Ideas & Views

There are two music (from music to musicians after some time, as I had quipped in earlier posts) that impressed me in the past few months. I was not able to spend time to write about it though I had wanted to.  I could not now recollect how I stumbled upon them. Ah, yes. I had listened to Ranganatha panchakam in youtube and tried to hunt for its mp3. I googled for the song and found the album from which the song sprung from. The album was 'Ranganathaya Namaha' by Chitraveena Ravikiran. The theme of the album is conceptualized by the Maestro (Ranganatha panchakam is also set to tune by him) while his students had sung the kritis. I browsed through the list of singers.  One of them caught my attention and led to further browsing of her albums and listen to some songs in youtube.  A voice so perfect for carnatic music.  Least nasal accent. Instantly captivated by the depth of her voice, clarity of diction and manodharma, I downloaded all her albums as mp3 from ch...

T.M.Krishna concert held on May 29, 2011 at SSVT , Maryland Violin: R.K.Shriramkumar Mridangam: ArunPrasad Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar set standards by devising the kutcheri format for Carnatic music which is followed religiously even today. T.M.Krishna is redifining the classicism in carnatic classical music. Krishna breathes a new air of professionalism and adds a new aura into the concert stage. Not easy to imagine and not easily sung phrases and prayogas, crisp and relevant details, subtle nuances but not redundant rendition. He will take a phrase or raga neraval to a beautiful korvai and drop it to a spell. Such appropriate pauses fills the silence and gives more life to the music. Enormous respect for the music that he practices and an easy humour to connect with the audience. The music that scintillated the hall that day touched the consiciousness of the audience. Only T.M.Krishna could pull a packed hall of disciplined audience despite Memorial Day longweekend. Missed the fi...

Venue: SSVT, Maryland Date: Oct 16, 2010 - 5pm Accompanists: H.N.Bhaskar (Violin), Delhi Sairam (Mridangam) I had gone gaga over Ranjani Gayatri's concert few weeks in advance as this would be my first RG concert in person. But as the concert day was nearing, I could not decide whether I should go. After much dilemma, I made it to the concert carrying my newborn. I realized within few minutes that it's not easy sitting in a concert for three hours with the baby. I was physically present but all my attention had to be on the baby. She would start screaming every time a new song would begin or the mridangist would bang a beat and I rushed outside to calm her. I was hearing the songs, enjoying some, not focusing on some. The songs and ragas that I missed were filled in by asking around. Song list: [1] Eranapai- Todi Varnam [2] Sri Saraswathi Namosthuthae - Arabhi [3] Enathu manam kavalai enum irul sooznthal - Harikambodhi, PapanasamSivan [4] Alapana by R followed by Ammaravamma -...

Miles traveled and Miles to go The West has always been calling us developing country. We are still a long way to be as developed as the US or Europe. But, we are essentially a developed country. With our huge population spreading across all social sectors, advancement is a constant process. It cannot be a complete statement. Infrastructure cannot be built as sophisticated as America or Europe. We have to set realistic goals. The goal is to support and create livelihood for 2 billion people cramped in a small geography of limited natural resources, water being the most scarce resource in cities and rural areas alike. Progress has been and is happening daily and slowly. There is more awareness now than ever about everything. Globalization has brought many advantages to the country, the country as is is yet to make full use of it. Cell phones to vendors and street sweepers! Cell phones to vendors is a progress while Street Sweepers still existing in a modern world would be a question ...

The aging group The primordial fear of man is the fear of death. So said Dr.Parthasarathi during his Bhagwad Gita lectures years ago. I witnessed the truth of this statement during my visits to few relatives who are septuagenarians. All my father's cousins and siblings are in this age group. The primordial fear was written all over their faces, explicit in all their daily activities including how they carried themselves about. Life is full of uncertainties while Death is certain and absolute. Why fear the certain then? We, the mankind, does things that are a wonder. Contradicting beliefs and practices. Age is only a number. In India though, it is a reason to worship. The higher the number, the person deserves more respect irrespective what he is. The person would have led a really bad life, done everything wrong and would have gone astray. He would have simply lazied about his entire life and still lazies around. Such folks would survive only in India owing to joint family system....

Nieces and Nephews I have many cousins, all of them elder to me. The last time I saw my nieces and nephews, they were toddlers and newborns. They are now fluently using Google for their school projects and leaving comments on social networking sites!!! Soon they will walk into our offices and replace us! One of my nephew is very interested in history. He reads only history comics (about Indian history, various rulers, dynasties, wars). He accompanied me to Spencer Plaza. I was quite nervous because he was brimming with questions and I never liked nor was good with remembering names and dates. He started. I swallowed a gulp. "Do you refer to cities in US by any nick names? Is New York City referred to as anything else?" I explained to him that not all cities have nick names, some have, like Chicago is called Wind City, Boston is called College city, New York City is the Fashion Capital. States have names, for example, Connecticut is called Constitution State, Delaware is cal...

City infrastructures There are many stretches of roads in Chennai that have been built new and still maintained very neatly with regulated traffic. At other places, (just step outside airport), the condition of roads remain the same as before or even worse. The same people form the state government again and again and still there is no persistent progress. " singara chennai" says the bill boards but the spirit is forgotten or purposely ignored. Every wall in the city carries a political flavour - Self praises and birthday wishes for their thalapathys and varungala muthalvars . The phrase 'painting the city red' doesn't mean this sort of scribbling! I have never lived in Chennai for long so my observations with respect to any specific landmark is limited. The boom of software services industry from the 90's has increased the inflation tremendously. To me, who is not a software person, prices of commodities came as a shock. I am glad I am able to provide for m...