Musician
TM Krishna provides new insights to age-old concepts
Photo by Madhu Krishnan
By
Shevlin Sebastian
Moments
before Carnatic musician TM Krishna began his talk, ‘The Artist As
Citizen and The Citizen as Artist’, at the Dr. TK Ramachandran
Memorial Lecture 2017 at Kochi, the rains came down. Krishna
looked out of the fifth-floor windows and said, “For a person who
is coming from Chennai, these rains are unbelievably beautiful.”
It
was a jam-packed hall comprising intellectuals, cultural and social
figures, educationists, artists, scholars, students, as well as
journalists.
Very
soon into the talk, you realise that Krishna has an unusual thought
process. “All the people coming into this space know how to
come here,” he says. “They already know they are insiders. It is
like all Left party members holding a meeting. There is no point.
They talk to each other and feel very happy about themselves. But
nothing is achieved by it.”
This
is also the case when you go to a Carnatic music concert. “But what
are we doing?” says Krishna. “We are basically saying, ‘We are
wonderful people’. We are saying that, ‘People outside really
don’t know anything, they are not good enough to come in. But if
they want to come in there are certain rules and regulations which
they have to understand before they can come in’.”
It
was a talk that made people aware of their thought processes. And
Krishna was asking the audience to test their conclusions. And maybe
adopt some changes.
He
gave an example: Some years ago, Krishna changed the way the
musicians sat in a Carnatic concert. “I moved to one side and we
sat in a C,” he said. “As soon as I did it, my control
diminished. The sheer moving from the centre to the right changed the
way I dealt with my own body. It almost felt that I was not that
important any more. It changed the way I listened to the violinist.
And it changed the way he listened to me.”
And
it had an impact on the audience. They began listening to all the
musicians differently. “Suddenly you saw two people who are in a
hierarchy having an equal conversation: the ghatam and the
mridangam,” he said. “There was a content disruption which is
taking place. And it turned out to be so wonderful.”
These
are just a few examples of the numerous insights, thought-processes
and ideas which Krishna provided in his speech. For those who were
interested in the subject, his lecture was nothing short of
fascinating.
(The
New Indian Express, Kochi)
No comments:
Post a Comment