A clarion call to the Academy Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
A clarion call to the Academy
Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
Time for Music Academy to magnanimously offer their celebrated platform to GenZ. We no longer live in times when you have to be greying to ‘make it’. Millennials and GenZ are far faster in their evolution, to perform boldly and imaginatively on such platforms. Sachin Tendulkar would have been lost to the world, as he is known now, if Raj Singh Dungarpur had not picked him up, to face the likes of Imran Khan and Abdul Quadir, at all of sixteen. Be it chin music or flippers from the maestros or a silly taunt from Javed Mirandad, from silly point, “Son, have you done your homework in school today”, Sachin answered by smoting the leggie for a couple of unforgettable sixes.
Sunil Manohar Gavaskar at twenty one in 1971 seemed older. Come on, Academy wake up to blood the young when they are young, eager, able and willing to face the competition boldly, from where they belong. They do not need to sport grey. They mature faster. Exposed to far more.In the past, the Academy had to condescend to let them in when they were greying. Deign to recognize such raw talent. Now, we demand.
Seniors dominated. No matter they were past the prime. It can no longer be so. Rasikas are ready. They can recognize talent far faster than the Academy officianados. Or willing to. It took a while for even the Ramakrishnamurthys,Tiruchur Brothers’ et al to be granted the evening slot. The delay did not take away the sheen as they had the made the grade on ‘lesser platforms’ and it was the Academy that lost out. Academy need not and should not wait in the 21st century. They should lead and show the way as they are institution others look up to.
Academy cannot rest on their laurels by continuing to reside in the stratosphere. We the rasikas matter too. WE may be lacking in the grammatical nuances. WE make it up with a musical ear that catches the beauty and mellifluous genre. We have heard long enough and continue to have the earthy common man’s ear, if not the experts’. We are connoisseurs’ too, of the peasantry kind. So what? For WE matter, you see.
Forget not, it is WE the rasikas who make the performer and the Sabhas . Listen to us too. You would be better off, as we would like you to. One recalls these words of Sangita Kalanidhi Sudha Raghunathan ( despite being young by Academy’s standards! ), “ I was in the middle of a concert when the Prime Minister’s office announced the news about Chennai being included in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, for its rich musical tradition. By the time I got back to the hotel and checked my phone, it was already inundated with messages from friends, colleagues, rasikas, and well-wishers expressing their happiness and pride. Flooded with emotion, I was overjoyed — Namma Chennai! As M.S. Subbulakshmi once said, “Indian music is oriented solely to the end of divine communication. If I have done something in this respect, it is entirely due to the grace of the Almighty who has chosen my humble self as a tool.
Tamil Nadu in general, and Chennai in particular, has been home to so many gems of Carnatic music — M.S Subbulakshmi, my guru M.L Vasanthakumari, D.K Pattammal, T. Brinda, Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar, Tiger Varadachariar, Musiri Subramania Iyer, Madurai Mani Iyer, Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, G.N. Balasubramaniam, Palghat K.V Narayanaswamy, Veena S. Balachander, Flute N. Ramani, Lalgudi Jayaraman, M.S. Gopalakrishnan, T.N. Krishnan, Umayalpuram Sivaraman, Vikku Vinayakram and many other veterans — who only breathe(d) music all their lives. Their contributions have made the city what it is today. Global recognition was long overdue!”.
Excuse me, Academy needs to note, it did not come without We the People as the Constitution calls us viz. rasikas. We mattered. We made it happen. So let us be heard too. Catch them young has never been the refrain of the Academy thus far . Maybe because they are looking to blood those their contemporaries.! Have a heart and mind along with a receptive/responsive ear please. Time to pivot hard, long and sure for music’ sake.
Even as Prime Minister let out the cheetahs into the wild on 17th Sept,2022, Prithivi Harish unleashed his thematic concert ‘Rama Katha Sudha’ at the Raga Sudha Hall,Mylapore,Chennai under the auspices ofParivardhini. He is from the stable of the legendary Sangita Kalanidhi P S Narayanswamy and now training under the mercurial Abhishek Raghuram. Does he need further credentials? H M Seervai,Nani Palkhivala, Fali Nariman and even son Rohinton Nariman, were all from the stable of Jamshedji Kanga. Look where they are now in the hall of fame. The reason was that they were noticed young and allowed to blossom for as long as they did. Rohinton Fali Nariman was designated a senior at all of thirty eight years by Chief Justice M N Venkatachaliah, by tweaking the rules.
One is not getting into the Katcheri proper for the focus of this piece is different. The prominent nasal twang a la Semmangudi, of this young man, now with a Master’s in engineering to boot,was put to divine use in the selection of his compositions. That is an art. Audience has to be sucked in. You cannot sing for grammarians. You need to think of the lowest common denominator too. The ‘masses’ make a concert, as much as a carping critic!
Wow! I exclaim in abundance. I am no Subbudu to thrust this lad into the limelight. But nevertheless, I have tried to move unmoving mountains with my little fingers keying in before, for others in forlorn columns.I have refrained, from ‘promoting’ this boy, thus far. For, he is known. But, this concert was in a different plane. He was in a zone. Took us on a trance.
Having sat with him up close, I am shedding my inhibitions to proclaim him as a star in the making. If not already one.
Watch out for him. Time for Academy to pick up such talent as early as they deserve, for Carnatic Music to be nurtured, as they have, requires early blooding of such talent so that they are in the public eye for as long they can.
After all, like it, lump it, agree, disagree, accept or don’t, for whatever reason or grouse, give it to the Academy. They are the the grand daddy of it all . It is Lords of Carnatic Music. You need to play and perform THERE to make the grade. I concede.
Prithivi Harish is up there with the best of young talents. Time for Academy ( he has performed in the Academy before, but not in the Margazhi season of the Academy) to generously and willingly offer its Margazhi December season platform in 2022 itself. With no disclaimers to boot, here is my two penny promotional for this kid. I cannot ‘sing’ his praise to promote him . But I can surely write, you see!
( Author of Mahakavi Subramania Bharathiyar, Kalaimagal Publications,published on 11th Sept,2022, 101st death anniversary of the poet- practicing advocate in the Madras High Court)
