TALENT
Article 4
Profile
"Musician? O that’s cute"
By Mohit Dogra
"Being a music teacher, I have many examples of extraordinarily talented kids not taking up music as their career"
My dad always told me an anecdote of his youth about how his father used to beat him up whenever he went to take music classes. This must be dating back to 1960-s I guess. The reason behind this was the mind set of the majority of society that doing music is the work of prostitutes and Nautanki wallahs( low budget and poor theatres which roamed about like vagabonds from one village to the other) . No good family would want their sons to take up music as a career, forget about daughters pursuing it . It would be no less than a crime. My grand father had same the opinion, he was a simple man. So the beatings followed when my father went to take music classes. Now my father thinks that the conditions have changed in favor of artists and musicians. I agree with him because I am a musician by profession and if that beating story is true, I don’t want to live in those times.
Music has come a long way ever since. But has music really arrived like a respectable profession in our Indian society after a good span of 50 years after my father got beaten (as he proclaims)? The answer is “not yet”. Though I can testify that it has become a loved profession now, every time I tell someone that I am a musician, I get "O that’s cute” expression (atleast from females) . But I am not talking about it being a “cute” profession , I am talking about it being a “respectable” profession.
Being a music teacher, I have many examples of extraordinarily talented kids not taking up music as their career rather going for the “main stream” career options like engineering, Medicine, Commerce, IT etc.( Though some of them they do come to learn guitar from me when they have extra time). But music being a thing of extra time shows that music as a career is still a thing of far in India.
By this time many of you must have thought of so many examples of musician which are very successful and has a great career but I want them to compare this number with the successful doctors, engineers, CA-s, business personnel of the country. How many successful tabla players can you name if you are not a musician? I know your mind has Ustad Zakir Hussain just now...and only Ustad Zakir Hussain just now. But trust me there are better tabla players than Ustad Zakir Hussain (with due respect to the maestro I say that). But either they are working in a bank or writing a computer program somewhere in America.
I personally know a surgeon in Dehradun who would have easily be as good a singer as he is a surgeon, but he never took it up professionally, probably because he thought music doesn’t give him as much wealth and respect in the society as he would get being a surgeon. But so many times I felt that his heart is actually in music( not that he is a bad surgeon). Sad story.
I wonder will our society ever develop in such a way that a parent will say with pride that my son is going for sitar after his intermediate, just like they say now that my son is going to prepare for IIT after 12th. This looks like a dream but I know a parent (probably the one of their kind in India) who has taken a bank loan( almost a crore) to send his son to the Berkley University,USA, to do a professional course in guitar. The course’s fee is almost 3 crores and duration is 3 years. This is a rarest example in the society we live in. But in this example I must mention that the boy was very talented and the parents were rich which might not be the same in some other cases. But rich or not rich, that’s not the point here. I am talking about the attitude one has for looking at arts or music as a serious career option.
Though it is obvious that music is not a kind of profession anybody can take up but I think the ones who really can, should. We have to build a society which never lets a good talent, in a specific field, go wasted. The younger generation should be taught the worth of creating something artistic.It needs to be conveyed strongly to them that a good painting which they painted or a melodious song they composed, which took two years of bankruptsy to complete , is worth the amount earned by someone in 5 years doing a bank job or even more.
Now some one might question, how in the world are they going to survive through this period? That’s where the government has to play a role.Its not that government doesn’t do anything to aid cultural societies and artists, but it has to be amplified. The entire infrastructure has to be made in order to support budding artist. More scholarships, comparable perks to the mainstream subjects is what will be required. We need many more icons in this field than currently what we have.
Though in this write up I wanted to focus on how the condition currently is. Now when I look at these series of events, I feel hopeful. It only shows that the situation is improving and the day will arrive some years down the line when youngster will not be shy away from taking music as a serious career.
(The author is a musician, teacher and a composer based out of Dehradun. He has his own music studio. See - http://www.recordinnstudio.com/)
