Art Matters

 Look at the title of our blog. The " matters" here is both a noun and a verb. This grammatical ambivalence adds two layers of meaning to the title. It means, art matters, that is, art is important, on the one hand. On the other, it suggests art matters, artistic issues. 

Currently in Pune both these meanings appear valid. Why do I say so? Well, look at the decoration of the Ganapati pandals. Marvels of architecture these art decorations are. Right now, in Pune, they allow you a "darshan" of the Kedarnath temple, the Mahalaxmi temple, the Guruvayur Padmanabh Swami temple, the Meenakshi temple in Madurai, for instance.

Why, you can see the Dwarka under water, the Verul-Ajanta sculptures in their glory, the Krishna Vrindavan, and so on, and so on. The electricity dependent  decorations, wherein colourful lights dance to famous Bollywood tunes, are absolutely an eyeful in every sense of the term. There are AI decorations, live performances, the works, in brief.

Yet another reason why "art matters" in Pune right now is because of the Pune Festival. Made famous by the Suresh Kalmadi-Hema Malini duo, it is as major an event in the Pune art itinerary as the Sawai Gandharva Mahotsav in December.

I could attend a part of it in the evening on Thursday. The occasion was the santoor performance by Shantanu Gokhale, my colleague Gokhale Madam's highly talented son. I loved the performance for two reasons. Shantanu performed excellently as ever. What was most remarkable was that he himself was enjoying each 'sur' as well as the tabla saath. Wonderful indeed!

The second reason that made this mehfil astounding matters much to me. In a way, Pune Festival is a kind of 'open mic' event. The audience hence need not be the cognoscenti. The santoor, moreover, is a very difficult instrument to play.

Yet such was Shantanu's artistic excellence that an absolute commoner sitting in the next row, must be a mason or some such factory worker returning home after a tiring day, was humming along  the tunes in his rough voice. When Shantanu started playing the rather unknown Rag Rageshri, this man, an estate agent who was loudly bragging about a land deal ("sixty acres in 2500 rupees!") on his mobile, forgot it. He actually fell silent. He was, moreover, enjoying the delicate trills.

At one such unique moment of the wonderful performance, a "goonda", a "dada" kind of fellow started clapping so loudly that those of us sitting in the last row, could not hear the tabla. An uncle sitting in the next row was literally dancing while sitting! So lost he was to the lovely performance. 

Well, art is true art when it thus accords a soul, at least temporarily, to commoners who might not otherwise know the "s" of soul or "a" of art. Hence art matters! Shantanu sure deserves utmost kudos for proving this universal truth yet again.

Pratima@ Let me present yet another example of "art matters".  My nephew, Kunal, plays the guitar brilliantly. Gifted he is like his flute playing father. Aai used to love his practice of "mile sur mera tumhara". Throughout the Diwali, Kunal perfected each sur as the performance for Raju's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary was on the day after Bhaubeej. For months on end, "mile sur" was her anthem. Such was Kunal's total immersion in the world of music.

On the occasion of Sanju's sixtieth birthday, Kunal's performance was excellent as usual, so much so that every artist in the Jitendra Bhuruk group, including the professional guitar player in the troupe, praised him hugely.

For me, however, the most memorable were the moments when forgetting everything around, he was in his own world, enjoying a lot the most critical sur, the unique attainment of the sur-taal faultlessly managed, smiling softly to himself, given the successful execution of  the tough passages in the guitar pieces, an image etched in my soul. Art matters indeed!