Why Ahmedabad needed Coldplay

The band’s message of love and diversity was the balm for the host city’s wounds

Alok Tiwari

Before last month I had barely heard of Coldplay. Actually, I have never had an ear for western music, popular or classical. My loss, of course. I am among those whose appreciation of music never went much beyond the Hindi film songs of 50s and 60s. Most of the music I have enjoyed is from a time before my birth or from my childhood. So the buzz around the British band’s concerts in India was a bit of a puzzle for me. I wondered how could tickets for the concerts be sold out in minutes and then be resold for astronomical sums in the black market. I read about hotel tariffs in Mumbai going berserk for those days. Are there really so many and so passionate fans of the band in India? That was just the dinosaur in me thinking. The band may deserve all that and more. But among the things that caught my eye me was the second venue of their concerts announced later—Ahmedabad.

Mumbai one could understand. That is the seat of business, of our film industry, fashion, and style. Beyond that I would have voted for Kolkata. It is a cultural powerhouse even in its decades long decline. Or Bengaluru, the tech capital and centre of new money, a cosmopolitan melting pot that youngsters from across the country, indeed, from world now call home. But Ahmedabad? It is a place you associate with a lot of things but not with modern progressive thinking that a band like Coldplay represents.

The city is known more as capital of state that is birthplace of politics of hatred that so dominates the national landscape. It had long forgotten the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. Even in final decades of last century the city was known for intermittent sectarian violence. Then came 2002. Godhra and subsequent violence in Gujarat widened the communal divide further. Ahmedabad became a place where maximum ghettoisation took place. It became a place where housing societies vetoed sale of homes and tenancy over people’s religion and food habits. It was a place where frenzied fans (not of the game) shouted Jai Shri Ram even during international cricket matches.

Uttar Pradesh under Yogi Adityanath may be today outdoing Gujarat as poster child of Hindutva but there is no doubt the formula was perfected and polished in Gujarat. There were reports, malicious gossip of course, that the city might have been chosen to appease the powers that be. Even otherwise everything these days seems to go to Gujarat, from investment to cricket matches. It could have been a little nudge from some friend in particularly high place that got Coldplay to Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

Still, it seemed a fraught move. What if someone thought listening of western music itself was an anti-national act? What if someone discovered something the band might have played in the past or something any of its members said that did not agree with what passes for muscular nationalism these days? There is plenty in the band’s history to rile the modern-day defenders of Hindu faith. It routinely supports the LGBTQ community having even a song dedicated to them and waving the rainbow flag in the concerts. Worse, it has espoused the Palestinian cause going, according to some reports, to the extent of not playing ever in Israel.

So it was with some trepidation that I watched the livestream of the concert last Sunday. It was more out of curiosity than with an intention to savour the music. But savour the music I did. More than that, as the evening unfolded, I realized why the city of Ahmedabad, more than any other in India, needed this show. Music has the capability to apply the balm that a bruised place needs. It can transcend the divisions and give the healing touch. That is why it is often the singers more than film stars and fashion models who emerge as true international icons. The lyrics may be in any tongue, but the music has a language all its own. And often the language is of love and hope.

The technical wizardry of the concert was on full display, but it was soothing as well as hopeful to watch Ahmedabad unconditionally welcome people from all over in its midst and let them just have fun. Ahmedabad has got more than its share of trappings of a growing metropolis thanks to powerful political backing it has. But it is not the Metro lines, roads and new skyscrapers that define a modern city. It is the attitude to welcome the humanity in its fold with all its diversity. There is no city in the world that has become great by adopting sectarianism. On Sunday evening, Ahmedabad appeared to be embracing that ideal. It appeared to choose hope over hatred.

It let the Coldplay fans do their thing while the rest went about their own business. No police complaint, no protest, no disruption in the name of religion, no offence taken. This is more than what many a comedy show, a play, or an art exhibition has got in Ahmedabad or Gujarat in recent times. A truly great city does not just facilitate commerce, though it may be essential to keep it going, it also fosters the arts. And arts need an inclusive and free atmosphere to flourish. They do not always please, they will often offend. But they will also enrich in ways that mere commerce cannot. A civilization, a place, a city that understands and accepts this can achieve a healthy growth. In the absence of this spirit, the growth is like cancer’s. It will eventually destroy.

Somewhere in the second half of the concert Chris Martin sang his timeless ballad of love and healing ‘Fix You’ and brought many among the swaying crowd to tears. He might as well be addressing his host city and state.

This column appeared in Lokmat Times on Jan 29, 2025