In a development that has sent shockwaves of pure, uncut melody through the hallowed halls of British orchestral pomp, the Indian musical colossus Ilaiyaraaja has been declared a global genius by none other than the UK's finest tuneful institutions. Yes, the man who has composed more tunes than there are gin bottles in my flat has finally been acknowledged by the very people who once considered a sitar an exotic cocktail ingredient.
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, seemingly recovering from a collective aneurysm induced by too much Brahms, has announced a series of concerts dedicated to Raja's oeuvre. "We have discovered melody," said a clearly overwhelmed conductor, wiping away a tear that smelled faintly of curry and revolution. This is the same crowd that once thought "raga" was a type of pasta. But now, after 50 years of relentless creativity, the man who has scored over 1,000 films has become the unwitting conqueror of the classical establishment.
Let us consider the sheer audacity of this. Ilaiyaraaja, a man who never studied formal Western notation, who treats symphonies like street urchins and bends them to his will, has been anointed by the very high priests of musical orthodoxy. It is as if a roulette player had wandered into a chess grandmaster's tournament and checkmated them all with a single, perfect spin. His music is a fever dream of competing elements, where violins dance with tribal drums and the whole thing sounds like a monsoon falling on a tin roof.
I once attended a performance of his works at the Royal Albert Hall. The audience was a mix of tweed-wearing purists and ecstatic diaspora members weeping into their program notes. The moment the first chord hit, a man in the front row, clearly a barrister by day, began to convulse in rhythm. His wife, a woman who probably chaired the local flower arranging society, was soon doing something that looked like a cross between a hula dance and a seizure. That is the power of Raja. He makes the stiffest upper lip twitch.
Now, the UK orchestras are falling over themselves to claim this genius as their own. They speak of his "harmonic complexity" and "rhythmic innovation" as if they have just discovered fire. But we know the truth. The truth is that Ilaiyaraaja has been doing this since before most of these orchestras could play a C major scale. He has been the soundtrack to a billion lives, from the sweaty madness of a Chennai cinema to the silent reverence of a temple at dawn. And now, finally, the West has caught up.
But let us not be too kind. This is the same music industry that ignored Thelonious Monk until he was fitted for a straitjacket. The same industry that told Bob Dylan he couldn't sing. The same industry that now queues up to genuflect before a genius they have only just noticed. Yet, in the end, the music wins. It always does. So raise a glass of stale gin to Ilaiyaraaja, the man who made the west listen. May his ragas continue to haunt our dreams and our concert halls for another 50 years. And may the orchestras remember that they are merely the vessels, not the source. The source is a man from a small village in Tamil Nadu who decided that the universe needed more melody. And by god, he was right.
