A comedian and a musician set sparks flying at The Hindu office

Carnatic musician T.M. Krishna and comedian Alexander Babu discuss art, criticism, and sartorial choices in a freewheeling chat.

Carnatic musician T.M. Krishna and comedian Alexander Babu came together at office of The Hindu for a freewheeling chat on Tuesday.

Held as part of ‘The Hindu Fridays’ series, the conversation ranged from how to deal with criticism, separating art from the artists, questioning hegemonic spaces, to sartorial choices, and ended with a joint rendition of ‘Nila Adhu Vaanathu Mele’ from the movie Nayagan.

Mr. Krishna, who was recently conferred with title of ‘Sangitha Kalanidhi’, spoke about how he ignores the trolls but tries to engage with criticisms on his work, while Mr. Babu said he tries to consider his audience as his family and tries to be charitable to them even when they criticise him, but does get upset when he reads what is written.

Reacting to a question from the audience, Mr. Krishna said, “The initial reaction for everybody is going to be anger, hurt or wanting to react. What I do is...I let that happen in my head, leave it and go away. I will come back to it in the evening or next day and read it [criticism] again. And, sometimes, there will be something for you to think about it. The other thing is, I write my reaction down. The moment you write something, there is distance between you and the [written] word. There is some semblance of objectivity. You can’t discard criticism...you can disagree with it.”

When Mr. Babu posed a question about dealing with critics who ask him why he only questions the “Brahminical hegemony” in the world of Carnatic music, Mr. Krishna said, “Whataboutery is a lie...it is not an equaliser. It is a distraction from being willing to engage in your world. It is important for each person to speak about [social] location they exist in. The moment you start addressing every single whataboutery, you can never win.”

Responding to a question about becoming popular on Youtube before performing to a full house, Mr. Babu said social media transformed the stand-up comedy scene in Tamil Nadu. “I was doing small stage shows before social media got us our audience. Evam [company] cracked this market. They were asking for something else other than music bands. That’s when stand-up comedy happened and it is why stand-up shows are in English. But for YouTube, I would have gone back to work.”

Mr. Krishna also discussed his colourful sartorial choices. “I have always liked colours. There is no colour that I would not wear. I always liked clothes that are not matching. What dress we wear is greatly governed by so many habits of what we believe is appropriate. To me, it doesn’t make any sense,” he said.