In a world where a random shooting spree  can take away 20 young lives in a school,  what do we need from not just our law makers, law enforcers, politicians but our musicians, artists, writers, film makers?  Through the ages, the arts have been the humans spirit’s escape from intolerance and violence. For cinema, music, literature, theatre, there are no dividing lines, no ruptures between nations and people.  Lennon imagined such a world and every work of art achieves a bit of this vision by touching lives and uplifting spirits, near and far.
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Pandit Ravi Shankar passed away recently and regardless of the controversies surrounding his life and work, we will always celebrate him for  building bridges between diverse nationalities and genres with open-minded collaborations. In the sixties, George Harrison convinced Pandit ji to play with him at the Woodstock Festival and in the years to come, reverse osmosis caused  Harrison’s music and spirit  to be impacted deeply by India..to the extent that he named his son Dhani, after  the sixth and seventh notes of the Indian music scale, ‘dha’ and ‘ni’.
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The sublime charge of music can be experienced occasionally in concerts and I was touched by it while watching the footage (on YouTube) of Concert For George on the first anniversary (2002)of  Harrison’s death. The concert was organized by guitar legend Eric Clapton and featured many of  Harrison’s friends and collaborators, including former Beatles Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr along with Clapton, Billy Preston, Jeff Preston, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Jim Keltner and  Joe Brown. In an industry strewn with warring egos, it was an uplifting experience to see so many legends celebrating a departed colleague and each other.  From the  classical cadences of sitar to AR Rahman’s Grammy and Oscar triumphs to the energetic, compulsively infectious energy of Psy’s global hit Gangnam Style, nothing unites people better than a note that sings to all of us or makes us dance. And sometimes music can do more. Far more.  In 1984,  Band Aid united top British and Irish musicians to raise money for anti-poverty efforts in Ethiopia by releasing the song “Do they Know It’s Christmas?“and Bob Geldof and Midge Ure will go down in history as two of the most potent influences in using music  to  not just inspire but change lives.
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In 1985, USA for Africa (United Support of Artists for Africa) brought together 47 musicians led by Michael Jackson  and Lionel Ritchie  and the combined revenues of their hit single “We Are the World”  raised  almost $100 million for the relief of famine in Africa.
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Art spontaneously and effortlessly unites people and that is why regardless of  political differences, Pakistan and India have feted voices, poets, television shows and music from across the border.Pakistani poet Qateel Shifai wrote extensively for Hindi films and many Pakistani poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ibn-e-Insha, Muzaffar Warsi, Ahmed Faraz have been immortalised by Indian ghazal singers, most notably Jagjit Singh. Nusrat Fatah Ali khan, Noorjehan, Iqbal Bano, Farida Khanum, Reshma, Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hassan, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and counting have been part of a shared musical legacy. Fusion of stories, ideas, sensibilities in the arts will make the world a more cohesive entity and even in cinema, be it Richard Attenborough or Danny Boyle or  Ang Lee, cross cultural narratives have found universal resonance. In a world, where mass murder is a way to avenge a minor slight, we need the arts, human stories and music to become more defiant of restrictions and boundaries and with the Internet playing a huge part in making every event, every loss, every triumph universal, we may in the future live in a world that is more united than divided.
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This story was earlier carried in The New Indian Express.. 
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Reema Moudgil has been writing on art, theatre, cinema, music, gender issues, architecture and more in leading newspapers and magazines since 1994.  Her first novel Perfect Eight ((http://www.flipkart.com/perfect-eight-9380032870/p/itmdf87fpkhszfkb?pid=9789380032870&_l=A0vO9n9FWsBsMJKAKw47rw–&_r=dyRavyz2qKxOF7Yuc )won her an award from the Public Relations Council of India in association with Bangalore University. She also edited Chicken Soup for Indian Woman’s Soul and runs  unboxedwriters.com.  She  writes art catalogues and has scripted a commissioned documentary or two. She has exhibited her paintings in Bangalore and New York,  taught media studies to post graduates and hosts a daily ghazal show Andaz-e-Bayan on Radio Falak.

 

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