Hindustani music finds a ‘rudali’

An Open Letter to the Outlook Magazine in response to its cover story for the September 25, 2006 issue.

Congratulations on striking the death knell for Hindustani classical music! One can’t quite remember the last time that Outlook did a cover story or a feature on classical music, but I am happy that you have chosen to don the role of the ‘rudali’ in the absence of anything else.

On a more serious note, Arindam Mukherjee’s article has left many musicians like me completely dumbfounded. He has done little to mask the lack of effort, scholarship and originality in his piece.

How long will we continue to go down the same path every time a senior musician passes away? Sure, it is an irreplaceable loss and a legacy that needs to be cherished, but it isn’t the most original of ideas to lament that the departure of a senior musician forebodes the end of Hindustani music. Here’s a request to Mukherjee and to Outlook – do come up with something more original. It pains one to read an Outlook issue that is searching high and low for possible story angles, even if it amounts to creating a ghost out of a living tradition.

Less said the better about the level of scholarship that Mukherjee’s article exhibits. It need hardly be said that traditions do not exist solely because of the acts of single individuals, but because of a variety of circumstances that are of far greater consequence. Merely listing the country’s best known Hindustani musicians and their prominent disciples and heirs, makes a mockery of a rich tradition. It has been well over a century of ups and downs, of tireless efforts on the part of many that have led to Hindustani music becoming a more democratised space. Amateurs took to learning and performing this music after much resistance from several quarters and we finally reached a stage when people from outside families of hereditary musicians took to music as a profession. The Hindustani music tradition is not and never was dependant upon the continuance of ‘dynasties’ of musicians, as Mukherjee would have us believe. Individuals come and go; geniuses sense the pulse of the moment and take a leap forward leading the rest of society. But culture is the result of several social, economic and political forces acting at many levels. Indeed, there are problems that pervade Hindustani music and many other traditional arts in the country, but to portray the absence of ‘heirs’ to the maestros as the core issue is an absurdity.

Mukherjee has elicited the typical one-line quick-fix statements from maestros who have trained several students. Agreed, that these students may not be performing at the best-known venues and music festivals at home and abroad, but with a bit of effort on his part, Mukherjee could have spoken to these disciples to learn more about their reality. He would have then been able to get a better idea of what ails the Hindustani music tradition. And even this would be only a part of the answer. For a more complete picture to emerge, one would have to step out of one’s tearing schedule of meeting deadlines and creating a sensation out of a non-issue. By doing so, Mukherjee would even be able to access positive occurrences within the tradition. He would then realize that young people continue to take to learning and performing; that an essentially oral tradition continues to exist and prosper when the scholastic tradition also moves in tandem – one has only to study the recent researches in Hindustani music carried out by scholars; that the tradition has senior representatives other than the more identifiable ones and that the former also contribute by training young disciples.

For the next time that Outlook and Mukherjee wish to do a story on Hindustani music – hopefully, before the demise of another senior musician – here are a few pointers from an insider to the tradition.

You could look at the positive aspects mentioned earlier. Please don’t have huge photographs of young musicians and bits from their biodatas and another string of one-line statements from them. Please, please exercise your imagination just this once.

And if you are wishing to highlight problems, you could examine the relevance and status of Hindustani music in society, look closely at the ‘business’ aspect of music-making, or discuss the aesthetic perceptions of musicians today.