Turning the beat around

I first met Saravanan and Nityanand Jayaraman at the Vettiver Collective office in Urur Olcott Kuppam, a fishing village in Chennai, on August 25, 2014. I went to them with a simple, naive idea of a festival of Music and Dance in a ‘non-elitist/upper caste’ neighbourhood of Chennai. I knew that many art forms, including the so-called classical were trapped within certain sections of society and there was a need to make them accessible to everyone. Little did I know that this would take me on a path of questioning, joy, new friendships and learning. My starting point was obviously Karnatik music. I was stifled by conditioned conformism and Brahminical dominance and wanted the art to break free in aesthetic, social, religious and political terms.

But I was entirely new to an active socio-cultural conversation and had not thought through the complexities involved in such a discourse. I was fighting against my own privilege but unaware of how it functions by default, irrespective of whether I acknowledge its presence or not. Soon I also learnt that this cannot and should not be about my art; it is about every person and every art form. This had to be an equal, selfless dialogue of sharing. Though I had over the years engaged with other art forms and admired them,

I had never made an effort to understand the realities of their social and aesthetic marginalisation. I recognised that the cultural, aesthetic, social and political are eternally bound together but was unsure of how to address their conjoined existence.

Saravanan was a member of the Urur Kuppam fishing village administrative body and Nityanand Jayaraman was a social activist whose contribution to various social, environmental, civic and political movements was, and is, immeasurable. Nityanand had very little to do with the classical music world and Saravanan had, and still has, very little interest in the sound of the Karnatik.

It was from this initial conversation that the Urur Olcot Kuppam Vizha (festival) came into being. The three of us interpreted the need for the festival in different ways. For me it was cultural freedom; for Nityanand, it was the fact that such a festival could change the perception of the kuppam and the fisherfolk; Saravanan saw it as an opportunity to celebrate the lives, arts, culture of the fisherfolk and newer artistic experiences. It was also a vehicle to address the inequality in civic services provided for the village. Every volunteer who joined us from then on came with perceptions of their own and this has kept our exchanges and decisions open to change and redrafting.

From the very beginning, certain things were clear. The festival was to be entirely volunteer driven and financially supported by the public. We announced it on Facebook and soon a group of twenty came together to bring this dream to life. Today we have a core team of about twenty people (too many to name here) with nearly one hundred volunteers having participated at one time or another.

In its first year, though the festival brought diverse people who enjoyed the music and the bhajis together, not many connections were made between those from the village and the ones who came from outside. There was a distinct cultural disconnect, an unarticulated discomfort. We had not entered each other’s context or life experience. For the people of the village, we were privileged outsiders who suddenly appeared on their streets. They were probably even suspicious. “What do these people want from us?” Yet, the idea of the vizha was precious and all of us knew that we were embarking on an important journey. It was, in fact, the children of the village who gave life to the festival and were the conduits in helping the adults develop relationships.

I distinctly remember one conversation at a vizha review meeting. One of the volunteers from beyond the village complained that there was not enough volunteer participation from the people of the village. Saravanan, in his characteristic blunt style, just said “You would not have had such a beautiful festival if we had not volunteered.” His point was simple: the people of the village had worked quietly outside our line of vision. A larger question on the meaning of volunteerism was being raised. Volunteering itself has become about a certain class of people and its nature has been defined by them. Giving and participating is boxed in that framework. When Palayan, Velan, and Saravanan took care of many things, they did so not because they were volunteering. It was something they just did. There was pride in welcoming the people of Chennai into their homes. We had no understanding of their culture and what they saw as important for such a festival. They knew what was needed and what would work. Similar differences surfaced during the Urur Olcott Kuppam beach clean-up drives. It was through these conversations that we learnt about the garbage clearance problems that plague the village.

It was in the second year that we became one community; it was our vizha, not a combined effort of the village and others. We began understanding each other’s sense of space, time, culture, aspirations, limitations and unconscious insensitivity. We danced, laughed, argued and listened to each other. It was from these exchanges that the design and aesthetic content of the festival also began to change. The village, its culture, and art forms that are part of their universe became a strong force in the vizha. Over the years Villupaattu, Gana music, fisher folk songs and stories, their history and Tamil religious music have become integral elements in the vizha.

A criticism about the vizha in its first year was that it took the classical into the fishing village and placed it alongside numerous non-classical artists, but did nothing to present the non-classical on the classical stage. This was an important critique and we responded to it.

The next year we conducted a one-day event in Ayodhya Mandapam, a typical Karnatik music venue in the suburb of West Mambalam. The programme consisted of both villupattu (a folk storytelling art form) by the children of Urur Olcott Kuppam and a Karnatik concert.

Here I must relate a story. We, liberals, carry this notion that those who are conservative, traditional and ritualistic are incapable of openness. In fact, when we see an individual sporting prominent religious markers, we pre-judge him. I did exactly that when I approached the officials at Ayodhya Mandapam about this event. At the programme, we had planned to honour the fisherfolk from nineteen fishing villages who had helped save numerous lives during the devastating floods of December 2015. I expected “NO’ as an answer or at least reluctance. I was completely wrong. The event was so heartwarming. The love and respect between two communities separated by society’s unevenness with no history of social interaction or cultural commonality was overwhelming. This might have been just a brief interaction, but it was important and revealing. Since then, as part of our festival, every year we conduct a two-day event at the epicenter of Karnatik music (the suburb of Mylapore, Chennai) where numerous marginalised art forms find space. Jaya, who administers this auditorium in Mylapore opened its doors to us with enthusiasm and graciousness.

We have never shied away from the politics of and in the arts. There cannot be any social-cultural exchange if we sanitise experiences or avoid confronting its dark side. The curation has always kept this in mind and hence subverting conventions, fixed mindsets and habituations are a constant at the vizha. The curation

has questioned gender, caste, religious biases and we will continue to ask many more such questions.

The vizha has become a metaphor to opening ourselves to unusual and unconventional experiences. Public spaces occupy a central place in any initiative that seeks to embrace every citizen. Art in such spaces allow for non-synthetic, unhindered vulnerable art experiences. It is in this spirit that, over the last year, we have had many performances of music, dance, drama and stand-up comedy on moving buses. We have also converted railway stations into performance spaces. It is also important to acknowledge that the Southern Railway and MTC (Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Chennai) officials have been very supportive.

This year we will inaugurate a fish market in Urur Olcott Kuppam that we hope will also be a cultural space. Through this endeavour, we hope to challenge notions of purity, art, appropriateness and space. Tyagaraja should come alive in the fish market

and Kattaikkuttu (traditional Tamil ritual theatre practiced by the lower castes) must find a home on the classical stage. Such inversions are not just about art; they hopefully change attitudes.

What began as just a thought has tuned into a state of constant introspection. Without any conscious realisation, we have begun engaging in cultural, civic, environmental, governance and political issues. The people of Urur Olcott Kuppam have always been clear about their agency and this clarity has resulted in the commissioning of a sewage system for the entire village. The vizha was certainly the catalyst but the people made it happen. Art can be a vehicle for many changes, but this can happen only if art itself is questioned in the way it is designed. The vizha has been able to do this because the spirit of questioning is embedded in all that we have attempted. This has made everyone, including the audiences, engage with the arts and the people with earnestness.

Our circle of engagement has been constantly enlarging and sometimes we wonder if we need to draw lines. For me, personally, there cannot be lines. It is this unplanned widening of the social, cultural, economic, environmental, political, and aesthetic that allows for creative explorations. But this is not just about the our vizha. Over the past few years voices, especially young voices challenging constricting artistic norms, are becoming louder. We are witnessing the emergence of many groups that are creating free, limitless art. The socio-political within art is being placed boldly in front of people’s faces. The band Caste-less Collective supported by tamil film director Pa. Ranjit has taken the art-caste issue by the scruff of its neck. As expected, some artists have questioned its premise. But, every time someone tries to dismiss or ridicule these ideas, we can be sure that we are on the right path. The media is also paying attention and seems to have finally woken up to the seriousness of art.

Many challenges remain. People of the Urur Olcott Kuppam have repeatedly highlighted the multi-directionality of the vizha. Yet, we hear well-wishers, some people on social media and in the mainstream media speak about the vizha only in terms of the classical being taken to the fishing village; a framing that is condescending. Saravanan and Palayan wrote a beautiful piece a few years ago sharply countering this opinion and village elder, Sundaramurthi, recently spoke about the village’s agency. The prevalence of this uni-dimensional view only further emphasises our hierarchical, segmented and segregated nature. It is this inherent nature of society that makes it very hard for some to see the Urur Olcott Kuppam Vizha as a sincere attempt in equity. We need perspectives to turn on their head. Until then we will keep trying, making mistakes, dusting ourselves and moving ahead.

(The writer is a Karnatik vocalist, author of ‘A Southern Music: The Karnatik Story’, public speaker and writer on human choices, dilemmas and concerns)