I first saw the Madras Music Academy with its old and imposing look in Dallas. In the off-beat Balachandar movie ninaithAlE inikkum. When that movie was made, the Academy was a city landmark. Now, the fly over in front of it, is.
With renewed interest in Carnatic music in the boredom of a foreign land, on my return to Chennai I entered the haloed space only a few years back. After much coaxing from an Academy patron friend, with lot of trepidation and innocence.
The Academy is a lodestone for Carnatic music with a hoary past. Every connoisseur in the city wants to be a patron of the Academy. It is a status symbol. Every musician aspires to sing there. It is a success symbol. Every rasika wishes to enter the hall wielding a blue punched card in the hand. It is an elitist symbol. Every Chennai car wants to park itself inside the Academy. Every auto, outside. No cop wants to man the Academy traffic signal(s).
The Academy facilities are superb. It houses the best music tradition, knowledge, archives, auditorium, acoustics, aesthetics and toilets. Plush chairs with well placed Bose speakers, soft lighting and air conditioning with a well decorated stage housing centrally a jamakAlam clad performing podium. With the rest of the objects receding to the background, the listening experience is undeniably ethereal. Until a child calls her father or a mobile rings. Last year Chitraveena Ravikiran asked the listeners to switch off their mobiles or set their caller tunes to varAli. In the Academy you are allowed to express your annoyance, politely.
The Academy pays the performers well. Contemporary musicians almost never complain about the academy in public. The academy also charges the public well. Ticket rates for a day are 600 to 800 rupees. Such high rates keep the Academy clean of rasikas of certain local social strata. The NRIs don’t complain, I gather. The social secret is, the music season ticketed academy concerts are meant to be enjoyed by the patrons.
The Academy clocks keep their time. So do the concerts. Punctuality is legendary. Lacking it, performing musician would be scandalized. Even musicians who never fail to be late at other sabhas, keep their time at the academy. They are prompt to apologize if any delay is beyond their control, as it happened for Chitraveena Ravikiran this time. I could sympathize with him as I experienced the same traffic diversion nightmare treading the same route.
The Academy concert slots can trace a musician’s successful career: in an appropriately young age, it would start with the ‘junior’ slot around lunch time (when no one would be around), progresses to the next best slot between 2 and 4 PM. This ‘afternoon’ or ‘senior’ slot is the post-lunch siesta time. There will be enough crowd inside the hall. Their bobbing heads could equally be the effect of music or food. Ideally, by sheer performance in the ensuing years, the musician would then be promoted to the two ticketed ‘super senior’ slots between 4 and 9 PM. And there it should stay for enough years until the Sangitha Kalanidhi is conferred. After this, now a stalwart, the old musician could be moved to the ‘senior citizen’ morning slot between 9 am and noon.
The Academy does promulgate excellence in skill. But it is a necessary not sufficient condition to successfully complete the career cycle. There have been many rude surprises. From diplomacy to the throat, if any of the performing requirements gives out for a musician, the above cycle would not complete. It could become chaotic, caught in the factional winds. Or hit the doldrums and run to a stand still. Or worse, could restart, as in Snakes and Ladders.
The Academy concert schedule, given the choosiness, usually comes under scrutiny. An average rasika dares to critique it without consequence. I thought, this time, at least thirty percent of the ticketed ’super senior’ artists don’t deserve that slot. My friend, an experienced rasika, part-time vainika and patron of the academy raised it to fifty percent. Art and opinions are mostly subjective. One could easily replace those musicians with stalwarts from the morning sessions. Or from the list of competent musicians absent from the schedule.
The Academy concert schedule could be more accommodative. Having attended enough academic conferences, I have a suggestion for the music conference (concerts) in the academy. The linear slots and timing in the schedule could be changed to accommodate parallel slots. For instance, the junior slot could be moved to two junior slots between 9 AM and noon, but could be conducted in the mini Srinivasa Sastri hall. This would allow the juniors some prime time. It opens another slot for the stalwart musicians at the main hall. One more musically rich ‘free kutchery’ to be lapped up by the average rasika at the Academy.
The Academy morning (early morning, for some) lecture demonstrations are a treasure trove if you could stand the, at times, cavalier but erudite speakers. Two years back when Seshagopalan was conferred the Kalanidhi and hence the presiding person, I thoroughly enjoyed the entire two week long lecture demonstrations. More than the lecture itself, many of us were present there only to hear him give the introduction and conclusion of the discussions with his trademark wit, knowledge and music. After the year in which Dr. Pinakapani presided the conference, I thought that was the year the conference lecture demonstrations deserved the aura. Of course, a slice of the older generation felt he talks (and sings) more than necessary. But try telling that to a teacher and convince him [1].
The Academy food used to be good. Even in the last few years its standard has gone down. Despite the increase in the rates, this year even the coffee is ordinary. One of the reasons I go to the Academy is to meet old friends and make new ones. There is a Seshagopalan fan club of which I am an ‘out-standing’ member. There is also an unofficial Sanjay Subramanian club that I could perceive. Cryptic and caustic remarks and reviews about the music goes well with the quick bite at the canteen. Gossip, like coffee, is hot and galore. Some times it even substitutes the music. Often one gets to meet and eat with the musician one just listened to or with one in mufti in his free time. I couldn’t recognize Neyveli Venkatesh yesterday when he asked my friend for a coffee. His mridangam playing was brilliant the other day for Sanjay elsewhere. Such meetings provide the required contrast to understand the human side of the musician. I was often bemused by how talented musicians can be complete jerks in person and vice versa. Just as in academics.
The Academy opening ceremony one should remember to always skip. Camaraderie and Carnatic music usually take a back seat in this affair. Invariably a VIP chief guest almost unconnected to Carnatic music will be invited. This time the Vice President was the guest of honor. I had a invitation pass, but chose to avoid explaining my Carnatic music knowledge and interest to the security guards because I am five minutes late. I neither have the clout nor the white skin to escape the ignominy and gain entry [2].
The Academy, despite its cultural richness and music tradition, its free concerts and clean toilets, always makes me uncomfortable. A nagging feeling of not belonging, in spite of my interest in Carnatic music. That someone would catch me listening, chastise my inappropriate presence and evict me anytime. After about ten years of attending concerts at the Academy, encountering occasional officious snobbishness and holier-than-thou fragrance, I am never evicted. But the middle-class me is convinced my uncomfortable feeling is not by accident.
Notes
- This year Sriram is attending the lecture demonstrations and writing about them.
- Sriram has documented how many, including invited musicians, learnt it the hard way.
Since the discovery of the lotus effect by Barthlott and Neinhuis [1], there have been efforts to develop materials that mimic the ultrahydrophobic self-cleaning action of the lotus leaf. The super or ultra-hydrophobicity of the leaf is primarily because of nano-scale 3D patterns on the lotus leaf surface.There have been many efforts in the past few years to develop nanostructured and microstructured super-hydrophobic coatings.
