Interview with T. M. Krishna: 'I Am Willing to Give Up the Kutcheri', by Baradwaj Rangan

8/13/2019 Interview with T. M. Krishna: 'I Am Willing to Give Up the Kutcheri', by Baradwaj Rangan

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Features Sunday Magazine

Published: December 14, 2013 18:19 IST | Updated: December 21, 2013 13:59 IST

I am willing to give up the kutcheri

BARADWAJ RANGAN

adical words, these. And there are more in T.M. Krishnas book, to be released on December 16. In conversation with the musician.

What makes the chirping of some birds a song? What is the purpose of music? Does it matter whether you are a manor a woman in the world of Carnatic music? In his book A Southern Music: The Karnatik Story, (published byHarperCollins), T.M. Krishna writes of the history, evolution and grammar of his art and also grapples with questionabout it. Excerpts from an interview:

What made you want to write a book like this? Why now?

Over the past few years, I have been thinking a lot about the philosophy of music. Why am I singing? What am Isinging? I dont believe in divine intervention of any sort, but it was during this time that my publishers said they

wanted me to do a book on Carnatic music. I thought it was a great opportunity to gather my thoughts, read more,study more and see if there is a thread, a way to look at this whole thing. In many ways, this book as much as itsabout music is about myself as an individual, where I belong in my own sphere and in the larger sphere of society.

You espouse the concept of 'art music', i.e. giving the idea of emotion a representation in music. Isntall music art?

Art music is not a phrase Ive created. Its been around a long time. It is used in a specific aesthetic context here. It

refers to music with itself as engine and itself as end not something that satisfies a social or religious need. Allmusic is art, but all art is not the same. It has a certain sociological, philosophical, aesthetic context and, of course,the aesthetics is built around why it exists. Look at qawwali. It is art. But it has a specific context. It is about religioabout the emotion involved in the religiosity. But art music does not have an external goal per se. Its goal is toabstract the idea of emotion beyond you and me. For instance, love is an emotion. If you can look at love and if youcan abstract it beyond its relationship with just me or the self, I think thats what art music does. If you look at apainting, theres emotion in it. You feel it. But its not your emotion. It is in that paradigm that the term art musicneeds to be understood here.

The book is a mix of experiential (perhaps even existential) thoughts, philosophy, music history andtheory. Thats very unusual.

For three months, I didnt write a word. I only thought about how I was going to deal with it. I dont think philosophyhas any sense if it does not have a concrete existence. I cant write about some whimsical idea in my head. If you tak

The HinduT.M. Krishna. Photo: K. Murali Kumar
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the philosophy of music, its concrete existence is in the aesthetic, structure, construction, and its sociological andhistorical context. So unless I tie all this together, there is no point in dealing with one aspect. There are sometechnical chapters that I would request even those who know Carnatic music to read for there are things they mightnot know or might find interesting. You need to know what the construction is like before you start looking beyondthe construction. I needed to link all of this together to get a complete picture for myself as I wrote it. If I spoke aboutime, I had to speak about laya. If I spoke about layaI had to look at what layahas to do with the experience of art.

And when I speak about the experience of art, Im talking about the abstraction of art. And you come to the realm ofphilosophy. So you cant disconnect any one of these aspects in a book like this.

The most interesting parts of the book, to me, are your essays on music your musings on the TamiIsai movement, on North American tours by artistes and e-gurus and Ilayarajas (in your opinion,

wrongful) transposition ofMari mari ninefrom the ragaKamboji to Saramati. But to get to that, wehave to go through chapters filled with the building blocks of svara, gamaka, raga... How much ofthis can be read and understood? Did you think about a companion CD?

We thought about it. I have written a very detailed piece on the raga. I have dealt with it in a very non-academicsense. But I cant deal with it in a non-serious sense. Ultimately, music has to be experienced. Words are the worst

way to describe art. But I think its important to try and imagine it. A reader not very familiar with Carnatic musicwill probably jump to the essays in the second section that deal with social issues, caste, religion, language, women,technology... But I think the preceding chapters can still give them a feel or a grasp of the music, an idea of its texturThe best thing that could happen is that the reader reads these early chapters and decides to go to a concert.

Yes, these chapters are useful. For instance, most of us know where the anupallavicomes in bylistening to the song, but you explain what exactly one should look out for in the anupallavi, for akind of alliteration called dvitiyakshara prasa.Did you have in mind a target reader?

This is not a book written for journals or research scholars. I think the target reader is anybody interested in seriousart reading of any kind, even aesthetics or philosophy. There are a lot of questions in the book. The last section onhistory is the heaviest part. I cant comment on whats happening today if I dont give a perspective on why it is whatit is. I think the book has a lot for very different kinds of readers.

As a practising musician, did you worry about offering a critique of the kutcheritoday? There areparts, as when you refer to some kirtanasas fillers, or when you question the need for the violinistto follow the vocalists alapana that could rile a certain kind of purist.

I have been raising many of these issues through my music. This is the first time I have written why I am doing whatam doing. I seriously feel that, as much as a lot of great things are happening in Carnatic music, serious introspectiois an urgent need. We need to look at why we are singing what we are singing. Were so used to looking at things acertain way that we are not able to see how much we are contributing to the idea of the music itself and to ask

whether some things need to be altered not for the sake of change, but for finding more integrity in what we aredoing. We need to contemplate on the aesthetic intent of the music as a whole and also the aesthetic intent of everyfacet within the whole. For example, if we were to look at the alapana, we can very casually say that an alapana issung to explore the raga or paint a picture of the raga. But what does this really mean? We cannot stop ourexploration at this superficial level. We need look at the raga, its flow, structure, history, evolution and its relationsh

with the methods of alapana presentation and whether there is integrity in the way we bring this together. This levelof serious engagement is necessary for us to understand what we intend to do with the music we have received. Theconcert is a way of presentation and must seek to present the music in its completeness.

The important question is whether the way we present Carnatic music today really focuses on the music or whether iis just a form of entertainment that includes devotional content. I know its going to bother a lot of people. I hope it

bothers them. I hope they disagree, because then well at least talk about it. Let them tell me Im wrong, but let themtell me what they are thinking. As long as this book makes people think, Im fine with it.

There are other parts where you don the role of the purist yourself, when you say that gamakassound contrived on a piano, or that when a scale shows up in a film song it is no longer a Carnaticraga.

We have an issue about what we consider music, and what we consider performance. The music its form, history,integrity is what I treasure. What we are stuck with is the kutcheri. As far as the kutcheri is concerned, I am willinto give it up. Because, after a point, I think the kutcheri has not looked at the music but got stuck in its own successstory. And it is a success story. I will not deny that. But there is a problem.

A lot of people have said that I am changing the format in my concerts, but they need to look at it a little differently.is not a question of format; it is a question of form. It is not a question of whether I sing the varnam first or last; it isa question of what is happening to the form of the art if you are choosing to present it a certain way. My idea is this: I can retain the integrity of the form the raga, the tala, the composer that is, to me, an aesthetic experience of tart. I am not willing to sacrifice that for the sake of this success story, which is why I come off as a purist in certainthings.And the kutcheri is a success story that overshadows everything else. I can sing the worst gamakas or destroy


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raga but if I can package it interestingly into this success story, everything else is forgotten. This is where we aretoday, and it is, I think, a dangerous place position to be in. After my studies I have studied raga history, talahistory for about eight years I think there are certain things that we need to revisit. I think there are things thatneed to be treasured. Develop the music but hold on to what we had and then do it.

Lets talk about the prescriptive parts, where you put forth your thoughts on what you think a concershould be like. You say, for instance, that an art music presentation has no room for lightmiscellanies like tukkadas, and that a kutcheriis not a variety entertainment show or a circuspresentation where you need to experience the frown of the lion and the snigger of a clown.

The prescription is conceptual, and it comes back to the idea of art music and Karnatik music. Lets take a Western

classical concert. Every item is an intense piece of composition and music. Every item is presented with the sameintensity, and the experience is as intense with a Schubert as with a Beethoven. You dont have Beethoven being giveas a filler, and you dont have pieces towards the end just to tingle you before you head back home. Can you tell me

why, in Carnatic music, these are necessary? If you want to call Carnatic music devotional music, then I cant havethis discussion with you. Were looking at it from different angles. But if you want to treat Carnatic music as aconceptual and aesthetic art music form, then theres no room for these fillers. I do not go to a concert for titillation.go with the expectation that every piece is going to be an intense experience thats respected as much by the artiste the audience. Instead, we talk of fillers, as if theyre some fly-by-night operators. All you guys can relax for a fewminutes and then Ill get back to serious business. This is ridiculous. I still perform tukkadas. Im fine with it, thougone day I hope I can throw them away but I dont get it when people say After all the heavy stuff, people need to ghome with lighter ragas. I dont get this idea of one raga being heavy and serious and another being light andfrivolous.

There are also some aspects to the book that have an IMO feel, like when you say synthetic ragas lik

Dharmavati have been accepted though they do not contain aesthetic features of a raga. Are theseT.M. Krishnas opinions?

No. These are backed by research and study. Other scholars hold these opinions too. The raga is a complex concept.Looking at the older ragas and how they have evolved, and what their aesthetic presentations are (technically andmusicologically), I stand by that position when it comes to Dharmavati.

You dont drop too many names except, say, when you discuss MS Subbulakshmi and DKPattammal in the context of women singers and what they brought to the Carnatic Karnatik tradition

When you discuss the concept of intellectual music, for instance, didnt you feel like naming a singeor two who, in your opinion, achieved this?

I really didnt think of it that way, now that you ask me. I have this habit of not including names in most pieces Iwrite. Another reason is probably that if the reader does not know Carnatic Karnatik music I did not want too many

names dropping off the page.One of the most interesting sections is when you ask whether an atheist or a non-Hindu can be aCarnatic musician. Has this question haunted you for a while?

One of the reasons is my own idea of religion, religiosity and philosophy, and my (Jiddu) Krishnamurti backgroundprobably has a role to play. These questions have been in my head for a long time, and for a long time I couldntarticulate my thoughts. I remember in the late 1990s when I knew I wasnt religious. When I sang a kirtana, I used tgrapple with the idea of people telling me I needed to know the meaning if I had to bring out the bhavam. This usedto bother me because I may not really feel that way or believe in that sentiment. Does it make me disrespectful if Idont understand it? Do I need to understand it? And gradually, these questions became louder. What happens whenan atheist sings this music? How does an atheist look at it? I had friends from different religions and they did notunderstand one word of what I was singing. How do they deal with this music? Thats why I feel that the relationship

between melody and text is far deeper than its linguistic meaning.

You divide the book into three sections. The Experience. The Context. The History. Does the readerhave to read the book in a specific order, or can they flip back and forth? and still get something out othe book?

This is not a book that you can read at one shot. Its a book youre probably going to read slowly, probably readingsome chapters again and again. I think the first three chapters are important. Though they are not specifically aboutCarnaticKarnatik music; they lay a basic aesthetic and philosophical foundation for the whole book. I would ideallyask the reader to read the first three chapters, and then take a call. The second section can be read by itself. But in thfirst section, theres a building up of ideas and concepts, and I think those chapters need to be read together. But witthe second section, you can go back and forth. The third section is completely optional. Everybody need notunderstand everything. It doesnt matter. You could read a chapter, go and listen to a concert or hear watch a song o

YouTube, and then come back to the book. I want people to just think and ask questions, and I dont believe I have thanswers or at least, I hope I havent given any answers.


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With the way youve been structuring your concerts these past few years, and now with this book,Your recent concerts, this book Are you consciously interested in leaving behind a legacy? That T.MKrishna didnt just sing but actively shaped Carnatic music? Is this something conscious?

Honestly, the book and my music of late are part of the changes that have happened to me as a human being. Ithappened over many years, but some things come together at a certain time. I think my whole perspective of life isclosely knit to what music means to me. I think whatever has changed in my music is closely wedded to the idea of

what I believe life should be. I dont know if Ill leave behind a legacy. Its not something Im consciously going for. Thgreatest thing is the marvel of music, the fact that I can marvel at it. When I sing, I sometimes say aha and peopleask if I am saying it to myself. Im just marvelling at the sheer beauty of that moment. That marvelling is, in many

ways, the catalyst for this book.

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Keywords: T.M. Krishna, Carnatic music,A Southern Music: The Karnatik StoryPrintable version | Dec 23, 2013 8:07:23 AM | http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/i-am-willing-to-give-up-the-kutcheri/article5459781.ece

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Interview with T. M. Krishna: 'I Am Willing to Give Up the Kutcheri', by Baradwaj Rangan