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R. Sundaram

December, for Chennaites, is a chilly month or a silly one depending on whether one is a music buff or a home bird. It is the month when the kutcheri (concert)-hoppers of Chennai get immersed in Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam and other dance forms.

It is the month when the breakfast staple switches from idli and sambar to bun/bread and butter, in the rush to reach a lecdem, that is, lecture-demonstration. Here, while listening to esoteric history and geography of ragas and tala, all one has to do is nod or merely look intelligent.

The important question occupying the mind of the listener even as he looks serious about music during lecdems is deciding where to go next. The choice is between listening to an aspiring artist in a non air-conditioned Sabha or going to another where the canteen is known to serve delicious oothappams. In this battle, often the palate wins. To sate his stomach and his longing for music — lunch, snacks and filter coffee, on the one hand, and varnam (set piece), kirthanai (lyrical song) and thani avarthanam (percussion ensemble) on the other — the typical kutcheriwalah with the spouse in tow ends up in his regular Sabha. He is a member of the Sabha or has bought `season tickets'. More important, this is where the husband and wife team know that see and are seen by the right people. Beau Tibbs can take a lesson or two in snobbery from the kutcheri-goers.

If anyone outside the charmed circle of Sabha-goers accosts the kutcheri-goer, the latter will commiserate with him for having missed out totally on life.

However, to such outsiders, this compulsive listening is as much a psychological phenomenon as as addiction. Even if it is universally acknowledged that music is soothing and calming to the nerves, how can one cram it all in one fortnight from morning to night to the exclusion of all other things? People who sit inside transatlantic heated houses, fly half way across the globe only to sit again inside these air-conditioned auditoria from noon to midnight and willingly submit to this stupor when the Chennai weather is at its pleasantest and its beaches beckon to be visited makes one wonder who is missing out on life.

(The author is a former Member, Ordnance Board.)

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