Watching the near-perfect World T20
over the last month, I could not help drawing parallels between my experience
of music of different periods and the cricket we have watched through the
decades.
The flashing blades, breathtaking
fours and sixes, acrobatic catches, and diving, sliding runouts of today can
dazzle your eyes, stop your hearts.
Old school as old school can be, you
may be a reluctant spectator to start with, but are inexorably drawn by the
magic of the twists and turns of the shortest form of the game.
Once in, there
is no way out. You simply must stay up to watch that last over finish, even the
post match interviews, so complete has been the power the drama of the show has
exercised over you.
Those born in the 21st century or
towards the end of the last, do not have much of a basis for comparisons
between the past and the present. Could the bowlers of the past, especially
spinners, even the great quartet, have survived the onslaught of today's
batting powerhouses, with their bludgeoning
bats and innovative shotmaking, they ask. Could they have measured up as
fielders, as catchers on the boundary line, as run-stoppers in the ring?
Were
they capable of holding their nerve as death bowlers in the pulsating finishes
of T20 cricket?
The questioning is so loud and
demanding that you almost succumb to their line of thinking. But then you think
of the likes of Garry Sobers, Viv Richards, Brian Lara, Joel Garner, Kapil Dev,
Shane Warne, and you remember that the great can adapt to new conditions, new threats,
through the application of their genius.
The recent Marathi musical Katyar
Kaljat Ghusali is a modern drama with an old theme, just as T20 cricket is
a new version of an old game. It is packed with some of the most brilliant
songs I have come across in recent times. The music by Shankar-Ehsan-Loy can
compare with the best classical or semi-classical music in Indian movies of all
time. The purity and range of Shankar Mahadevan's voice, the power of the other
voices in the movie, their abundant talent that includes that of national award
winner Mahesh Kale, can captivate even a skeptic or musical ignoramus. To a classical music/old Hindi film music
junkie like me, with my healthy respect for the Shankar-Ehsan-Loy trio's
ability, it came as no surprise that they produced appropriate background music
for the revival of an old Marathi theatre classic, but the overall quality of
their original compositions--in addition to some old favourites composed in the
distant past by Jitendra Abhisheki--is very high, too.
Listening to the songs from the film
on Youtube--I promise I parallelly ordered the audio DVD online--I idly clicked
on the video links to their older versions, fully prepared to come across
melodramatic theatrics and poor audio and video quality. What I found was
mind-blowing. If brilliant acting and wonderful singing in a resonant voice by
Chandrakant Limaye was a relatively recent offering of Natyageet, the older
rendering by Vasantrao Deshpande set the standard almost impossibly high.
Grandson Rahul Deshpande continues to perpetuate the Katyar Kaljat legend.
The Mahadevans and Kales of today
are outstanding musicians accompanied by technology that can mask a false note
or two in lesser artists; they can cast a spell with their razzmatazz, but know
deep down that the old represented by the Deshpandes and Abhishekis is gold.
The same is true of a Virat Kohli with his pristine strokeplay: he too knows
for all his on-field aggression, that the game is greater than him. If Dwayne
Bravo, Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels do
not know their illustrious predecessors, then they should. Just as Brian Lara
and Sachin Tendulkar look on approvingly at their successors' explosive talent.
With the onset of the IPL, the
action now moves on to an altogether higher pitch, often overloud and hyped up,
but a welcome change nonetheless in at least one respect. Sworn rivals will now
share locker rooms and dugouts. Snarling could be replaced by bonhomie, at
least within if not across teams.
But giants that roamed the earth will
be benched by local talent, if not pygmies. Drama queens, some of them bearded,
and fashion models dressed to kill will spout cricket wisdom of suspect
quality. Superlatives and verbal diarrhoea will flow unchecked. We must suffer
the abomination of strategic timeouts while the advertisers persuade us in the
worst possible taste.
In a way, the timing of the IPL is
unfortunate, at least for those whose appetite for instant cricket has been
sated. Its frenetic action may have some, if not many, of the exciting moments
of the World T20, but can it equal the enchantment of international
competition?
Can we, the viewing audience, survive the continued invasion of
our drawing rooms in the higher temperatures and stickier humidity that must
follow?
