Maestro Ilayaraja’s advice is worth exploring
Music maestro Ilayaraja has lived and worked by the rules of old-worldly ethics and values and has remained utterly humble despite his genius status. It could thus be tempting to be condescending to his suggestion that music must be made compulsory in school curriculum because it has the power to ‘curb violence’. Coming as it does in times when terrorist attacks have rocked nations across the globe with their barbarity, many would say that music is too feeble a response. But Ilayaraja is not talking of an after-attack response; he is speaking of a situation that will check violent tendencies from a person's formative years in schools and colleges. He has a point. Music brings the hearts of people together as much as it does the various instruments and notes. Speaking at the inauguration of the 46th International Film Festival of India in Goa on Sunday, Ilayaraja told a somewhat bemused Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Arun Jaitley that the Government must make music “compulsory” in schools because it could help in containing violence. It is a recognised fact that music calms the body and the soul, and there are a number of instances of that. Indeed, there are examples in war-torn regions where music has been playing a major role in rescuing children from the psychological effects of war that they have been subjected to. According to reports, in Afghanistan, for instance, which has been an unfortunate victim of long-drawn violence, either through wars or its after-effects, a psychologist at the Kabul Education University observed that music helped discourage violence. His opinion is exactly similar to that of Ilayaraja's. That music ‘softens' the mind and makes it repel violence is also evident from the records of Afghanistan's National Institute of Music, which trained girls and orphans in music. According to an Afghan news agency, there had been just three girls learning music at the institute before the bloody conflict broke out in 1991; the number went up to 50 a decade of national trauma later. In fact, the girls were learning music alongside the boys. It must have rattled the clerics there, as much as the fact that music was being taught. That so many youngsters traumatised by the war have taken to music, says it all.
Ilayaraja appeared to be speaking, as if by some divined coincidence, in the same language as some of the young Afghans. A student of Music and Arts at Kabul University is reported to have said that music should be made compulsory in schools. The student was, of course, speaking in the context of difficulties those like him face when they take up the vocation at a later stage without having studied the basics at the school-level itself. Still, the fact that music is being considered an important option in a war-torn country such as Afghanistan, is suggestive of its deep value. The flip side, however, is the popularity of songs that glamorise, if not glorify, violence, whether general or gender-specific. Our own entertainment industry too has churned out some extremely offensive lyrics in that direction. In his own way, Ilayaraja negated such glorification when, as background music to a scene in a film depicting campus violence, he composed a melancholic tune that reflected his sadness over the state of affairs.