Of Margazhi, Meduvada and Music tourism....

In one more week, it will be curtains for yet another Madras Music Season (MMS) – the largest music fest in the world (in terms of number of shows) that brings together Carnatic music lovers from across the world!

While I can’t claim to be a connoisseur of Carnatic music, it has certainly been a non-elective subject in my life, as it is for every for every South Indian worth his/her upma. So, this is the time of the year when a part of me longs to be back home in Chennai. The month of Margazhi (Margashish in the North) that begins mid-December and ends mid-January is the only season in the year when the temperature in Chennai dips to around 25 degree Celsius, the city shivers (!!!) and its residents take out their woollens.

To me, the mere mention of Margazhi conjures up a heady cocktail of images – elaborate kolams, early morning bhajans, grand concerts, soulful music, scintillating dance performances, beautiful women in gorgeous Kanjeevarams and, of course, tantalising food, making Chennai a hedonist’s delight!  

 

Not to mention the early morning darshan of Lord Balaji, the deity of the month. For those inclined towards the bhakti marga, it is considered an ideal time to engage with and embrace the Divine. After all, didn’t the Good Lord Himself claim in The Gita that He is Margashirsha among months! (Chapter 10, verse 35)  

 

Not that secular Chennai forgets to celebrate Christmas – every large retailer peddling his wares on the famous Usman Road has a Santa Claus mannequin riding the reindeer sleigh with his bag of gift; in a way, this is about as close to winter as Chennaiites can ever get.

The elite class have no worries, so they enjoy (your) music...  (Kavalai edumilley, rasikkum mettukudi...)**

But the event that is quintessential of Margazhi is the Madras Music Festival.  Started in 1927, it is an annual event organised on an unparalleled scale with 1500-2000 concerts performed by nearly 300 artists across various locations in the city. <Link for the largest music festivals of the world>.

I remember my first experience as a fledgling Rasika attending a kutcheri at ‘The Music Academy’, the Mecca of Musicians. The show began and I watched mersmerised, excited about my first live concert at the Academy. After a particularly melodious piece rendered by the artist, I turned to my neighbour, a thin wiry old man in glasses, and enthusiastically remarked how wonderful the artist’s Keeravani had been! He responded with a shocked and disgusted look, much like the one St. Peter would give a habitual sinner, and mumbled that the raga rendered had been Simhendra Madhyamam and not Keeravani as I had wrong(ful)ly deduced.  With that, he got up from his seat and moved away a few rows, not looking back until he put enough distance away from me. That’s the sort of pedantic music lovers you get to rub shoulders with during the ‘season’!

Apart from these typical Rasikas, the festival also attracts the oddball music lovers from unexpected parts of the world. I’ve heard of an Italian national who is a regular visitor in the season. A plumber by profession, he works hard through the year to make enough money to afford him a trip to Chennai. While in Chennai, he takes up some affordable lodging and flits from concert to concert on a hired bicycle. End of the season, having had his fill of melodious music, he returns to his home and his profession. There are several others like him, who can be spotted in the music halls during the season. (It can’t be denied that, for many of us who are still a slave of the colonial mindset, flashes of white skin here and there does add to the credibility of the performing artist.)

Yet another major patron of these kutcheris is the crème-de-la-creme of the South Indian society— its NRI diaspora. This geographically distanced group chooses this time of the year to re-connect to its culture. So, every concert venue rings with the sounds of ‘Boston’ and ‘San Jose’ as much as it does with Bowli and Shankarabharam. Fashionable women in lovely silk sarees and clean-shaven men in full-sleeved jibbas with their irrepressible American slang indeed add a tang to the twang!!

Another big attraction for the concert goer is the mouth-watering delicacies the canteens at the auditoriums dish out during this season.  Here, the mind-boggling menu (which includes some delectable Tambrahm cuisine) takes on the concert-goer’s unabashed love of food and his unsatiating appetite. And this is one performance, the Rasika calls out Encore for! Running these canteens is big business, with some caterers enjoying near stardom.  At times, the choice of the canteen takes precedence over the choice of the artist, and that's the venue where a Rasika, who has his stomach in its right place, heads down to!

 

But dear, make an effort to take your music to the poor in the slums (Cherikkum seravendum adukkum paatu padi....)**

All these years, Carnatic music has remained the bastion of the rich and the elite. This music season, maverick musician TM Krishna and his team have set out to change that. The team is organising concerts in the slums on the Marina for the underprivileged sections of the society.

 

While MMS can boast the largest number of performances for a music fest, its audience has pretty much remained confined to a small group. Given the large number of concerts happening simultaneously across different venues, it is only a few leading artists who are able to draw the crowds. It is a sad reality that in many concerts of upcoming artists, the number of people on the dais outnumbers the ones below.

In this context, I think Krishna’s initiative, apart from achieving its stated objective of inclusivity, can vastly help widen the reach of this rich genre of music and earn it a new audience.

Also, while the music fest draws discerning Carnatic music lovers from across the world, in our own country, it is a little-known and even less-publicised event confined to peninsular India. This can be changed by including other Indian classical art forms in the event’s repertoire, thus making this fest appealing to a larger section of Indians. The idea of music tourism has huge commercial implications; in other words, there is something in it for everybody – the state tourism department, private tourist operators, tourist infrastructure providers and, of course, music lovers. Acting together, these parties can turn MMS into a Music Megafest - India's answer to Wisconsin's Summerfest!


**Lyrics from Vairamuthu’s national award winning ‘paadariyen padippariyen’ song in K. Balachander’s movie, Sindhu Bhairavi (1986)