Cannot find server

Okay, I don't want this to be a music blog exactly. But somehow I can't restrict myself from writing this article.

Dr S Ramanathan(DSR) was perhaps one of the most underrated musicians of Carnatic music. Yeah yeah.. you would have listened to the short and sweet pacy kalpana swaras of GNB or the genius of Madurai Mani Iyer or the drawling voice of Maharajapuram Santhanam. Or even other yester-year greats like Ariyakkudi Ramanujam Iyengar or Semmangudi Srinivasan. But I don't think not many(atleast in this generation) would have listened to DSR as much as they have listened to other vintage musicians.


Image courtesy: www.carnatica.net

Dr S Ramanathan was more a musicologist than a musician. With a PhD in Ethnomusicology from Weslyan University, he looked at Carnatic music from an academic perspective. Now, that should never undermine his talent as an accomplished singer. One thing that captivates me when I listen to him is the inherent sowkyam brimming in the voice. When I was learning the Saranga Varnam (Intha Modi), I wanted to listen a musician's rendition as this has always helped me understand the full beauty of the song and the potential for improvisations present in it. When I hunted for it, I chanced upon the version sung by DSR. And boy, was I surprised. Till then I have never heard much of him but once I started listening, I was hooked.

Here I was listening to a chrono-perfect, paternal comforting voice in repeat mode. A slight detour: Saranga is a janya of Mechakalyaani with M2 like Kalyaani. But the usage of M1 in the sequence r g m r s makes Saranga stand out and it would be apt to say that this is the signature of Saranga. The text book Aarohanam |Avarohanam is
s p m2 p d2 n2 S (You can also sing or play s r2 s p m2 p d2 n2 S)| S n2 d2 p m2 r2 g2 m1 r2 s.

And I started hunting for more songs by DSR. Unfortunately not many were available to listen to online.
Links for a few of them - listen to them..They are absolute gems!

1. Shivkumar's page

2. A Kamas kriti on YouTube

(By the way, I was actually floored after listening to Mandolin Srinivas' Enta Bhagyamu in Saranga. Currently am too bugged to find the link. Will update as soon as I find it).

Adios

I grew up reading Siruvarmalar.
For the uninitiated, Siruvarmalar is a free supplement that comes on Fridays with Dinamalar and it's targeted towards the kids. But I shamelessly agree, even today when I go to my aunt's place, lunch without Siruvarmalar becomes tasteless. During those days the thin magazine used to transport me to another fantasy world - of kings, magic and morality. Simply putting it without getting too sentimental - I loved the book.

This was one of the reasons I pursued Tamil even in my 11th and 12th, but I screwed up finally in 12th board exams which is a different story. But my initiation into Tamil poetry and literature was through this simple magazine. It led me to bookstores searching for more Tamil books and I zeroed in on another series of books called "Rani Comics". It was a comic book which I bought - the main reason being that the price was Rs 2.00 . Today it might be some 5 bucks- but the point is it well satisfies ROI or NPV or whatever analysis you do. The number of pages is around 60-70 and it usually runs stories about heroes on the likes of Tarzan and Batman with busty female leads.

At a later point of time, I started reading another weekly called "Kalkandu" which I stuck on to for long. I even read the crime reporter "Junior Vikatan" but given it's propensity for lecherous and gory crimes and my propensity for reading such news, my mom decided to stop it. I somehow never read Kumudam or Ananda Vikatan or Kungumam beyond taking an eyeful of centerpage blowups - apart from that they were not able to catch my attention. And Kalkandu it was, for a long period of time with lots of tit bits and travel stories of Lena Tamilvanan. Kalkandu comes from the house of "Manimekalai Prasuram", a damn famous Tamil publishing house which publishes books like "Cinema ulagil hero aavathu eppadi?", "kokko munivarin kadhal ragasiyangal", " 30 naatkalil Judo katrukkollungal", "Kundaliniyai ezhuppungal" and other universally well guarded secrets in the price range of 10-30 bucks.Incidentally they also published a lot of science fiction and detective stories.

All these books where somehow restricted to a very very niche set of people who had high flying jobs like doing an audit for sleepworthiness of benches in Valluvarkottam, Sivan Park and other popular vetti officers' hangouts. Then again some guys identified a major business opportunity in parrying to the tastes of the elite masses who claim themselves to be Tamil (Palakkadu, Madurai, Tiruchi, Mylapore or wherever)Iyers and Iyengars but still don't know how to read or write Tamil. Pico Iyer, I'm your fan and all but can't digest the fact that you can't talk Tamil and you can't walk Tamil. So, for all these Anglicized Tams and other lovers of pulp fiction, out came a book called "The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction" which was a translation of all these Tamil thrillers in English.



Nice way to start, I should say and this will bring on more famous works of Tamil to limelight. I love Tamil. But there are people like Skin.Panther and AncientlanguageDrinkSon who go ga-ga over this. The cause is good - these dudes want to save Tamil and propogate it, but the means remain questionable. Guys, let's face it - you stop the encouragement of other languages in Tamil Nadu and you make generations of Tamil people socially handicapped when they go out. And this leads to a species of people called "Ek Gaon Mein.." group which always work in isolation and finds itself allergic to mingle with the rest-of-Indians. And somehow this has ingrained in our DNA and is flagrantly visible for everyone to see. But you know, lots have changed now. And slowly in Tamil Nadu, Mamas and Mamis have started looking beyond Hindu Paper and Narasus coffee. They are allowing their sons and daughters to get married to Sethjis and Sardarjis. They are spending their retired life on round trips of the world.
So the panthers and drunkards of the world - all your motives and moves are outdated by some 20 years. Try something new. You may find some innovative ideas in the stories of Rajesh Kanna and Indra Soundarrajan in the Blaft Anthology.
Adios.

A riveting article about the world's top nomad consultant - Ram Charan by David Whitford.

Click to read

Only recently Ram purchased his first appartment in Texas, Dallas. He has been travelling, consulting, sleeping in hotels, flights and client residences. He gets his clothes couriered from his Dallas office to wherever he is. Talk about workaholics!

"Babes.." they said. "That's the first thing you'll notice in Gurgaon dude" they said.

I have been used to 1-2 month stints in new cities. And I have always loved it. It started with Trivandrum during TCS training, Sydney - onsite, Dehra Dun - Summer Project or DOCC in SPJIMR and now Gurgaon for autumn internship. This timeframe works best for me as it's good enough to see the places around and get used to the city but not long enough to the extent I get bored.

It all started when a bunch of ten arrived at the Delhi airport after watching Vijay Mallya deliver a personal welcome address in the flight and Yana Gupta explaining flight safety instructions. When I first set foot in DLF phase 3 near Infinity Towers Gurgaon, it was not the Babes that I saw first. It was the scorching hot sun and swanky DLF built monster buildings occupied by RBS,IBM,Microsoft and PWC. I was standing in the midst of a concrete jungle all around and somehow my mind evoked images of Ayn Rand, Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. God knows why. But as evening started creeping up, I saw them. Many of them. Many of them with dum.

Over the weekend, we went on a road trip to Mathura, Agra and Jaipur. It was fun albeit hot. All the Mahals we visited (Hawa, Jal, Taj) were all captivating while the forts (Amber, Agra) were majestic though it was tiring to look around completely. We had Agra special Petas flavoured with Kesar, Coconut and honey. Lusciously juicy, they were. We had taken an AC Tavera for the entire trip thankfully which saved us from the heat. The journey comprised of Truth or Dares, Ping Pong, interrogations of Jaipur Police and Beer. In Jaipur we were actually forced to have lunch at Rajdhani which I personally didn't like - Not because of the food but because I had visited their Mumbai branch multiple times. Here are a few pics







I also happened to catch up with A Wednesday and Rock On - in PVR Sahara Mall. Both were refreshingly good in their own ways. One was slick, pacy and no-nonsense, the other was a major musical types. Anyway both were worth the money shelled out for. We, the Tam people try to hunt for the eternal unlimited tamil meals anywhere we go. This quest had led us to Matunga in Mumbai and in Gurgaon the saviour was a certain Sanskriti in Food Court. Authentic, Amazing and importantly unlimited tamil soru for 100 bucks. Pretty Neat. Last weekend saw us traveling to Delhi and haggling in the stores of Palika Bazaar where you get stuff at almost 1/10 th of the quoted price. And yeah, we also went to Karol Bagh and had filter coffee at Rama's Cafe.

Thus goes the life, a week at the office and weekend exploring places and I expect this routine to continue for the next two months.
Over and out.

The other day when I was in Chennai, my sister and I were discussing about music in general and Desh raga in particular. That was because I had listened to her doing a good alapana of the raga sometime before. Instantly I loved it - who wouldn't fall for Desh?
That discussion led to a gem of a song "Thunbam Nergayil" set in the raga and composed by Bharathidasan. This is one song that grows on me whenever I listen to it and it's love at first sound. I was hunting for the song online when I stumbled upon two versions of it:

1) Nityashree Mahadevan's - Brims with emotions and gloriously rendered. Absolute stunner.
Click and listen

2) The original from the movie Or Iravu(1951). Singers are : MS Rajeshwari and Verma.
This version is all the more beautiful as the hero seems to teach the heroine sing - he comes up with romantic interjections time and again.
Click and listen

Enjoy.

Peace.

The Olympics brings us all a package of inspiration, patriotism and hope once in 4 years. We are in a lucky era to see people like Michael Phelps ruling the pool and yeah, Mr.Abhinav Bindra the lone gladiator from India. We are also lucky enough to witness some of nature's beautiful creatures jumping, swimming and having fun at Beijing. Have a look:

3. Achiever Beauty

Yelena Isinbayeva - Arguably the best women pole vaulter clinching golds in Athens and Beijing. Does it feel lonely at the top?





2. AquaBeauty

The stunning Aussie swam away with 3 golds at Beijing. Stephanie Rice is only 20, so there's a great chance of her gracing the next Olympics too. Hey wait..Reality Check. Next Olympics is 4 years away. Which means, in all probabilities I'll be watching that Olympics with my Missus. Hmmmm..Whoever that is!



1. Beautyo Beauty

Paraguay's Leryn Franco failed to qualify for Javelin finals. But with her stunning Indian looks, she was the gold-medalist in many a heart.







Beauties with brawns.
Phew!

I recently downloaded an open source software called FreeMind which helps you create Mindmaps. The site itself is a neatly organized Wiki. So I tried my hands on the software to experiment with it and pass time. I mapped an article on diversification and competitive advantage by Michael Porter and this is how the first map turned out to be.



Is it easy?
Yeah, learning to use the software is damn easy. But it takes time to create a map. There are a couple of keyboard shortcuts you can use to save time. Especially Enter and Insert for a sibling node and a child node.

Is it worth it?
Depends. I'm more comfortable underlining and taking normal notes. But it does becomes useful especially when you are dealing with a lot of info and you want to organize it in a single page for easy revision or something like that.

Does it enhance my memory or thinking ability?
Not at all. Go solve problems, puzzles, crosswords or some mentally challenging stuff. If you find these are not your cup of tea, you can eat memory tablets or get enlightenment by doing meditation under a Bodhi tree for 100 years.

Are you kidding?
Yes.

Who is Michael Porter?
It is this gentleman.


To make things simple, he is a funda dude in management circles.

Why is he famous?
He gave a lot of frameworks which management students endlessly rattle on in their job interviews to impress the interviewers. Like the Pancha Boothams, his "5 forces" are very powerful in turning the tables.

~Jai Hind

This is it. (Though not news in the US)



More about Kindle
Will paperback books hit the fate of snail mail? Seems so. Kindle is the answer to the portability advantage that books have long since enjoyed. Even though the price now is at a higher side, as with all technology products we can expect it to be more affordable soon. By bringing books digitized, Kindle has made even books affordable - the price of books are now reduced by an average of 60%. Again you can expect it to go south further.

Adjustable font size, built in dictionary and the book-alike looks will definitely make reading a kick-ass affair.

I need it ..Badly. Waiting for the Kindle to hit India.

Of late I'm upto something worthwhile. Learning German. Learning something new always has its pleasures which I cherish. Like French(during TCS training) and swimming. But learning languages gives you a real kick as in when you start noticing the words in that language especially in movies, you start jumping up and down with joy. You turn to your next seat neighbor and say.. "You know what? Sprachen Sie is German" and he might turn around and give you a cold stare or at best say "Is it?". But what the heck, you still enjoy the moment. Coming to language classes there are always opportunities of humour where you can't just control laughing. Few categories of students:

1. Initial enthus:
These guys just are so much enthued about the language that they keep asking the teacher- What is this in French? What is that in German? At first the teacher is also excited about the student's curiosity but after a while, she gets irritated and starts saying - "We'll come to that Kumar. We'll be covering it soon". Needless to say they are the ones who point out obvious differences in the language in comparison with English. Whenever the teacher writes a new word on the board - they burst out and mispronounce it (Dei avangala pesa vidungada!). To me these guys are at best a pain in the ass.

2.Children of Wren and Martin:
For these guys, the world revolves around the order of Subject, Verb, Objects, Common Nouns, Proper Nouns, Present Continuous, Participles and Articles. (Idhellam enakku Englishlaye theriyadheda). The teacher might argue - English is not German, but this grammar guru of English is never satisfied. He is specially the one who runs and asks questions to the teacher after the class.

3.The US dude
He is the one who puts an accent in every word he talks. Not only in English, but he takes it to the language he learns. "Tu est" becomes "Tchchyyyyyuuu Yeh" and he brings in the style factor. Blame it all on the BPO call center trainings. Senthil Palanivel from Aminjikarai picks up the phone and says "Hi there! This is Shaun Paul. How can I help you"? Anyway, these guys contribute to the much needed fun in class.

4.Tam/Mallus et al
Waat is praaajact in Franch Maam? Waat is maadyool in German? (Dei modhalla Englisha ozhunga pesungadaa). I love these guys. The best stuff is "Un conversation entre Shiju Appukkuttan et Saravanan Pichaimuthu". I almost fall laughing off my chair listening to their dialogue, thankfully the class comes to an end.It gets even funnier when your friend sitting next to you starts laughing as well - the laughter chain reaction starts off. Even when the class is silent and serious, you both erupt laughing.

On a serious note, learning new stuff is good for your brain. It's scientifically proved that it kicks off new neurons and helps you make new associations or something like that. All the best.

PS: What's Selamat Datang?? (Ask someone who has flown with Malaysian Airlines.
If you don't find anyone, I assure you it's not that interesting though and you may choose to Google instead)

YSL, the fashion guru of Paris passed away recently. Now you may wonder why a Tamil guy, student who has totally no sense of fashion as in à la Paris style wants to bid adieu to YSL. Rewind 10 years back.I get a phone call from one perverted friend of mine - "Machan..There's a new channel right after NDTV in VHF band..Check it out ..Semmaya irukku" . Given my sincerity and studiousness, I was hoping to see something on the lines of Discovery Channel or National Geographic. And then I tuned, and once I reached the given specifications by my friend, the remote stopped searching further. Whoa! What was that? Seeing something like that in the tube(as against other media which I deny the cognizance of) was initially fun, surprising, shocking and a whole lot of mixed feelings.

And yeah, it took a Mambalam boy on a virtual tour of Paris, Cannes, Rio and New York. For one who thought fashion was Jeans and T-shirt, it introduced Spring Summer & Fall Winter collections, Haute Couture and Lingerie. For one who believed the hottest tailors were Glamor Tailors & DressLand in Mambalam and Vogue (a costly but effective one) in Ashok Nagar, it shattered that belief into pieces by bringing in Armani, Roberto Cavalli and Gucci before the eyes. It made mamis in madisar and lasses in churidhar passé. For one who grew up marking half-yearly exam dates on large font Sundaram Finance calendar, it explained how even calendars can be exciting by showing the making of the Pirelli calendar. Maths tution figures, WWF, cricket matches gave way to Rio Carnival, Cannes Film Festival in class room discussions.

The joy and bliss of millions of adolescent Indian youths and quite a number of oldies was finally checked by one powerful lady from Delhi who thought this channel was the main culprit in spoiling the Indian culture. But by then it was sufficient for the Mambalam boy to know about everything from Ritu Beri to wardrobe malfunction. And among other things he came to know about YSL also (the bespectacled old man who always walked with 2 babes on the ramp).
YSL's death on June 1 marked the end of a saga in the French fashion industry.
No points for guessing what the channel was.

1.Kamal is God. That's expected.
2.Kamal in 10 roles. Cheap marketing gimmick. Few roles wasted.
3.New age film making. Taking Tamil cinema to a new level.
4.Music. Bore.Himesh fails to connect with the Tamil audience.
5.Concept.Settings.Novel.Appreciative.
6.Graphics.Unprofessional.
7.Screenplay.Pacy.
8.Humour.Subtle.Effective.
9.Blood and gore. Bold.Remember Tarantino?
10.Dialogue delivery. Fletcher, Vincent, Reddy - Kudos.
11.Movie.Barrier breaker from cliched Tamil movies and brings in some thoughtful concepts before the eyes. Fresh.

பிரிவு - பாடம்

அலைகடல் கண்களென்னை உருட்டிய நாட்களெங்கே
கனியினும் இனிய சொற்கள் செவிபாய்ந்த நாட்களெங்கே
மறந்ததுவிட்டாய் என் மனதை கல்லென உடைத்துவிட்டாய்
மலையினும் மிகுவலியை நானெவர்க்கும் இனி தரவேன்

1. Nadsat and Newspeak
Appy-Polly-Loggies for not updating this space for a very long time. It's all because of the cliched time constraint which I never wanted to mention. Have been spending the time watching lots of movies, hanging out with droogs and the new timepass swimming.More often than not, the English language gets stylized with new advent of slangs and a mix of fictional languages. Most of the times, novels are the birthplaces of such phenomenon. One is Newspeak, a double plus good imagination by George Orwell in his great novel 1984. The other one which I came across recently is Nadsat, which has lots of Russian interjections, first popularized by Anthony Burgess in his novel 'A Clockwork Orange' which was later made into a great movie by Stanley Kubrick. Beyond linguistic intricacies, one more concept popularized is Ultraviolence or excessive unjustified violence which has links with aestheticization of the same brought out in many art forms. Nowadays people around me are speaking a certain language - Straight line method, Porter's Framework and activity based costing which am trying to decode badly.

2. Swimming in deep
Yeah, most of us would have waddled into the swimming pool some day or the other. So have I, but till this time I had been splashing in the shallow half, taking extreme care, not to accidentally wade into the deep areas. I believe lots of us fall into this category. Some even pick up swimming, but still are unsure of getting into the deep. How to break this barrier? There are a few tricks which help you do this, let me tell you which one worked for me. These are not to be followed just like that, these might be dangerous and do it with someone who can save you incase some mishap happens. Get into the deep side of the pool(unless you do this, you'll never swim in deep), hold the side rim. The idea is to give a push, reach the bottom of the pool, touch the floor with your legs, then come up. Do this some five times. While going in, give a push, hold straight, hands up, hold your breath, don't panic you'll get in automatically. Once you hit the ground, give a gentle push off the feet, keep your arms sideways, push the water down (palms face the bottom of the pool), slightly move your legs and you should automatically come up. Do this is in 9-10 feet. Once you do this often, you kick the fear out of your mind that you'll sleep in a watery grave and that whatever happens, you can atleast damn well come up. This should remove 70% of the fear of swimming in deep. After this you can move a little bit away from the rim and try the same, and then try cycling in water which would come intuitively. After this, there is one more step, standing near the edge of the pool, jump into the water feet first - this is the same as the previous exercise, just that the force is provided by jumping instead of pushing off the rim and come up the same way, swim to safety. That's it - this should make you break the cherry of getting into the deep.

3. Sahana
She is beautiful, she is awesome and she can make your day. She exemplifies pathos, brings out the love and moves your soul. If you haven't met her, it's high time you did it. I can say she was my first love in the music world and that's what she stands for. Technically she took birth in the family of Harikambodhi the 28th Melakartha and goes like this - s r g m p m d n s| s n d p m g m r g r s. That's Sahana - one of the beautiful ragas in Carnatic music. AR Rahman made a good use of it in the song "Azhagae Sugama" from the movie - Parthale Paravasam. The situation where the song comes fits beautifully in the context set by the raga itself. The song comes when Madhavan and Simran split up and both feel the suffering of love tearing their hearts apart. It would be criminal not to mention K Balachander's direction and the choice of the song in this regard. He himself seems to be a lover of Sahana - he made a serial with the same name and the title song is also in the same raga. "Parthen rasithen, pakkam vara thudithen" is another film song based out of this. To get a feel of it, listen to the great composition "Ii vasudha" by Thiagrajar and rendered amazingly by Veenai Doraiswami Iyengar available in this link :http://surasa.net/music/tyagaraja/.