Artículo publicado por Namita Devidayal en el periódico "The Times of India":
Touch of magic
Last month, India’s greatest sarod player passed away peacefully in the US. A few days later, the world’s biggest pop star died messily and before his time. It would be unwise to talk about the two in the same breath. Apart from being musicians, and residents of California, Ali Akbar Khan and Michal Jackson have nothing in common. One was a great artiste. The other a phenomenal pop star. But there is one reason to bring them both up as we mourn them. To understand that an artiste can be great even if he is not a star. And it is in our interest to acknowledge this. The kind of music that Ali Akbar Khan and musicians like him brings into our lives is extremely important because it helps us understand ourselves, where we come from. This is not a plaintive whine for the good old days that never were, nor a cry to save “Indian culture”, that most debatable and amorphous concept. Rather, it is in our selfish interest to make the time for the kind of things that do not find their way into shrill headlines and FM radio.
Even more than us, we have to ensure that our children can appreciate an MS as much as an MJ. There must be a reason why Tom & Jerry cartoons play western classical music riffs as their background score. While crunching into yummy junk food, we must also see value in a wonderfully cooked healthy meal. And music, especially classical music, which by definition remains alive through centuries, offers that meal for the soul.
Indian classical music has emerged and evolved as a remarkable confluence of our many histories. It originally grew from the Vedic chants, was embellished by Islamic motifs along the way, seamlessly incorporated western instruments like the harmonium, got enhanced by technology, and continues to morph even today as a remarkably syncretic, inclusive space.
This music isthus an artistic metaphor of where we come from and our present is merely a sum of fragments of the past. It therefore floats through our collective consciousness, that extraordinary intangible space that exists at a plane that we can scarcely explain in rational sound-bytes, but can certainly experience – in dreams, in memory, and in that sudden moment of truth that one gets when hearing a beautiful morning raga in solitude.
Why do we still fight for a heritage building with all its uselessness, even though it stands in the way of efficiency and development? Why do we still beg for green spaces to be preserved even though a flyover cutting through would make more logical sense? And why should we bother making our children listen to a piece of music by some dead Khan Sahib when they should be finishing their homework and figuring out what they want to be when they grow up? It is because all these elements add that important, unconditional layer of beauty to our lives that can be so easily forgotten in our savage material world. It is because in our desperation to be efficient, perfect, botoxed and hyper-developed, the soul is getting starved. Bridges are being built but they do not manage to bridge the gaps in our emotional lives. There is no time to stand and stare, no time to stop and listen to the quiet spaces between notes as we bang away at the notes themselves.
The practical and the material are necessary, but we also need to constantly provide that magic touch to “the lute strings of our imagination”, as Rabindranath Tagore wrote. This is why Ali Akbar Khan and all the other unsung greats who dedicated their lives unconditionally to music, to playing on the lute strings of their imagination, are as important as the man who moonwalked his way into history.
Even more than us, we have to ensure that our children can appreciate an MS as much as an MJ. There must be a reason why Tom & Jerry cartoons play western classical music riffs as their background score. While crunching into yummy junk food, we must also see value in a wonderfully cooked healthy meal. And music, especially classical music, which by definition remains alive through centuries, offers that meal for the soul.
Indian classical music has emerged and evolved as a remarkable confluence of our many histories. It originally grew from the Vedic chants, was embellished by Islamic motifs along the way, seamlessly incorporated western instruments like the harmonium, got enhanced by technology, and continues to morph even today as a remarkably syncretic, inclusive space.
This music isthus an artistic metaphor of where we come from and our present is merely a sum of fragments of the past. It therefore floats through our collective consciousness, that extraordinary intangible space that exists at a plane that we can scarcely explain in rational sound-bytes, but can certainly experience – in dreams, in memory, and in that sudden moment of truth that one gets when hearing a beautiful morning raga in solitude.
Why do we still fight for a heritage building with all its uselessness, even though it stands in the way of efficiency and development? Why do we still beg for green spaces to be preserved even though a flyover cutting through would make more logical sense? And why should we bother making our children listen to a piece of music by some dead Khan Sahib when they should be finishing their homework and figuring out what they want to be when they grow up? It is because all these elements add that important, unconditional layer of beauty to our lives that can be so easily forgotten in our savage material world. It is because in our desperation to be efficient, perfect, botoxed and hyper-developed, the soul is getting starved. Bridges are being built but they do not manage to bridge the gaps in our emotional lives. There is no time to stand and stare, no time to stop and listen to the quiet spaces between notes as we bang away at the notes themselves.
The practical and the material are necessary, but we also need to constantly provide that magic touch to “the lute strings of our imagination”, as Rabindranath Tagore wrote. This is why Ali Akbar Khan and all the other unsung greats who dedicated their lives unconditionally to music, to playing on the lute strings of their imagination, are as important as the man who moonwalked his way into history.
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