A Very Enlightening Article on the New India: Suhel Seth and the Art of the 'Effortless' Climb

This is a piece in Caravan magazine, by Mihir Sharma, on Suhel Seth.


I'm linking it here because it is very telling about the New Shining world we are all supposed to inhabit, and about the people who make that world. Incidentally, I think Sharma's got it right, not just about Seth, but about the milieu he inhabits, that breeds him, and others like him.


In that sense, SS has to be read as a protagonist in a novel of bildungsroman, which is defined by the Merriam-Webster as 'a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character'.


 Wikipedia says:


"A Bildungsroman tells about the growing up or coming of age of a sensitive person who is looking for answers and experience. The genre evolved from folklore tales of a dunce or youngest son going out in the world to seek his fortune (...). In a bildungsroman, the goal is maturity, and the protagonist achieves it gradually and with difficulty. The genre often features a conflict between the main character and society. Typically, the values of society are gradually accepted by the protagonist and he is ultimately accepted into society -- the protagonist's mistakes and disappointments are over. In some works, the protagonist is able to reach out and help others after achieving maturity" (emphasis my own)


Well, hahahahahaha.
And when you've read Sharma's take on Suhel Seth, you'll know why i'm laughing. Have fun:


The Age of Seth, by Mihir Sharma

Yes, really, why this Kolaveri Di?

What are the basic parameters by which artistic merit is to be evaluated in a song?

The standard parameters would be musical and lyrical quality. Within musical quality, it is possible (although not always profitable) to separately evaluate melody and percussive elements.

Then there is the song itself considered as a whole, combining the separate elements. This is equal to, but usually much greater than the mere sum of the elements. Consider this song from Door Gagan ki Chhaon Me (1964)

'Aa Chal ke Tujhe', Kishore Kumar

In terms of both melody and lyrical structure, this song is commonly regarded as a 'classic', having withstood the greatest test of all, which is the test of time. More interesting for our purposes, the song is, on both parameters, quite integrated with the notions it describes: a dream of a better world, rendered against a reality that falls decidedly short. So the lyrics are straightforward, clear and emotive, the melody line that accompanies it is simply that -- a melody line that offsets significant ideas of the world which are expressed, in a specific manner, within the lyrics.

The reason I am doing this impromptu (and shorthand) analysis is that I am currently somewhat bemused by the reaction to a contemporary song called 'Kolaveri Di', by an audience that cut its musical ears on songs such as the 1964 classic you just heard. I do understand the rebellion of youth, the need to move on, and updated modes of expression, but it is somewhat alarming when these otherwise reasonable impulses seem also concomitant with a depressing lack of ability to distinguish between good, bad and indifferent music.

About 'Kolaveri Di'. These are the lyrics:

"yo boys i am singing song

soup song

flop song

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
rhythm correct

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di
maintain please

why this kolaveri..di

distance la moon-u moon-u 

moon-u  color-u  white-u

white background night-u nigth-u

night-u color-u black-u

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

white skin-u girl-u girl-u

girl-u heart-u black-u

eyes-u eyes-u meet-u meet-u

my future dark

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di

maama notes eduthuko

apdiye kaila snacks eduthuko
pa pa paan pa pa paan pa pa paa pa pa paan
sariya vaasi

super maama ready

ready 1 2 3 4

whaa wat a change over maama"

Lyrics, then, are clearly not the most meaningful element of this song.

If the lyrics are this asinine, one thinks, then the musical scores must be marvellous, rendered by a truly unusual, rich, complex voice. Sometimes voices and musical scores are so breathtaking that it is possible to miss some obvious embarrassments in the lyrical sphere. An example of this is songs from the 'Buena Vista Social Club', based in Cuba. In these songs, the beauty of the language of the lyrics, combined with truly attractive melody and percussion lines, hide the cliched banality of the meanings of the lyrics. Let me demonstrate:

Buena Vista Social Club [live], Chan-chan

Look up the lyrics for this song. They are not particularly profound, or even interesting. But the music is wonderful, and the singer has a range that belies his eighty-odd years. Now, here is 'Kolaveri D'

Kolaveri Di

That's just monotonous: really pointless lyrics, whiny tonality, perhaps mildly attractive at best. Why then, the hype? Well, Dhanush is married to 'Rajini Sir's' daughter Aishwarya, and that's always a draw in icon-addled India. That's also a very solid reason for the media machine to do the equivalent of word-of-mouth. After all, we all know that Rajinikant cannot -- and should not -- be crossed.

Jokes aside, there's plenty of reasons that a media system that thrives on stardom has an investment in creating and retaining stars. And even more reasons why Rajinikant should be kept happy :)

What I am suggesting is that the popularity of this song has little to do with the qualities of the song itself, and more to do with externals, principal among which are (a) the star-connection of the protagonists (Dhanush and Aishwarya), and (b) qualities endemic to the technology of the disseminating medium itself.

This is perhaps one of the first examples of a combination of  the classic eastern tradition of  rumour, and a sophisticated understanding of the putting out, and retrieval of information on the internet.

Search heuristics, engines, and niche marketing using social networks are clearly the things of the future. I think that the strange popularity of 'Kolaveri Di' gives us a picture of that media future.

Chittaprosad

Born in Naihati, undivided Bengal, in 1915. Full name Chittaprosad Bhattacharya. 

Ideologically, it seems that the man had two basic preoccupations -- first, the fight against colonialism

And second, an angry understanding of the feudalism and class structure that were a part of India herself. 

Chittaprosad dropped the 'Bhattacharya' early on, preferring to go by only his first name.

He joined the Communist Party of India soon after college. 

In 1943, at the age of twenty-eight, he travelled through Midnapur during the Bengal Famine. Some of his prolific recording of the famine was published in The People's War, the CPI's weekly newspaper.

                                                                                        

He was clearly horrified by what he saw, and, also clearly, he strove for realism

This man's name was Kshetramohan Naik, and he lived in Midnapore. 

We know this because Chittaprosad was not content to simply draw the horror. He reported on individuals --people, their families and homes, and what the Famine had done to them.

So many of his drawings from this period have the names of the subject written just beside the illustration. 

Somehow knowing the name of a person changes it all. You have to wonder how many of the many individuals and families he drew survived the famine. Not many, probably.

Our British overlords reacted with predictability. They burnt every copy of his artwork they could find. This was lots of copies of  the weekly, and all but one copy of his collected visual ethnography of the famine, Hungry Bengal. 

And then there are his political illustrations

That's pretty clear, then.

Swinging the arc between deep empathy and acid humor in expression, there is however very little ambiguity about where his sympathy lies

He used the traditional pen-and-ink, but also linocut, woodcut, charcoal and watercolours. 

Using lino or wood to make blocks from which to print means carving out all the detail of the picture in the mirror image and in the negative

A friend who studied art tells me cutting is an unforgiving sort of activity. You make one mistake, you start all over again. These were Chittaprosad's preferred media of expression.

He has some wonderful children's art, and he started an illustrated Ramayana, which was never finished. Some of those prints are quite incredible. He also has some really neat frogs, at least one of which dances with an umbrella under the Bengal rain.

Chittaprosad died 1978 in Kolkata, the capital of by then divided Bengal.

Centre to spend Rs, 30,000 crore on linking villages with broadband

This story appeared on the last page (p. 20) of  today's  The Hindu.

It says that Sam Pitroda (Advisor to the PM on Infrastructure, Innovation and Information) announced that that the centre would spend the named quite large sum on providing more than 2.5 lakh villages with broadband connectivity. 'We need 30,000 to 40,000 more kms of optical fibre,' said Pitroda, and about '25,000 to 30,000 crore for all this'. They are working on reducing the cost of the project, he says.

Interesting to me are the following features implicit in the story:

1. Have these 2.5 lakh villages wanted broadband connectivity? If asked, would they possibly want other things, such as better irrigation, more health facilities, and primary or secondary schools that work?

2. 'The connectivity', apparently, 'would not only improve the delivery of government schemes, but would also empower rural people'. I'm wondering about these government schemes on the internet that our educated villagers would widely access and read. I'm also wondering if all of these 2.5 lakh villages have the means to actually deliver these schemes to the people

3. Who is manufacturing the optical fibre? What is their history in the industry? I'm not asking the next few questions, but you know what they are :)

4. Apparently our villagers will have to pay 'Rs. 1.20 a minute to the US, Rs 1.20 mobile and Rs 7.20 on landline to the UK, and Rs 1.20 to China'. Wow. Our villages are clearly better networked internationally than anyone thought.

This, to me is the familiar story of development planning in India. In 1978, a man called Mahbub-ul-Haq, founder of the UN Human Development Reports, wrote a book called The Poverty Curtain. In it, he commented on the gaps between intention and fact in development policy making:

'Development planners are quite fond of making a distinction between planning and implementation. When hard pressed, they generally argue that while development planning is their responsibility, its implementation is the responsibility of the entire political and economic system. This is no more than a convenient alibi.'

To the decades-old problems with development planning, we, in this era, add the profit motives implicit (or explicit) in being involved in the exploding scene of new India telecom. What we get, inexplicably, is the picture of a rural India with a burning need to be in touch with the US, the UK and China -- on broadband.

Figure it out.