Art & Culture, GS 1, TLP-UPSC Mains Answer Writing
2. In India, music is deeply integrated into the lives of common people – their traditions and the nature that they inhabit. Elucidate. (10 Marks)
भारत में, संगीत आम लोगों के जीवन में गहराई से एकीकृत है – उनकी परंपराएं और प्रकृति जिसमें वे निवास करते हैं। स्पष्ट करें।
Approach
Candidates need to directly address Indian music relevance in daily life of the common people with explaining there tradition and nature. Try to give some suitable example for better substantiation.
Introduction
Indian music has developed over centuries into a nuanced, glorious art Form. Indian music, through a variety of melodic entities (ragas), Ornamentation of notes and rhythmic patterns, tries to unite the performer and listener in the experience of emotions or bhava.
Body
Relevance of Indian music:
- Expressing emotions: Music plays a more important role in our life than just being a source of entertainment as it can express our feelings as well as emotions which is of course connected to our daily life. Indian classical music is rich in terms of ragas which contain different rasas or bhaavas or emotions.
- For example Rasiya Geet closely woven into the very fabric of daily life and day to day chores of its people.
- Increasing the concentration: There are plenty of people who swear that listening to music helps them concentrate on what they are doing and help them focus in a much better way in everyday life.
- Weddings, birth of a child, festivals: Later on, folk songs were extensively used for recreational purposes and to celebrate special events.
- Information generation to generation: Folk songs were also used to pass on prominent information from one generation to another. Since people did not have a solid material to preserve ancient information, passing down important information in the form of songs became utmost important.
- Socio-religious reforms: Religious leaders like Adi Shankaracharya used many such songs to spread his message throughout the country. Rabindra sangeet topics dealt in these songs include modernism, humanism, structuralism, reflection, romance, introspection, psychology, nostalgia, yearning, etc. Mando of Goa dealing with love, tragedy and both social injustice and political resistance during Portuguese presence in Goa.
- Entertainment of workers: Bhatiali was sung by the fishermen of ancient Bengal. It is said that this musical form was used by the oarsmen and fishermen of Bengal to keep themselves entertained when they didn’t have to row their boats with all their might.
- Religious worshipping reverence: The religious and philosophical unity embodied through musical practice, therefore, has deep historical roots, which has meant that music and religion share many aspects of a common ontology.
- For example Pandavani is a folk singing style involving narration of tales from the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata.
Conclusion
Indian Music has various benefits in our daily lives, it takes us away from our daily life stress and calms our minds. It provides us with a feeling of deep relaxation and creates an aura of positivity around us. Helps improve the mind vigorously and makes one more artistic as well as ingenious.
