It was a charming mail, inviting me to attend the Chandigarh Sangeet Sammelan, an annual affair staged every October in Le Corbusier’s city. In Chandigarh, Khosla had organised my stay in his home, an old-style bungalow surrounded by an ebullient garden whose fruits and vegetables unfailingly found their way to the dining table. Staying with us were three others — the lovely Gurinder; Hari Sahasrabuddhe, the late classical singer Veena Sahasrabuddhe’s husband; and music critic Manjari Sinha. While this democratisation of classical music was welcome, it also meant that committed patrons were replaced with intermittent corporate sponsors. Across India’s bylanes and back streets, but for a handful of such committed individuals, the pulse of classical music might not have kept throbbing under the great ambient hum of mass entertainment.

Source: The Hindu August 29, 2020 10:30 UTC