Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
Four days after the event, I am still wondering whose idea it was to invite Zubin Mehta, perhaps the greatest living music conductor and the Munich-based Bavarian State Orchestra, another internationally reputed group of musicians, to perform in Shalimar Gardens on the banks of Srinagar’s famed Dal lake before an audience largely innocent of classical Western music last Saturday.
I have no quarrel with the choice of the venue except that the pride of all the Moghul Gardens in the Kashmir capital was vandalised for more than a week with carpenters, electricians, masons et al, working to get the setting right. The visual effect (watching on TV from distant Gurgaon) was tremendous; a picture perfect setting ‘indeed’ for what in a different situation would have been described as a major musical event.
But given the Kashmir context concert would always be remembered for the controversy it unleashed, inevitably drawing attention to the other Kashmir, the one that is in part alienated from the Indian mainstream, a feeling that only gets accentuated by an event like the high profile concert which always provides an opportunity to express deep set resentments. Not that they haven’t got other forums to ventilate grievances but an occasion like the Zubin Mehta concert unavoidably opens up an opportunity for the non-conforming to present an exaggerated view of their sense of grievance.
This is not meant to take one whit away from the sincerity of the principal sponsors of the rival Haqeeqat-e-Kashmir, who believed the Zubin Mehta concert was a bit out of place and, therefore, chose to the stage a rival concert- music, satirical skits etc- in a public park less than eight kilometers away from the Zubin concert.
I don’t care how many hundreds or thousands attended the not so perfect “rival” concert but these were genuine Kashmiris who attended it and which, for the most part, was conducted in the local language with some Urdu thrown in. Benefiting from the protest concert, the separatists, with Ali Shah Geelani as usual in the forefront, converted the event into an anti-India demonstration accompanied by his ultimate weapon : a hartal/bandh in the city.
The Zubin Mehta concert, I am told by a friend who is well-versed in Western classical music, was, of course, in a class by itself. The Bombay-born Parsi music-maker has conducted the Western world’s best known orchestras almost in every part of the world for nearly three decades, and his presence always considered a musical event. His concerts are sold out months in advance, treated as a high point every calendar year and breathlessly awaited by the cognoscenti.
And being a sensitive person he more than made up for the lack of vision of his Srinagar hosts, by breaking into “Mumbaiya” Hindustani to say that he would like to perform for the people of Kashmir again, in the near future, if asked to. Mehta said he would invite musicians who performed at the rival Srinagar concert to join him at his next in Kashmir, if it materializes. “I didn’t come to Kashmir, Kashmir called me”, he said in tapori- Mumbaiya.
My problem with the concert is with its timing and the State Government, with admission restricted to invitees only; almost only half of the 2,000 were flown in from Delhi by the German Embassy and the other half “a musically illiterate” bunch of Ministers and bureaucrats from the within the State.
The discomfort of the invited audience was apparent with people shifting in their seats or engaged in exchanging pleasantries (in low tone’s thankfully) and listlessly clapping – and wrongly at that – whenever there was the usual musical pauses, mistaking it for the end of a particular piece.
My mind went back in time when I had seen the legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin taken aback and wondering why his Delhi audience started cheering in the middle of one such pause. Even Zubin Mehta, I have seen in Delhi on an earlier visit, was subjected to similar indignity by the audience which clapped each time there was a pause with absolutely no indication from the stage that the rendering of a piece had ended.
I would have forgiven ordinary, lay Kashmiri or Delhi listeners were it not for the fact that they had been invited to such a high profile event which in fact was more of an exercise in public relations.
As it is the members of the Bavarian State Orchestra, have publicly protested the way they were “misled” into believing that it was a goodwill concert and nothing more. That’s why they did not charge their usual fees for performing in the Srinagar concert.
The German Ambassador and the Kashmir Chief Minister must introspect whether it was right to have hosted the concert in an atmosphere marked by deep-rooted mistrust and continuing violence in parts of the valley. Zubin Mehta, has for his part, offered to perform for the people of Kashmir again, if asked to, and without charging anything for the effort. Behind his smiling visage he was obviously hiding his dismay at what took place elsewhere in the host city just as he was performing.
And come to think for it, I don’t believe that the resentment expressed by some members of civil society owes its origin entirely to the post-1990 terror and counter-terror activities in the State. I remember some 20 years earlier, before militancy hit the State, the Indian cricket team being forced to abandon an international commitment in Srinagar when the restive crowd chose to become unruly. They were not driven by terror or the missing youth then; it was an expression of the resentment or sense of alienation most Kashmiri Muslims in the valley carry in their bosoms when routinely treated as a part of the Indian milieu.
I am not saying if this is right or wrong but it is a fact that the match against the visiting team (was it the West Indies?) was abandoned. If you apply that yardstick to the protest by the civil society group against the Zubin Mehta concert it was very civilized, indeed, no shoes or chappals hurled, as they were, when Gavaskar and Co. were booed out of the ground.
All said and done the Zubin Mehta concert turned out to be an overwhelming embarrassment for the German Embassy, the Kashmir government not to mention the Ministry of External Affairs which obviously must have blessed the project. Revealing the mindset of the joint-hosts were unmindful of the reaction the concert evoked they chose to treat the Kashmiri artistes who were part of the concert but were less than welcome at the Chief Minister’s dinner in honour of the musicians led by Zubin Mehta. Believe it or not they were told as much in no uncertain terms.
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