WHEN THE SOM STRIKES THE KHAALI
It is difficult for me to fathom how people can so blissfully sing out of tune (never touching the right shrutis) and yet make such happy facial expressions as if they are super-content with their woeful performances which they deem, though, as superb renditions of the raag they are performing. In an age of mass population, mass culture, massive mediocrity and massive lowering of artistic levels this is but to be expected. Yet, it becomes unfathomable at times how 'artistes' can dupe themselves and their audience by pretending to be at high levels of artistic excellence when what they dish out as music is utter rubbish and the public are for a while exposed to accepting them as high-quality music before good sense prevails and these pretentious performers are thrown out of popular favour by a gradually discerning audience. As the saying goes, 'You can fool some men for all time, all men for some time, but not all men for all time.' Alas, the days of connoisseurs in music seem to be sadly over and it is the businessman of little understanding who strikes the commercial chord with rogue representatives of this classical art !
Written by Sugata Bose
Photo : Khalifa Ustad Badal Khan Sahib, the great Guru of Pandit Vishmadev Chattopadhyay, who had once set the standards of Hindustani classical music in erstwhile Calcutta.
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