Living The Life: ‘Bharathiyar’s poetry is giving me strength in these times’

My wife and I returned to Chennai on March 18 from the UK. We were on a tour. When we had our layover in Dubai, our first flight was cancelled. Somehow, we managed to make it home, and we are so grateful for that. We saw the signs, of course. Even in the UK, there were five cases at the time. We had difficulties to take a cab to the airport. We saw the snowball effect start in the UK, and so that makes us glad we reached home sooner. Since there were signs, I made plans to work from home for a month. Our tour in the US was also cancelled. I took this opportunity to take up the projects I never had time to before. The first thing we did, for one and a half weeks, was clean our house and reorganise. As travelling musicians, we don’t get the time to be at home very much, so this was a great time to reconnect with our home space. It doesn’t feel the same as before, because we’ve really tried to make it our own. I was working on my own projects, and so was my wife, but we got together to make tracks. I was reading some works of Bharathiyar the other day, and in the context of the virus, they mean something completely different. His poetry is giving me strength through these times. Once things return to normal, I think there will be huge changes to art. Carnatic music has always had a certain pattern and certain patrons, but those things will change because of the pandemic. I cannot pinpoint how it will change, but that arts must tap into society more. Either way, it is something I am looking forward to.