Don't curb that joyful noise

I hear Paban Das Baul got to perform just one song with Sam Mills at the Dhaka International Folk Fest, at the end of the final evening. So all you folks who've worn out your copies of Real Sugar ('আসল চিনি') - that pioneering Bangla baul music and London bass fusion album, which Paban Das and Mills brought out nineteen years ago on the Real World label - and were looking to their collaboration to be the highlight of the whole occasion ever since it was announced, well hard luck is all I can say. Maybe you'll get to see them some other time. I'd already left by then. I came out at around 1:45 am that last morning, when Paban Das was doing his second song. Had to get home because my wife was at home and still up, but equally because the way I'd just seen Susheela Raman being treated had left a bad taste in my mouth. I'd known of Raman's reputation, but hadn't really listened to her properly before her performance at the festival. Her brew of jazz, blues, carnatic, trance, and ambient music built on the sacred Bhakti and Sufi traditions of the subcontinent is a bit too eclectic for me; I like my music a bit simpler. But her performance last night was a revelation. Impeccably accompanied by Sam Mills and band (with our own Faizan R Ahmad - Buno - unobtrusively squeezing out the grooves on his bass from the back), Raman seemed unaffected by the sound mixing difficulties that afflicted many of the other performers. She was commanding, possessed, mesmerising, and effortlessly making that large space feel as intimate as a small club. Until she was interrupted about twenty-five minutes into her set and was asked to stop. She pleaded with the organisers and the MC lady to let her do one more number. They were unyielding; the minister who was supposed to give her a crest was brought up on stage. Then something quite extraordinary happened. Raman started singing her final song in spite of the adversity. The organisers were nonplussed; the minister left the stage after hesitating for a minute or so. At this point, it was quite clear the organisers were agitated, possibly because they dreaded earning the wrath of the minister. So the MC lady got up on stage as Raman was getting into the final moments of her song, and started speaking into her microphone. This really happened. In her hurry to be obsequious to the minister, the MC interrupted Susheela Raman, an artist of international stature and a guest in this country, effectively shutting her down. The event lost its lustre for me pretty much completely by then. The act who preceded Raman, a Bangladeshi singer accompanied by a bunch of expatriate musicians and a three-person choir of back-up singers who styled themselves Taposh and Friends, had done their bit to ruin the occasion already. Taposh has a pleasant enough voice, but nowhere near the range to do justice to his chosen material, which was baul songs and folk-tinged Bangla pop songs. And he also seemed to think his role was to do interminable mash-ups of these songs, and try to get the audience to sing along every three lines or so. The results were tedious to begin with, and then became downright ugly. And for some perplexing reason, he was allowed to go on and on. So long in fact that two of his featured guests, real bauls who had a much more authentic claim to performing at the festival than Taposh himself, were restricted to one song each; and Kuddus Boyati was only allowed to perform after much cajoling with the organisers. As much as good music lifts my spirit, bad music annoys and depresses me. Raman was a balm after the Taposh fiasco. And then she had to suffer that indignity? And of course, the coup de grace was letting Sam Mills join Paban Das Baul for just one song. All that anticipation, all the excitement dashed, sacrificed at the alter of incomprehensibly bad time management, and quite possibly, nepotism. It was a disgrace. I hope the organisers find it in their hearts to offer sincere and unconditional apologies to Susheela Raman, Sam Mills, and Paban Das Baul. Artists of their stature need to leave this land with a happy experience - and every artist who performed here was effusive in their praise of the audience. It would be terrible if these tawdry incidents affected their perception of the event, and worse, their inclination to return for future ones. These events are joyous, festive affairs much needed to soothe the soul of this beleaguered land. We have lived through many dark times, and have too little to celebrate as it is. Let's not let incompetence and short-sightedness tarnish these precious occasions. Let's keep welcoming back these gifted artists to this beautiful land of poetry and music. We need their joyful noise, and they need ours.