'Music, dance and culinary, only saving grace of India'

Renowned sarod exponent Pandit Rajiv Taranath on Saturday said that music, dance and culinary were the only three remaining indigenous icons of India today.

Addressing a gathering of cognoscenti at Ganabharathi here, Rajiv Taranath lamented that India, home to the likes of Shankaracharya, Madhwacharya and Ramanujacharya, today had become a “land of rapists”. The Parliament had turned into a “fish market”, he added. 

Taranath said that as a young boy he used to weave yarn for the khadi used by his father. “I was proud of my country at that time,” he said.

Encouragement

Taranath said that encouragement for music lacked in the country. If the trend continued, then the art form may die after three generations.

Clarifying that his words were not “mere utterances”, but “knowledge gained during his experiences during foreign tours”, Taranath said that his music still has set lovers in foreign cities like California and New York in the US.

Taranath also rued that the quality of music content in journals and magazines was poor.Earlier, music scholar T P Vaidyanathan released ‘Thillana’ a music journal brought out by Ganabharathi. Taranath was felicitated on account of his 80th birthday.

‘Pandit Ravishankar’, a book in Kannada comprising articles on Ravishankar, brought out by Raga Mala was also released, which was followed by Taranath’s sarod recital. He was accompanied by Pandit Udayraj Karpur on tabla.