Music: Linguistically challenged..!!

It was perhaps when I was a four year old boy and Doordarshan, probably the only channel on TV. Coming back from the Sunday morning mass at church, I stood in front on the scooter as dad drove through the congested roads of the early ninety’s with mom sitting at the back. Feeling the cool morning breeze on my face, I believe the only thing that I thought about was ‘Jungle Book’, ‘Bible ki Kahaaniya’ and ‘Mahabharat'. With no offense to my Hindu friends, I never did like the latter of the three much. I found it confusing with so many characters, chariots and strange looking arrows that blew up in mid air. But, more than anything else, more than Mongli, Noah’s ark or Sri Ram, what I remember the most was a string of contemporary musicians and vocalists... Lata Mangeshkar, Shiv Kumar Sharma, Bhim Sen Joshi, Bala Murali Krishna, you name it, all singing or playing what one would call the essence of diversified unity, “mile sur mera tumhara, to sur bane hamara”. It was then, when I first happened to hear the phrase... “Music has no language”, from a person I blindly believed, my father.

For these many years, I have been an admirer of music. And when I say music, it ranges from the droning of a bumble bee to the rhythmic clattering of the railways; from the khyaals and the taanpura to the opera and the cellos. The mysticism of Indian classical music has no rivals, nor do the enigmatic overtures of the Western classics. Be it Tansen, Bhatkhande, Beethoven or Byrd, they all have been proofs enough for me to believe what my father had said. As the years rolled by, with maths, science, social studies and language...the one thing that grew along with my age was the frequency of a few words... why, what, where and the like. Looking back, it is no surprise to me now. After all, the whole world follows the same path to greater knowledge. Nevertheless, the latest in the list was a question that came to me a week or two before, that does music really have no language..!!

It suddenly popped into my mind after I was taunted by someone about my choice of music. For those who do not know my choice, here is a crash course and it’s a crash course because its one line long. “I like anything that is melodious”. I believe it was Pt. Jasraj singing Raag Bhairav. He was a lean fair dude, pale would be a more appropriate word, hair grown out and wore a black Nirvana T-Shirt with Kurt Cobain written on it. He said, “Dude, what the f*** is that madcap singin? And by the way, how the f*** can you listen to this nonsense?” An argument broke out, more out of insult and anguish than anger. The argument may have had no outcome but surly it gave me something to think about.

So, while we know exactly that Mike Shinoda was the one who put Linkin Park together, very few of us know the difference between a sarod and a saarangi. When I type Elvis with a small ‘e’... MS Word tells me its “Elvis” and not “elvis” with that irritating red line beneath it. But when I type Jasraj, I need to right click and “add to dictionary”; even Microsoft does not know who Pt. Jasraj is. Its not that I have something against western music, its that I cannot comprehend as to why it should be hailed so high that we treat our own tradition “unclool” and if I may take the liberty to say it ... even uncouth. We love and revere Jim Reeves, how many Texas guys would know about Kishore or Rafi. Too much for “Music has no language”.

I may be right, I may be wrong, but for the time being, that’s my stand. Music has a language; which one, I know not but surely as an Indian I can see clearly, it is none of the tongues we are born with. To some extend I presume even we need to do some introspection. After all, for me it goes beyond just music, its national respect at stake, not just a language.

Oblivion Forever….?
India my Land,
A land of an everlasting spring,
Where soaring above the skies,
Here the Kokilas chirp and sing.

Where with its glorious glory,
The liths of time stand still;
Singing your praise the rivers roll,
Testifying your might,
Are high the hills.

Here is where the monsoons knock,
At the gates of a garden;
Where feeling the mounts, it could walk.
How nature’s Beauty herself, spies at her,
With the eyes of a Hawk.

Here is where knowledge found a glass,
For herself to look at,
Gazing at such splendour,
Here is where she found her throne,
Here where she sat.

But why do I speak in tenses of the past…?
Why do these lines crowning you,
Seem not sturdy enough to last.

Poets in the past,
Termed you many a time, a Harp.

Why, but today, thou art,
Unstruck forever, Unsung forever,
Speak if not sing,
What is it that I may do?
From you being forgotten in Oblivion forever.

If I were a Teacher, I would say...

On the need for innovative action in Indian Eduacation

To say that even in the twentieth century, millions and millions of years since the first humans appeared on the face of this planet, ours is still a very imperfect world, would perhaps be, usageof rather mild language. Be it social, political, economic or educational, each and every aspect of human life has a far way to go into becoming an ideal reality. A ‘perfect world’, practically speaking is probably a ‘dream world’ but to put forward a hypothesis that our world, even today, is an unjust and hard world for the majority of mankind is not what one may call, ‘risky business’. What major countries, spend each day, on waging wars against one other, is in fact more than sufficient for a daily wage laborer to live his entire life, which he might have only dreamt about and thought to be fitting only to kings, to say the least. The unreasonable and unjustifiable system of discrimination of fellow humans on the basis of caste incorrigibly lingers in the society, haunting us of its presence, even to this very date.
Presenting forward and pondering over the problems of the modern world is an endless issue of consideration but the larger point is that the more we discuss this subject, the more we come to understand why nature made us humans, different from the rest of the animal kingdom. Why God made us the most curious of all living species. Why he provided us with a mind that has an insatiable thirst for knowledge and an unquenchable zest for solving problems. Why he gave us a mind that is able to “Innovate”. A famous English saying propounds that “Necessity is the mother of all inventions”. If this is true, may I also state, that it is socio-political predicaments that breed the innovative action of the human self. Ever since the human mind has become conscious of its own future, it has realized the necessity of a powerful and socially aware youth. As Tennyson rightly pointed out, “The old order changeth, yielding place for new”, it is the younger generation that lays the foundation of a progressive society, nation and the world at large. Having said the above, one cannot deny the fact that to a certain extent, what is wrong with the society today is the result of the fallacy of what is taught to our students. For change is the only constant in the world, it is the very profession of teaching that needs the greatest extent of innovative reconstruction.
Consider this, every year, the best talents in science and mathematics in India compete and crack a plethora of engineering entrance exams for getting into the top institutes of India. However even with this creamy layer of students that the institutions manage to search out, if one looks at a list of recent inventions, discoveries or scientific patents, the most common country names one would spot are the US, the UK, Germany, France etc. Why ?? Why is it that the best talents in India, do not show up on the world scene. It is because here in India, students are taught “what” to think and not “how” to think. The “teach WHAT to think” criteria is not specific just to the houses of higher education, unfortunately it is a common denominator that exist in almost all the educational institution in India. From village open air schools at the grass root level to the very zenith of higher education in India. In our schools, a good student is only one who is good at academics. The word “studious” has now become synonymous with, say a, “bookworm”. Though a student may have the artistic hand of M.F. Hussein or the poetic inclinations of Byron, Wordsworth or Longfellow, unless and until one can solve physics Chemistry or Maths problems, he is a mere fool who knows nothing at all. And for this both the educational system and the teachers are to blame. Our systems constant dependence on marks as the sole criterion of judgment is mundane and illogical. Not only is it outdated but also one of the greatest threats to a progressive society. Max Muller once said, “India, what it can teach us”. Nevertheless, to believe in this statement today in totality would be to set foot into dangerous territories of ignorance and complacency.
Education in India has to change. We live in a world which is highly competitive, and our children deserve the best. In the present age, the way we transfer knowledge to our students would leave them almost nowhere. The very outlook of Indian education has to undergo a transformation of colossal standards. The system needs massive reformation for it is to a great extent, the system itself that ties down the flare in not only the student but also the teaching community in transferring their vast ocean of knowledge to the future builders of the world. And this reformation is not to be imposed from the top but natured from the very foundation. Leaving the essence of education hollow, one would just be creating an unsustainable and fragile future nation. Considering the amount of scope for improvement in the teaching patters of Indian schools and institutes of higher education it is needless to say that innovation is not only the need of the hour but the need of every single minute hereafter.

Allen Jose George
[As a teacher on the need of Innovation in the field of education.]