A question of belling the copycat
LEELA VENKATARAMAN
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How do we establish the importance of copyright in a tradition that thrives on improvisation? Read on to find.
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PHOTO: A.M. FARUQUI
DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS A scene from Chandralekha's `Sharira'.
It was the Other Festival being held in the old Museum auditorium of Chennai, when Malaysian Odissi dancer Ramli Ibrahim presented his students in his newfangled version of one of the pallavis well known to Odissi, the music being by the late Bhubaneswar Misra and the dance choreography by the late Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. My comment was that instead of tinkering or even trying something totally his own with a known composition which had been rendered countless times and had a cultural memory, he should work on an entirely new composition. One of the senior Odissi dancers remarked cryptically, "He has no business to use Bhuvaneswar Misra's music if he wants to do new work. That music was for Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra."
I pondered over the statement of whether treating the compositions of Bhubaneswar Misra as his `intellectual property' would automatically mean including the dance choreographer's work as part of the total deal. One knows of compositions of Bhubaneswar Misra, particularly the Gita Govind lyrics, which have been choreographed by two gurus independently — Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra and Guru Mayadhar Raut. If the music was created independently, it obviously stands as a separate property. When Nrityagram's Surupa Sen and Bijoyini Satpathy have danced their own interpretation of the Gita Govind ashtapadis set to music by Bhubaneshwar Misra, the same argument of the music not being separate from the dance has been put forth by some students of Kelucharan. This is a tricky issue because when one considers the innumerable varnams, for example, composed by the Tanjore Quartette who were both music and dance creators and think of the innumerable dance manifestations these compositions have had, one can see that the music creation has been separated from the dance. And what about the little changes unconsciously made by singers themselves rendering the compositions of various music composers? Is that also not a kind of tinkering though without intention? The whole issue of copyright becomes very difficult when it comes to music and dance creations that are momentary and are alive only at that point of time. Now with recording and video devices, it is possible to retain a song or dance work on record.
Changes over time
While making a group item of a solo number, some elements of the original solo creation could be lost or changed. While giving credit to a particular artiste for the original choreography, how can any changes, however minimal, be accepted? Over a period of time, changes may have come in and become part of the particular item. In abhinaya, the dancer may go beyond the prescribed sancharis of the guru who conceives of the interpretative substance. Would this be regarded as doing wrong, or in the interest of artistic creativity would additions be allowed? In any improvisation areas, the freedom to create would belong to the artiste. But what if the dancer were to do his own interpretation of certain verses tagged on to bits and pieces of nritta, taken from other full-length compositions choreographed by the guru? Taking out excerpts from another's work and using it in an entirely new, totally different context could also be questioned if one were to interpret the copyright law strictly.
There are instances of two artistes thinking alike and doing the same kind of work without meeting each other. Asha Coorlawala, the Modern Dancer residing in the U.S. in some of her earlier work of which she has some beautiful photographs, has captured and thus preserved moments that are so completely like what one sees in the works of Chandralekha whose creations came much later, that the coincidence is uncanny. Knowing both the dancers for what they are, nobody would nurse doubts about either dancer.
On the lighter side, I was reading a case in "Another Garland" by N. Rajagopalan where a senior musician asking the Bank Chief for a loan, undertakes to "pledge his right to sing raga Karaharapriya" while the junior musician pledges his "right to sing raga Mohanam or Bilahari." The puzzled judge is told the case of Todi Sitarama Aiyar, a musician pledging his right to sing raga Todi for a loan, and how Shankarabharanam Narasier (who got the name because of his expertise in this raga) secured funds by pledging his right to sing the raga till the money was fully repaid. The exercise in raga as property right goes further. Maha Vaidyanatha Aiyar had called the Sahana composition "Giripai" as the `property' of Bhikshaandarkoil Subbaraya. But by far the most amazing piece of information is that the great Tyagaraja himself relinquished the right to compose in Anandabhairavi raga at the instance of Tribhuvanam Swaminatha Aiyar! When the entire world of raga music is based on improvisation, where does the question of copyright come in? In the olden days, when Carnatic musicians specialised in the singing of Pallavi in a particular raga, perhaps such claims of property rights could be established. Today to judge by the imitation of Chandralekha's approach and of musicians singing ragas lifted out of tapes heard from a variety of sources, almost every artiste would qualify to be charged under the copyright law!
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