So this weekend I attended (correction: I was forced to attend) a classical music concert by Pandit Ravishankar and his daughter Anoushka Shankar, thanks to my dad, who, thanks to his job, gets free passes to all such “elite” events, and he insists that it’s high time I “acquire the taste for good things in life!” Now I have never understood this concept of “acquired taste”. I mean, if I don’t like it, I don’t. Why do I need to “acquire” this taste? I am comfortable being myself: i.e. this tasteless, culturally challenged simple person, who doesn’t know how to spend her Sunday evening in Mumbai because there aren’t any movies left to be seen and she is yet to “acquire” the taste for the finer things of life. If anything, I would like to acquire the taste for wine, or at least whisky… I have been trying that for some time now, but I am yet to get there!
Now contrary to me, my dad is someone who has acquired many a new taste, and he insists that for an individual to grow, it is very important! Can’t argue with that… and to some extent, I did acquire a taste for some of the things which I hated to begin with: rock music, Jane Austen, and of course, boys (the latter has proved to be quite a disaster), but classical music? I don’t think so!
I mean, no offence to Pandit Ravishankar, but I am really no judge of instrumental music, so there is no point saying how awesome the concert was! He plays to a very niche audience: half of which is truly connoisseurs of classical music, and the other half is like my dad- corporate yuppies who have been offered free passes to attend the concert because their company is sponsoring it, or they have been invited by their clients, whose company is a sponsor! You get the drift! The problem arises when they decide to bring their ignorant, aesthetically challenged daughters who don’t fit in and who have no intention of fitting in; who dress casually in jeans and a T shirt amidst elegantly clad ladies wrapped in expensive sarees and big bindis; who have their eyes fixated on the “Exit” gate; who keep counting each second of the two and a half hour program (torture); who appreciate talent but from a distance; who would rather spend weekends lounging around in red pajamas with equally obscure friends; who are comfortable in their own world without trying to “acquire” the finer tastes of life…
3 comments:
It is extremely interesting for me to read the article. Thanx for it. I like such topics and anything connected to them. I would like to read a bit more soon.
Perhaps because all tastes, except for the elementary ones, are acquired.
The process can be forced or gradual, but the process will be there, always.
Also, I think an open mind makes for an interesting place to live in, ergo do not let you aesthetic handicap get in your way.
There is no need to fit in to like something that is liked by a conglomerate of people. Two people, for example, can like the same thing, and have completely different reasons for it.
You used the key word fairly early on in this text, in fact.
We must all grow.
It is a process. It is perhaps not a good idea to speed it up or suppress it in forced ways.
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