Carnatic Music and The Chennai Music Season

I am very pro-music. I have learnt music as a kid, and always continue to hope that some day I will resume my learning. I believe that music a lot more useful than being merely a means for entertainment.

I used to (still am, in a way) a Carnatic music aficionado. When in the hostel, I once had an interesting argument with a friend of mine about comparing Carnatic music with Western Classical music. My argument was that Carnatic music is the most refined and beautiful form of music to which my friend disagreed. His point was that if you would ask a naive African tribesman to listen to Beethoven and Thyagaraja and ask him to rate them, he would surely rate Beethoven higher.

This was a difficult experiment to analyze and react to. I couldn't imagine a tribesman with little connection with mainstream civilization, to like a Thyagaraja krithi over let's say Beethoven's 'Ode to joy' or some such. Does this make Western Classical music more beautiful? Tough to say. One would agree that Western Classical music is simpler to interpret and enjoy (I certainly believe so) and in this simplicity lies beauty and refinement.

Carnatic Music is a very specialized form of music whose interpretation and appreciation has some pre-requisites. Of course, there are a few krithis whose melody might cause instant appeal but the real joy and beauty of Carnatic music doesn't lie in the melody alone. In fact, very little of the beauty lies in the melody. The crux is in the rendering, the variations and the depth to which an artiste can explore.

Given all this, appreciating Carnatic Music is a very intellectual exercise. It is thus hardly surprising that Tamil Brahmin families consider this as a very important and necessary element of development. I am sure I am not the only one who has faced peer pressure at home when there is Carnatic Music on tv or the radio and identifying the raaga is the competition.

The high point of Carnatic Music exposition is the Chennai Music Season. I am in complete awe of how this tradition has continued for so long and even to this day (thanks to economics and media buzz) continues to attract a wide audience. It is an annual woodstock. Carnatic Music's growth in popularity in the near future will depend heavily on how the patronage for the Chennai Music Season changes in the coming years

I personally am out of all this. To put it bluntly, I am a very selfish aficionado of Carnatic Music. I want the art form to strengthen and continue but I am not ready to patronize it through showing up for concerts. I have been in Chennai for three music seasons in the last three years and I have attended only one concert (TM Krishna in Ananthapadmanabhaswami Kovil, Adyar, late 2009) I do not see a point in attending concerts. I do not enjoy them. This is not because I do not like the music but because my enjoyment of Carnatic Music comes from learning and improving my own skills.

Contrary to other people's opinions, I find concerts to be of no value in terms of learning. If I were at a stage where I needed to understand the nuances of concert presentation etc, there might have been some advantage in attending concerts. Currently all that I need to do is to listen to krithis. Listen to them repeatedly; which is something concerts cannot offer.

Unfortunately, I do not derive any ego pleasure from announcing to people that I attended X's concert at Y sabha, there was a superb rendition of Z etc. I am much happier when I realize that I can sing W sangathi in V krithi slightly better today as compared to yesterday.

All of us have different roles to play. I am playing mine. Baleh baleh.

The Wedding Planner

Sorry for the catchy post title. This is not about classic wedding planning as we know it. This is a summary of my guide to attending weddings. Actually, the guide is applicable to family functions other than weddings as well.

Ever since I moved to Chennai almost a year back, I have been hit by a barrage of 'family functions'. I don't know if the last 12 months are representative. If they are, I should expect to attend more family functions in a year that I can count on my fingers.

Honestly, I don't mind attending family functions. I am reasonably well behaved in public, I like meeting people, I like playing the good boy, I know who I should 'mark attendance' with, I know whom to shake hands with (and whom not to - though this handshake strategy warrants a complete discussion in itself) and I've noticed that people in general are also eager to meet me. Presence in family functions also does a world of good to my positioning in the extended family. Family functions only get irritating if they eat into work or weekend relaxation or if they are the excessively religious type and thereby against my principles.

Broadly, there are 2 main things you need to ensure when attending family functions: indemnify yourself against possible goodwill erosion, and eat a lot of good food. These are the two most important agenda items. I might have used complicated words to describe the first one, but in simple terms it is about ensuring nobody in the future cribs about you not attending. This might seem like a small thing but many people do take it seriously. I have noticed that in Chennai, the invitation to a function comes with an unwritten covenant of compulsory attendance. The second aspect is as simple as I've described it - eating lots of good food.

There might be other things you will end up trying to do - dress well, buy a meaningful gift, show-off the latest Upanishad commentary you've read, etc. But the two I've mentioned are most important from my perspective. I have a logic for it as well. To me, the good food is the only motivation to attend functions. (Its a bit like saying an asset, at the end of the day is about the cash flows it generates) All other reasons pale in comparison. I don't really find joy in networking or showing off my latest shirt or veshti. I do not need to get introduced to either 'girls' or parents of possible 'girls'. I don't read the Upanishads or do network marketing of sarees or beauty products. Good food is good enough. But it is important to keep the good food coming. Attending one off functions is of little use. You need to ensure you are invited again and again. This is where goodwill comes into the picture. Its like having healthy and consistent cash flows year on year.

Any moderately large family function will have a lot of people attending. The superset of attendees is determined the hosts of the function. Its elementary. If A and B are the hosts of the function, A and B will tend to decide the list of invitees with inputs from elders and other significant members of the family.

During most functions, the hosts are the busiest people. Marriage receptions might be an exception in which case the hosts (say A and B) might be the 3rd and 4th busiest. In general, it is OK to assume that the hosts are the busiest. But most hosts do acknowledge your attendance if you make the effort to make your presence felt. Hosts are usually very happy to see invitees attend. From their selfish perspective, that is all they would want - you attending. Like 'saala we took all the effort to invite but he did attend. Good boy'. Most hosts will not have time to look at your new shirt or listen to your latest Upanishad gyaan. As a safety measure, it always helps to also 'mark your attendance' with the host influencers (the ones helping out with invitee lists) Just in case hosts are very busy/unapproachable/dazed to notice you, the influencers are a viable second option. Of course in the event that neither the hosts, nor the influencers notice you during the function, there is a chance that the photographical evidence will act as proof. But nothing is as good as creating an impression in person.

Most family functions are followed by detailed postmortems where a lot of bitching is done about non-attendees. These bitching sessions will many times involve the hosts (A and B) and the influencers. Its these bitching sessions that you should avoid being a topic in. It leads to goodwill erosion. And in the high touch family-society of Chennai, goodwill is very easy to lose and near impossible to gain. Your missing the function might cost you half a dozen meals in the future.

So, to restate my point: it is necessary to attend and more importantly let the hosts and the host-influencers notice during the function that you have attended.

Regarding goodwill, you can play some long term strategies too. This would involve connecting with distant/long-lost relatives. Often these strategies will not have immediate pay-offs. It will take multiple meetings to start standing a chance of figuring in their invitee list. To me, that's too much effort for a possible meal in the distant future. Hence, I do not play this strategy.

Coming to eating the food, the strategy is pretty simple. More the better. Serving food is usually a batch process. There are pandhis one after the other. It is important to be shameless enough to capture your prized seat in the earliest possible pandhi. Earlier, I used to have reservations about eating early - a feeling that observers might find me too opportunistic for the food. But I then realized that people hardly bothered. And more importantly in many cases, eating early would ensure that you get a serving of all the dishes in the menu. As the pandhis go on, a few popular dishes might get finished without everyone getting to sample them.

In terms of your position in the dining hall, a useful idea would be to sit close to the end of the table where the cooks keep the food. This increases the number of cooks/servers standing close to where you are sitting and hence asking for extra helpings are easier.

An ideal plan would be that you enter the function hall, time your entry into the hall such that it is close to mealtime, meet the hosts and significant influencers, head right to the dining hall, finish the most important task and then collect the coconut in the bag and go back home.