounds to interact with renowned artists and learn about different art forms, in a program of lecture-demonstrations, film showings, and performances. Held annually in Chennai and featured in various cities, this unique platform has involved thousands of young people from some thirty schools and is now a movement directed by young artists and students and supported by India’s Ministry of Culture.
During the period 2011-2013, Krishna brought his passion and artistry to war-ravaged northern Sri Lanka, the first Karnatik musician to tour that region in three decades, and launched two festivals to promote “culture retrieval and revival” in that country. More recently, he conducted, with a prominent environmentalist, a free festival of “art healing” on the beach of Besant Nagar in Chennai that brought together a divided community of dalits, fisherfolk, and upper-class residents, to commune in performances that richly combined musical and dance forms generally practised by certain other sections of society, despite several opportunities set up by government and private institutions for people to listen to, learn, and perform Karnatik music without exclusivity of caste or class.
While much of his work is still ahead of him, he is embarked on an important path. Krishna is resolved to break his perceptions of barriers of caste, class or creed by democratizing music, cultivating thought-processes and sensibilities that unite people rather than divide them. Now a leading advocate in India of “music for all and music for a better quality of life,” he says: “Music and the arts are capable of bridging cultures and civilizations and liberating us from artificial divisions of caste and race.
In the 1990s, he was president of the Youth Association for Classical Music, that took Karnatik music to the youth and the public schools.
Unless I am mistaken, I vaguely remember the YACM in what could have been its latter days? I also seem to remember saying to one of those people, "You are putting youngsters on the stage, which is great, but you are not putting them in the audience,"
OK, it might have been some other organisation with youth in its name. But where is YACM now? If all it could do was project one group of generation of musicians, brilliant though they are, then it was hardly an enduring success.
During the period 2011-2013, Krishna brought his passion and artistry to war-ravaged northern Sri Lanka, the first Karnatik musician to tour that region in three decades, and launched two festivals to promote “culture retrieval and revival” in that country.
Really? In the three prior decades, Sri Lanka was producing its own carnatic musicians, albeit many of them had to flee. I absolutely cannot believe that TMK did more for Sri Lankan culture than their own people, at home and abroad, did, and still do. Can I have an award, please, for sitting there on the stage, in London, for oh-so-many charity and relief functions?
