A very good friend of mine in Chennai , who is a senior advocate of the Madras High Court, and who hails from a very noble family that I know is steeped in Carnatic Music, sent me a WhatsApp message of barely concealed indignation. He had heard that I was expressing on social media my dismay and disappointment over the Madras Music Academy deciding to confer the 2024 Sangita Kalanidhi Award on the popular musician of some notoriety , Sri T M Krishna. This is the message below he shot off to me:
“This award is for his excellence in his chosen career . We can’t have a second opinion on his vidwath. Extraordinary talent . So MA has chosen the right candidate for the award . When it comes to Music he has done enough and more to deserve this award.” …
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I am a poor Charteted Accountant by profession and would normally shirk taking on an experienced lawyer friend in argument. But then , being the only son of Sangitha Kalanidhi myself, and also since I believe that my taste in classical Carnatic music is of reasonably good pedigree and refinement, I decided that I would not let go off the opportunity to take issue with my good lawyer friend and explain to him why I don’t appreciate the Music Academy Awards Committee selection this year.
So below was my reply to him:
As I said in my message to you yesterday , The Sangitha Kalanidhi Award is no mere talent recognition award … It’s not like any other run-of-the-mill, popular or stage-worthy award being bestowed on some young artiste or popular vidwan showing promise of Vidwath or demonstrating it. The SK Award is not like your neighbourhood Rotary Club Award.
The SK Award is an institutional award and it is for an artiste whose cumulative accomplishments over 3 or 4 decades are a testimony not only to his performing career but to his life journey as a whole … i.e. the values he/she has embraced, the challenges he/she overcame, the milestones he/she reached , the example and standards he/she has set as both artiste and as a personality , the rich cultural contributions to society and community at large that he/she has made , his/her larger ideals in life … and much more. That is what the Sangitha Kalanidhi award was conceived as by its founders .
The logic that you however put forth to me is that TMK deserves the SK Award because of his “extraordinary talent” which must overweigh and override everything else . That is nothing but pretentious logic based on the glib and facile premise that the man must be judged for his music alone and nothing else about him matters at all … Not his ideals, not his values .
Yours is not only a very narrow view of what the SK Award is all about but actually it devalues it entirely . I can explain it you through a simple analogy if you don’t jump up immediately to dismiss it outright as unconvincing.
Your family household hired a cook and he may have “extraordinary talent” in preparing dishes for you .. but would that make you overlook his personal behaviour and deportment ? That “excellent” cook of yours could be an “expert chef” and serves you the most delicious fare. But then suppose you know too that the cook talks ill of you behind your back with the neighbours , constantly gossips about what’s happening within your family affairs , spreads nasty false stories about your family affairs behind your back, spends his idle time smoking with pals and you suspect too he’s a tippler too now and then … tell me would you still say “oh, but he’s an “extraordinary chef” with “extraordinary” skills … and so whatever may be his other faults they are inconsequential to me : he still deserves to remain my favourite household chef ?” Would you be able to say that with your hand on your honest heart ?
TMK can be likened to that imaginary cook of yours . His music is “extraordinary” but then its “manodharma” is sick, perverted and miasmic. If you want to know why I think so , please turn to Chapter 47 of my published book “The Tale of Two Cities” (2023). Please also see below the excerpted pages of the book. There I have explained myself.
Sir, like you I too have always admired TMK for his sangitha Vidwath. But he lost all my respect when he turned social and political activist sometime midstream in his career. Thereafter, he became victim to the Don Quixote syndrome tilting at windmills in the world of Carnatic Music.
TMK single-handedly polarised the entire Carnatic music world along caste lines … desecrating and pollutung it with his specious political and anarchist prejudices. He needlessly decried the Brahmin community as cultural suzerains. He debased the value of Bhakti as the very core of Carnatic music . He even debased Thyagaraja kritis on one occasion. He openly once said he was seeking to bring Gaana music to the stage of the Music Academy. He sought to reduce a highly refined classical art form to a lumpen state today on the specious argument of democratising it … he equated poramboke culture with Hindu culture …
And the MA today has proved it was unable to distinguish between the man and his music … on the pretentious logic that the man must be judged on his music and not upon his values. O tempora ! O mores !
IMHO, the Awards Committee of the Madras Music Academy (btw, I’m a fee-paying member myself) has lost its moorings and bearings. It has no clue what the institution really stands for . In the name of “going with the flow of modern times” the MA has allowed itself to be swept off its feet and balance … it stumbles along and makes a mockery of itself . The MA does more a disservice to itself than it serves the cause of the common rasika.
The MA can now, of course, proudly say it has at last now atoned for the terrible stain of sin that TMK himself throughout his mature career had accused it of being besmirched. The MA can now smugly claim that it can no longer be accused of being a “Brahminical cultural organisation”.
The MA has complimented TMK and his ideals. TMK who now stands tall … he stands vindicated and has now the last laugh at the expense of the institution whose teeth he has been kicking about for so long.
The MA Trustees too have now established their credentials — surely now they are a bunch of “secular, pluralistic, egalitarian and inclusive” who have ensured that MA will emerge soon as a “centre of excellence” in classical Carnatic Music and performing arts all in tune with the great spirit of the 21st century. Honouring a doughty anti-Brahmin of Brahmin-origin is indeed in itself a great honour for the MMA.
Best regards,
Sudarshan Madabushi
Unnecessary analysis of TMK,the carnatic musician.MA is the first and accredited organization in spearheading the growth of carnatic music.Neither TMK’ s vidwath nor
MA’s credibility in recognizing the musicians can be a matter of contrivarsary.
You have your view. And I have mine .
Unnecessary analysis of TMK,the carnatic musician.MA is the first and accredited organization in spearheading the growth of carnatic music.Neither TMK’ s vidwath nor
MA’s credibility in recognizing the musicians can be a matter of contrivarsary.
L.Rangarajan
You have your view. And I have mine.
It is immaterial whether MA is brahminical or not…we have carnatic purity of music with Dharmic bhakthi bhavam at the centre of it.tmk has ruined that..even now it is not too late..MA can..rather withdraw…this TMK reminds of kamalahasan in politics..ofcourse he is a great actor.. ofcourse TMK is a good singer..but..he missed the central purity of the very purpose of our classical music….MA also spilt their judgemental capability…