Tum itna kyun kudkuda rahe ho ...

Apparently Jagjit Singh is more than a little perturbed by the attention lavished on Rahman. More here.

The summary of his claim is that Rahman's music isn't "real music" and that Rahman should try and compose a ghazal.

Firstly, I don't believe it's practical to compare diverse music genres to each other. Part of the reason I stopped watching the Grammy's was that it became a collection of too many different styles. And then to pick out one "Best Female Artist" seems to hinge on some assumptions. By the way, this fallacy of comparing apples and oranges, is (was?) even more blatantly on stage in the recent world dancing competition program (NBC?). How in blazes are you going to rank Russian folk dance, Hip-hop and Bharatnatyam on the same 1 to 10 scale?

Secondly, even if we grant some superiority to one artist over another (say based on vocal skills, complexity of composition, etc.) why would one gripe over an award that one wasn't even in contention for. The Oscars, Filmfare awards, etc. are geared towards Films. They don't go looking for a Pavarotti rendition, unless it was done in the context of a film.

Thirdly, there's a bit of a fallacy in attempting to define "real" when it comes to matters of taste, subjectivity, aesthetics. Most of the arts fall in that bucket. Styles arise every time someone figures out a way to appeal to and capture a new audience. Yes some forms of art, music clearly take longer to master, require more riyaaz. But if art is about beauty, and the latter is in the eye of the beholder, does the work that went into producing something, necessarily outweigh the impact or connection felt by a particular type of audience?

And coming back to the specific kirdars - Jagjit and Rahman. I would agree this isn't necessarily Rahman's best work ever. Neither was it Danny Boyle's. In my opinion Trainspotting was probably his best. Recognition, even outside of award ceremonies, often is about when you get noticed, not necessarily when you hit your peak. And IMHO, Jagjit isn't exactly my pick of the pack for the ghazals award either. To my untrained ear, I would say he has probably 10 honestly different melodies on which he has probably sung 50 different ghazals. I kid a little. I appreciate his vocal skills, but as a composer, he's been a little predictable.

Of course all that is opinion. I remember, correctly being taken to task, by a friend in undergrad for not being able to appreciate the differences between Mozart and Bach just in listening to their pieces. So may be Jagjit has 50 different melodies after all.

What made the reaction unwarranted in my opinion, is that this was not a case of Jagjit being the poorer for Rahman being richer. It wasn't zero sum, subsequent to the choices made by each man on what type of music they'd pursue. If you want to debate whether life itself is zero sum, that's another topic, another day.

Pancham - apparently Gulzar had other reasons for not making it to the Oscars. The bloke still plays tennis apparently!