Margazhi and Melancholy: Reflections from a winter spent in Chennai
It’s hard to go half a mile in Chennai without seeing the decorated archways of a music festival venue in December. Filled parking lots and hordes of patrons follow, crowding around venue entrances and theater canteens. The smells of fresh sambar and coffee waft through the air as distant violin melodies sneak their way out of the cracks in theater doors. Drive a kilometer down the street and the same scene repeats itself, equally lively and once again crowded with eager patrons.
This transformed Chennai of the winter months is a place incredibly close to my heart. Not only is it my family’s homeland, but the abundance of artistic excellence — and collective support of such artistic excellence from the entire city — is unique and incredible. Rarely anywhere else can you find even a single 15-day festival dedicated to local art forms, let alone 20-some festivals operating simultaneously, some for over a month continuously. There are just not the financial resources, performance venues or the audiences anywhere else in the world. And yet every year, Chennai seems to make it happen. Though plenty of programs don’t sell out, there are always eager faces in every audience, as early as 9 a.m. and as late as 10 p.m.
I recently returned from this magical place with a multitude of emotions — inspired and saddened, hopeful and disappointed, energized and fatigued. The support for the arts that I saw in Chennai, as well as the consistent artistic excellence and craft on display, was awe-inspiring. I have never felt more at home in a city of art connoisseurs, and I have never felt a city more dedicated to supporting and sustaining the arts. Even the elaborate restaurant meal I indulged in on Christmas night was not complete without an excellent live performance of Bharatanatyam, the restaurant itself covered in intricate metalwork and Thanjavur-style murals with a built-in stage clearly establishing the business’ support for the arts. My family of conservative, hyper-capitalist business people could not stop talking about the kacheri schedules at the Music Academy, the shows that they each sponsored at Brahma Gana Sabha, and newspaper reviews of today’s biggest Carnatic musicians. With many of the season’s shows free of charge, attendance is not limited to the elite, wealthy classes; the festival season is accessible to anyone interested. And millions are. The artistic atmosphere is inescapable, and it must be savored.
Comparison is the thief of joy, and my mixed emotions surrounding my experience of the artistic world of the Chennai winter is perhaps because of this. Chennai is special, and thinking about my homeland in the Bay Area made me disappointed and upset. While even teenage artists in Chennai are sure to attract some interested members of the public to their concerts, even some of the most established practitioners in California cannot come close to filling their venues. Chennai is able to sustain a month of programming at a huge array of simultaneously-operating venues, while a single venue struggles to sell tickets to even a two-day festival in the States. I was disappointed that my home was not more like the home of my ancestors, that the artistic world that I operate in is not filled with support and interest like that of my homeland, that a modern industrial metropolis can unquestionably beat one of the wealthiest regions of the world in support for the arts.
But perhaps I must reframe my perspective, and look to Chennai not with envy or greed, but with gratitude and emulation. Chennai is the gold standard that I believe we should all aspire to. And while it would certainly be incredible to see a similar season of festivals outside of Tamil Nadu, this is perhaps beside the point. It is less that I dream of Chennai’s season replicated outside of it, and rather that I hope that the communal, collective, overwhelming support for the arts that I experienced in Chennai in December could exist elsewhere. Nowhere else in the world have I experienced a society in which seemingly everyone, at every rung of the social ladder, seems interested and eager to interact with the arts — nowhere else have I also experienced a city so joyful and appreciative in general. Maybe it is wishful thinking, but I see these observations in conversation with one another. Art brings people joy, grounding, spirit, and inspiration in ways that few other things can, and universal consumption of high-caliber art may shape an entire group of people to be a more optimistic, grounded, and inspired one. This widespread support in turn allows artists to live and work — perhaps not in luxury, but in comfort that would be difficult to imagine in the United States. And I hope someday, I will see a changed world beyond Chennai where this mutual trust and respect between artists and patrons — and this massive region-wide interest in the arts — is replicated.
The arts are what make life worth living. All I want is to someday live in a world where everyone around me can see that as clearly as I do.
