Brahmins and CM

[hnbhagavan]

Judging by the number of Non Bramhin Musicians who have contributed in the early years and further a number of non Bramhin musicians are performing,CMis a Bramhins' domain does not hold water.
The audience even among bramhins is dwindling.

[kvchellappa]

Masses somehow has come to be associated with a negative connotation as a pejorative. The dictionary meaning inter alia is ‘the ordinary people who form the largest group in a society.’ Actually, the root of the word as well as that of lay may be from the church. The laymen and masses are in the audience whereas the clergy is on the pulpit.
In the context of music, I would rather think that laity and masses denotes those who are not initiated into music, whose appreciation is not aesthetic in the technical sense and is pure melody based. It is perhaps even below dilettante. The world of Carnatic music is very narrow and limited and the masses here would mean all who have no ear for it.
When we say that CM cannot be taken to the masses, there is no condescension, contempt or disparagement meant, but that there is a large group who would not be interested in it. King’s court (classical music) is for connoisseurs and playground is for others who take to other forms of entertainment.
I do not know how laboured my argument is, but I did not get any wrong or misleading signal from the quote.
The idea I brought the quote here is to further the point that taking CM to a target that has no appetite for it is futile ab initio.

[sureshvv]

How about Lord Rama - was the Lord Brahmin?

Seems like you neither know what "Lord" implies or what Brahmin means. But typical "rasikas" response.

Good going

[Nick H]

... ... ... The audience even among bramhins is dwindling.

That's the whole point, isn't it? As I understand the core issue of the thread rather than the side issues of what TMK/others may or may not have achieved and whether or not it deserves an award is...

That the audience among Brahmins is dwindling; that is is neither being replenished by the younger generations of Brahmins nor by those from other communities. That, as I have understood it (leaving out all the TMK-related stuff) is the in-a-nutshell concern for the future of CM.

On the other hand, it has also been pointed out that the imminent demise of CM has been forecast before, but it is still with us. I think that the same can be said of Western Classical music too, which is also still with us despite many such forecasts. And I doubt that CM faces anything like the funding crises that must be the daily nightmare of WCM.

[MaheshS]

IMO, TMK's approach is to give the man the fish rather than teach him how to. All short time gain and plaudits and just another tick in the box. Typical left wing socialist rubbish that has rarely worked in the real world. But this is the protegy of The Hindu. :: sigh ::

The dilution / loss of audience / students etc etc CM has been going on for the last 100 years or so. I for one have no worries, if it warrants existence it will. If not it will perish.

[arasi]

Sorry, deleted because of repeat posting...

[arasi]

CM (and western classical music) audience have always been in the minority through history (not taking into account temple concerts, and WCM ones in the park). How many theater goers see Shakespeare's plays? If in summer when the plays are held in a park, look at the audience! Ravikiran's melharmonic concert last week brought in how many, as opposed to his playing in a sabha?

There is no need to sing the dirge to CM. In the same minority category of the arts, it will go on, without any switching off of it. In fact, it's doing very well at present--more youngsters are drawn to it, seek to learn it,
and bring us even more concerts.

On the other hand, it is a good idea to take it to those who are not exposed to it, once in a while. Who knows, even drawing a few from the youths among them to it (who discover the greatness of this music and want to learn it) is something to celebrate.

[jodha]

TMK should join politics.He will make it big.DMK must be funding TMK.

[sureshvv]

Think it will happen soon. And he will go national. A la kejriwal.

[SrinathK]

Nooo...not Kejriwal. Seriously. When he first came into the spotlight they all thought he was a good and able leader -- and then reality struck. Turns out the guy is more juvenile than what we gave credit for. He could be a poster boy for the Nice Guy Syndrome, given his obsession for sabotaging himself.

Right now Kejriwal's devotion to Modi has surpassed both Kamsa's and Shishupala's obsession with Lord Krishna. We are not sure if even Thyagaraja took up Rama Nama with such fervour as he takes up Modi Nama smarana. He even moaned of not being allowed to tweet on Modi in a meeting with the PM. Then it got worse.

Now he's on a yoga break which may not cure his Twitter problem and will go on a sponsored vacation to Rome.

And when's he's away AAP, the most ethical government ever, is busy supporting the extremely corrupt practices of the capital's black and yellow taxis and autos which are not restricted to -- fleecing, intimidation, daylight robbery at the stations, crap behaviour, ridiculous surge pricing during the rain, and never going by their tampered meters and blaming Modi for it.

At this point, the foundation would do well to revise it's category from "Emerging leadership" to "Accomplished leadership" and award E Sreedharan for all the work he has done in the Railways and the Metros.

[sureshvv]

IMO, TMK's approach is to give the man the fish rather than teach him how to.

Yes. Never mind that the man is a pacifist vegetarian.

[kvchellappa]

Who is vegetarian?

[rajeshnat]

The next target for TMK will be to become a rajya sabha MP which will surely happen in few years.

[sureshvv]

Who is vegetarian?

The man that TMK is offering the fish to, instead of the training to fish. Please re-read the
original post armed with this background info for a somewhat mild chuckle

[jodha]

TMK has overtaken even Kamalahasan in hypocrisy.But we need TMK as he can only fill the vacuum as Kamal is old & hospitalised.

[shankarank]

In the TMK in Conversation with Sadanand Menon - a gentlemen poses a question why MSS could not have done something etc. To which the reply is : MSS was an institution run by a family, a pan Indian symbol , not a movement.

What was the question exactly and in what context was it asked?

I thought MSS did enough to get a Bharat Ratna, but alas, it fell short!

The context was around body or spirit - what is more central to art which seems to be the harping through out the conversation. TMK's take seems to be: the body has more broader contextual reach than spirit ( I may be borrowing a western narrative myself here) in these tumultuous times. Given that MSS sang and popularized Kurai Onrum illai a Tamil Song etc., why not more of the SRngara from her heritage? - seems to be the question.

While his bet seems to be SRngara of artistic variety may advance the art amongst people outside the system - a glimmer of hope was aroused when he took celebration of religions as he called it ( Sufi, Choir and NamasankIrtan) recently into Urur Olcott. The hope does not stem from the fact that religion and Bhakti sangeeth ( again as he characterized it) made their way there - but more importantly even as his followers noted the melodious Nalinakanti from the namasankIrtan - I could not miss the off beat patterns of Singer (Gnaneswar)/Mridangist (Ganapatiraman) in the short clip that was posted.

The latter is probably telling people that there is more than what you can hear with your senses - a proto abstraction - a counter act to the body centric narrative - to begin with. And this could as well get sourced from other Genres that were rendered there albeit with a different texture/signature. And that has the capacity to cut through all the negativity in the narratives.

[sureshvv]

TMK has overtaken even Kamalahasan in hypocrisy

Care to elaborate or justify?

[VK RAMAN]

Are pacifists live in the seashores of Pacific Coast!!!!