The flautist/flutist Shashank Subramanyam has an interview in the Friday Review section of The Hindu today.
The 2009 Grammy nominee, who has been learning from Pandit Jasraj, is asked about his love for North Indian classical music.
How do you find North Indian music different?
My music has so much of the North Indian system. Actually, the treatment of ragas is similar in both systems; the format of presentation is different. I am able to play with tabla players quite easily as my music has so much of the North.
A typical Carnatic music concert has so much more sharing by different artists on stage. Time theory of ragas (playing a raga only at a certain time) did exist in Carnatic music but now it is not followed. We can play any raga at any time.
Note wise, some ragas in the South Indian system are totally different while some are very similar like Nat Bhairav and Raga Sarasangi (Raga Nat Bhairav was given its present shape by Pandit Ravi Shankar).
Also, I feel in North Indian music, the instrumentalists have their own specialised techniques; in Carnatic music, the instruments follow the voice much more closely.
I lament that Carnatic music is heard so sparingly in the major North Indian festivals – the audience is just not attuned to our style of presentation. The reverse is not really true and much more North Indian music is heard all over South India.
The story of Indians north of the Vindhyas being indifferent to the magic of Karnatak music is a tale of of unintended consequences. The I&B ministry commandeered the infelicitously dubbed Bollywood to carry out the chauvinist program of making Hindi the national language of the India, flouting the new nation’s constitution. Mumbai money, Delhi political patronage–the Film censor Board constantly OKying steamy stuff in Hindi movies–and an ocean of talent made stuff that poor peasants like me in the south had even trouble imagining. The light skinned actresses and the rarely dark skinned macho actors dancing to sexually suggestive songs, and the Hindu heroes making mincemeat of miscreants in all strata of society made south Indian cinema look like a garage for old vehicles.
The unintended consequences: Non-Hindi India did not give up its native tongues. Madras learned to challenge Bombay in movie making and to offer us hours of our dasyu sundaries and their mustachioed paramours entertaining us by mimicking the Bombaywallas walliis. However, the south was far from matching the Orphic, oceanic talent of the Saigals, Mukeshs, Mangeshkars and the Hemantdas of the North. We did not learn to speak Hindi, but were mesmerised by filmi music based classical Hindustani beats and tunes. North Karnataka gave birth to a number of the greatest vocalists Hindustani music has ever known. We are hooked on Hindustani music in ways unknown to ourselves.
Most music lovers in the north have heard a bhjan or two by M. S, subbulakshmi or, perhaps Jesudas. They don’t watch Kannada, Tamil. Telugu, or Malayalam movies unless they are award winning feats screened for the cognoscenti.
Enough. Let the North begin to understand it alone does not constitute India, an idea we are still trying to reify.
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In simple words, South adopts all Indian Music as their own. But North have their own superiority complex and reject all South matters (except Sambar, of course)
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