Sangita Kalanidhi T M Krishna

Do I like his music because I like his politics or do I like his politics because I like his music? I have thought about this sometimes. The answer to the second question is easy - NO. I was not sure of the answer to the first question right away though. I started wondering.

Then, I remembered the first time I attended his concert. As far as I can remember, it made no particular impression on me. I only remember that I was surprised when I saw him after the concert because he was in Jeans and T-shirt. Now I am surprised that I was surprised.

Flash forward to Krishna’s concert at the Bangalore Fort organised by INTACH on the World Heritage Day 2015, with H K Venkataram on the violin and Arun Prakash on the mridanga. I attended this concert with two of my cousins. At first I was disconcerted that he was wearing an almost fluorescent green shirt with two pockets with flaps not buttoned, the cuffs also not buttoned. When he started singing all that disappeared and I loved the concert. And I caught an earworm too - Muttaiah Bhagavatar’s Khamach daru varna - which bothered me for nearly week. At that time I did not know anything about him, let alone his politics.

So, I do like his music and politics independent of each other.

Over time, I have listened to many other concerts of his live and online. I loved each one of them. I was thrilled that he was to get the title Sangita Kalanidhi. The backlash to this announcement truly astonished me. While I make no comment about that backlash, I was relieved and elated to see the response he got at the Madras Music Academy’s sessions, and his concert, and the Sadas where the title was conferred upon him.

Let me come to what I wanted to say when I started this post – why I like TMK’s music or what I like about his music making.

My mother sang a lot through the day, while she went about her day. Her taste in music was eclectic. She would sing a Mira bhajan, followed by a film song by Jyotika Roy or Saigal, followed by a Karnatak keertane, seamlessly moving to a hindusthani lakshana geethe, etc., to give an idea. Since she was not formally trained in music, she never cared for taala. So singing shlokas and poems from kumaaravyaasa bhaarata was also a part of her repertoire and she had learned the latter from a teacher for a while. But that art form is without taala too. Often, she would sing an alapane in a raga followed by a keertane in that raga followed by another song from any of the other genres but in the same raga.

With this in my mind, I had often wondered and yearned for a music concert by a trained and “good” musician that was like this, let me call it free spirited. Of course, the difference being compositions set to taalas would be sung with due respect to them. Hence, TMK’s concerts, which had this kind of free ranging, meandering, “structure-less structure” feel to them, breaking the “Kacheri” mould, was extremely comforting and satisfying to me. TMK was the answer to my “prayer” I once said to a friend, in jest.

Many shamefaced friends have told me over the years “I listen to Karnatak music but I don’t understand it”. I say shamefaced because they all thought that I understand music and they do not, because they had seen me play the veene or knew that I did and some had often caught me whistling Karnatak songs or tunes. My argument always was, “What do you mean by understanding? You may enjoy a sunset or a sunrise. But do you understand it?” I would also argue that I enjoyed hindusthani music, most often not knowing what raga was being sung or played while I could recognise many Karnatak ragas instantly. Did that add to my enjoyment? I don’t know! Whether my arguments were weak or their belief that one has to understand to really enjoy music was too strong, I do not know. It did not seem to make an impact.

So, when I watched some videos of TMK where he emphatically urged the audience not to worry about what raga he was singing or what taala it was set to or who the composer was, I appreciated it immensely. “Please do not google it and miss parts of what we are presenting”, he urged in one video. An artiste taking the trouble to explain this is extremely satisfying and I appreciate it immensely. I feel that many people are missing out something enriching just because of this myth called understanding and I hope his efforts bear fruit in getting more people to listen, preferably live concerts and not just recordings. I also think that it is a great service to music and to the people!

In one lecdem, (At Ganabharathi, Mysore) he expounded about the role of bhakthi and saahithya in Karnatak music, brilliantly. Please watch from 2:05:00 mark! These were vaguely what I thought too but he demonstrated it effectively. My admiration, already high, grew further.

I know at least a few people who do not like his music because they do not like his politics. Art is deeply personal. I don’t like some musicians that other rasikas, dare I say knowledgeable ones, hold in high regard. I may be missing out on some great music and so be it. And there are others I hold in great regard, MDR springs to mind right away, that some do not like at all and so be it too! I only wish that people appreciate his music for what it is in spite of his politics

All I can say to him is, CONGRATULATIONS Sangita Kalanidhi T M Krishna, thanks for all that you have done and are doing, and I wish you all the very best!

 

Ustad Zakir Hussain, by Poorvi Rao

I recently wrote a post on my two memories of Ustad Zakir Hussain. I suggested to my Niece, Poorvi, to write about her association with the Ustad so that I could add it to my post. As she was unable to do it right away, I posted my post. Now that she has been able to write down her association with him, I posting it now as a separate post as below. 

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It was the spring of 2007. I was a graduate student at Stanford, and I had the incredible honor and fortune of serving as one of the Teaching Assistants to Ustad Zakir Hussain. Zakirji was teaching a course at Stanford, called “Introduction to the Music of India.” I applied to be his TA, and then approached the interview with the legend with a combination of nervousness and excitement. He was so incredibly warm and friendly from the get-go, that it felt like I was settling into an enjoyable conversation with an old friend. He asked me about my background in music, what I had learned, and who I had trained with.

The course ran through the spring quarter at Stanford. Once it began, we had weekly/bi-weekly meetings with Zakirji and his lovely wife, Toniji, to discuss class content and his plans to deliver it. During every meeting, and during every class, Zakirji exuded warmth, smiles, and friendly humor. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by his incredible open-mindedness and flexibility with any unexpected changes that came up. I say “surprised”, because, through volunteering and organizing concerts both in India as well as through SPICMACAY at Stanford, I’ve had the “opportunity” to observe all sorts of artiste personalities and behaviors - some unforgiving, difficult, extremely demanding, and very inflexible. Zakirji with his name and fame, could have been any of these. But instead, I saw him being calm, accommodating, forgiving and even reassuring if any of us messed anything up - be it his TA’s or his tabla students. I believe it may have been this same open-mindedness and flexibility that fuelled his creativity and the ease with which he broke boundaries and made music across borders and genres.

During one of the classes, he had asked us - his TA’s to prepare our own solo performance items to demonstrate to the students in class. I prepared to sing a composition in Yaman Kalyan. Zakirji had brought along one of his students to accompany me on the tabla. As our “performance” started, we realized that Zakirji’s student, who presumably hadn’t yet been fully trained in the taal in which I was singing my bandish, was struggling to keep up with the accompaniment. Zakirji kindly and silently stepped in from behind the stage, smiled, said a few words to him and took over his student’s tabla as I was singing. He used the opportunity to show his student how to play the taal while keeping the accompaniment for my performance going, which meant . . . that there was a part of my rendition for which Zakirji accompanied me on the tabla! Needless to say, this was incredibly special and an unforgettable experience for me! He also complimented me on my voice and musical ability at the end of it.

On the final day of the course, Zakirji brought his entire family along - Toniji, and their daughters, and took all of us out to treat us to dinner at a restaurant in Palo Alto. We TA’s were students without cars, and so he even drove us to the restaurant. Something about that was just so incredibly sweet and touching for me. We took lots of pictures with him that evening, and we went back home with hearts full of warmth and gratitude.

I continued to keep in touch with him, albeit only loosely, occasionally reaching out while arranging concerts for my teacher Smt. Aditi Kaikini Upadhya, etc. when she visited us in the Bay Area. I forgot to mention that he had even given me his cell phone number when I was his TA! I always wondered if he wasn’t worried that I’d share it with others, or perhaps call him myself and bug him for favours! But he was really “chill”. Nothing seemed to bother him. The last time I met him was at his place. My guru Aditiji, who he knew quite well, was visiting my husband and me in the US, and Zakirji invited us all for dinner. After dinner at a restaurant close to his place, we went to this place where we asked him about his awards that we saw in his living room, and he casually showed us his “Grammy”s. If I were a character in Tom and Jerry, my eyes would have popped out. Little did I know then that that was to be the last I was going to see him.

A few years later, my teacher Smt. Aditi Upadhya told me she met/talked to him somewhere, and he inquired about me - how I was, and what I was up to. I had gotten busy with a full-time job and my kids, and didn’t really do a good job of keeping in touch even though I could easily have. But I guess I subconsciously always thought to myself that I would meet him sometime in the future - another day. After all, he was still young (not that I consciously ever thought about that fact), and he was just an email away, just a phone call away, and of course he or Toniji would always kind enough to respond . . .  but sadly, it was not to be.

I’m still processing the unfathomable loss of the legend, and the void he left behind in the world of music.