Sabha Hopping

It has taken me a long journey of decades to re-ordain myself twice born. It took an ageing danseuse way past her grand-children’s prime to lure me, the prodigal son back into the fold of tambrams. 

To go back to the beginning, my initiation into the musico-cultural cult of tambrams, who claim near total monopolistic domination of Carnatic music; both supply and demand sides did not start by my accidental birth into a twice born tambram lineage. It started when Vyjayanthimala danced to the tunes of “Krishna nee Begane”. Me, an apple-cheeked kid of two or three attending my first ever concert/recital felt I was the Krishna she was beckoning to – gently, teasingly, “come soon, come show your face” drawing me in, enveloping me in the folds of Carnatic music (though if you were to believe my mother, I was indoctrinated Abhimanyu style by the Veena player who played at her Seemantham ceremony when she was carrying me)

… and … after decades traversing received music – from Emani to Eminem, from Brindamma to YoYo Ma, from GNB to Gillespie and years of transmitting music from my Western violin, my Carnatic violin, my own larynx … the black sheep is gradually being welcomed back into it’s fold … and yet again, by the very same danseuse beckoning the very same infant. (Now I realize how my earlier review of a review of how music affects neuronal connections was totally wrong. In that I had debunked neuroscientist Lewitin claiming that the music of our teens is burned on our souls.)

At last, I’m in the land of my ancestors during the holy month of Margazhi to join the ranks of the snuff-snorting, vigorous-thigh-tapping, veshti-angavasthram-sporting herd doing the sabha hopping. In getting here, I have denied my heritage and refused my cultural anchor – knowingly and not-so knowingly shedding all the clinging vestiges of my tambram collective unconscious. 

So here I am, a Sabha virgin in Madras and the only place I know that would have a Carnatic concert is the Music
Academy.  Without local arm-candy to gently guide me through my first paces, I do not want to get into the deep end of the Sabha pool – the Music Academy on day one and I do not know any alternate locations; I do not want to google for it and the hotel concierge is of no help either. A sliver of thought asserts itself through the debris of discarded collective unconscious into my conscious. What is the Tambram social registry in Madras? Why, it is Mount Road Mahavishnu –  The Hindu.  That is how I find myself at Narada Gana Sabha to start my foray into the last bastion of cultural imperialism this side of the Sahyadris. At the foot of the steps to Sathguru Gnananda Hall, I do not dismiss the cab – for I half feel I will be refused entry – oh, for various reasons – that it is open only to Sabha members and patrons to far worse, that I would be asked to illustrate the differences between Sunada Vinodini and Karna Ranjani or asked to show my poonal – which of course, I had long discarded. I feel slightly apprehensive as I get out of the cab and go up the steep steps – I feel out of place, I feel people looking at me like they would an alien – and I don’t blame them – my body language must radiate dispossession, a sense of un-belonging, of being unsure of my surroundings. I am partly reassured when I find Madisaar Mamis gorging on samosas at Sree Krishna Sweets and even more so when I actually find a ticket counter.  I ask Mami manning counter for a ticket, still expecting to be rebuked or denied; and will wonders ever cease, she actually made small talk after handing me the ticket.

I tread steps to the hall lightly and gingerly, prepared to be underwhelmed – for on today’s playbill are U.Srinivas, who though a gifted player, is somebody I dismiss as Carnatic Lite (but then, for me, anything not from the DKP baani is Carnatic Lite)  and Vyjayathimala, who though immensely beautiful in her youth (my dad whose parental house neighbored Vyjayanthimala’s would reminisce about the lines of young men queuing up for a glance of the star – and that is decidedly pre-historic) is looking ghastly these days with her weird hairdo and namam that stretches from bridge of nose to the nape of her neck. 

U Srinivas and his brother U. Rajesh play to the gallery, as usual – with ragas that even I, the renegade can recognize in the first strum of the mandolin. Despite playing to the gallery, despite announcing (in English) the ragas, the compositions and talams, I am involuntarily electrified … and it is not difficult to understand why.  My first exposure to Carnatic music was in Bangalore where the concerts I was taken to were the Ramanavami season ones (a poor cousin of the Madras Margazhi season). At these free-for-all concerts held largely at outdoor venues in the warm (for Bangalore) summers  -  the atmosphere is more carnival than chamber  – what with two hundred kids and assorted minders, balloon sellers, traffic outside; all jostling for equal aural attention with the performers. Later at college, I heard again live Carnatic music; this time performed in shielded-from-external-noises chambers, among prim-and-propah rasikas and wannabes and I vowed to never return to the ‘Proms in the Park’ carnival atmosphere of what I mistakenly thought was how Carnatic music was performed all over India.

 

Today at Narada Gana Sabha, all my notions of listening to live Carnatic music in India stand demolished … I’m in an atmosphere, largely shorn of external acoustic interferences and the major impact on my tympanum is only from the music I came to listen. So what if all I hear are Saveri swara-sancharas on steroids – designed to show off the artistes’ virtuosity rather than bring out raga bhava, what if the majestic ‘Meru Samana’ fails to tower over other pieces in delineating  sowkhya bhava, what if the Ritigowla composition ‘Janani Ninuvina’ does not plaintively tug at the heart strings – this is still Carnatic music as it was meant to be heard – intimate, chamber music directed to an audience of one – not accompanied by the clatter of metal chairs being harshly scraped over rough concrete floor, not harmoniously decoupled from the noisy sounds of traffic forcefully making their way in from outside. No wonder my body is decorated with goose pimples and, for once, the air-conditioning in the hall has nothing to do with it. 

After the initial jolts of I’m-here-and-I-can’t-believe-it electricity, I have slowly slipped back into cynical mode of dismissing this as Carnatic Lite – a lack-lustre RTP in Keervani, a playful Mohanam elaborated – no Ghana ragas played at all, let alone elaborated, a populist bhajan (prema mudita manase kaho – is that a Sai bhajan?)  as tukkada to which an audience enthusiastically clapped along – is this what Carnatic music is reduced to at it’s Vienna? Should I stay on for the next concert, should I consult the oracle – Mount Road Mahavishnu for other sabha schedules, or worse, go back to my portable, ersatz concert hall courtesy my ever-present accomplices – iPod and Sennheiser?

I decide to stick to the real McCoy concert hall, and I’m still stuck between a rock and a hard place … for the only reasonable choices for the 6:30 concert are an aged Vyjayanthimala dancing at Narada Gana Sabha and a Sudha Raghunathan at the Music Academy. I’m not the biggest fan of the MLV baani (note I didn’t say GNB baani deliberately) and to me, Sudha Raghunathan’s renditions are insipid and character-less. So, Vyjayanthimala recital it is indeed; and therein hangs a tale of redemption, a tale of clawing back the patina to reclaim my heritage, a tale of the twice-born. 

In a departure from the pattern of a regular Bharatanatyam recital, Vyjayanthimala had set the entire thematic presentation in Carnatic concert Ragam-Thanam-Pallavi style. The Ragam and Thanam portions do little to throw off my earlier cynical mode-thinking. It is the Pallavi, to the refrain of Krishna Karnamritham’s ‘Godhuli Dhu Saritha Komala Kuntalagram’ that brings me back into the world again – for Vyjayanthimala is ably depicting the antics of a juvenile Krishna and a pleading Yashoda; effortlessly transporting me back in time to when I thought I was the Krishna she called out to decades ago. My mind transcends the linear dictates of Cartesian time and space co-ordinates and all the years of acquired tastes in music and social culture drop off to take me back into the musico-cultural heritage that my gene pool has a stranglehold upon.

To what do I owe this transformation – from somebody who felt a wee maudlin a week ago at missing a white Xmas and played christmassy mall-music all day on Worldspace’s channel ‘Holly’ to this? Is it the allure of the aged dancer or the rarified Mylai air – carrying the imprint of the music of generations? Is it the plethora of choices available this season– pick any artiste, pick any date, pick any time, pick any location; that sets the ozonated air blowing from the sea at harmonic resonance to the seven notes? Is it the knowledgeable rasikas?  Is it my own mawkish age regression that re-opens my eyes to my tambram heritage? I can’t tell.

What I can tell is that, this is the music that has been etched into my soul and tattooed on my brain. What I can definitely tell is that I have resolved to clear the cobwebs between my fingers and pick up the violin again after a 10-year hiatus. What I can tell is that I have resolved to be in Madras every December for the concert season. What I can definitely tell is that, this is the music that sears my subconscious, the music that has remained essential to my life. And since this music is moored in the ethno-cultural context of the tambram sect, I necessarily have to reclaim my collective unconscious – the one I have voluntarily discarded, thus necessitating being born again. Only this time, the symbolic rite of passage to mark my twice-born status is voluntary from within, not imposed from without and instead of a symbolic quest towards acquiring learning, is a literal quest towards it.

… as a postscript, I have gone over-the-top in reclaiming my imagined cultural heritage. The day after my new found resolution, I bravely go towards the caterer’s tent at Music Academy to break bread with my brethren. I venture towards uncharted territory – the land of filter kaapi and swift running rasam that breaches it’s embankment on a banana leaf on it’s rapid descent towards my lap.  As a prelude to degustation of  this nouvelle cuisine, I go to wash my hands. Darn, no liquid soap, neither am I carrying Purell; and on this trifle, I slink back – to find the nearest coffee shop that can fix me a sandwich and a decaf.