AI to Minnesota !!!

Dear all

There are very few things that can make me take off my lush beard and purportedly intellectual demeanor and jump up an down like a 10-year old. The most culturally sophisticated of these is the beautiful game of basketball. I will now acknowledge the stylistic influence of a woman whom I have grudgingly had to accept as being my superior in literary expression in the form of some italicized nostalgic meandering.

I have played basketball since I was 11, and have watched NBA games sporadically since I was 17. It would be easy for me to bring up myriad on-court memories - grade-school, high-school, college. But, I would rather choose to talk about a memory that I no longer remember for the event itself, but for the inner fountain of ecstasy that it unleashed on that memorable day.

Kings at Lakers, Western Conference Finals 2002.

The Lakers, like all Shaquille O'Neal led teams of the past decade, coasted through the regular season, and the Kings snapped up home-court advantage by winning the Pacific Division. Now, with the Lakers down 1-2 in the seven game series, losing this one at home would drop them into a 3-1 hole, with two visits to the notoriously partisan Arco Arena lined up.

In those days I used to be a great Shaq fan - there is something innately appealing in the idea of a dominant giant destroying all opposition, then going down fighting in a sea of flames that I instantly connect to. Shaq, of course, wimped out when it came to going down in flames, letting Dwyane Wade carry him to his fourth championship ring last season. However, back in 2002, he was still in his prime, an absolute monster. And his Lakers, supported by the league's officiating, were looking to win their third straight title.

So, my favorite basketball team is struggling, down by 15 to start the fourth quarter. Kobe has had an off game, and the Kings are doubling down on Shaq even off the ball. The only high point of the game, for a Lakers fan, is Samaki Walker's half court heave at the half-time buzzer.

So, I am sitting in bed and exhorting Kobe to get it going. And the Kings appear to be inexorably deep and well-coached. They have no weaknesses, and they are hanging tough with the Lakers. I can remember muttering, "Come on you b*****, give them some open looks". This, please remember, is when I was 18, and thought swearing was cool.

So, the Lakers start coming back. I don't remember how they did very well now, but I think they got a lot of help from the officials. Of course, nothing like the scam they pulled in this year's Finals, but, for those days, it set quite a precedent. What does a fan do when the refs are cheating in his favor? That has to be a tough one.

So, its the last two minutes of the game, and the Lakers are down by 4, and they get a questionable foul call or something, and they are within 2, and the Kings have possession. I am probably making this stuff up, to be honest, I am just building up to the big scene. The important thing to note is that I have steadily been muttering under my breath for half an hour, and the tension is building up.

The Kings run a bad play, go scoreless I think. That was their Achilles heel, those Kings. They were, by far, the better team. But they did not have a go-to superstar late in close games. Webber was an A grade choke artist, Peja struggled under pressure, and still does. Bibby had the gumption, but not the skills to make too much happen. The Lakers call time-out, they have about 10 seconds to get a basket to tie the game, and one of the game's best clutch performers in Kobe Bryant. This is looking special ...... in a humdrum kind of way.

Starting now, you may depend on a more accurate story - the events are seared into my memory. Kobe gets the ball off the inbounds pass from the near sideline. He has Christie on him, I think. He goes to work, ball fakes left, drives right. The limitations of my cheer-leading vocabulary become painfully obvious to me even as I am shouting awkward phrases like, "Yes! Do it, Kobe". What on earth is a man to say at times like these?

Kobe drives past, has an angle for a tricky layup, there are defenders waiting for him in the paint. He goes up, gets hacked on the arm, no foul called, layup clangs off the rim .... The breath is sucked out of me ..... 3 seconds left .....

SHAQ GETS THE REBOUND !!!!!! He has a simple putback from close range !!!! Shaquille O'Neal saves the DAYYYYY .........

He MISSES ........ I yell "WHAT", and the whole colony can probably hear me. There's a scrum for the loose ball, and Vlade Divac swats it away thinking time has run out ..... which it nearly has. By one chance in a million, it goes straight to the man they call Big Shot Rob, whose only basketball skill is his uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time on the biggest of stages.

I remember the words, as in a dream, "Horry ....... for the win", interspersed with the sound of the buzzer. I can't remember seeing the shot actually fall, because I had gone crazy just a fraction of a second before it did.

YES!!!

For the next 10 minutes, I relapse into a state that has only one description, 'primal'. I was shrieking inarticulately, I was jumping about, then rolling about, then jumping about again. I hurt my hand hacking at the ceiling fan, under normal circumstances, I can just about touch it, we have an 11-foot roof.

YES!!!

I have had happy experiences before, and since - several of them of far more moment than a basketball game that I was enjoying vicariously. But none have come anywhere close, in the sheer intensity of response and delirium, as Robert Horry's serendipitous three that pretty much won the Lakers their 3rd straight championship. It knocked the wind out of the Kings' sails, and the Nets from the East never could have offered too much resistance to Shaq-zilla anyway.

The second part of this post details why I chose to torture my readership with this juvenile memory in the first place. It was occasioned by the fact that I have an offer to go to Minnesota to do my PhD. There are three reasons that are threatening to draw me away from my idyllic sanctuary at Max Planck to the Twin Cities.

One of them is Kevin Garnett of the Minnesota Timberwolves, the greatest warrior in the NBA. He is stuck on a bad team, the GM, Kevin McHale, deserves to be roasted over a slow fire. KG leaves it all out on the floor every game, and the result is that the Wolves are never bad enough to get knocked into the lottery too far, and come out with a young superstar from the Draft. At the same time, they are not good enough to contend for a title, in any realistic sense.

Also, with so many young superstars coming into the league in the last few years, it is likely that the window of opportunity for the older stars to win and cement their legacies is over. So, everyone wants KG to ask for a trade, so that he can go to a better team and win a championship before he is too old to be relevant. And he steadfastly refuses, holding loyalty to the franchise above everything else.

I was thinking of going to Minnesota and sharing in KG's battle with the windmills. However, there is change afoot. Suddenly, since this Tuesday, KG has perked up and is relishing his time on the court. I was somewhat surprised at this, until it was announced Friday night that Allen Iverson, the Philadelphia 76ers superstar, had asked to be traded.

If there is a greater warrior in the NBA than Garnett, it has to be the unbelievable AI. Garnett is seven feet tall and has the physical implements to succeed in the NBA. AI is a mite under six feet tall, and yet, is very likely going to go down as one of the greatest players to have played the game. He plays through injuries, he challenges people twice his size every time he drives into the lane. He has fought against his vertical disadvantage every step of his illustrious 11-year career in the NBA. He served as a role model for me, once I realized that I was not likely to grow to 6'6" and be like Mike.

Now, although there is no official pronouncement yet, I find Garnett's cheerfulness really suggestive. Wolves owner Glen Taylor has commented that AI coming to Minnesota is impossible, but I suspect that might be a diversionary tactic to help with negotiations. I think AI wants to play with KG, the two most quixotic figures in the NBA in the last two decades, and win a championship together.

If this trade does happen, you can stick a MN code to any letters you wish to send me for the next 3-4 years.

Fingers crossed .......

Tale of a midnight stroll

A meeting at midnight


Today in my usual midnight stroll,
I met a kitten shaped like a ball
Wandering, like me, in the chilly air
In the heather beside the sidewalk

She seemed glad to see me

Loneliness

briefly

banished

We fool around in the moonlight
And the old question pops up

Do I need her, does she need me?
Death, father of want and despair,
Casts His shadow upon the night


bemusement ...


The Spirit winks with three thousand eyes
Eternity lies above and beyond
I wave goodbye; she fluffs her tail


The laughter of aloneness is the purest of all
It gushes in peals down the dark hill-side

All the way down .....

All the way down …

How do I know that I’m not mad?

By rights I should be broken

Raising my fury at circumstance

Or wallowing and cursing fate

No existence; save right now

No refuge except right here

Imbibing deep of the fount of life

It hurts from having to feel so much

And yet today I can feel glad

That I can feel glad for feeling glad

And if this is gladness all the way down

I’m either mad, or have found Love

An year older, an year wiser?

Hi all,

There was a big question on my mind about this time last year, so I wrote a blues song about it, "Buddha's Twelve Bar Blues". I have had to confront it quite a bit in this past year, but feel that I finally do have an answer for it. I summarize it in a poem called 'Two Loves', that I wrote today. Be well, everyone.



The Question:

Buddha's Twelve Bar Blues

Clouds of peace all around me, rising up into the sky
Tinged a gloomy shade of black, can't you see the reason why
Can't find no peace in this world, till I call this world a lie

Can't find no things to rouse me, no matter howso hard I try
Want no more drink and grass, and their insalubrious high
Can't find no peace in this world, till I call this world a lie

Tried livin' with you people, with tuxedo and a tie
Tried running around naked, playing catcher in the rye
Can't find no peace in this world, till I call this world a lie

Take no truck in holy books, all say that the end is nigh
Do as we do, sinner, before you go to hell and fry
Can't find no peace in this world, till I call this world a lie

All the things I've ever loved, cast a brightness and then die
Love will always break my heart, so I let love pass me by
Can't find no peace in this world, till I call this world a lie

Don't know which way I'm going, or if I should even try
Don't know if I'm still living, or if I just wait to die
Can't find no peace in this world, till I call this world a lie

How can a flower bloom, if the poor old roots are dry
How can the spirit soar, if the mind and body cry
Can't find no peace in this world, till I call this world a lie

The world is such a crazy place, till I firmly close my eyes
Fold my legs and sit up straight, feel the sound of silence rise
Can't find no peace in this world, till I call this world a lie

The Answer:

Two Loves

Two loves I have, both far away
The love within and the one without
Two loves have I, and each alone
Would have devoured me inside out

The love without; with sun and storm
Cleaves two hearts in passion’s sway
The love within, a great ocean’s swell
Enfolds me; but never all the way

The love of my life is an ardent flame
Scouring every trace of moral chaff
The celestial love is a gentle breeze
That caressing; blows the cinders off

The love without is a tender stalk
Floating on currents of circumstance
The love within is the sea itself
Where all rivers end; given the chance

It burns, it calms; it claws, it heals
Her love is frank in its innocence
He listens, and ever keeps his counsel
Speaking with wordless eloquence

They’ll break my heart, time after time
They will stretch me, tax my vigor too
And every time will I rise stronger
And the music of my lute will sing anew

Ever harder they pull, one at each end
The slender strings of my heart’s desire
And yet sweeter does the music sound
As they raise the pitch still higher

The tree of Life’s Heart can only grow
In soil moistened by tears of love
In my garden, it will always thrive
Showering its flowers from above

Two loves I have, both far from me
Yet slowly, towards both, I make my way
I stumble at times, and lose my path
But know that I’ll be there one day

Tolkien's grave is a gyroscope

Two hours of senseless writing; one click and a defenseless world is exposed to it. Ah the wonders of technology .... I apologise most profusely to the memory of the greatest writer the world has ever known, for attempting to analyse the one chink in his armor - poetry.

Introduction

When J R R Tolkien decided to create his legendarium of the history of Middle-Earth, he took on the gargantuan task of creating a mythology that would carry visceral appeal for any Anglo-Saxon littérateur. Towards this end, he created a veritable menagerie of mythical events and their memories.

If the Silmarillion be an account of the doings upon Middle Earth in the Elder Days, the narrative of the Hobbit as well as the three books in the Lord of the Rings trilogy refers to them as vaguely remembered mythical folklore. In many cases, for greater authenticity, his characters allude to such events through poetry.

While the competence of his poetic expression has been often debated, it cannot be gainsaid that an analysis of his poetry offers us the perfect opportunity to study the use of myths in poetry, with the poetry originating, with exquisite craft and great thought, from the same source as the myth.

Description

As may be expected, the first book of the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, contains the greatest number of Tolkien’s poems, as the lead characters are gradually relieved of their naïveté regarding the history of Middle-Earth. The second book has fewer real poems, but still contains multitudes of quoted fragments; there are no complete poems in the third book.

The reader is gradually introduced to the ramifications of the events of the Second Age as the story progresses onwards from the House of Elendil in the first book. The ‘Hobbit’, being prequel to the trilogy, has poems related almost entirely to Nature, expressed in a rather clumsy archaic style.

The first book contains seven complete poems and numerous extracts from other works; these songs are chiefly used to acquaint the reader with the quaint familiarity of Middle-Earth, three are songs by the singular Tom Bombadil. The legend of the Ring, as indeed all the other legends, is mentioned only in small snatches of Elven verse recited by Gandalf and Bilbo.

The second book contains just two complete poems, one an almost Viking elegy to Boromir and the other a very battle-spirited description of Gondor. However, ‘the Two Towers’ is profusely packed with poetic quotations and allusions, and is indeed our primary source of reference for Hobbit and human non-mythic poetry for this essay.

In the third book, the action moves too fast to allow for much versification, and consequently, there are no complete poems in ‘the Return of the King’. Besides, the legend of the Ring is too well known at this stage of the story to require further elaboration. Small quotations of old legends, however, are quite numerous.

The Silmarillion, being the substantive account for the myth of Middle-Earth itself, is a treasure trove for Tolkien’s mythic poetry. However, a study of purely Silmarillion verse would not be able to explain the reasons for Tolkien’s idiosyncratic style-shifts. Such an analysis is only possible when the entire body of work – the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Silmarillion – is studied together.

Analysis

Syntactical innovation

A perfect example of Tolkien’s mastery of the intricacies of the epic poetry of the Middle Ages may be seen in the following passage from Earendil the Mariner

at last he came to Night of Naught,
and passed, and never sight he saw
of shining shore nor sight he sought.
The winds of wrath came driving him,
and blindly in the foam he fled
from west to east and errandless,
unheralded he homeward sped.

From the plethora of assonant syllables highlighted, it is evident that this is a highly alliterative passage, written in the style of 14^th century ballads that also evinced a similar structural assonance. One hastens to add that this is by no means an isolated example. For a similar passage, let us examine an even more structured alliterative example from Turin’s Fostering

Then the fame of the fights on the far marches
was carried to the courts of the king of Doriath,
and tales of Túrin were told in his halls,
of the bond and brotherhood of Beleg the ageless
with the black-haired boy from the beaten people.

In this passage, it is remarkable that the pattern of alliteration follows a strict 3 to the line syntax. This subtle linguistic nuance, borrowed from Middle English works, is representative of Tolkien’s erudite efforts to imbue his poetry with an archaic feel that mythic poetry requires.

Stylistic differentiation

In Tolkien’s ballads of Middle-Earth, there appear to be three distinctive variations in poetic ‘ability’. On a separate plain, in terms of a heavy infusion of alliteration, impressionism and abstractedness is the poetry of the Elven folk – their myths and Galadriel’s songs. A relevant example would be the evocative “Winter comes to Nargothrond”

The summer slowly in the sad forest
waned and faded. In the west arose
winds that wandered over warring seas.
Leaves were loosened from laboring boughs:
fallow-gold they fell, and the feet buried
of trees standing tall and naked,
rustling restlessly down roofless aisles,
shifting and drifting. The shining vessel

Secondly, we have the folk-ballads of the men and hobbits. These are written in the rough flowery style of Middle Age troubadours, with a heavy stress on assonance and pedantry. A good example in this regard would be the elegy to Gil-Galad in the second book

Gil-Galad was an Elven-king.
Of him the harpers sadly sing:
the last whose realm was fair and free
between the Mountains and the Sea.

Finally, we have the compositions attributed to the characters themselves – the most celebrated instance being Bilbo’s Walking Song of course. These are extremely simple, almost bucolic, in their structure and tend towards an ‘abcb’ structure. Frodo’s lament for Gandalf is a good example in this regard

When evening in the Shire was grey
his footsteps on the Hill were heard;
before the dawn he went away
on journey long without a word.

It seems quite likely that this is a deliberate effort on Tolkien’s part to subtly distinguish between the intellectual capabilities of his characters. Thus, for instance, Gandalf’s brief verses, both composed and quoted, are usually in the first style, befitting his role as a link to the Elder Days. The hobbits’ repertoire is almost entirely described by the third classification. Their own compositions are markedly inferior to their memorized verses; as befits a non-intellectual people.

Elven verse is mellifluous in its cadence and is characterized by a love for trees and stars; their mythic poetry is extremely detailed and subtly haunted by a sense of futility in warding off the ravages of time on their pristine race. A sense of impermanence, fragility and lack of form is also evident in much of Elven mythic poetry.

The verse of the Dwarves, much like themselves, is crudely and roughly shaped, and is gruff in its cadence. While forced rhyming is a natural flaw in much of Tolkien’s poetry, its incidence is rather high in dwarf verse. This might be a coincidence, or it might argue a deliberate effort on the author’s part to suggest the dwarves’ ineptitude for artistic creation.

This suspicion is highlighted by the fact that most of Tolkien’s human (and Hobbit) characters, even the least portentous ones, while perhaps not attaining great heights of poetic creativity, manage to confirm to the basic rules of meter and cadence without too much discomfort.

Where there is an ambiguity in categorization of a particular poem in this regard, it is more often than not reflected in a corresponding ambiguity regarding the related characters in the text. Thus, for instance, Bilbo’s prophetic verse for Aragorn, while written in ‘abcb’ like his other rhymes, carries a tinge of Elven abstraction and presentiment. In the light of subsequent events, this is readily perceived as a device to create uncertainty regarding the Ranger’s identity

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be waken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

Compositional differentiation

Setting aside the obvious distinction in the subject matter of the ballads of the different races; there are numerous idiomatic idiosyncrasies in the verse of the non-humans that distinguishes it from human verse. The most significant is the use of adjectives or adverbs to open a new sentence, a much maligned pseudo - device for developing rhetorical tension. Thus, “Dark are the waters ………” to Gimli the Dwarf and “Long are the waves on the Last Shore falling” to Legolas the Elf. The linguistic phrasing of human and hobbit verse is much less stilted, and tends to be more descriptive and in the first person.

Perhaps as a consequence of their numerous dislocations, the human memory in Middle-Earth is rather hazy, making epic poetry possible only for them. In comparison, the Elves seem to retain records of their ancient history, thereby negating the possibility of the development of an epic form of verse in their cultures. Whereas Dwarves, facing much adversary and exile throughout their history, arrive at the epic form of their own accord, the hobbits do so only through contact with humans.

Philosophical differentiation

At a higher level, we find that Tolkien’s characters express views entirely in conformance with their assigned personalities. Thus, while Gandalf the Grey exudes prescience and secret wisdom in his somewhat abstruse verse, Bilbo’s songs express an indomitable spirit matching a bright but simple mind. The other hobbits, with the exception of Frodo, who is changed by his encounter with the Ring, follow Bilbo’s lead in this regard.

The most interesting comparison here is between the Elven and human myth songs. Whereas the Elven singers subscribe to a very submissive Semitic view of existence being a delusional dream inching towards eventual dissolution, human poetry in Tolkien’s work, while brushing upon the Semitic aspects of Middle-Earth mythology – the destruction of Numenor, for example – expresses elements of joy in struggle against adversity and at times a masochistic glory in Valhalla-like destruction. In this sense, it is more influenced by Nordic myth than the rest of Tolkien’s compositions.

Summary

In our analysis of J R R Tolkien’s poetry with reference to his legendarium of Middle-Earth, we find that he uses mythology masterfully to provide a framework for his characters to express their views regarding questions very fundamental to the human spirit. In doing so, Tolkien shows very clearly that the greatest purpose of mythology is to provide a detailed sociological frame of reference for analyzing human activity.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

Calling Dylan ........

Well you know, if people are going to keep dropping in on me from space and telling me I am foolish / selfish / lazy / whatever to have given up writing, I suspect I shall have to offer a note of explanation. The fact of the matter is, I have made up my mind to not write if I have nothing to say. My daily experiences are purely empirical evidence; they need to be analysed in perspective before I can hope to make them useful to a reader, right?

I have been thinking about the Hindi Jazz idea for quite a while now; those of you at the Saarang OAT LM thingummy will know that I am trying to channel my composition and guitar work in the same direction. However, this would not have been written unless I wasn't required, (at 12 hours' notice, the sluggard!) to write this as a Humanities assignment for my good friend Condom. Nevertheless, I really believe this is an idea whose time has now come; you, gentle reader, are welcome to prove it either way.

Once upon a time, Einstein was pressed into making an after-dinner speech. He rose dutifully when he was called upon to do the honors and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry. I have nothing to say." His host was horrified at his faux pax; Einstein assured him that he would amend matters one day. An year later, his erstwhile host got a telegram from Einstein, "Now I have something to say". He instantly threw a dinner party and Einstein delivered his after-dinner speech.

To quote the great man himself, "Now I have something to say"

Be well, all.

An anomaly in Indian musicology

Introduction

The theory and history of North Indian classical music has been the subject of copious documentation as part of its own tradition by virtue of its hereditary nature. With its assimilation into the hippie culture of the US in the 60s, it has been studied comprehensively by Western scholars as well.

With ‘raga’ rock becoming a sonic symbol of the 60s counterculture, it was only a matter of time before Indian masters would acquire fame for their ‘exotic’ scales and instruments among Western audiences. Unfortunately, this has led to a perception of Indian music as being mysterious and ‘exotic’. As evidence for the foregoing, one need only remember that the concept of ‘fusion’ instantly evokes images of sophistication and musical depth.

Fusion, as a blending of genres, has always been extant in the history of music. The exaltation of Indian classical music as an alien art form; aided and abetted by Indian musicians seeking to capitalize on this niche demand has caused us to lose sight of the evolution of Indian folk music and its integration into popular culture. In this essay, we document the phenomenon of ‘proto-fusion’, the genre that identifies what is popularly perceived as the Golden Age of Indian film music.

Studying pop music

As a rule of thumb, the study of different genres of music is fundamentally based on an analysis of the predominant scales used in its compositions. It is a generally held Western belief that the basis of classical music is the diatonic scale. However, crucially, it is now known that the diatonic scale has never played a role in Asian music. Any study of Asian music has to be arrived at through an analysis of the pentatonic scale.

It should come as no surprise then that the first Western musicians to take an interest in Indian music were pentatonic-based players, who found the tones of Indian music to resemble those of their own native and derived cultures – British blues-rock musicians.

Blues may, with some justification, be considered the universal language of world music. By incorporating the concept of tritone-shifted impure notes into the pentatonic scale, blues opened the doors for folk music to interact with classical concepts to form the vast creative musical universe of jazz.

The universal appeal of blues, it is posited here, bears a direct relation to the spread of Islam. Historically, the only musical culture to use tritones on a regular basis is the Arabic culture. With the Islamic conquest of Africa by the middle of the 11^th century, blues music developed over a period of 500 years as the African diatonic scale interacted with the conquering pentatonic culture in an antagonistic manner to create a chaotic, noisy and extremely emotive genre of music.

The Golden Age of Indian music

History

It is this music that found its way across the Atlantic on the lips and banjos of slaves in the American South. And so, with the emergence of jazz in the first few decades of the 20^th century, when Indian music finally found a stage for itself, following independence and the burgeoning of the film industry, it was to this culture that it looked for inspiration.

A Famous Example

If there is one musical phrase that summarizes the disregarded influences on Indian film music, it is the bebop tune, “My name is Anthony Gonsalves”. The music director, Laxmikant Pyarelal, in one of the many subliminal messages that litter the cinema of this era, pays tribute to his violin master – a Goanese named Anthony Gonsalves. Gonsalves is representative of the many Catholic musical preceptors who imbued the film music of the era with a distinctly Latin feel by drawing on their Goanese Portuguese musical roots.

Musical features

As Naresh Fernandes recounts, “By invoking the name of his violin teacher in that tune in Amar Akbar Anthony, the composer Pyarelal had finally validated the lives of scores of Goan Catholic musicians whose working years had been illuminated by the flicker of images dancing across white screens in airless sound studios, even as acknowledgement of their talent whizzed by in the flash of small-type credit titles.

The arc of their stories – determined by the intersection of passion and pragmatism, of empire and exigency – originated in church-run schools in Portuguese Goa and darted through royal courts in Rajasthan, jazz clubs in Calcutta and army cantonments in Muree. Those lines eventually converged on Bombay’s film studios, where the Goan Catholic arrangers worked with Hindu music composers and Muslim lyricists in an era of intense creativity that would soon come to be recognized as the golden age of Hindi film song.”

The decline

Intrinsic Causes

The Indian film industry (the music industry being a subset thereof) carried the seeds for its eventual decline into mediocrity within itself. The primary reason for this was the societal disapproval of the musical profession in India, as a result of orthodox Hindu and Muslim beliefs. As a result, Indian musicians never acquired the iconic notoriety that played such an important role in sustaining the creativity of American music past the swinging 60s.

Also the Goan involvement in music was also not heavily publicized before 1962 in consequence of the Indian insecurity vis-à-vis Portuguese occupation. As a result, the Goan innovators in the 1940-60 Indian film industry have remained unsung. By the law of diminishing returns, the Goan musicians, circa 1955, decided to subdue their distinctive style in order to survive in the competitive Bombay market.

Circumstantial Reasons

However, the precipitating factor in the emasculation of Indian film music was quite simply the expansion in its size. With a limited core of musicians and burgeoning studio demand, composers’ standards deteriorated; and with societal stigma preventing the rise of innovative successors, film music, save some honorable coruscations of creativity, had lapsed into tedium by the middle of the 70s.

In addition, the Western world in 1975 had entered the Golden Age of British Heavy metal; bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath had taken the next step in musical evolution by using volume and distortion as a canvas for expressing the nihilistic aggression of the post-Beat generation.

Whereas music in the US had acquired a substantial countercultural market allowing it to experiment and innovate unaffected by market forces; Indian musicians, restricted in their options by the economic crises of 70s India, had to toe the mainstream line. As a result, three successive generations of indigenous musical innovation were lost to creating unimaginative pop music.

The current scene

The current generation marks a turning point in terms of the musical evolution of our culture, and hence, it is crucial for us to understand its musical proclivities in terms of the perspective we have acquired from the foregoing.

All over the country, particularly in the metropolitan cities, small communities of adherents to the Western classic and metal rock counterculture are making their presence felt. These young, upper middle-class Indians, disenchanted with the puerile fare served up to them in their childhood; or influenced by the rare survivors of the commercial era, have taken to the Western cultural ethos with such conviction that it is almost impossible to view them in terms of their natural culture. Their music, their lyrics and their collective attitude is governed by the perceptions of the Western world – the Western world of 20 years ago, to boot.

Now, it is evident that, should such a scenario continue to exist, Indian folk music would be condemned to an unsung extinction in the near future. When the market dictates terms to mainstream music and a foreign culture to the alternative sections, indigenous music is left without too many possible practitioners.

Reasons for optimism

However, there is sufficient reason to believe that, with increasing awareness of our indigenous folk music traditions, change is imminent. A small but growing number of New Age Indian musicians have risen above the dogmas of both economics and iconoclasm to create music natural to their psyche and culture.

Neo-fusion, if we may term it that, is characterized by an eclectic set of musical idioms that are beginning to gain credence in both the film and alternative music industry. While this is partly (and almost comically) a consequence of the counterculture attempting to imitate the West’s appropriation of Indian culture, there are genuine efforts underway to integrate Indian folk themes into music that is technically proficient enough to command respect from the counterculture.

Sufi pioneer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, vocalist Shankar Mahadevan and percussionist Trilok Gurtu were among the first of this breed of Indian musicians. The bands Euphoria, Indian Ocean and Junoon are contemporary examples in this regard. Since the turn of the century, Indian audiences are turning increasingly appreciative of music that they can appreciate both viscerally and intellectually, a phenomenon that seems to bear a strong correlation to the rise of the “India Shining” paradigm.

Suggestions

This new brand of music, while a commendable effort at promoting indigenous music, appears to have digressed somewhat into a commercial direction. With the film industry still borrowing liberally from the Western idioms of heavy percussive backgrounds and power chords, this new generation is also finding its experimentation confined within the realm of the commercially exploitable.

The only possible solution to this over-professionalism and artificiality that permeates our music culture is to understand the story of the three lost generations of Indian music, and begin to compensate for it by patronizing the most recent authentic brand of Indian music at the grass roots level.

We need musicians who can play music from the 60s film genre with the technical proficiency that would inspire young adherents of the Western rock counterculture to seek out the truth about their own colorful musical heritage instead of being disillusioned into blind imitation of foreign countercultures.

The Golden Age of Indian music is lost in the discussion of the combine between Indian classical music and avant jazz; and the plaudits that Indian virtuosos now habitually earn at international performances. It is extremely convenient to perceive music as a performing art and forget that, in its essence, it is a source of ego-less happiness and not adrenalin-pumped self-esteem.

The musician owes a responsibility to society – the responsibility to articulate its deep-seated hopes and fears; the responsibility to be a voice that speaks of things they cannot express; the responsibility to be a window through which an audience can experience familiar emotions in varyingly new perspectives.

It is incumbent upon members of the counterculture – in their roles as performers and members of the audience – to distinguish the Western culture of virtuosic exhibitionism and dexterous perfectionism from the Eastern penchant for rhythmic percussion and melodic improvisation; shed their insecurity regarding embracing their indigenous culture and encourage the resurgence of authentic India folk music – music that describes the Indian culture of today.

Or, in colloquial terms, we need a Dylan or two.