Some music every day

Now World Music Day has caught on. What started as a local ode to music by the French culture minister Jack Lang in the Eighties, has come a long way today. That people across continents, cultures, languages enjoy this common firmament of music, is a gratifying thought and above all the event lauds the thundering universality of the musical sound.

For some people music is their every day deal. Each day is a fête de la musique, it’s a celebration of music. Like this accordion player in my favourite city of Paris who has been at the same street for years, unfading, ever smiling, playing his tunes regardless of whether the pennies fall into his hat or not. Day after day he settles himself with his coffee and begins the day’s work unperturbed. Each time I see him, I want to ask him what keeps him on despite the hard deal that is his. Each time I would make up my mind to speak with him, it would end with a mutual smile and never go beyond. He recognises me well enough now and perhaps some day during the next trip, I shall stop and understand the secret that keeps him going day after day at the street corner, friendly nod and accordion in place.

His counterparts do the rounds of the metro, singing, playing on trains. The regular Parisian usually has a ear for them and generously drops a coin into the glass as they come around after the little show. Curiously enough, I am yet to see a female musician on the Parisian metro! The tourist is awe struck by this display of music in the otherwise dark tunnels of the metro. On Line 6, one of my favourite metro lines, the train suddenly emerges from the darkness of the tunnel to a radiant sight that takes everyone’s breath away. The Seine flowing with the splendid Tower standing in the background, graceful and imposing; a whole view of the luminous city that spreads itself before an audience before the train once again descends into its underground path. Even the regular French traveller on this line is not indifferent to this journey. How I love this passage! I pass through everyday but I love it each time. I overheard a young lady telling her friend. Just at the moment as it resurfaced into this beautiful sight, a metro singer broke into an old melody of yesteryears. I do not think he had planned his moment but the whole episode was so heart-warming that the entire carriage was moved. On the one hand the gorgeous river city that made its presence felt subtly and boldly. On the other, the music that emanated out of nowhere. It was a moment that became immortal for all the people who were with me that instant within the metro. The small chatter that had momentarily gone into silence resumed once again as people got out of the trance. The music added the difference to this inexplicable experience. I have taken Line 6 several times but this journey was different and I will remember it for a long time to come. It has been a while since I have taken the suburban trains in my hometown Mumbai. How I wish we could make a more dignified space for our train singers and performers. I have heard several melodious abhangs and fascinating old Hindi film songs on those train lines. World Music Day or not, we live and breathe music in our everyday lives in some measure or the other. “Sur ka lagaav” or the attachment to the musical note is perhaps embedded in all of us; sometimes it just takes a little something to stir it from its dormant state, to take cognisance of it.

I rediscovered the gem that raga Kuntalavarali is, in my meeting with the musicians at the conservatory of Rouen. Kuntalavarali is no new raga to me, I was introduced to it in my early childhood. It had then and still continues to have in my heart the place that the vibrant prance of an innocent child would. It has a gamine touch to it. It springs, it leaps, yet soothens. The primordial connect between the sa note and its ma note lends it a piquant flavour rendering it startlingly unique. Its simplicity shorn of any added ornamentation but its very own, made it a favourite for the Western musicians, a raga that they could identify with. That my composition Sapphire was born into Kuntalavarali is only incidental. The raga soars supreme, it is all that matters.

Dr Vasumathi Badrinathan is an eminent Carnatic vocalist based in Mumbai