ut traditional music is organically linked to nature. In the 24 hour cycle, some of the ragas are supposed to be sung in the morning, other in the afternoon and still others in the evening or late at night. Every pehr (three hour period) has ragas and compositions associated with it. Some ragas are strongly associated with various seasons –the most important being the basant rut and the barkha rut.

The essential link with nature has been maintained in our music, as indeed in our literature. Nature is never treated as alien or hostile to the state of human beings. Thus all aspects of life are seen as products of the same integrated world.

In the West, particularly following the industrial revolution, it was assumed that a schism had developed between human aspirations and nature. Nature, earlier looked up to for nourishment and a sensual touch, was now seen as neutral at best, rough and of little intrinsic value. The first considered reaction to this was in the form of the Romantic Movement in the late Eighteenth and the Nineteenth Centuries as creative people with refined sensitivity concluded that the increasing distance between man and nature was unhealthy and alarming. Going back to nature was the regulation slogan and all development was suspected of violating an essential bond.

Initially in human experience, nature was terrifying and beyond comprehension. Only gradually, with human development, it because something that could be aligned with human purpose and welfare. When industrialisation gathered pace, the confidence in human ability to benefit from reached a stage where significant elements of nature could be redesigned and made amenable to demands of human endeavour.

All talk about progress and development was, and is in a way, associated with manipulating nature for human use. We have finally reached a stage where the results of such manipulation are becoming too obvious to ignore. There is a clarion call today to highlight the need to do something before the nourishing, life-giving lap of nature is destroyed in the name of progress and advancement.

These intellectual movements, and the resultant upheavals in the world’s environment, took place in certain relatively small sections of the world. However, the rest of the world, too, is faced with their consequences

Once growth and development came to be seen as a desirable destination for all people, material welfare was soon established as the principle metric by which wealth and progress were measured. This model has been followed by other societies as well, both in its political form and state structures and the individualist mindset. The rest of the world was/ is at the receiving end of this drive. It appears that a similar link has being maintained with the greater part of the world being reduced to being consumers of the products conceived and manufactured by a set of countries and companies.

The arc of the process appears threatened with extinction; the digital technology might value nothing but the end product. The process was a product of an interaction between humans and nature. The consciousness and sensibility grew through this interaction.

In our literature, too, an essential bond with nature had existed. It was an integrative point of reference, though not explicit. The Europeans could not understand it stylised representation. In some instances they commanded that it should be more overt. The Nineteenth Century forced experiments of “natural shaeri.” In this frontal assault, what had been an integrative sensibility became a reductive analysis.

The shadow cast on the visual forms, too, ended up in imitations of the visual references of the West. Respectful interaction and incremental absorption were rare and happened only occasionally.

In our classical music, the ragas continued to be sung in consonance with nature. The world view remained mostly static despite the volcanic eruptions that characterised the past two hundred years. New at forms, like theatre under European influence, started make dents in the traditional understanding of the arts in general and music in particular. It started being more narrowly focused on situations and the lyrics rather than the more generalised tonal construction as expressed I the original ragas.

The sudden domination of the artificial intelligence is a new variable that could brighten/ darken all horizons, including those of the arts. The very definitions one was comfortable with are being challenged or made redundant by the extremely fast processing of the artificial intelligence. Perhaps new definitions are required. The process which held qualitative value in its gradual evolution and assimilation is also being undermined by the significance yielded to the end result.

The arc of the process appears threatened with extinction; the digital technology might value nothing but the end product. The process was a product of an interaction between humans and nature. The consciousness and sensibility grew through this interaction. With artificial intelligence‘s truncation of the process, the ready availability of the end could create an even bigger hiatus between the process and its culmination. One wonders what the finished product will look like - a robotic creation of a raga once inspired by nature? The spirit of the industrial revolution is still palpable. The idea was not to live with nature, but to redesign it. How it will drive the artistic forms, is the question.

The author is a culture critic based in Lahore