It is that time of year, the sra, ims seminar at ncpa. I missed Ashok Ranade and especially Joep’s presence this year. Those 2 along with Pt Arvind Parikh were the coordinators since its inception. Ashok Ranade is gone and Joep, I do not know, but suspect there were some differences with Shri Parikh. I only attended the Saturday sessions; as usual I probably missed very good discussions. Shri Jayant Kastuar, board member of the sangit natak akademi, and an important person in the politics of art in Delhi was the keynote speaker. I found it odd that he began his address by explaining that he had been so busy the past month, he had only begun to write his speech at 1:00 a.m. the night before. To me it indicates a supercilious attitude and lack of respect. Shri Kastuar repeated the platitudes about cultural imperialism, globalization, standardization. In a revealing anecdote, he remembered an Asian UNESCO meeting in Delhi where he had chided the female delegates for wearing western instead of their native dress, inviting them to see the streets of Delhi where women are in saris etc. I wonder what he would have expected a Chinese delegate to wear. Chinese dress as such has long ago disappeared from the Mainland. His jibe was alluded to by a later speaker who in a light-hearted way felt uncomfortable in his western clothes. Mr. Murali, the former editor of the Hindu is an impressive speaker. Yesterday though he tended to waffle, especially when summarizing what a speaker had just said. Since it had been short and well said by Kalpana Sharma and Shri Ramnarayan the repetition was unnecessary. He did say that this is the 3d year he has come to the seminar discussing the role of media and it seemed to him to be the same re-hashing of the subject. Shri Arvind Parikh wanted his Indian musicians group (zakir, shiv kumar and a few other north and south stars) to interact with the major newspaper editors and asked Mr. Murali if he could arrange such a meeting to which he replied that to get the newspaper editors to cooperate together would be impossible. Admirable straight talking to someone who does not take “no” for an answer. Mr. Ramnarayan from Shruti magazine spoke very well about the difficulty in making his magazine with its geriatric readership interesting to the younger generation. Shruti has run for 28 years and has maintained an impressive high standard. He was skeptical of the financial viability of a new “glossy” venture on classical arts coming from Kolkatta called I believe, “Avantika”.
No doubt the star of the day was unexpectedly Ms. Subhasree, the creative director of Jaya tv in Chennai where a well presented program on classical music has been a huge success. There before us was a dynamic young woman giving us the history and blueprint of what can only be dreamed about in north India. Started in 2000 the prime-time program has resulted in a win-win situation for all involved. They have also had a reality program on classical music going for the past 3 years. She claims it is all in the packaging. Who can dispute it with the kind of results she has had? To a question whether the content has been diluted she replied that the traditional kutcheri formula was adhered to. A later speaker, the A.I.R. director Shri Mandloi perhaps in an oblique reference to her presentation said that content is all important (rather than packaging). When I think of some of the deathly dull music presentations I have seen on Doordarshan or even in concerts I cannot agree. Both are obviously important.
Shri Mandloi listed the impressive facts of A.I.R. and all the plans and sanctions for the future. Obviously everything had been taken care of! Nayan Ghosh had really thought about things that could improve with A.I.R. and had excellent ideas in my opinion. His suggestions and other audience responses were brusquely dismissed by Shri Mandloi who, as I said, has already taken care of everything.
Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan gave an interesting presentation on new media, social media and music. Their work with Underscore is interesting. They do not only talk and talk , they do! Bravo to them. It almost seems like different worlds meeting in the videos they have made- the English-speaking urban techies and the traditional artists and instrument makers. Will this world eventually meet in English cyberspace or Marathi, Hindi, Telegu etc.? Looking at population statistics and internet usage in China and Japan the inevitability of English is not certain.
