Heretic or Maverick?

It is often very difficult for most people to be completely one way or other. In some sense, it is the greener pasture of the other side, everybody fancies. For some who have gone closer to the border of one from the other or even crossed, it is often difficult to come back and belong to, where their original beliefs are strong rooted.

Music Academy concert of T.M.Krishna™ is trademark of Krishna concert - Not completely maverick as there is a career, its accolades and limelight for years to come are at stake and hard to let go! – Nor completely heretic as it confronts with the internal turmoil he is going through, perhaps.

I just stayed for 3 of songs – Brova vamma in Manji, Shobillu in Jaganmohini and Chetasri in Dwijavanthi, each one was Krishna™ renderings.

It is perfectly OK to enjoy the compositional beauty of any composition or the ragam itself or the ambience or the accompaniments while performing; but to keep making exclamation sounds typical to the concert circuit in self appreciation or whatever it is for, every minute, is bordering annoyance. Albeit it was slow and beautiful rendering, it merited no accompaniment at all. Just a shruthi would suffice. It felt it was enough to have practiced in 1^st speed for both mridangam and the kanjeera. Shriramkumar is always charming, playing quietly without all those aahaas and oohoos! Of course audience clapped for this on stage practice session.

Next came Jaganmohini! For the ignoramus, TMK informed in a gruffly contra octave tone as he was tracing the initial phrases of the ragam. Short, sweet with all gestural antics that supposedly mark the personal enjoyment and tracing the phrases visually for the audience! Evergreen Shobillu was sung in a slow tempo again with brief patches of semblance of briskness. Arun Prakash, the mridangist had some places to play brisk strokes, in otherwise metronomic playing he was forced into.

TMKs’  neraval in nabi-hrdh-kanta rasana-nasa, (navel-heart-throat-tongue-nasal passage) had more stress in the word “nabhi”, which for most part was in “kanta” and “head” part of the body. Very strange, that he had to repeat “nabhi” several times! Perhaps to remind self of where the music starts! Does it not sound odd and crass to keep saying “navel” multiple times? Well, who can question his aesthetics and sense of proportion? Being the self-proclaimed contrarian, he stopped with one short so-called “kalpana_swara” passage and switched to the usually sung “Chittaswara”.

Next came, Dikshitar elegant Dwijavanthi piece ChetaSri, after he let Shriramkumar to lead first sketching of the raga. Here also the usual pattern of short kalpanaswara, nothing thundering or pouring, overpowering in nature.

After this, this rasika had no interest in listening further, doing justice to the singers’ mindset, enough was enough and this was it for me!

Questions!

Why would somebody need two Thamburas apart from a violin, which itself is a Shruthi instrument in a way and a Thambura has as much chance to go out of Shruthi as a violin. A great musician of yester years once told me, that Shruthi is the temple of the forehead for a person and should be in the voice. An external implement is jusrt to enhance the experience. In the days of electronic Thamburas, I can see that the wooden Thamburas are only a decoration on the concert stage and possibly give some job opportunities for some fast shrinking Thambura artists. Most electronic Thamburas do a swell job including the “mild” ghandaram heard in well-tuned Tamburas. Synthesis and simulation have gone well beyond the levels of perfection in the electronic world. It makes NO sense to carry those unwieldy wooden pieces anymore!

As a musician myself (though not perform on concert stage regularly), I understand hand gestures and facial expression are unavoidable to certain extent; but to dance with abhinaya on stage for every trivial phrase is sort of a joke and perhaps comes from his learning background.

I see it an utter farce from the concert going rasikas to be sold into this and support anything from someone, just because he/she has shot to fame, perhaps initially due to hard work and paying his dues.

One last thing: I find Academy is in the position of Congress party which is caught in the web of its own nefarious designs of communal song that it is not able to take a position of “Anti-Conversion” Law in the wake of UP reverse conversion. An institution that is supposed to be a custodian of tradition and uphold classicism is keeping an eerie silence on some of these mavericks and their antics. Of course, when crass commercialism takes over, who cares about these?