Sona Mohapatra has always been a person who is not afraid to speak her mind. So last week when IIT-B crossed all limits of bigotry and asked her to bring a man along with her to perform in the premier institute’s cultural festival ‘Mood-Indigo’, she thrashed the institute in a hard-hitting open letter for their blatant sexism.
While Sona Mohapatra received a lot of support from people for taking a brave stand, there still were some pseudo-intellectuals who couldn’t resist calling her out for not having enough ‘chartbusters’ to her name.
Sona was definitely not going to let such people get the better of her. She has now published another Facebook post, calling their idea of a concert, ” a bunch of singers put-together for the sake of clients under pressure”.
Here is what she wrote
This, amongst the many people trying to show me my ‘place’ after I wrote the first letter. Ignoring the abusive ones to reply to a few who are just kind of ‘un-informed’.
Mr Kaushik, I do understand the ignorance of your ‘lot’. You are confused about what makes for a fabulous 3 hour concert. Not a row of ‘block-busters’ for sure. I’ll try & explain in simpler terms that you might understand, we don’t go to a restaurant & order 10 plates of the ‘butter chicken’ or ‘paneer padanda’ just cus it’s the most popular dish on the menu! The roti, dal, salad other dishes & maybe even the cola drink play just as critical roles to providing a satisfying experience. It is pathetic that one needs to even bother explaining such simple matters to you. I would loathe comparing music & musicians & songs with food but your culturally bankrupt pea-brains leave me with no choice.
To the other morons asking about a ‘duet’ on my show, not that you felt the need to ask the other boy artistes lineup about such but I do have a band member, who sings a few with me. What you & your lot actually wants is to go Bhaji-Tarkari shopping! You have replaced artists with aloo-pyaz in your minds. Your idea of a concert is actually an upgraded ‘orchestra/melody’ party of yore. It is the reason why you would rather have a row of singers put together with a bunch of musicians singing covers & ‘hits’. None of whom who actually play regularly or live with the band as such, mostly ‘put-together’ for a show for ‘clients’ like you under pressure. Nothing authentic is required for your fake lot so I guess you’d be happy with such.
So to answer your question, YES, I can & do deliver smashing 3 hour concerts with my band & my busy calendar outside of the college circuit confirms that. Most importantly, ‘Mood I’ could barely ‘afford’ to pay my band members, let alone me. Insisting on Ram Sampath on top of that was a little shameless, don’t you think?? Another important lesson for you to learn : nothing should come for FREE. Especially not ‘entertainment’ & ‘music’ by professionals who have spent a lifetime honing their craft.
We do take up charity gigs & fund raisers for causes we believe in & back; entertaining your already ‘spoilt’ community is not one of them.
That you do not have female headliners in your festival for 30 years is the bigger malaise (No, one Asha Bhosle doesn’t count) but that you think you can have it ALL, for FREE is just plain silly & very greedy.
Go think hard before embarrassing yourself, your community, your institution & your upbringing before you write such dumb things.
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Go think hard before embarrassing yourself, your community, your institution & your upbringing before you write such dumb things.
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Here is her original post.
It takes a lot of courage for a lady in current times to stand up to sexism in our country. The fact that she had to defend her action of speaking against the patriarchal tradition in one of the most reputed institutes of the nation shows that we are not as liberal as we think we are.