Passion for other things too!

Most of the young vidwans are cricket nuts. And they are net savvy. Watching movies and playing cards continue to be popular hobbies among many, observes V. RAMNARAYAN.

THE ARCHETYPE of betel chewing, zari angavastram-veshti clad sangita vidwan is slowly becoming a tired old cliche. Increasingly, silk kurta and streaks of vibhuti on the forehead are favoured only on the concert stage, with our young musicians quite at home (and abroad) in designer clothes when not performing. T. M. Krishna is reportedly a great one for buying trendy clothes, and Unnikrishnan is a natty dresser too. Scooters have given way to the latest model cars, often driven by the vidwan or vidushi and not by a chauffeur. And don't be surprised if you run into one of our virtuosos in the downtown disco!

`Enna oi' has long surrendered its top status as conversation opener to `Hey listen' or `Can't believe it, Bangladesh making 400 in a Test innings, only the Indian bowling can allow that!''

Most of the current lot of young bhagavatars are cricket nuts who played the game at school level if not later. Their annual match can provide a lesson or two in sledging and one-upmanship to the Australians and the Englishmen, not to mention the Javed Miandads of international cricket. Many of them have the latest in the match-fixing controversy on their fingertips and can give you graphic details of which match was fixed how and when or that they had advance information of how many runs Jadeja would get in a certain match or how Azharuddin would be run out in another.

That Unnikrishnan, Ravi Kiran, T. M. Krishna, Vijay Siva and Sanjay Subrahmanyam play their cricket hard - though with a soft ball - is well known to those who have watched the annual musicians' cricket match, but the passion for the game is much more widespread than that. Shashikiran, Sriram Gangadharan, Poongulam Subramaniam and V. V. S. Murari are among the more ardent devotees who actually practise for the big match. Another cricket fanatic, Mannargudi Eswaran, loves his table tennis as well. Some, like Unni, are fitness freaks, working out at the gym, playing tennis, or swimming. The golf course is about the only turf that is not yet home to these jet age vidwans.

Many of today's musicians are as net savvy as members of the corporate world. From the youngest to the seniors, almost everyone has an e-mail id and quite a few home pages, and websites of their own, even if some of the veterans, innocent of the ways of the cyberworld, need external assistance to access their mail. One of them was heard shouting, ``My e-mail address is xyz @abc.com and you have to type saregamapa to go in'', revealing his password to one and all at the Music Academy canteen last year.

Increasingly, there's a healthy interest in world music and other forms of Indian music including film sangeet, ghazals and pop, etc. Many have a healthy curiosity and some have more than a passing acquaintance with Hindustani music, even learning it - Bombay Jayasree and Ranjani-Gayatri, for example, can sound quite authentic when they try their hand at it. Sanjay Subrahmanyam is another who once took lessons in Hindustani music. That M. S. Gopalakrishnan, daughter Narmada, T. V. Gopalakrishnan and in recent times Trichur Ramachandran are concert musicians in Hindustani is no longer news.

Many have a keen interest in film music. Besides Yesudas, Unnikrishnan, Bombay Jayasree and Nityashree Mahadevan, who are household names in film music, there are a number of others who are involved in composing background instrumental music, or are at least devoted followers of film music. Mridangist Arun Prakash is an avid follower of Ilayaraja's music as well as Western classical music.

Watching movies and playing cards are favoured pastimes still, especially when travelling in India or abroad. A friend recalls the enthusiasm Srimushnam Raja Rao has for Harrison Ford films, ``Namba aalu padam pakkalam va'' his favourite one-liner. There are a few readers even in this day and age, Ravi Kiran the most prominent of them, seen novel in hand even during one of their cricket matches.

There is a lot more interaction among the musicians too than ever before. Talking, analysing, arguing over music theory, exchanging old stories about the great masters, fighting over the finer points and listening to one another's concerts - just to keep tabs on what the competition is doing, if not out of a genuine desire to expand their musical experience - are all part of today's Carnatic musician's universe.

Traditionalists may still talk wistfully of the good old days and find that the new generation falls short of their expectations of depth and substance in music and they may even be right, but today's stars are no brat pack. Keenly aware of their musical inheritance, they show due respect to the stalwarts of the past, but that does not prevent them from striking a daringly different path, and having some fun along the way. Vive la difference!

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