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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
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