ডাকবাংলা

A Question of Etiquette 

There is no denying the fact that music and dance events and festivals need the support of patrons, sponsors and audiences. But at times, artistes have also had to face several challenges from entitled patrons and ill-mannered sponsors, with little or no empathy for the arts. I have no doubt that every  artiste in India with even a few years of experience would have a bunch of hair-raising stories to tell in this regard, and here are some that I have either witnessed at close quarters or heard about from reliable sources. 

I will, of course, keep names of key figures in these stories camouflaged, so as not to ‘offend’ anyone in these days of extreme and epidemic sensitivity. But I would have to begin by saying that politicians very often feature prominently in the list of offenders in the category of program-poopers and spoilers that I write about. 

Let me begin with a story that is already in the public domain and therefore does not require any camouflaging. And since Bihar is in the news these days, it seems appropriate to begin with an incident that took place at the annual Rajgir Dance Festival in Bihar several decades ago, in the 1990s. Eminent Odissi danseuse Sanjukta Panigrahi had been invited to perform at the festival and was ready to take the stage, but her performance was delayed because of the many preceding speeches by office bearers, government officials and politicians. No less than the then Chief Minister of Bihar, Lalu Prasad Yadav was present at the event, and wanted the performances sped up after the long drawn-out speeches. As the accompanying artistes settled on the stage and started tuning up, he pointed to them and yelled at them, saying they should start in two minutes. Upset and humiliated, the artistes tried to concentrate on the performance, but through the performance, the CM and his followers and sycophants were served refreshments, joked, laughed, talked loudly and continued to disturb the performers and audience. Worse still, as the acclaimed Panigrahi came on stage to introduce an item she was to present, the CM is reported to have crudely yelled – ‘Are you going to go on dancing or will you give someone else an opportunity too? You dance later!’ (https://www.rediff.com/news/jun/24sanju3.htm). Professional to the core, Panigrahi retorted – ‘I will take another five minutes!’, and proceeded to wrap up her performance with the concluding item.

If this is not hair-raising enough, how about this story from the oldest festival of classical music in the country. A senior and very experienced instrumentalist was on stage at the said festival with an accompanying tabla artiste. As he proceeded to present a reposeful, meditative alaap in a night raag, he was rudely cut short by the organisers and asked to stop because an important politician, surrounded by followers, hangers-on and gun-toting security staff had arrived at the event to make a token appearance and needed to be duly propitiated instantaneously. The gang marched on stage in their footwear, with the gunmen in attendance, made a brief speech, and marched off stage and out of the pandal, disrupting the beauty of the music and the  artiste’s work with impunity and nary an apology. Committed to the cause of promoting music and the musical heritage of the country, the artistes resumed their performance without an apology even from the organisers. 

Incidentally, it is not uncommon to see posters and publicity material for events organised by state or central government agencies featuring photographs of politicians prominently. Based on their prominent positioning in all such material, it would almost seem that the politicians are the star performers. Meanwhile, photographs of the featured artistes get a stamp-sized thumbnail at best. Accompanying artistes might not even be mentioned in any of the publicity material. In recent times, I have even had the pleasure of performing at a heritage festival where the then Chief Minister and his respected spouse loomed large in the centre of all hoardings and posters, smiling down benevolently at their subjects, while the names of all performing artistes appeared in anaemic font sizes, barely legible unless one held a magnifier to them. 

With politicians often being a source of sponsorship funds for music events, organisers and even artistes-turned-organisers feel beholden to them for their largesse and support. They are often invited to ‘grace the occasion’ they have provided for by their presence as Chief Guests or Guests of Honour. They are called upon to felicitate featured artistes with flowers. In a similar situation, I found myself facing the prospect of having to be felicitated by a politician accused in more than one case of rape and harassment. I took the tough call of declaring that I would opt out of the event, but it was possible for me to do so only because I became aware of the situation a few days before the event when the organiser kindly briefed me on the event flow. I am not certain that I would have been able to turn around and march off stage in protest had I come face to face with the man at the last minute. 

Perhaps it is high time to insist on good concert etiquette from sponsors, patrons, artistes and even audiences. 

Illustration by Suvamoy Mitra 

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