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A streetside symphony: Lending an ear to the beats of the gullies
Every now and then our harsh streets come up with a musical interlude.
Mumbai’s Marine Drive has seen some unusually wintry days this year. Even the implacable Dilliwallas have confirmed the unusual fact. Sometime around sunset on a Tuesday, the world’s most celebrated living cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, decided to take his music to the iconic promenade that lulls old friends and new lovers into believing it’s a gentle city. In an Instagram post that went viral before you could say encore, the musician played a piece from Bach, with the city sounds providing a robust if unconventional orchestra. The horn section, if you’ll forgive my silliness, was especially strong. A beautiful little musical interlude in an increasingly absurd and abrasive world. And a reminder that art belongs in the streets.
“Play with the blood”
I’ve spent the last couple of weeks bingeing on an Amazon show that was cancelled last year after four melodious seasons. In fact, the same evening that Yo-Yo Ma surprised Marine Drive, I was watching an episode where a cellist in the New York Symphony Orchestra is told she’s good, but she’ll never be “Yo-Yo Ma good”. Mozart in the Jungle is a dramedy set in the elite world of Western classical music, where temperamental conductors and ultra-rich patrons rule over an insular world, accessible only to a select few. And yet the show explores the regular human lives behind the majestic symphonies and instruments, glittering pearls and champagne.
Flawed people coming together to create and appreciate something that’s flawless. It’s as good a series on music as I’ve ever encountered. And the biggest perk is the music itself. Okay, strike that out. Gael Garcia Bernal, playing the maverick Mexican conductor known to climb trees, break into spontaneous street concerts and exhort his orchestra to “play with the blood”, is magnificent. For a show that pivots around an elite orchestra, it’s delightful to see so much of the plot unfold on the endlessly-interesting streets of New York, a companion city to Mumbai in so many ways.
Mere gully mein
Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy places the microphone right at the heart of Mumbai’s unforgiving streets. Hip-hop, never really the language of Bollywood music, is now at the centre of a mainstream Hindi drama. Ranveer Singh’s vocals don’t match those of the original Gully Boys, Divine and Naezy. But the soundtrack is as close to the sweat and swag of homegrown hip-hop as any film album. And it’s introduced me to the characters it draws inspiration from. In a short film about his life, Bombay 70 (2014), Naezy, now in a Pathani and topi, now in a hoodie and shades, makes a strong impression. Growing up tough in a Muslim ghetto, he decided to mend his wayward ways and use his voice and poetry to assert his individual identity. Inspiration and an iPad were all he needed to get going. The original “Mere gully mein” regaled airless streets and grotty rooms long before it caught the attention of cinema royalty.
Bollywood songs often romanticise or sensationalise life in Mumbai’s bastis and chawls. Golden hearts, empty pockets, sharp tongues – we’re familiar with the tropes, but they don’t usually represent reality in any authentic way. The Gully Boy soundtrack, for all its shortcomings, is something I want to hear again and again. It is of, by and for the street, and that’s gratifying. One can only hope the film lives up to the intentions conveyed by its music.
The unsung choir
Music assaults us on Mumbai’s streets all year round. If it’s not a religious procession, it’s a wedding band or a political rally. Promenades and parks blare out Bollywood songs democratically – there’s space for songs from both Guide (1965) and Clerk (1989) – providing a fractured background score to an evening walk. Cars reverse and lifts open to high-pitched instrumental bhajans, inflicting all kinds of electronic abuse on our overloaded and underloved ears.
In the midst of this racket, when there’s a flute-seller playing a sentimental song in tune, I’m inclined to stop and listen. Late in the evening, while walking along the Bandstand promenade, there’s invariably a fellow with a guitar, labouring away at a Led Zeppelin song. I once was lucky to ride in an auto where the driver hummed Hindustani classical songs in perfect sur all the way from Bandra to Andheri in peak traffic. Street music is a bit like the indie cats and dogs that line the grubby streets, leaping out at us from unexpected corners, disarming us, uplifting us, making our ordered lives seem absurd. As the veteran cellist in the Mozart show says to an aspiring conductor: “Concentrate on the music. Ignore the noise.”
From HT Brunch, February 17, 2019
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