February 2006

This article was first published in Tehelka.

Chak de phatte!!! It’s a virtual “let’s have a blast” slogan that you’ll hear ever so often in the ‘bhangra-with-the beat’ music that steadfastly refuses to be defeated by the gloomy depths of despair from which the Indian music industry is currently hoping to emerge. Following the phenomenal success of Daler Mehndi’s “Bolo Ta Ra Ra” in 1995, the Indian music industry saw a steady undying stream of Punjabi pop albums symbolizing the often loud and flashy, but nevertheless indomitable Punjabi spirit. Till just a few years ago, music companies were chasing the bhangra stars and pouring lakhs, even crores into promoting Punjabi albums with glitzy music videos featuring kudis galore. The dhol-bhangra-kudi formula was considered so unbeatable by many that even the most severely challenged of nymphet-singers found their short lived moments of glory in the annals of Indipop by warbling and wiggling their way through hip-hop versions of Punjabi folk songs. Occasionally, even singers of considerable acclaim who proclaimed allegiance to the sufi tradition of the Punjab dropped their black robes, donned sequined shirts and tossed their locks to join the bhangra pop brigade. But not for long! Those who had decided to forsake the Sufis are now back in their fold, and the nymphets really don’t need to warble any longer because the music companies don’t put their money into albums any longer. Now that the remix formula is in, they’d much rather pay for the wiggle than the warble.

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This article was first published in the Times of India, Mumbai in 2003.

This has been a difficult and violent year for India, with communal violence and terrorist strikes taking centre stage. Perhaps that is why not many have noticed that despite a lot of tall talk about preserving and promoting our glorious and ancient traditions, current government policies regarding art and culture have dealt a severe blow to Indian classical music and arts. For over half a century now, All India Radio was one of the only agencies to steadfastly broadcast Indian classical music, thereby providing regular performance opportunities to virtually thousands of musicians across the vast length and breadth of the country, and giving the nation’s music lovers a chance to listen to Indian classical and folk music every single day of their lives. With the advent of television, the state run Doordarshan also became the only television channel to lend support to Indian classical music and the traditional performing arts. However, this commitment to Indian classical music and arts will soon become a part of All India Radio and Doordarshan’s past policies, as both seem poised and ready to finally abandon all and any support to Indian classical arts. Why pretend any longer with meaningless talk of “sanskriti” and “parampara” when budget allocations for classical music have seen a steady and cruel whittling and chopping, and are now down to a meagre few thousand rupees a month for both North Indian and Carnatic classical music at most radio stations? Musicians confirm that recordings, broadcasts and telecasts of classical and traditional music are becoming scarce with each passing day. Countrywide, the slogan now is “Down with Indian Classical Music and let’s see the revenue rising with whatever brings in money”. Worse still is AIR’s reported intention of recording classical music only when the musician brings in a sponsor for the programme! So if you now want to be heard performing classical music on AIR, formerly a bastion for classical music, you don’t need to audition as in the good old days when strict screening made it possible for only the most deserving to perform on AIR; and neither do you need to bother with riyaaz any longer. All you need to do is to go out and find a sponsor and AIR will be ready to broadcast your music. It is going to be that easy, and sadly, no one seems to care or bother to protest.

Naturally, this has not stopped Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj from paying the customary lip service to Indian culture.

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You know what I don’t like about those proverbial silver linings in the clouds? Sometimes you have to poke around so bloody hard for them that you almost give up hope. I’m afraid I’m feeling a bit like that at the moment, trying desperately to think of silver linings in the thick dark clouds that hover rather threateningly over the world of Indian music. But for whatever they are worth, here are some of the bright spots that I have been able to notice –

For one, we are sitting on nothing short of a massive and sadly untapped treasure trove of musical talent, and don’t let those guys who insist on glorifying the hoary past and running down the future tell you otherwise. And whatever you do, please please don’t let Ms. Pooja Bhatt tell you stridently that there is far better talent to be found in neighboring Pakistan. Don’t get me wrong because this really isn’t my shot at petty patriotism, but seriously, she and others of her ilk need to get out there and start listening to the many and diversely wonderful kinds of music that are made right here in this, our own country. Every genre of music in India that still hasn’t been throttled to death by the friendly Bollywood monster, and yes, even Bollywood music has young talent that could bring a smile to the faces of the most hardened skeptics and pessimists with the exception of Ms. Bhatt perhaps. Whether it’s the more heard and written about Bollywood singing stars such as Sunidhi Chauhan, Sonu Nigam, Shreya Ghoshal and others to the impossibly young, not-heard-often-enough and hardly ever written about Langa and Manganiyar children with their still-snotty noses who can take the stage by storm at any given moment, it’s amply clear and evident that there is talent in happy abundance in this country. Rock bands writing original songs in Hindi, English, Bangla and many other Indian languages, lounge, electronica, hiphop, rap, classical, semi classical, folk, tribal, qawwali and much more- it’s all out there waiting to be heard. But now here is where the silver lining is in danger of disappearing behind menacing dark clouds made up of the severely myopic vision of most people who control the music industry and this includes record labels, concert promoters, talent hunters out to make a quick buck. Any originality that the young and promising may show is swiftly and surely stifled to make way for the same stale fare that they believe is saleable. And there goes my silver lining number 1!

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The much beleaguered world of Indian classical music, struggling to keep its head up in the face of all odds, has now been dealt a spate of cruel blows by an unlikely enemy – the hugely successful, steadily burgeoning string of talent hunts on virtually every television channel in the country. At least two of the many talent contests on television channels have decided to go the ‘classical’ (pronounce ‘klaasikal’) way by cheekily appropriating terms connected with Indian classical music with a lack of sensitivity that doesn’t surprise me in the least. What does amaze me is that the many purists and traditionalists and great vidwaans of Indian music have stood mute witness to this bold daylight robbery, and at times have even aided and abetted it without so much as a murmur.

Let’s first take a look at the greatly successful “Fame Gurukul” on Sony Television. I have a big axe to grind with whoever coined the name for this show because he/she or they obviously never went to one. Why does one go to a gurukul in the first place? I would imagine it would be to obtain “Gnyaan” or knowledge, wisdom, mastery, skill and expertise, but certainly not fame or money. The knowledge gained from the gurukul may then prepare the learner for a life of success and fame and glory. But nowhere in the Indian tradition does one hear of a gurukul for fame alone.

Further, a gurukul is always presided over by the guru, a Master who imparts knowledge to disciples. Not so at Fame Gurukul, if we are to believe what we see! Frankly, all I have been able to see of the two young gurus at Fame Gurukul are the briefest and often most apologetic shots of two young individuals, one male and the other female, seated occasionally with one or the other participant across a harmonium. More television time is given to the horseplay between the participants or even their outings and shopping sprees than to their actual “taleem” or learning sessions! Hey, how about renaming the show “Forget Your Gurus Gurukul”? What? No? Aw shucks? That’s too many syllables, says the numerologist? Sigh!!!

Worse still, the young participants are made to dance and gesticulate while singing with the admonition that it isn’t enough to just sing. You have to be a ‘performer’ to succeed in today’s world. By that logic, it would not just be difficult but well nigh impossible for Lata ji, Asha ji, Rafi Sahab, Mukesh ji, or even Shankar Mahadevan and KK, two brilliant singers who also judge the Fame Gurukul contest, to win had they been participants. All the recording and dubbing sessions I have attended have had most singers come in and stand in front of a mike and deliver the song without any of the shenanigans that are now forced on the young Gurukulites. In fact, as far as I can see, the poor young things might have been able to sing a trifle better had they not been made to swing and shift around unnaturally.

And that brings me to “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005” on Zee TV, the other contest with a professed classical twist! Fortunately, this show doesn’t insist on having the contestants gyrate while they sing, and that perhaps is one of the reasons why we hear some better singing on this show. Unfortunately, that is also one of the only good things I can say about the show because on this one the five mentors namely, Aadesh Shrivastava, Ismail Durbar, Jatin-Lalit and Himesh Reshammiya, all successful music directors for Indian films pose as Gharana specialists. The term “gharana” is typical of Hindustani classical music and denotes a distinct musical style taught to members of a family or to successive generations of disciples. A gharana, we are told by the old and wise, comes in to being only when at least three generations of musicians follow the same style. But director Gajendra Singh obviously didn’t listen to the old or wise, did he, when he decided to bestow gharana-dom on the five willing mentors he chose for his show? They didn’t even bother to analyze whether they had a distinct musical style to claim as their own. After all, musical styles are not created on the fast track. Not only does it take decades for a musical style to evolve and mature, but a pre-requisite of a gharana demands that several generations follow the same style. How come there isn’t any R.D.Burman Gharana or a C. Ramachandra or a Jaidev or even a Vanraj Bhatia Gharana? All of these composers had unique musical styles that were typical of them. And yet they didn’t claim to have formed gharanas! What are these mentors hoping to teach their young charges? Music, musical style or sheer arrogance and swagger? As mentors, they have a responsibility towards their charges and the least they should do is to give them accurate information about music. And to be able to do so, they will first have to relinquish their claim to being leaders or founders of gharanas.

Another pseudo classical touch to this show is the little puja that each participant is made to undergo with his or her mentor, modeled on the gandaa-bandhan ceremony that students of Hindustani music observe when they are formally inducted into the guru’s extended family. The five mentors on Challenge 2005 willingly go through this sacrosanct ceremony on television, heedless of the fact that their charges may have been learning for years from some other guru and will probably go back to the same guru after Challenge 2005 makes way for Challenge 2006 or whatever else is to follow. Surely they are aware of the protocol followed by Indian musicians? No honorable musician accepts another musician’s disciple as their own unless the disciple can prove that the transition is being made with the permission or “ijaazat” of the former guru. If the director of the show is unaware of these niceties and etiquette, surely the mentors themselves could point out the weak links, coming as some of them do, from families of classical musicians.

I must point out here that I don’t have the slightest intention of pulling down talent hunts. I have nothing against them and the fact that they are acquiring epidemic proportions is proof enough of their popularity. What I am protesting about is the long lasting effect they will have on young minds. Two years from now people may believe that a gurukul is a space on television where you do the most embarrassing things you have ever done in order to be declared a Super Singer or an Idol or a Golden Voice who finally gets to sing a “Chavvanni” Or “Athanni” wala song. If the makers of these shows are keen on promoting classical music, how come they haven’t ever thought of presenting a show dedicated to true blue classical music? Thousands of deserving young students who devote their lives to the serious study of Indian classical music would benefit from the opportunity and we would all get to hear some good music too in the bargain. Anyone listening? Mentors, directors, sponsors, heads of channels? If you are, how about bursting into tears on the show and admitting that you haven’t been fair to classical music so far! After all, it is reality TV and would make for great television!