Sightings

These are strange times. Strange things happen to people on strange days.

Anna Nagar to Taramani is quite a distance to cover on a daily basis. Yours truly does to diligently. Everyday (Insert obvious expletive about college being so far away etc.). Today during the commute, I saw:

1. Four Sethji boys on two Honda Activas (grey) wearing pink shirts with embroidery on them. With blue jeans. They weren’t identical. Enough said. Here’s to brave Sethji boys with coloured hair (burgundy, brown and reddish blonde).

2. Ten autos with flags stuck on either side. I have been through Ayudha Pooja and many political party meetings before but it was them flags this time. They had a red and yellow base with the Mercedes logo in blue on top. Not kidding.

3. An Alto with the hood of its boot (don’t know what it’s called) on its backseat. I’m still wondering how they got it in there.

4. An advertisement on the back of the bus for a reality show on Raj TV called Top Jodi. I could not identify the judges or the anchors. (I would like to state here that I have watched all possible Tamil movies, obscure ones too.) I have a feeling the male judge was one of those who acted in Visu padams like Samsaram adhu Minsaram, Penn Aval Mann, Vidiyal Nalla Aviyal etc.

I also wanted to include class getting cancelled, but I would rather attribute that to sheer good luck!

Come on and take a free ride

At 70, nothing seems to faze Mohan Raj. He has a smile and a nod for everyone passing by. If he were in England in the 1920s he would’ve even taken his hat off for the ladies.

Mohan Raj works as a taxi driver in New York. While this may seem normal to anyone, Mohan Raj, in truth, has had quite an interesting life. He ran away from his village when he was 14 to come to Chennai and act in films. It is not always that luck favours everyone, and Mohan was hence, restricted to doing odd jobs in studios.

“That was a turning point in my life”, recalled Mohan wistfully. “I met many great actors – Sivaji Ganesan was one of them.”

Finding the studios not as exciting as he’d imagined them to be, Mohan took to taxi driving. He claims his taxi was quite popular in Madras, as it was called then, an easily believable claim, given his cultured and courteous demeanor. He was in his late twenties then, and had to take care of a large num ber of dependents in his family. He managed to educate his siblings and find them good jobs, largely through the wide network of friends he had built through his taxi driving.

At one point, Mohan started driving for Shanta and V. P. Dhananjayan on a regular basis. The dancer-couple treated him as a member of the family and it is a friendship that has lasted all of four decades or more. It was with the help of the husband of a singer in the Dhananjayans’ troupe that he found employment in the American Consulate.

“They (The Dhananjayans) still treat me as a part of the family”, said Mohan, with a smile. “When I came back from the US this December, I met them and offered to drive for them. They flatly refused saying that I was family and they couldn’t employ me”.

Mohan worked for more than fifteen years at the Consulate where he earned a reputation for devotion to duty and services rendered beyond the call of duty. The egalitarian atmosphere of the workplace helped him blossom as a personality in his own right. Over the years, he developed a keen interest in contemporary Tamil literature and American bestsellers and became a devout reader of the Kamba Ramayanam. Through his association with the Dhananjayans, he also became a keen follower of classical dance and music.

Mohan comes back to India every year for about three months during the December “season” to listen to Carnatic concerts and watch dance recitals. “I did not know much about music until I started driving”, claimed Mohan. “When I worked for the Dhananjayans, I would take them to all the concerts they wanted to attend. They would buy a ticket for me as well and I learned all that I know about music from these concerts.”

Through his friends across social barriers and spanning a variety of professions and occupations, Mohan has been able to help many people find jobs, some of them senior positions in the private and public sectors, and quite a few in the American Consulate. “People would not believe it when I said I could get them very good jobs”, stated Mohan, chuckling. “I would then go about asking my friends for jobs and when these non-believers actually got job offers, they would be astounded.”

Mohan is also a cricket fanatic. His favourite cricket memory was listening to the Prudential World Cup finals in 1983 on a transistor radio. “We’d go to the Woodlands Drive-in opposite the Consulate during breaks so we could listen to the commentary in peace. I was ecstastic that day.” When he lived in Chennai, he has never missed a single match that has taken place here.

Mohan’s years of sincere work in the Consulate won him the “Sustained Superior Service Award” there, and paved the way for him to get a green card. After much agonising over the decision to transplant himself from familiar surroundings to an alien environment, Mohan finally took the plunge after his retirement a few years ago, to seek greener pastures in the US, where he now lives.

He started off in the US doing odd jobs again, and finally took to taxi driving. “I drive because it simply makes me happy”, said Mohan firmly. “There’s nothing else I would rather do.”

After initial doubts and misgivings, he has settled down happily there, working in the service industry with dignity and financial security. Home on a holiday, he could be seen everywhere during the December music and dance festival. Soon he should be on his way back to his new home abroad, a happy man who watched every ball of every Chennai Test from the pavilion terrace enclosure.

The times they are a’same

I read a couple of chic-lit (No. Not M & B) books a week or so back and figured out that it was not too difficult to write.

The main character is a woman in her early to mid-twenties with a boyfriend and a crappy job. Or rather a job at which she should be promoted but doesn’t get it because of a snotty colleague (usually another woman). She thinks her boyfriend is perfect until the super-guy comes along. This guy’s either her boss (oh this office relationship works out just perfectly), or he would be her inspiration (don’t know why I put that in there).

After a customary fight with the super-guy, she realizes that her boyfriend is not good enough for her and hence dumps him, only to go back to the super-guy, whom she’s loved all along (yawn).

There, I’m done writing chic-lit.

I now have only a book report, a profile and an analysis left. Jest 2500 words. Thats all. Child’s play.

PS: I really do like “Can you keep a secret?”

Korrrect

I was randomly watching videos on Youtube, when I came across this.

And hence was born the idea for this post. Political Korrrectness. (Note how I cleverly used the “k” and the triple “r” just to justify the title.)

I was having a conversation with a friend about how we call orange saamandi (chrysanthemum) tuluk saamandi. (Or that’s what my flower seller calls it!)

Tuluk um... Differently abled Saamandi

Henceforth it shall be called differently abled saamandi in Tamil. I can visualise the shock on my pookaaramma’s face when I say this. (No I don’t think she’ll get it either!)

PS:This is to prove that I’m a politically korrrect person too (I did it again). Oh and if you are wondering, korrrect is pronounced this way:

In Open Page, The Hindu ishtyle:

The “o” is pronounced as in office and coffee and numerous other such words, Mallu style. The triple “r”… well.. let’s not go there.

PPS: If you are a hot guy driving a Thunderbird (which almost never happens), and you end up saying “korrrect”, your chances of getting laid are zilch. Don’t get it? Let me spell it out for you now…

Veterans rule the roost this season

It has always been the Academy’s habit to give the morning slot to senior musicians. This time, the morning slots were a treat for all listeners.

Separate posts on all these experiences soon.

The 10 people you’ll never miss in a kutcheri

Going alone for kutcheris is a new experience for yours truly, being always flanked by parents on either side. This time, I had to brave the big bad world out there on my own. And I realised what every person between the ages of 18 and 24 goes through while going for a kutcheri all alone. Here’s a list of the ten people you’ll never miss in a kutcheri.

1. The screaming mama: An almost extinct species. These are the ones who’ll stand up and scream after a particularly good rendition. They’ll actually be praising the artists on stage, but their tone will be such that, one would actually think they’re cursing instead. Oh and they always scream only in English.

2. The raga-tala expert: It’s rare to find a combination of this in one person. Ever sat next to a person who looked like they were in a different world while listening? A moment after that they will turn to you and say “What a brilliant Todi that was!” The singer would’ve painstakingly sung for over half-an-hour, not Todi, but Bhairavi. The tala expert is the standard mama or mami shaking their heads vigourously and with the very same vigour, getting the tala wrong.

3. The tongue clicker: Oh them! They need to make that annoying tongue clicking sound once every phrase sometimes, once every swara. Their entire vocabulary consists of that one sound. They must’ve learnt Swahili in 30 days.

4. The starers: It has happened to me more than once. There’s always a mami/mama staring at you or at the space next to you. Why? No one ever knows. The truth is out there, I guess!

5. The foreigner in a saree/kurta: The cutest. The best part is the way they carry themselves, especially the women, in Indian wear.

6. The ones who always make their presence felt: There’s always at least one person who walks in after the first song is over and methodically says namaskaaram to all the artists on stage. Whether he really knows them or not is out of the question. Of course, the performers always reply politely.

7. The consistent bale-sayer: Bale, shabash are standard expressions used to show one’s appreciation. Sometimes it becomes an overdose. Once I was at a kutcheri where a mama sitting behind me kept sayinfg,”Beauty, beauty”. I had a vague feeling, just a vague one, mind you, of being in a cricket stadium.

8. The comparer: The singer would’ve started singing Saveri. The person sitting next to you would immediately turn to you and say, “Musiri oru saveri paaduvar paaren!” Give the young ones a break.

9. The gossip: “Did you know that XYZ refused to sing for free? How sad.” “Oh ABC is officially senile now!” Stop gossiping already and let other listeners have a good time!

10. The tani avarthanam leavers: The ones I truly hate. What is it about the tani that people just cannot stay put for another 5-10 minutes. If they’re getting late, they might as well have left when the musician sings the neraval! I mean, most people who attend kutcheris have a decent knowledge as to when the main piece is going to be. But, despite repeated warnings, these people continue to leave during the tani.

There were others that almost made it to the top ten list. These were – The mama turning to you asking if you learn music and then going on to expound the importance of practice; The person who always asks you to watch his or her bag; The kid kicking your chair from behind; The ones who always tread over toes (and that hurts!); and the sleeping elderly.

Ah! Us poor youngsters!

I heard it through the grapevine

What started as Copyleft years ago has now grown into a huge orchard of free news, blogs and much much more. Some people cashed in on such growth and hence there was a mushrooming of free news sites such as The Huffington Post, and sharing any news was possible through Digg, Del.i.ci.ous, Reddit and other social networking sites. Twitter made its appearance and gone were lengthy discussions. All this was used very well by Google, a company which started out as a search engine to end up what it is today.

A year back when Google introduced Chrome, I remember reading a newspaper article on whether Google was poised to take over the world now that they could have access to almost everyone’s data (or they already did). Wave is here and Google knows where they stand.

Rupert Murdoch doesn’t seem to have taken this too well. Neither would I if I had a multi-billion dollar news corporation which produced stuff that Google gave completely free to internet users all over the world. I don’t and Murdoch does, which is why I’d rather sympathize with Google. The catch here is that newspaper executives have been silently rooting for Murdoch from the sidelines. This is similar to 12^th century warlords trying to assess and determine what the king’s move might be.

Murdoch’s logic in attacking Google is a very obvious one. A full frontal assault would leave both parties heaving and gasping for money; also Murdoch would have limited chances of success if it involved copyright law. News Corp has instead gone for the one thing that Google shareholders really prize (apart from the shares, that is) – Google’s reputation. With every other speech or interview, News Corp’s stand on what they’d like to call “exploitation of information”, has grown louder and stronger. None of the terms they’ve used seem to flatter Google, what with theft, philistines, promiscuity, vampires and the final blow – “shady dot.com ad sales folk”.

The first few news reports felt and sounded like bad humour, but Murdoch and News Corp seem to have understood that repetition establishes a view that becomes more and more credible. This is corporate politics with the brutal force of recognition and power.

Google’s reaction? Silence can only last so long. Third party defences from the likes of Ariana Huffington are not going to come to Google’s aid anymore. If News Corp keeps up its tactics, Google will be forced to issue a public statement, which has been Murdoch’s aim from the very beginning.

As the battle continues, Murdoch’s attack on Google has becoming a defining moment for all big media houses. News Corp clearly wants a deal on money and data and envisages a future where search engines and journalism get together distributing royalties and ad revenues on the way. Murdoch also, presumably envisages a future where news organizations can bend the search industry to their way more frequently.

The rhetoric delivered by News Corp has lofty ambitions. But such abuse against a clear global leader comes with its fair share of risks. If the results of this fall short of the intensity with which this has been created, News Corp will find itself in great difficulties.

The September of her years

Dance is a language that the performer speaks and the audience understands. When the dancer is on stage, he or she forgets everything that is around. All that matters is dance. Becoming one with the art is the highest goal for any dancer.

Abhinaya is a part of Bharatanatyam that involves mudras (hand gestures) to communicate to the audience. Here, the dancer becomes a storyteller. Most of these stories are mythological. But when it comes to padams and javalis, the dancer becomes the heroine or the nayika. This character would usually deal with the shringara rasa or that of love.

Dr Vyjayanthimala Bali presented Abhinaya from Padams and Javalis under the auspices of Sarvani Sangeetha Sabha. She performed, sitting down, all conceivable facial expression that one could think of in a padam or a javali. Most of these songs dealt with the heroine’s angst at the hero’s choice of another woman over her or at being left behind.

Singing and dancing at the same time is usually something dancers are discouraged from doing at an early age. But as Vyjayanthimala’s smooth, deep voice glided across the hall as she began the performance with Thodi, the heaviness of the raga percolating into the lightness of the song, one was forced to rethink such rules.  This was followed by another padam in Sankarabharanam.

Notable pieces were K N Dhandayudhapani Pillai’s varnam, Mohamaaginen in Kharaharapriya and Arunachalakavirayar’s Eppadi Manam Thunindhadho in Useni. Sakhiprana, a javali in Chenchurutti composed by Dharmapuri Subbarayar, and Gopalakrishna Bharati’s Enneramum Undhan Sannidhiyil in the raga Devagandhari also stood out. Her eyes spoke volumes and the audience enjoyed every bit of her performance.

The other ragas chosen were Atana, Kamas and Chenchurutti. Each of these songs were performed with a kind of brevity that comes from years of dancing. The accompaniments played their roles to perfection. Mrs Jayalakshmi Santhanam’s vocal support was pleasing on the ear. An artist of her calibre performing as vocal support was commendable indeed. The other accompanying artists are very familiar faces to those who have been following Bharatanatyam for a while. Kandadevi Vijayaraghavan’s violin brought out the essence of every raga, without changing traditional playing. Adyar Balu’s mridangam provided ample support, his korvais forming a chain of musical beauty and Gayathri Shashidaran’s nattuvangam was very subtle and perfect for the occasion.

Dhanashri Tillana was the right choice to end such a memorable performance. As Mrs Y G Parthasarthy remarked later, “I never knew that a tillana could be peformed sitting down.” Vyjayanthimala’s show was a treat for every member of the audience.

Chipko and Woodcutters

In a lot of stories, a woodcutter is always the hero. He helps out little girls in riding hoods and gets golden axes from ladies who rise from rivers. In real life, they are not different from paid killers. They do it for money and because they need to do it in order to survive. But at what cost?

The neighbours have moved out and the quaint old house is going to be torn down and replaced with a monstrosity of the sort I live in now. The coconut tree near the wall is being cut down this very moment, as I’m typing these words. They’ve cut the top off. It now looks like a headless chicken, only it is not running around in fear. It cannot. There’s a neem tree near the front gate. They might cut that next.

I’m no tree hugger, but it hurts to see beings that have co-existed with me dying such a slow, painful death. The coconut tree never made any impact on my life until now. I never acknowledged its existence. It was just there. Unimposing, always in the background. It never hurt anyone. Even when there was heavy wind, which is very rare, all it would do was sway very slightly and stop.

The neem tree is associated with a lot of good things for my grandmother and one bad thing for me. Veppilai Rasam or neem juice with tamarind. It was one of those things that you were threatened with as a kid.

Woodcutters, tree huggers, how does it matter? No matter what I do, they’re still going to cut it.

Random script – 2

The word Gabtun has been lifted from Praveen without prior permission. Knowing him, I don’t think he’d really care. Oh there are unintended behind the scenes scenes here.

After song, Gabtun gets back to work. What work? Finding and killing dheeviravaadhi (derrorist) of course.

As he enters aapees, everyone runs up to him calling him Gabtun. No one knows what his real identity. They did try finding out but when they tried electrocuting him, current-ke shock adichicchu (So says the detailed 11 page report on Gabtun shocking).

They have received a Blu-ray disc from dheeviravaadhi. No one in the police department (or CB CID, same difference), has heard of Blu-ray. But Gabtun, who is also the in-house Gadget expert, uses command prompt to figure out what Blu-ray is:

An excerpt from the script -

Gabtun: Enna idhu.

Policeman 1: Gabtun, idhu blu-ray-aam. UV-a vida powerful-nu sollaranga!

Policeman 2: Pesama Google panni paathuduvoma?

Commissioner: Google-a? No. Be Indian, buy Indian. Gabtun, neengale kandu pidinga.

Gabtun (Turns towards camera, Tight close-up): Dei, maatininga da!

It was at this point that half the audience in the cinema hall died due to pure shock of seeing Gabtun’s face at such closeness. Instead of running out and shouting, “Padam sooper”, to any possible cameras, they all just walked out slowly clutching their respective stomachs.