|
In December, I took
my annual pilgrimage to Chennai to attend the concerts and lecture
demonstrations that take place during the music season. In at least two of the lec-dems,
one question was repeatedly posed to the musicians: “Why don’t you sing more compositions in the
local language so that we can relate them to the meaning of the songs?” Few musicians are willing to answer this
question. None the less, it is an important question. How can we understand
and enjoy Carnatic music without understanding
the lyrics? Should not our Carnatic
musicians sing predominantly in the local language where a concert is being held – e.g. in Tamil in Tamil Nadu or in Kannada in Karnataka?
Singing primarily in
the local language is not a feasible option given that Carnatic music audiences,
regardless of where they live, speak different languages. It is a fact of
life in India that we speak various languages.
Restricting Carnatic music concerts to a local
language is nothing but language fanaticism. I doubt that either audiences
or performers would welcome such a proposition.
But the question
remains unanswered. Most compositions are in one of the five languages –
Sanskrit, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, or Malayalam. The four Southern languages
do have many words in common with one another as well as with Sanskrit. As
such, with some effort, most rasikas should
reasonably follow the lyrics. If a rasika seeks
greater understanding of the meaning and context of the lyrics, she or he
will indeed have to do some extracurricular exploration in the form of
reading up on the songs. This sounds unreasonable given that part of the
fun of going to a concert is that it does not involve work.
We cannot expect
that every Carnatic music listener will research
the lyrics before attending a concert, especially because they don’t know
in advance what compositions are going to be rendered by an artist that
day. Nevertheless, we can think of it this way - we do not refrain from
reading the Bhagawad Geetha
because Sri Krishna’s message is in Sanskrit.
Still a limited
understanding of the lyrics should not preclude a listener from enjoying
the music. Carnatic music, like all music, is a
language unto itself. The language in which a composition is written –
Tamil, Malayalam or Pashtu - need not limit our
understanding. For example, Western operas are written in languages such as
English, German, Italian, French, and Russian. Yet operas like Carmen and
Madame Butterfly are enormously popular among audiences who are rarely
proficient in French or Italian. This is because, like other music forms, Carnatic music is primarily a medium that communicates
emotion and feeling; as such, it transcends languages. The feelings and
emotions expressed by Carnatic music appeals to
some but not to others. This makes listening to Carnatic
music, a subjective experience – while some are pleased by the notes,
others seek the structure of the rhythm and yet others, the lyrics and the
meaning. Any attempt to pigeon hole subjective phenomena such as these into
one or more of its components will never succeed.
I am not suggesting
that lyrics are unimportant. But, lyrics are not the sum total of musical
experience. When we look at a Michelangelo’s David or a Ravi Varma painting, even without knowing anything about
art, we get a visceral sense of what the work of art means to us. A true
artist can convey pain, suffering, joy, and angst without saying a word.
Music is no different – the arrangement of the notes, the rhythmic structure,
the lyrics, the aesthetic expressions – all combine to give the listener a
complete experience. To a listener, what matters is
the totality of the experience rather than the functional use of a familiar
language.
I am also not
suggesting that the messages communicated in a composition are irrelevant.
For example, the morals expressed in Thyagaraja
Swami’s or Shyama Sastri’s
compositions are very important. However, it is not absolutely essential
that a listener understand every context and message. Such understanding
enhances the experience but is not a pre-requisite for taking part in the
experience.
Recently I spoke to
a group of kids growing up in the U.S. and tried to explain the nuances of Carnatic music and the emotions that are expressed
through specific ragas and compositions. I played a composition of Shyama Sastri s “dEvi brova samayAmidE” in Chintamani
raga. In this song Syama Sastri
pleads with the Goddess Parvathi to help her
compete with a great musical scholar, Kesavayya.
When the song was finished, I asked an eight-year-old girl sitting in the
front row how she felt. She said that listening to this song made her feel
sad and that the singer (implying the composer) was upset about something
and looking for help. But, she could not figure out what it was. This young
kid, growing up in a foreign country and who probably has limited
understanding of her own mother tongue, was able to feel the emotions that Shyama Sastri was coveying. That is the power of great music. It can transcend the barriers of time, age,
and language to move you to your core.
In the words of the
Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu, “Fishing baskets
are employed to catch fish; but when the fish are caught, the men forget
the baskets. Words are employed to convey ideas, but when the ideas are
grasped, men forget the words.”
Dr. Ram Sriram
sriramgsu@gmail.com
|