Recently, at the prestigious Sir Shankar Lal Memorial Festival in New Delhi, sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan made two comments that set me thinking. One, he said that classical concerts should be ticketed; free performances are given little or no value. Secondly, he remarked that earlier, a classical musical concert would last the entire night, with audiences capable of enjoying the in-depth elaboration of a raga, from the slow vilambit, through the madhya-laya, and finally, to the fast-paced drut or crescendo. But today, audiences have neither the time, nor the exposure, nor the desire for such long performances. Hence, perforce, the nature of the delineation of a raga, and the time allotted for it, has to change.

On the question of ticketed performances, I tend to agree with him. Why should classical artists, who have spent a life time devoted to perfecting their art, be compelled to perform free, because otherwise people may not show up? For a country, where classical music and dance has evolved for millennia, starting from Bharat’s Natya Shastra (circa 400 BCE), why have audiences for such a great and refined tradition dwindled to a point where senior artists have to plead with friends and family to fill up an auditorium even when entry is free?

And, what does this speak about our respect for these artists? Unless society at large does not nourish the practitioners of this ancient tradition, can it survive? The worry is that if our classical heritage is endangered, great artists will not only lose the incentive to perpetuate the original, but also compromise with it in a manner that threatens its authenticity. In other words, they will preserve less and borrow more, creating an aesthetic mish-mash, that falls flat between the best of the past and the innovations of the new.

Change is unavoidable and has happened in the past as well. One significant example of this is the transition from the Dhrupad style to the Khayal gayaki in classical music. The former was sombre, linear, austere, and soulful but in a largely religious way; the latter, was more flexible, with greater lachak, disciplined but playful, with bandishes that were light hearted and often even provocative. But it was a seamless transition, evolving to changing audience appreciation, but without compromising on the basics. Moreover, the two overlapped, and while khayal gayaki has possibly become more popular, even now there is a significant audience for Dhrupad too.

But unlike the past, the worry today is that change may equal distortion. I agree with Amjad Bhai that performances cannot last the night, but can they be telescoped, when dealing with something as delicate as a raga—where the fullest evocation of the right mood is of utmost importance—to the level of an adolescent pop band? I think not. There can be adaptation, some degree of modification, even some amount of experimentation, but not distortion, where artists descend to the lowest common denominator of the audience, without any attempt to educate or raise their level of appreciation. What I am arguing for is that a creative middle ground is found between the night long performances of the past and the excessively compressed concerts of today, so that the essential elements of our classical tradition are not derailed on the altar of illiterate audience preferences.

The real problem is that somewhere Indians, and especially the young, have lost the balance that all great civilisations have between the popular and the classical. As the director of The Nehru Centre in London, I have seen thousands congregate for a pop music concert at Hyde Park. And, at the same time, I saw queues forming since 2 pm in the afternoon for a western classical performance in a salon where tickets were priced as high as 20 pounds.

When that balance is lost, culture as a whole is in great danger of descending to either mimicry or gimmicry. To mindlessly copy what is part of another culture’s natural evolution, is to devalue your own heritage in the name of modernity. Great civilisations cannot become photocopies, but the challenge is how can we better protect, project and become the original? The onus for this lies on artists, audiences, and a qualitatively new education system that teaches us more about our own civilisational genius.

Pavan K Varma is author, diplomat, and former Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). Just Like That is a weekly column where Varma shares nuggets from the world of history, culture, literature, and personal reminiscences. The views expressed are personal.