Subverting a faith of many rhythms
Easily the most evolved feature of Indian culture has been its myriad musical and dance forms.
The fire tragedy at the Kollam temple came from an opposite development. Politically induced cultural aggression, wasteful indulgence and equally a subversion of what was innately musical and rhythmic forms of worship.
Fireworks, let us be clear, is not at all Indian, nor is it Hindu. The RSS may worship Kalashnikovs in its shastra
pooja, but the gun, much like the shorts its cadres wear, has its origins outside India. Gunpowder was discovered in China and as far as we know it came to India with Babar who used cannon to maul the armies of Ibrahim Lodhi.
The belief in weapons spewing fire in the golden past was spread recently by Ramanand Sagar and Masoom Raza Rahi through TV versions of Ramayan and Mahabharat.
Undeniably, the fireworks that led to the calamity in Kerala were foreign to Indian culture. They were not only imported from China but also belonged to Chinese alchemy. The gunpowder was invented during the Tang dynasty in 9th century, and the earliest record of a written formula appeared in the Song dynasty in the 11th century. It spread to Europe and elsewhere and its arrival there dramatically transformed military strategies.
Only last month, I was in Kerala, visiting its temples and churches just for the music and dance. We are told a mosque came up there in the lifetime of the Prophet (PBUH). An ancient synagogue speaks of the tradition this innately beautiful land has nurtured. One of its oldest churches endorses the claim. And music is something to experience in Kerala.
Hitherto one could have savoured the choir music in a church. My children have joined the singing of carols or hymns and psalms in different parts of India. The experience at the Catholic congregation was something dif- ferent. The songs were in Malayalam as are the Islamic discourses in Kerala. Anyone who has heard the music of M.S. Subbalakshmi cannot but be converted to the beauty that Hinduism flaunts. Yesudas, the Christian devotee of Lord Krishna, can only be found in Kerala. One of the leg- endary Kathakali artists, an exponent of the timeless dance drama form of Kerala, was a Muslim. Kathakali is a men-only art form of storytelling from Hindu legends.
Aravan muttu, duff muttu and dahar are drums unique to the Muslims of Kerala. The music you can experience there will make you wonder why some people want to subvert this with gunpowder. If you were to see the Hindu Malayali men with their glistening dark bodies leaping high in the air, as I did, still striking the chenda as they would pirouette through the beats, you would wonder who thought up their subver- sion with intrusions.
We have known a few musicians from the south who have adapted easily to Hindustani music. There is none to my mind from the north who ventured into Carnatic music except perhaps one. Ustad Abdul Karim Khan died in 1938, three years after recording Rama Nee Samana Mevaru, a Thyagaraja composition in Raag Kharharpriya. It is a total submission to Lord Ram. How did firecrackers come into this?
At one level, one could argue there has been a fall in the appeal of the most musical of religions on earth. Lord Shiva with his damru, Krishna with his flute, Vishnu with his conch shell and Lord Brahma’s consort Saraswati make for Hindudom’s highest ranking troika advocates of music as worship. In its determination to create a monolithic faith RSS-led Hindutva has settled for a far less aesthetic Hinduism.
The fall in standards can be measured. For example, D.V. Paluskar has been supplanted by Narendra Chanchal as the purveyor of bhajans. RSS cadres trained to beat drums threaten to replace the chenda. Firecrackers threaten to turn tradition into a vulgar ritual, espoused by a neo-fascist cult.