CHENNAI: During the Margazhi festival, I rang up the secretary of a leading sabha in the city to ascertain if he could get me a paid ticket for the programme of an acclaimed artiste. Pat came the reply - ‘Not even a single seat is available, all the seats have been sold.’ And I thought that the kind of response from the rasikas was indeed the redeeming feature of the festival.But when I entered the sabha, the first two rows were almost empty. The quick reaction of the secretary was that ‘It has been reserved for the sponsors, who may not even turn up for the programme’. Earlier, rajas and zamindars used to patronise fine arts without quid pro quo, but today, the business community has come forward to encourage culture and cultural organisations, but with attached strings.I found in a few instances that prime time slots are reserved for the choice of the sponsors and awards are earmarked for their nominees. With each passing year, the musical extravaganza in December has become more and more popular. It is evident that the entry of business houses into the cultural arena has added strength to the base of the organisations sponsoring and is also making the sabhas richer.Some artistes, who have contacts, ensure donations to the sabhas or they themselves pay the sabhas in the absence of sponsorship to ensure a slot in the season. A commercial deal, indeed. We will have to reason out the sanity of such dealings, as many of the talented upcoming artistes are left out for want of sponsorship. The issue is whether sponsoring has made any monetary difference to senior artistes, especially in the dance arena.The remuneration given to them is a pittance when compared to the costs incurred by the artistes. Every individual artiste would not like to publicly admit that such sponsorship has not really touched them, as the lurking fear of losing a slot during the festival looms before them. In reality, one can get a programme : (a) If you are from a business house, (b) If you have some kind of important contact (c) Or you, yourself, have enough money to offer. It is time we realised that contacts and public relations, an unavoidable phenomenon, do matter in getting programmes. Every one involved in this milieu should realise that the quality of the art should be on the upward track and if the same trend continues, we can see a ‘plateau’ in the arena of cultural progression.
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