— Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
One walked into the hall and was greeted not by silence but by absence. A vast, upholstered Sahara stretched before the stage. Rasikas were so few that one needed binoculars, not for artistic appreciation but to confirm that another human being did, in fact, exist somewhere in Row Z.
What has become of Margazhi magic, one wondered. As the vocalist embarked upon an earnest alapana, the arithmetic was cruel: eighteen rasikas breathing, and the first ten prestigious rows populated entirely by chairs—plush, obedient, and showing far more attendance discipline than the living. Somewhere between the tara sthayi and the coffee interval, the mind wandered, as all bored minds do, into fantasy. Suppose this were not a mere mortal singing. Suppose this were AI. Suppose Subbudu were reviewing it.
As an AI buff, the temptation was irresistible. Imagine a concert where technology, drunk on its own cleverness, assembled the Avengers of Carnatic music: Ariyakudi, GNB, Viswanatha Iyer, MS Subbulakshmi, MLV, DK Pattammal—every golden oldie polished, licensed, and rolled out live on stage. No glitches. No raga lapses. Grammar perfect. Memory infinite. The organisers would call it historic. Subbudu would call it fraudulent.
Let us be clear. Subbudu did not spare flesh and blood; why would he spare silicon? He would have begun politely. “A respectable attempt,” he might say, before sharpening the knife. Ariyakudi’s kacheri paddhati, he would sniff, sounded more like a railway timetable generated by a clerk who had never missed a train but had also never felt joy. GNB’s brigas, though dazzling, would be dismissed as gymnastic displays by a machine that mistook velocity for vidwat. Viswanatha Iyer’s fire? Reduced to central heating—efficient, uniform, and utterly uninspiring.
And the ladies? Heaven help them. A digital MS singing Kurai Onrum Illai would be described as an audio PowerPoint: every note present, every bhava absent. MLV’s sparkle would be faulted for excessive wattage and insufficient warmth. DK Pattammal’s grandeur, Subbudu would complain, sounded like authority without austerity—an IAS officer without field posting. Two sangatis too smooth, one pause too calculated, and the review would be complete. Perfection, in Subbudu’s universe, was merely a more irritating form of incompetence.
The organisers, meanwhile, would beam. “No shruti slips!” they would proclaim. Precisely the problem, Subbudu would retort. Music without the possibility of failure is not music; it is clerical work. Ariyakudi’s genius lay in judgement, not predictability. GNB lived on the edge. MS surrendered to something larger than herself. AI, poor thing, can only retrieve, never risk.
And then comes the most damning question, which Subbudu would ask with surgical cruelty: if even immortals, resurrected and singing flawlessly, cannot fill the hall, what exactly is AI saving? The audience remains sparse, the applause dutiful, the canteen overflowing. Coffee still enjoys greater patronage than Kambhoji.
Subbudu would end, as he always did, by twisting the knife gently. The concert was historic. The execution impeccable. The experience unforgettable—for all the wrong reasons. Until AI learns not just to sing but to provoke, offend, surprise, and occasionally fail, it will remain what it already is: a very clever machine performing for empty chairs, while the rasikas queue faithfully for vadai.
And somewhere, one suspects, Subbudu would smile—because even AI, it turns out,however tonal perfect, is not beyond criticism.And perfection itself is the cause!
