Mention classical music to your neighbour, and he will look at you as if you are talking of music from a different planet. A large part of the blame for this lies with the word “classical” – the most mystifying word to have entered India’s musical culture. The word “classical” was originally coined in the West to describe any artifact that embodies the principles of order, harmony, and reason, these being the attributes of architecture and literature nurtured in ancient Greece and Rome. With the progressive glorification of these values in the West, the quality of “classicism” came to define any work of art which represented a “standard”, and which was almost beyond criticism. A certain misdirection of meaning occurred when the word was applied to music.