Musing on the Music Season

Portia (unless The Man from Madras Musings is thinking of someone else) said something about music being in the heavens, which clearly indicates that she never came to this, our city, in December. For, as we all know, come December, there is music on earth and quite a bit of it. It affects different people differently. MMM, given to singing freely (and allowed to do so by his good lady, also known as She Who Must Be Obeyed) in his bath, becomes a sabha fiend, hopping from venue to venue, here savouring the music, there devouring a snack in the canteen and still further away trading some juicy gossip. In short, MMM becomes the Musical Mylapore Maama. The Chief, who usually reacts to music as Aurangzeb did, allows MMM quite a bit of leeway and looks on the proceedings with a benevolent eye. In this he is one with She Who Must Be Obeyed.

But the Music Season is not all joy and jollility (is there such a word?). MMM puts in quite a bit of hard work as well. For, he is then CCC – the Carnatic Citation Chap. Rightly or wrongly, and more likely the latter, there are certain quarters that believe that MMM can spin out a nifty citation and command him to do it each year. The weary work begins sometime in October and continues till early December, almost till the morning of the awards night. Now what is so difficult in writing out a citation of 250 words, you may wonder. After all, is not Solomon Grundy’s life story a good example to follow, you may ask. Ah, but that is where you make your bloomin’ error.

The problems begin with getting the facts correctly from the musicians before writing the citations. Artistes usually respond by sending in dossiers about themselves, most of which run into several pages. These are usually filled with purple prose – the divine deity that has descended only to dance, or the celestial sage that sings, etc. These will be followed with quotes from what seniors in the field have said about the artiste in question – “If you don’t believe in God, come and hear this one’s music” attributed to a much decorated North Indian instrumentalist being a common one that is freely used across the board. Then follow a list of outlandish awards and titles – recognised as the Treasure Chest of Music and the Modern Day Muse from the Carnatic Music Lovers’ Association of Outer Mongolia (regd.), etc. Many claim that the profiled artiste has only one aim in life – to seek God through music. But as the saying goes, God is in the details; it is in the facts that such CVs are usually most lacking.

And, boy, are they vague about their own life details! This is where they differ from Solomon Grundy whose life, if you recollect, was an open book. The women do not like to reveal their year of birth. That is somewhat understandable. But what is unforgiveable is the way most profiles sent in by artistes overlook their mothers’ names. Most often the biodata will carry just the father’s name as though he did it all by himself. Perhaps this is what they mean when they say that all music is divine. Pressed for the mother’s name, most artistes will say that she was/is a ‘simple’ housewife and so could we please leave her out. Whereupon MMM usually sees red and then, having counted till ten, explains that it is most essential that a good citation carries the names of both parents, place of birth and date of birth. This is received with some shock and surprise. Then, after days of cajoling and wheedling , and following it up with a threat that the deadline for the citation is long over, the information is coughed up with reluctance. All this takes a toll on MMM who by December 1st becomes wan and has circles under the eyes. Only canteen coffee can revive him.

Pits’burgh

The rains are poor and we are told that there is a 70 per cent deficit. But while The Man from Madras Musings and the rest of you are looking at the skies with hope and prayer, the roads below us have clearly had enough of the rains. There is not a single patch of smooth macadam anywhere in the city. Driving along Kotturpuram roads the other day, MMM wondered if it ought to be named Craterpuram. And this is supposed to be an upmarket locality! What of the rest of the city? And when these roads fill with water, it is impossible to distinguish between land and lake. There is really nothing that can be done other than to grin and bear it. After all, our city is Chennapore only.

Many years ago, when MMM was a Child of Calcutta City, that second city of the British Empire had similar problems. Huge trenches, potholes and craters greeted you wherever you went. The citizens sorted it all out by naming each pothole after a political personality. That way everyone had a good laugh and saw the brighter side of life. The roads remained the same, but at least negotiating them became easier because you could smile as you did so. Taking a leaf out of that, MMM recommends that our city (the first in the British Empire) rename its areas based on the condition of their roads.

Craterpuram is already taken. We can have ‘Mauled’apore, Roya’pit’ah, Peram’bore’, Mound Road, ‘All worn’pet, Gorge Down, T(errible) Nagar, Mound’a’valley, Go Fall Puram, Ravine’n’malai Puram, Now Gone Pakkam, God damn pock’em, Slide-a-pet, Knoll-and-Bore, Vile Scary and No Go Nallur, to name a few. Going into the vernacular you could come up with many more – ‘PaLLAvaram’ being the first that MMM can think of. Now MMM invites contributions from his faithful congregation. The one area that need not change is ‘Rut’land Gate. Once the list is ready, all we need to do is to pass it on to the city’s civic body, which will take care of the rest. And as for the city itself, what better name than something inspired by the US of A? We wanted to be Manhattan. We can at least be ‘Pits’burgh can’t we?

Tied into knots?

Our city’s civic body may have given the centenary of its headquarters the go by, but the media went to town on it, quoting statistics of length, breadth, height, size etc. So did at least one TV Channel which going by its name belongs to the people while in reality it is backed by a political party that once claimed to be a friend of trees before it cut several of them down for its annual conference.

But that is not germane to this issue. What The Man from Madras Musings had to say was that the newscaster kept announcing that ‘Ribbon’ Buildings, named after Lord ‘Ribbon’, was celebrating its centenary. This, MMM reflected, was perhaps because the place is eternally tied up in red tape.

-MMM