Concert… disconcert

TM Krishna is among the busiest musicians today, but you won’t see him fiddling distractedly with his cell phone for the simple reason that he doesn’t carry one. Hasn’t for over a year now, it’s too intrusive, he says. “The funny thing is all this access has made us even less sensitive to everything. That’s the great irony of society today,” he says, with a laugh.

Some people would say that’s just like the man, extreme in whatever he does. Krishna, 38, is a bundle of energy, his thoughts spill into a clear stream of words, his antenna continually picks up sights, sounds, smells. Of late, he’s been ruffling rasika’s feathers with concerts that, in their view, subvert the traditional kutcheri (the Carnatic concert) format. By not giving them what they expect, he challenges rasikas to go on their own personal journeys, sometimes free-flying and often disconcerting. Yet, audiences throng to his concerts and leave mesmerised.

Clearly, Krishna is ‘different’. His recently published tome, The Southern Music: The Karnatik Story , is as frank as it is lucid. There are not many practising musicians who would put their professional lives on the line by talking about taboo topics such as caste and discrimination, gender inequality, or, that holy of holies, bhakti in Carnatic music. He does. To declare, in print: “To me, the understanding of Carnatic music as religious appears to be extremely superficial” is sheer gumption. Especially about a system of music that’s seen primarily as religious.

The ‘ bhakti ’ tag, explains Krishna over tea and fresh lime soda at the Hyatt Regency in Chennai, gives historical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional legitimacy to the musician to place herself/himself at a higher level than the ‘normal’ person. The moment this happens, the idea of hierarchy kicks in. “It gives me the strength to say the audience is receiving something from me which is some way connected with divinity, which is intangible. Now that is purely a power equation. So it gives me comfort to be in that situation. It also gives the composers whose compositions I sing the status of god. It gives the music, especially in a country like India, a religious legitimacy. Now if I say throw out the common understanding of bhakti , then what do I hold on to as a musician?”

It’s a rhetorical question, of course. At this morning’s interaction, courtesy the Indira Sivasailam Foundation, Krishna is all ‘casual’, dressed in comfortable black-and-white pjs and smart white tunic, a far visual cry from the stereotypical Carnatic musician.

“I know that when I had the most intense experience with compositions, I was not at all thinking about the meaning of the words,” says Krishna, controversially, and then launches into a fascinating exposition of the role of linguistics in Carnatic music. Take the word ‘ vaggeyakara ’, composer. “ Vaggeyakara is a unique word,” he emphasises. “It’s a combination of vak and geya , the one who knows music and the one who knows words.” So in the context of Carnatic music, they were always seen together, he believes, suggesting that text, raga and tala were “framed together, created together as a magical being, not a literary being.” In fact, he says, “the whole nature of Carnatic music is beyond linguistics”.

The honour

Krishna was this year’s pick for the Indira Sivasailam endowment medal and concert (held on September 25). The award is named for a great connoisseur of Carnatic music and specifically recognises excellence in performance, audience appeal, adherence to classical traditions while innovating within its framework, depth of knowledge and demonstrated efforts to disseminate knowledge, and the ability to bring about a greater and deeper public appreciation of Carnatic music. You could even say it is a validation of Krishna’s own journey.

It’s been a journey fuelled by study, practice, experience and self-examination. “I am where I am in this journey only after I did what you could call the regular stuff. The reality of today is only there because the reality of the other day also existed,” he explains. But he is quick to add that he tells his students not to do what he has done. In fact, he has no hesitation admitting that a young man who gets stuck with him “is actually as problematic as a young man who is stuck in the system. I tell them, you just have to engage with every swara that you sing, every phrase that you sing. As you get deeper with that intense engagement, then magic starts happening.”

What’s the reality?

Krishna speaks the way he writes in his book and his columns — easily drawing from his own deep reflection and conviction. Calling attention to what he refers to as the “musical moment”, Krishna says, “The reality of music is within a social construction. Accept both realities: that art is a way of removing the constructions that are there, and that art itself is also within a social, political, cultural construction. So the more you experience the art, the more you understand the construction of the art, which means you start understanding society, you start questioning society. The most important thing for an artist is to be aware. To see, to listen, to feel, to touch. If you do that, how will you not respond to social or political or cultural narratives?”

It’s this lack of awareness that makes India a nation of performers, not artists, he believes, again qualifying that with: “I’m not saying being a performer is bad, but being an artist is special.”

Krishna is convinced that art has to become part of everyday conversation, it must be seen in public spaces. “In our society we think of art as a luxury, or some kind of pastime that happens once in a while. If it was true that art is a luxury,” he asks, “how come the poorest of people still sing songs?”