Time To Strike New-Age Notes In Carnatic Music

IT is that time of the year in Chennai when the city goes Carnatic. The December event, popularly called the Margazhi music season after the Tamil month, is only four years from completing a century.

- MADHAVAN NARAYANAN

Its creators may not have imagined the shape it would take, as much on YouTube and other online forums as the cherished sabha halls of Chennai.

However, a lot has not changed in the fuddy-duddy Carnatic world, with minds not being broad enough to take in music's vast horizons. That is what makes for a controversy hotter than sambar poured on piping hot idlis at many sabha canteens.

The real food for thought should be the entrenched habits of Carnatic elitism. Despite all efforts, the season remains a Tamil Brahmin preserve in a land famous for its anti-Brahmin movement.

A recent Supreme Court ruling that this year's recipient of what's arguably the music's highest honour, the Sangita Kalanidhi-Thodur Madabusi Krishna-should not be declaring himself an awardee of the honour named after M S Subbulakshmi until an appeal by the legendary singer's grandson V Shrinivasan is decided, is the latest in a row that smells strongly of entrenched orthodoxy.

Krishna has allegedly besmirched Subbulakshmi's legacy with his controversial view on how she gained acceptance among the elite Brahmins, and her family's claim that the late singer had willed no award to be set up in her name.

I had highlighted in an earlier column the class differences between the eminent elite who dominate the Madras Music Academy that awards the Sangita Kalanidhi, and those who aspire to glory from humbler origins.