Pittsburgh_Patrika_July_2015

The Pittsburgh Patrika, Vol. 20, No. 4, July, 2015
On Intellectual Arrogance
By Kollengode S Venkataraman
I
n all cultures, there is always an undercurrent of tension between
wealthy patrons and the recipient honorees receiving their patronage.
This is simply because the recipients of the patronage — typically poets,
painters, musicians, sculptors, and others with creative minds — are temperamental
people to begin with; they are also conscious of their creative
talents, and the lack of it among their patrons. The patrons, while aware of
their limits, are sometimes genuine to help these artistes. But more often,
they want to tell the world that they patronize artists. They also know the
recipients need their support much more. In all sophisticated cultures,
this patronage is expected of wealth and power. In the Krishnadevaraya’s
court in the Vijayanagara Empire, he had eight poets of great talents,
called Ashta-dig-gajas, literally, “elephants in eight directions.” Allasani
Peddanna and Nandi Timmanna are the famous two.
Both the patrons and the recipients need great skills to negotiate their
mutually dependent transactional interactions. Otherwise tension spills
over in public. I have heard these stories in 20th century India:
• Sahir Ludhianvi, a great Hindi/Urdu poet went with idealism to
Pakistan on Partition in 1947. Once in Pakistan, he saw that the literary
ambience there was not what he expected. He was even jailed for his leftist
writings in Savera, the Urdu daily. In disgust he returned to India, never
going to Pakistan even as a visitor. In India he was a star lyricist.
• Veteran Hindustani vocalist Bade Gulam Ali Khan too went to
Pakistan during Partition hoping for better patronage. He was disillusioned
with the condescension he got from the bureaucrats running Radio Pakistan.
He returned to India in revulsion. He too was a star in India.
• Closer to our time, I’ve heard that there was some bad blood
between the Andhra-born Telugu-speaking Balamuralikrishna, the
veteran Karnatic vocalist based in Chennai, and N.T.Rama Rao, the
founder of Telugu Desam Party and the powerful chief minister of Andhra
Pradesh. Balamuralikrishna never performed in Andhra Pradesh as long
as N.T.Rama Rao was the chief minister.
• Poet Kannadasan was a legend in his own life as a lyricist dominating
Tamil cinema in the 50s, 60s, 70s; and well into the 80s. In the Tamil
Cinema dominated by superstar heroes, MGR ruled the roost in this
time. There was a disagreement between MGR and Kannadasan. Feeling
slighted, Kannadasan simply refused to write lyrics for MGR films for
decades and yet dominated Tamil cinema as a song writer.
• O.P.Nayyar, a well-known music director never used Lata Mangeshkar
when Lata dominated Hindi cinema, because of personality clash.
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