Music and the city

What is a city’s identity? Its geography and history of course are sure markers of its existence. We invite people to visit our hometowns to sample the food, the festivals, the built landmarks, and its physical beauty. We talk about the people who populate the city and usually have strong opinions about it.

Can a city be identified through music as well? Popular music is produced in every big city in a big way and in other smaller cities in a, well, smaller way. Mumbai could possibly be identified by the music that adorns its famous Bollywood. The same goes for Chennai and the music of its films. It is also an important centre for Carnatic classical. Delhi is home to homegrown Hindi-Punjabi rap and extreme forms of Hindi pop. Shillong has rock, blues and choral music, mostly in English. And Calcutta is not all Rabindrasangeet.

Calcutta has been a cradle nurturing good music which gained a solid reputation all over the world. Rabindranath Tagore will always be the first to come to mind with his lyrics becoming the national anthems of India and Bangladesh and inspiring the Sri Lankan one. There are Kazi Nazrul, Atul Prosad, Salil Chowdhury among others. There’s so much more in the Hindustani classical genre, Shyama Sangeet, Baul and Bhatiyali, the list is never ending. Contemporary music in English, Bangla, Hindi is not far behind.

Someone wisely said that art in our lives is what makes us human. Music is art. Like all forms of art, you can love some of it or all of it. And rarely, not at all. It certainly has a lasting impression on the city’s psyche. When people are exposed to art at every level, there is a change in their attitude, their demeanour. Is that a good enough reason to claim Calcutta as a tolerant city, forgiving, enabling, uplifting? In my honest opinion, it is.

At the time of writing, it is the longest day of the year, the summer solstice. It is also World Music Day and the information I have says there are at least 12 different events happening all over Calcutta celebrating music and dance. The venues range from the iconic Indian Museum to a 5-star hotel, a shopping mall, and places in-between. The French government’s Alliance Française du Bengale is participating in one of these events, predictably the one at the hotel. A WAG noted of this particular event, “where you pay big money for the drinks and big musicians play for free”.

So I indulge in conjecture. Do we have too many young people learning music, performing, often with great skill and talent, making it a crowded space offering inadequate compensation? Would music-loving audiences rather pay for high-priced drinks, but not to see and hear musicians perform? A sad conundrum, it is at once true and open to stormy debate.

Independent musicians country-wide, across a spectrum of genres but with limited audiences, are heavily outweighed by the glamour and superb production values of commercial music mostly from the film industry. In other words, Bollywood. This music is widely available, generously sponsored, receives inordinate amounts of publicity across traditional and social media networks.

Which then begs the question, if niche musicians are not selling, are they good enough musically? I know many of them compare favourably with accepted international standards. Yet I see their attitude resembling frogs in a well. And expanding on the amphibious simile, they end up being crabs in a bucket because of this. No one is denying their ability to create original music, nor their skills and talent. They work hard and spend loads of money on production quality but the majority of them will never make a decent living from it.

It is unlikely any mutually beneficial solution will ever evolve any time soon. What is certain is Calcutta’s identity as a place of music is solid, albeit without much benefit to the creators. And therein lies the rub.