THE LAMENTABLE DECADENCE OF RABINDRA SANGEET ... 2

It hardly does justice to Rabindra Sangeet when it is sung by artistes who have not undergone a thorough training for a protracted period of time in Hindustani classical music. The rendition, in the absence of sufficient grooming in classical music, remains weak and faltering, and the spirit of the sublime songs of Tagore assumes a curious flavour of debilitating sensuality and decadent spirituality, both of which were not the intended responses, surely, the composer would have aspired to have evoked in his audience. The performance of the singer either raises the bar for the song or lowers it --- this has been the standard accepted position regarding the estimation of the aesthetics of a composition for long. What becomes of greater moment, however, when it comes to Tagore's songs is that the extreme pliability of the compositions makes for its easy perversion in the hands of incompetent singers devoid of the lofty spirit of the composer. Tagore degenerated is dangerous for it represents a formidable force for infatuation of the unsuspecting and the unaware with the subtle charms of life, the influence penetrating right down to the subliminal levels of consciousness, holding the heart and the mind of the victim in its paralysing power, altering character and motivations for good. These are not wild aspersions cast at the premier poet of the age in India but are well-studied responses of an astute observer of modern musical trends and their unwholesome effect on the blossoming buds of the day. Over-sensitisation of the tender side of the human heart weakens the personality of a person and progressively enslaves him to the ephemeral elements of life. Rather, what we as a nation need today is the forthright presentation of Tagore full of the vital force of youth and excellence and not the paralysing perfidy of promiscuous prospects. Let Tagore awaken the surpassing sublimity of the Self and not, by misrepresentation, the meaner elements of the moribund mind. May he, who was the toast of an entire nation and the emblem of peace and humanity across the wide world as he circuited through its connections crossing continents, awake in us continence and a sense of artistic responsibility towards the preservation of culture and not its perversion through moral insufficiency and aesthetic inadequacy! As a social commentator it becomes the duty of this essayist to send in a word of caution to the practitioners of this beautiful genre that is Rabindra Sangeet that it may retain its pristine purity through its effective rendition at the hands of seasoned singers trained in the 'gharana' and 'parampara' of Hindustani classical music which is its seed form, and so serve its artistic end which is the raising of human consciousness and not its perversion into decadence of a debilitating kind. May sanity prevail and with it a sense of 'sadhana' which is the soul of music that seeks expression in any musical form worth the call, so much more in such a genre as Rabindra Sangeet which calls for the best in a musician's repertoire!