There are no seats left. No place to sit, even in the aisles. The auditorium is so full, there are audience members sitting on the stage, squeezing the performers into a tight semi-circle slightly off-centre. The venue—CD Deshmukh Auditorium at the India International Centre in Delhi—seats 230. But there must be close to 300 people inside. The Ranjani-Gayatri concert in New Delhi we are at, is organized by HCL Concerts and Gurukul Foundation, and entry is free. Accompanying the Ra-Ga sisters are seasoned percussionists Sai Giridhar on mridangam and Krishna Sriram on ghatam, and on violin, Charumathi Raghuraman—a disciple of T.N. Krishnan from the time she was seven years old.
At the back of the venue, there's a row of superannuated South Indian uncles and aunties sitting in chairs that are not normally part of the auditorium furniture. They periodically scold people who've not found seats, telling them to sit on the floor so they can see. "What will you do if the concert goes on for 3 hours," an irate uncle gnashes. He gets his answer soon enough—the concert lasts over 150 minutes, and most people standing are still there at the close.
As the concert proceeds, an atmosphere builds. To be sure, there's still some grumbling about people pushing and trying to get a glimpse of the stage. But by and large, they seem to have given themselves over to just feeling what they are hearing. There are more hands counting out the taal. More heads bobbing and bodies swaying as the music rises and falls.
The musicians on stage seem to be having a good time, too. Percussionists Ghatam Krishna and Sai Giridhar and violinist Charumathi Raghuraman get solo sections and sections where they riff off of each other. With no obvious displays of hierarchy muddying the experience, it's a celebration of music without much ceremony—the vocabulary and grammar are strict, but the interpretations and iterations can be surprising. No one seems to be in any rush, letting the rhythm guide and the mood take over. Tonal clarity is basic hygiene here, but there's something more at play—an alchemy of notes and beats. The sound transcending language and regional identity. You clearly don't need to have deep knowledge of the form or its history, so long as you surrender to the sound...
Born to musician parents, Carnatic vocalists (and violinists) Ranjani and Gayatri have been performing since the 1990s. They do lecture demonstrations too, for people who want to know more about Indian classical music. But first and foremost, they are interested to engage and entertain. Throughout the concert, the sisters offer small notes on what they are singing and in which raga. They take an audience request, too. Towards the end, they actively seek audience participation.
"How should we end this concert?" asks Gayatri.
"Abhang," the crowd echoes. An abhang is a Marathi devotional song dedicated to Lord Vitthal.
There's some back and forth on which abhang, and the sisters launch into the final number for the evening.
By the time the concert wraps up, it's past 8.30 pm. Outside, Delhi rains have washed the streets clean. Ranjani and Gayatri stay back to talk to audience members who go up with requests for selfies and a short conversation. It's past 9 when Moneycontrol catches up to them with questions that've haunted the Classical arts for decades: what's the future for this form; who is coming to these concerts now; do thoughts of revival, reform, and audience engagement drive their work or would they be content with playing the purest form of the music for ever smaller groups of listeners as long as they can conserve tradition?
If they are tired, they don't show it. They have a US tour coming up, and must fly back to Chennai in the morning. After two-plus hours of sitting on stage, they opt to stand as we talk about their art, their approach and their audience. Edited excerpts from the conversation:
How important is the audience to your performances? Do you think the audience is growing—do you consciously think about audience composition, participation and bringing the audiences back to Carnatic music?
Ranjani: Now, can I ask a question as well. You watched the concert today, and you saw how many were youngsters...
Was it a 70-30 split between older people and some younger people?
Ranjani: On the stage and in the auditorium, there were at least 60 percent, if not more, young people or people who can sit up, sit down, you know, not very old, still very active. When you find the composition in the audience more towards younger people, people in their 40s, working professionals, I would say, it means that the art is thriving, that people love to listen to classical music and they do understand it, they are able to engage with it.
Gayatri: Now, the artist has to be very proactive, has to be very alert to pick up the signals around. You can't say that I have done my practice, I have done my sadhana, and now I'm tayaar (ready). And then action, rinse, repeat. That doesn't work anymore. This is a constant manthan. There's a constant churn that has to happen, both (in terms of) going deep into an art, but also having an eye on the audience as a performer.
There're two hats that we wear as an artist: As a musician, you can go deep into your art, but then as a performer, you realize that the depth of the art has to propel you into making that reach to the audience. And every year throws up a different challenge.
As we move forward in time, we see that there are different challenges -- COVID happened and then the virtual performance happened. In the midst of all this, how do you make your art thrive? How do you make your art resonate in a way that forces the person who wants to sit in his armchair and enjoy a TV serial at home -- how do you make him step into the hall for an experience that he would never have if he didn't come to the hall? So that responsibility is on us. And I think so long as you keep responding to these challenges and be true to the values that have been handed down, I think you're doing a great job.
How important is the audience to you? During the performance, you asked the audience questions and even took a request. So, how important are they to your performances? For example, would you be content with just sitting in a room with some other musicians, practising, jamming; or is the audience key in some way?
Ranjani: Performance essentially feeds off the energy (of the audience). It is not a one-way communication—that we sing and they receive and that's it. We give and they receive it—it's not like that. It works when there's synergy; their collective enthusiasm: They listen, and it definitely feeds into the whole atmosphere. Mahol banta hai (It creates atmosphere), and from that we also take a lot of inspiration.
Gayatri: You would have seen that at some points (during the concert), the feeling was too profound and they (the audience) didn't need to clap (to keep taal). In the midst of the viruttam (devotional song), for instance. Or at the point of the alaap, or at the point of the composition, they don't need to applaud loudly because the feeling is too profound for them to break that spell with the sound of applause. It's a different experience, but as a performer, I love it. I love that the art that we cherish in silence, in the privacy of our home, assumes such a beautiful colour when it is presented in an auditorium that overflows with people. And it is beautiful either way, and you have to enjoy both avatars of it.In terms of audience composition, how much do you think was South Indian versus pan-Indian and is that important to you?
Ranjani: We don't do all this data collection, statistics, anything like that. We actually do not know how many were Tamilians or Teluguites or Delhiites or North Indians?
Let me rephrase the question: are you thinking about opening up the form to people who didn't grow up listening to Carnatic music? There are of course the percussion element, elements of repetition, elements of artists giving each other space to interpret the music and expand on their ideas within the larger context of the concert, elements of artists riffing off of each other which should ideally be enjoyable for a wider audience.
Ranjani: It's a wonderful point. The music has in it a universality, a diversity which need not result in only people belonging to a certain language, or people of a particular spiritual approach connecting with it.
Gayatri: We sang in Sanskrit, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu. You also saw Marathi. But the phrase that we've always heard is that music is beyond language or it has a language of its own.
Gayatri: We also try things like, if it's a Tamil song, (we set the context) where probably you would not know the back story... Anyone can connect to timeless epics like The Ramayana and The Mahabharata, so when Ranjani explains the story, it helps people understand the emotion in that song. (Before singing Arunachala Kavi's composition 'Eppadi manam thunindado' during the concert, the sisters told the story from The Ramayana where Sita gets angry with Ram for suggesting that he would go on exile alone, leaving her behind in the palace.)You also identify as educators in this form. How important is that in terms of building what an audience looks like, who comes for concerts, whether the art is carried forward into the future?
Ranjani: The service to the art actually comes in two parts. One is inspiration through concerts. When you listen to some inspiring concerts, it leaves an everlasting mark. You savour that experience for a long time, you remember that one concert that happened when you were young. So, concert is a very important part in connecting our culture, classical music with people. Another thing that is very important is education. Because what is the next step? When they want to understand better, they want to engage deeper, then education is very important. They need to know what is what, in order to enjoy it even better. Because in classical music there are many layers. So to be able to understand each layer, if you are in that journey, your sense of appreciation and enjoyment increases that much.
Gayatri: Teachers are every bit as important as performers. Sometimes both hats are worn by the same person. But then I would say teachers are primordially important in the dissemination of the art... We do our best. We have a lot of students. We've also conducted masterclasses. We have done a series of videos called RaGa Candid, where we talk about so many aspects of music in a way that people can identify with our journey. And these are the ways that we think that we can tell people that, hey, this can be part of your life too.
Ranjani: And it's not as esoteric as some believe.
Gayatri: The hope is that classical music will not remain in that insulated niche. That's the hope.
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