Last year, on the sidelines of the Jaipur Literature Festival, there was a fascinating discussion on Culture and Democracy between Neelabh Mishra and the Carnatic music maestro T.M. Krishna at Jaipur’s sprawling Jawahar Kala Kendra. It started off with an exploration on Vivadhi Swar, as to what is a pure raga and what is its corruption, who is to decide this, is the folk musician truer to a raga’s rendition or the vidhvan. Krishna of course held forth on the subject fluently as he was a practitioner but what was incredible was Neelabh’s depth of knowledge on classical music, both Hindustani and Carnatic. At the end of the discussion, moderated by social activist Aruna Roy, both of them got a standing ovation from the audience, largely of youngsters.