Published in ET on April 29, 2010 (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5870831.cms)
Rishi V K
Three years ago, Joshua Bell, one of the best classical musicians in the world, walked into a busy Washington metro subway station in jeans, T-shirt and a baseball cap and started playing his violin just like any street musician.
In the next 45 minutes Bell performed some of the best compositions ever written. Free for all.
Yet, there was hardly any listener.
More than a thousand people passed by and just seven stopped to give him an ear. And only one person identified Bell who collected $32.17 for the performance. Just three days earlier he had full-house show at Boston Symphony Hall where a decent seat went for $100.
The metro stunt when some of the best music fell on nobody’s ear was initiated by Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten who used it to join the classic debate on beauty and highlight the frenetic pace of modern life. He got a Pulitzer for his article.
It could have happened anywhere. The response would not have been much different in Delhi or Mumbai. In fact, almost 20 years before Bell’s metro performance, rock star Bruce Springsteen once joined a street musician in Copenhagen to play a song. Not many people noticed him, either.
How come? It’s not that people are not interested in music. Some of those who passed by, completely ignoring Bell, may have been his fans. The US is after all the largest market for music, be it classical, rock, rap or live performance.
Yet, that day the superstar violinist was royally ignored. It’s not just life at the speed of light. People were busy, but they were in a hurry. In the video – it’s there on YouTube and Washington Post website — one can see many people strolling by without even noticing the musician.
In fact, there was a fairly long queue before a lottery machine in the station. People had to wait five to ten minutes for their turn. It might have been the most inactive 10 minutes of their day, yet nobody in the queue had time for a street musician. So what if he lends his soul to his music, they would rather listen to Joshua Bell in their iPod! Or, talk on their phone or chew on their nails.
Everybody was preoccupied. More in thoughts than in action. With the business of their lives; with hundreds of small and big tensions that make up their lives. From meeting an official deadline to picking up child from day care to booking a holiday to whatever, everybody is engrossed in their private tensions, their private lives, their private worlds.
Joshua Bell was alone in public world. And his music — loud and clear and beautiful — was there for everybody, to share and enjoy. Yet, very few got it.
The problem is with the system. It forces people to be on their own, to fend for themselves. It encourages selfishness and calls it competitiveness. It forces people to scramble for their lives and calls it fair play. The challenge is to amass maximum wealth.
Nobody is spared. Everybody is in a Formula One car, racing with everybody else. You are either a winner or a loser. Either way, you are alone, in your private, air-tight world.
It’s inhuman, yet this lifestyle was the most sought-after; at least then.
It was 2007, before the financial crisis rocked the world. Every country wanted to be the United States. Every people aspired for the American way of life — a lifestyle then president George Bush would not yet compromise.
And those people who walked through some of the best music with their ears shut are supposed to be among the luckiest, living the rest-of-the-world’s dream.
What is it that makes capitalism at the same time inhuman and romanticised? Why it is not challenged? Where are the world’s social philosophers? Are they talking alternatives? Why are their voices subdued?
Capitalism may or may not be the best system. But it is effective. And it’s selfish, like its successful practitioners.
Any person or idea that challenges it is labelled ‘communist’ or ‘loser’ or ‘unrealistic’ or whatever. These labels are assigned a negative connotation — a no-no zone for the smart and the hep.
Things could be changing though, however slightly. After the global crisis that felled once-deemed-invisible institutions such as Lehman Brothers and General Motors and forced a change in the American gas-guzzler way of life, there are more talks and action on sustainable growth, clean technology and regulated markets. They point to a less selfish, more human system.
There is no evidence that these changes and the saner voice of President Barack Obama have made Americans slow down a bit and keep their eyes and ears more open to the world around.
Perhaps it’s time Joshua Bell repeated his metro performance.
ends
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