The late Seventies when
CMANA (The Carnatic Music Association of North America) was formed was indeed quite a different time compared to today. The population of Indians in the USA was very
small, with a concentration in the East Coast being primarily in Queens, New
York, with even New Jersey sporting but a minuscule population of Indians. There were few teachers of Carnatic music
among us, and only a handful below eighteen who could sing Carnatic music even
at the level of a varnam or perform
an instrument. There was no public,
not-for-profit organization devoted mainly to Carnatic music. Getting to listen to a leading Carnatic
musician in a live concert was a rare luxury and available only in places like New
York such as when an international body like the UN hosted M.S. Subbulakshmi,
or at Wesleyan which had an ethno-music department. In
most of these respects, not only the East Coast of the USA, but the entire USA
has undergone a major change.
It would not be an
exaggeration to say that CMANA was very instrumental in providing a backdrop in
which Carnatic music could grow enormously not only in the East Coast but all
over the USA. Unlike some other
organizations, which were very local in focus and often conducted all their
events across just a couple of days in a year, CMANA was there year round, and year
after year, despite severe losses and many other hardships. Filling a major void, CMANA organized, on a
regular basis, two tours to the US each year of a visiting troupe from India
making the artists available at near or below cost to many centers including
both major cities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Los Angeles and many
small towns across USA, where only a few Indian families were present. It has
helped the growth of many local Indian cultural organizations in the US. It provided a forum for many visiting
artists, local teachers, and promising local musicians to perform. Through its
‘Great Composers Day’ and events like ‘Teachers Day,’ and programs honoring
musicians and composers, CMANA raised the interest and awareness for Carnatic
music among the diaspora and created a market for it. By holding various lecture demonstrations and
the like (even at significant financial loss), the association has served to
increase the level of music appreciation among the general audience and to
provide opportunities for the young and the local musicians to hone their
skills.
CMANA’s contributions did
not stop there, but went all the way back to the very citadel of Carnatic music
and the community of Carnatic musicians.
In fact, a specific event that led to the formation of CMANA was the way
two (well-known) musicians got stranded due to an unexpected funding crisis
experienced by their (American) sponsor and forced them to take refuge with Dr.
P. Rajagopalan, CMANA’s founder, and Mr. Sury Subban who has served CMANA in
many capacities and is now an Honorary (and paid) Patron. That event heightened the need for a
non-profit, public organization owned by the Indian community at large that
could support Carnatic music and musicians.
Dr. Rajagopalan initiated a call to friends in New York city admitting although
that one more organization may be desired by people only “as much as a bullet
in the head,” but was indeed necessary.
He received warm support from many lovers of Carnatic music, and the
rest is history.
Many of the now
well-known musicians were introduced for the first time to the USA by CMANA,
and to many of them that invitation formed a major milestone catapulting them
to greater fame even in music circles in India.
The list of such musicians include some easily recognized names like
Mandolin Srinivas, P.S. Narayanaswamy, the Rudrapatnam Brothers, K.S.
Gopalakrishnan, and Sudha Ragunathan to list just a few. With no parochial or other vested interest,
the Association worked for music without any favoritism based on any criteria
other than musical excellence and service to music. With a carefully crafted award Sangeethasagara that is unique in many
respects such as a clear up-front listing of the criteria for the award and the
requirement of a high level of multifarious achievement for a recipient besides
being just a concert performer, it has honored artists of the highest
caliber. Among the most memorable
aspects of this award is the fact that it brought the venerable Semmanugudi
Srinivasa Iyer out of a long period of hibernation back on the stage and got
four generations of the Pattammal family to perform together. The Semmangudi award program was even more
special in that after a long time, Professor T.N. Krishnan, another
Sangeethasagara, played as an accompanist after many decades. Thus, the Association’s services do not stop
at the shores of the USA. It has
established several worthy endowments in India to encourage young musicians. I am indeed proud to have a long association
with CMANA and am a staunch supporter of it.
It is nice to see that the
US landscape has changed in many ways for the better with a vibrant interest in
Carnatic music supported by a large number of organizations, teachers, students,
and patrons. The number of organizers
conducting music tours and holding Carnatic music programs has multiplied
enormously to the extent that in places like Central New Jersey, several
concerts take place concurrently on the same day and sometimes even during the
same time slots by different entities.
Many organizers support performances by youngsters encouraging them to
reach higher levels of proficiency. But with a well-established ‘market’ for it,
the music scene and musicians have also become quite commercialized posing
several hurdles for a public, not-for-profit organization in conducting many
activities it once pioneered even at significant loss and personal sacrifice of
numerous volunteers and donors. In this
backdrop, an inevitable question that arises is indeed the one forming our
title, “Do we still need CMANA?”
Outrageous as it may seem to some, this question has been raised even by
some (younger) musicians and local teachers of music. I would be lying if I did not admit that it even
crosses my mind, although only rarely and only when I get too dismayed by the artists' and listening public’s inability to distinguish and discriminate between organizations. Thus, the question is indeed one that
deserves to be answered at least once.
Consider Chennai as an
example (although I could pick Mumbai, Bangalore, Trivandrum or many other
places and other organizations). Imagine
someone asking why, given the large number of music organizations, television
and multimedia, and ongoing entrepreneurial efforts of individual musicians, an
organization like the Music Academy or the Narada Gana Sabha should continue to
exist. I am sure any sane person would
consider the question as insane for many good reasons. Those reasons are precisely the ones that not
only would obligate an affirmative answer to the question in our title, but
will even provide the fundamental reasons for strengthening and supporting
CMANA:
1.
When it comes to Carnatic music
and related fine arts, there are institutions and there are ‘organizations.’ The latter concentrate primarily on
entertainment and, oftentimes, on private profits, but the formers’ goals go
far beyond. Organizations like the Music Academy, Narada Gana Sabha, and
Shanmukhananda Sabha are institutions that serve the art form in diverse
ways. They celebrate the stalwarts while
at the same time expending much effort to sustain the art form and to generate
and support future talent. They have
helped to raise the respect and stature of the very art form and its
practitioners. Some have established
schemes to support musicians and musicologists, who have not been fortunate,
with pensions etc. They conduct
scholarly discussions and events raising the art to higher and higher levels. CMANA certainly belongs in the class of institutions by its
demonstrated focus, activities, and accomplishments that form an illustrious
track record for a 100% volunteer organization.
2.
Organizers come, and organizers
go, and that has been the painful history of Indian music and dance in the
USA. When an organization is by an
individual or by a small oligarchy and run with a vested interest of profit or
to promote a special subset of artists or students, its activities and
operation are not only hostage to the whims of one or a small few, but the very
continuity of the organization gets threatened when a main person can no longer
perform a lead role. One reason Dr.
Rajagopalan chose to make CMANA a public organization with elected trustees
etc., despite recommendation from many founding members to keep it as a private
entity, is to ensure continuity and to eliminate as much as possible the
operation of vested interests or profit motives. Again, there are very few organizations of
the type of CMANA devoted to Carnatic music and related fine arts that fit
these lofty criteria.
3.
A Harvard Business Review
article on non-profits has emphasized the importance of transparency and fiscal
responsibility as two of the most important desiderata of a real
non-profit. In its own words, this is to
ensure that the obligation of the founders and trustees towards future
generations – note not just their cohorts, but future generations – are met,
and to assure continuity of operation over a very long future. They called this ‘inter-generational equity.’ CMANA shines as a (rare) beacon in these
respects with successive teams of trustees sharing much of the financial
information with CMANA members with a high level of transparency and running
its affairs with utmost probity and fiscal responsibility. We not only need CMANA, but we need to put
pressure on other organizations to step up to the highest levels that CMANA has
maintained from its start in matters that characterize a true non-profit,
public organization enjoying tax subsidies.
4.
An unfortunate fact of the
Indian diaspora is that it has carried with it the baggage of all forms of
divisions that divide Indians. Though
many organizations based on state, language, and other criteria may support
Carnatic music and the arts, CMANA’s greatest strength is its non-sectarian
character. Never in my long tenure of
over twenty-five years with CMANA can I cite one instance where anything other
than musical merit has played a role in the selection of a musician for a tour
or even for a single concert. We, as
trustees, have differed and even quarreled sometimes, but never on the issue of
maintaining a high level of impartiality.
An event like the Great Composers Day, for example, is conducted with so
much meticulous care to avoid even a semblance of a conflict of interest in the
selection of judges for the competitions or in the opportunity to youngsters
irrespective of who their guru
is. Yes, we need organizations like
CMANA for this reason too.
Not that I cannot cite
more reasons to support my affirmative answer regarding the need for continued
presence of CMANA, but if the above four will not convince you to agree and to
support CMANA strongly, then nothing more will.
So, let me turn to what role CMANA should play in the future to continue
to distinguish itself from the crowd of music organizers in the USA, a good
many of whom may be motivated by a variety of interests not as lofty as CMANA’s.
a. First and foremost, the
Indian community in the US has come of age, and we now have a group of young
Carnatic musicians born and brought up in America. CMANA should take it as an important objective
to help them attain high visibility in India and around the world so that they
have a level playing field that is well deserved by their hard work and
effort. Similarly, there are many highly
talented young musicians in India who lack visibility in the US, with most
organizations here marked now by a competition for only name brand
artists. CMANA should revive its pledge
to young talent from India by making them visible to music lovers in the
USA. I am pleased to see that CMANA has
forged a major partnership with Narada Gana Sabha for this purpose. A
similar effort with one other major organization in India, I learn, may also
bear fruit soon. The trustees of CMANA
deserve high kudos for thinking up such a collaboration and working hard
towards making that possible. It has
indeed been my pleasure to help them in both those efforts.
b. Carnatic music in the
East Coast is still by and large an activity limited to the South Indian
diaspora. The art form is highly rich in
many ways, and it would be a travesty not to bring it to the attention of a
wider audience – our North Indian fraternity and our American friends. “Man does not live on bread alone,” and certainly
not we, the successful Indians in the US; Carnatic music is a cultural heritage
that we need to display as proof of that. As a leading organization, CMANA should take
it upon itself to elevate Carnatic music to higher levels by taking a variety
of steps to draw support from a much larger community. In the old days, we used to have lunch hour
demonstration programs in several NJ companies to popularize and inform about
Carnatic music. These, and several other
means of outreach, should be considered in addition to running music programs,
tours and children’s competition aimed primarily at the Indian diaspora.
c. It has become quite
evident that a very narrow focus makes an organization not sustainable. Although CMANA needs to maintain its primary
focus on Carnatic music, pragmatism requires it to support other Indian art
forms so that the support base of the organization can be enlarged. This should also form a priority for CMANA.
d. Finally, a major regret
of mine is that even after forty years of existence, CMANA has not assured its long-term
existence through an adequate corpus of endowments. It does not even have a permanent venue of
its own to conduct its activities. For
the perpetual continuity of CMANA, it is absolutely important that a careful
plan is evolved to raise such an endowment and to lay down clearly the
principles under which the association will continue to be operated in the
future. CMANA cannot meet loftier goals
like the ones mentioned above unless the trustees and organizers are freed from
the financial burden. I truly believe
that for CMANA to rise to its due level, activities have to be supported by an
endowment to a substantial degree.
Although I have stated some
lofty goals for CMANA (and am doing my part to make some of them possible), it
is for the community at large to step up to the plate and make it happen. This is a precious organization of the
community and not of any individual or small group. We cannot just want our
children to sustain an Indian connection and culture, but we need to also make
it easy for them to do that. We need to
support CMANA much more than we do at present recognizing its uniqueness as an institution and as a great legacy for future
generations. For example, a sufficient
number of us are at the stage of life when we are in the exercise of estate
planning, and I would beseech every one of the senior members of CMANA (and
senior citizens interested in Carnatic music and related fine arts) to step up
to the plate and make it possible for CMANA to free CMANA from the fear of
going bankrupt through some unanticipated major loss or competition from vested
interests. Based on the support that has
made CMANA to have survived and prospered this long, I have the confidence that
you will not only agree with my analysis, but will join me in strengthening
CMANA.
