I am yet to hear, in this long life of mine, a more lurid instance of insufferable, self-pleasing, garbled nonsense in general, and on Hindustani music in particular. This, after I have already inflicted on myself, the misfortune of having bought and read the above-discussed book - a milestone in its own right, in the long, meandering history of lunatic ramblings on Hindustani music, especially in the English language. While this publication represents, at best, an unfettered celebration of the freedom of speech, it is the unscrupulous use of heavy international PR machinery around its production that has caught my attention. I am pretty sure this book, like those that have come before it, will soon make its way to 'essential reading' lists at top universities. For reviewers, critics and academics with their half baked knowledge, would always find a way to process moonshine as the moon itself. Early signs of this can be seen in how the western academy and the anglophone Indian 'cognoscenti' seem to be hungrily lapping this musical abol tabol. This is troubling but not at all surprising. That such bombastic balderdash should now inform the world of this great tradition of music, only really reflects what it pretends to conceal - the utter intellectual vacuousness, and moral bankruptcy of our times. Om Shanti!
I am yet to hear, in this long life of mine, a more lurid instance of insufferable, self-pleasing, garbled nonsense in general, and on Hindustani music in particular. This, after I have already inflicted on myself, the misfortune of having bought and read the above-discussed book - a milestone in its own right, in the long, meandering history of lunatic ramblings on Hindustani music, especially in the English language. While this publication represents, at best, an unfettered celebration of the freedom of speech, it is the unscrupulous use of heavy international PR machinery around its production that has caught my attention. I am pretty sure this book, like those that have come before it, will soon make its way to 'essential reading' lists at top universities. For reviewers, critics and academics with their half baked knowledge, would always find a way to process moonshine as the moon itself. Early signs of this can be seen in how the western academy and the anglophone Indian 'cognoscenti' seem to be hungrily lapping this musical abol tabol. This is troubling but not at all surprising. That such bombastic balderdash should now inform the world of this great tradition of music, only really reflects what it pretends to conceal - the utter intellectual vacuousness, and moral bankruptcy of our times. Om Shanti!