Devangshu Datta: To sing or not to sing

VIEWPOINT

It is interesting how quickly digital penetration has changed the norms of the workplace. Especially where the attitude to music is concerned. Vive la difference! The HR blokes learnt in the 1990s that music helped workers simultaneously relax and concentrate. Several people did PhDs on the subject. As a result, we suffered the infliction of muzak in lifts, canteens and sometimes, (oh God!) in the office loos as well.

After that, a different set of chaps made the amazing discovery that office workers often had disparate tastes in music. Some freaks were even sufficiently weird as to be driven to psychotic rage if they were force-fed muzak.

Then the iPod happened and so did satellite radio. Some offices switched from Muzak to "Sat" and its excellent programming. After that, Pandora and YouTube came into vogue. In the last year, it's become respectable for cubicle-dwellers to jam headphones on and listen to the "little, big i".

It doesn't hurt productivity because the key communication channel (or "KCC" in the jargon of those who define a night out with friends as "peer-to-peer downtime") in most offices is IM. It doesn't take much to multi-task an IM chat, listen to music and do several other things including pick your nose, at the same time.

The musical liberalisation has also led to a widening of tastes""just listen to the ring-tones! People bred in the sternest traditions of Bhangra rap have discovered they like flamenco. A "Mashup" circa 2007 is likely to incorporate passages from several different musical traditions, not just different songs from the same genre.

As a result, the average white-collar worker gets to listen to many more hours of music""quite often to a customised selection. This has also led to the creation of a new set of bloodsports centred on music.

Think of the reality shows, which stake out amateur warblers for slaughter. Inevitably too, there's more attention paid to music even where it's peripheral to other fields of entertainment. Ten years ago, nobody cared if Tigana sang the Marseillaise or not, so long as he stood to attention with Les Bleus and maintained his work rate on the field. Now Jacques Kallis is being crucified because he refuses, for whatever reason, to lip-synch Nkosi Sikelel iAfrika.

Where's the big deal? Maybe he doesn't want to sing it because it brings back memories of his late father""that is his stated reason. He treats the ceremony of anthem-singing with impeccable respect and he goes out and gives 100 per cent after the anthems have finished and the crowd has sat down.

The singing and non-singing of anthems and non-anthems can lead to an awful fuss. India has its share of shaheeds who went to the gallows singing songs that are now part of folklore. Ireland has similar traditions. In contrast, modern Kerala has seen Jehovahs Witnesses pilloried for refusing to sing the national anthem in school assembly and of course, there's the ongoing row about Vande Mataram.

There are two well-known songs that Germans have avoided singing in public since the end of the Third Reich. One is a noisy Nazi thing called the Horst Wessel. The best English version of that goes "Ours is not a happy household, no one ever laughs or smiles/ Mine's a dismal occupation, crushing ice for father's piles!" The other is the national anthem""for decades, German athletes were under instructions not to sing "Deutschland Uber Alles" when the music played.

Quite apart from all other reasons, there may be a simple physical explanation for Kallis playing dumb. "Nkosi" is not an easy song and Kallis may be tone-deaf or at least, less than confident about his ability to hold the tune. Whatever the case, it ought to be his personal decision to sing or not to sing. Or does he need to file for a disability certificate to get out of this onerous duty?