No matter what, Life
goes on…and so every show must go on too!
Since the Chennai floods
arrived around the same time that the famous annual Madras Music Festival was
set to begin last week, there is considerable debate on whether artistes and sabhas should go ahead with the festival
this season.
I believe they should.
The Festival must go on.
However, the choice to
perform or not must be with left to the artistes. If they feel like performing,
they must. And if they don’t feel like it, they may like not to! To be sure,
the Dhananjayans, Vijay Siva, Bombay Jayashri and a few others have chosen not
to perform. And yet Sanjay Subrahmanyam performed yesterday.
Now, there’s nothing
wrong with either choice. Music, if anything, is a form of expression of inner
joy. Undoubtedly, all artistes, like everyone else is, are tormented by the
floods in Chennai and the havoc it has caused in the lives of her citizens.
While some artistes may want to immerse themselves in their music at this time,
to get over their feeling of grief or to invoke their inner peace, others may
not be able to bring themselves up to sing. And we must respect their
individual choices and sentiments. Having said that, we must not forget that
music has enormous healing power when it is performed as an offering to the
Universe. No artiste really performs just for money or fame. They fundamentally
perform because they lose themselves to the act of performing. When music, in
fact when any work or service, is delivered with such selflessness, when it is
an invocation and not just a mere stage performance, it heals. What Chennai –
and the world at large – needs now is healing. In my humble opinion, going
ahead with the Madras Music Festival this season would be not just right and
apt, it will be hugely healing as well.
And, irrespective of what
artistes and sabhas decide over this
week, on what they want to do, let us not judge anyone. After all, all our
lives will go on. They have to go on. Weddings will happen – given the season’s
muhurthams already having been
calibrated per an almanac – people will go to the movies, to parties and to nightclubs,
cricket and football (ISL – Indian Super League) will be played and the
Christmas and New Year festivities will soon be indulged in. Moping and
mourning – not just now, but at any time – serves no purpose. If anything it
can make people depressive. And what the people in Chennai need now is an
uplifting energy, a celebration of human spirit, which only music can provide instantaneously
– and uniformly!
One of the historic
examples of the role musicians and music played at a calamitous time is of
violinist Wallace Hartley and his band playing on even as the Titanic sank on the night of 14~15
April, 1912. After the Titanic hit an iceberg and began to sink, Hartley and his
fellow band members started playing music to help keep the passengers calm as
the crew loaded the lifeboats. To me, that’s true heroism, that’s a true
celebration of Life!
Celebration does not
always have to mean shouting from rooftops or dancing meaninglessly in an inebriated
state. The whole journey of Life is a celebration – of being alive, of being human,
of being a miracle. Death too is a celebration, as Osho, the Master, would say.
His perspective: it’s freedom from the
illusion called Life! On that spiritual plane, any loss – physical,
material, emotional – is always an opportunity to start afresh. What Chennai
needs now is that impetus, that fresh start, that new beginning…
So, to the artistes of
Chennai, I would simply say, let the music play on….because the show, called
Life, must go on…!
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