Asereje

A goodish chunk of one of those soullessly cold New England winters was spent watching, listening, and in general being absorbed by this song.



It was a super-duper international hit, of course. At the end of the Inca Trail, the night before the climb to Machu Pichu, there is a camp at Winay Wayna. Where a mixed bunch of very ragged looking tourists spend a night feeling very thrilled that they managed to "trek" 3 days to get there (in reality, a number of extremely frugally equipped Quechua porters carry all your stuff, cook, and in general fuss over you). So there we were, mightily pleased with ourselves, knocking down the pisco sours or whatever, and suddenly someone plays this song and like a bunch of pre-programmed idiots we all stood up and danced the Ketchup dance...

But even so we were obsessed, the roomie went and bought a CD simply because it had 3 video versions of this. Not sure what it was about this one, maybe the promise of exotic tongues, sunny climes, warm bodies... A goodish chunk of the aforementioned goodish chunk was spent, of course, in trying to decide which sister was the "best".

Oh, those days :P

On Why I'm A Marxist-Leninist - Part the First

Sorry, typo. Marxist-Leninist.

On Why I'm A Martinist-Lennonist

John would've turned 70 today. Imagine. [This post was supposed to go out on October 9. At this rate, it will never get done, so splitting and publishing.]

I love the Beatles. I don't know why this is. I do know when it roughly started. In 1995, The Beatles Anthology documentary came out. It was even shown on DD Metro. I didn't know who the hell The Beatles were; the sum total of my exposure to Western pop music up until that point consisted of Jim Reeves (does anyone even remember this guy and how big he was in India), thanks to some LPs my dad had saved, Boney M from Juristic Person knows where, the "Yesterday Once More" song by The Carpenters, and Matilda by Harry Belafonte. The reason I know this so precisely is because that was literally the 4 western pop things I'd ever heard with any level of seriousness.

Then this anthology thing came along and my neighbour, who was from the metropolis of Nellore, kept running off to the common room in the evenings. I tagged along, mainly to find out what sort of band penetrates through SPB and Ghantasala into the very recesses of outer Nellore.

I was spellbound. I think it's the documentary that did me in. Just watching those boys from Liverpool first turn into scarecrows in a Hamburg cellar, and then into musicians, and then stars, and then musicians again, oh it was magic.

The Nellore fellow had a cassette with him that was doing the rounds in those days, a black cover "Top 20" thing. Borrowed the cassette, borrowed a Walkman from a Hyderabad fellow and just guzzled. After this staggering breakthrough, I learned to like The Doors, Deep Purple, Def Leppard, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and some other suchlike bands, mainly because that's what the fellows whose rooms we got drunk in (Venkataramanav vodka in steel tumblers with water from the hostel mess) would play.

Can't say any of that made a lasting impression, some of it is still nice, but it doesn't grab by the collar and shake the way the Beatles did. The Beatles, and oddly enough, Itzhak Perelman playing The Four Seasons, were the only two things that offered any sort of transcendental musical sustenance.

Lynx Lynx

No blogging has happened in ages. Here, anyway. Nowadays time and energy are consumed here, with the occasional update here.

Nevertheless, lots and lots of links and "thoughts" have been piling up. So here we disgorge.

0

Is there an age after which Sergeant Pepper's starts to become more appealing than Abbey Road? If so, it has happened, I think. Not that I like Abbey Road any less now than before, but Sgt. Pepper seems to have aged better. Oh well.

I

The Economist carried a lovely article on "re-drawing" the map of Europe (to accommodate Syldavia, Borduria etc.) Priceless comments like so

In Britain’s place should come Poland, which has suffered quite enough in its location between Russia and Germany and deserves a chance to enjoy the bracing winds of the North Atlantic and the security of sea water between it and any potential invaders.

And

The Ukrainian shift would allow Russia to move west and south too, thus vacating Siberia for the Chinese, who will take it sooner or later anyway.

And finally

The rest of Italy, from Rome downwards, would separate and join with Sicily to form a new country, officially called the Kingdom of Two Sicilies (but nicknamed Bordello).

II

Gobbledygook. The original source (PDF) of said g. It would've been funny, if it were not for the fact that there are millions (hundreds of millions!) of "educated" Hindus who will swallow this sort of stuff hook, line and sinker.

III

There is a very interesting but fairly heavy duty argument going on in the "blogosphere", essentially about whether you can derive "ought" from "is". This is a good starting point, but you will have to unravel the thread yourself. In a nutshell, it began like so:

"Militant" atheist, neuroscientist Sam Harris (at a TED talk): Science can answer moral questions.

Physicist Sean Carroll: No it can't. It will tell you what is, but not what ought to be. But that's OK.

Enjoy.

And that will be all for now.

(One fairly interesting and important thought has occurred and escaped. Maybe it will come back.)

On New Year's Day I...

• Drank


• Danced (using a very very generous interpretation of the word "dance")


• Wrote a little bit


• Slept well


• Made breakfast at home


• Was driven in a car...


• ...to a delicious home-made lunch


• Watched a little TV


• Took a train...


• ...to Mambalam and drank filter coffee in Pondy Bazaar


• Got some work done


• Took a bus...


• ...to a katcheri...


• ...and into the bargain discovered what seems to be a rather nice temple


• Contrary to default behaviour, took the initiative to catch up with friends and older friends, rendezvouses have been planned


• Took a share auto...


• ...and bought a biryani


• Read a little bit...


• ...and went to bed at a civilized hour.

On the whole, a highly satisfactory day. There are 3 VERY IMPORTANT and very pleasurable things I did not do yesterday, but on balance, all is well.

On the katcheri

Despite many promises to myself and others, I only managed to go to 2 performances (and more importantly 0 caterers) the whole month. Viral fever, trip home and so on more or less became eastern Iberians in the machinery. The concerts I did manage to go to were rather nice. The first was Sanjay Subhramanyam in a cavernous and freezing auditorium, but a most enjoyable concert. I am definitely more partial to Carnatic vocal than instrumental, so this was a good one to go to. Although, I have it from unimpeachable sources that 2 hours before the concert, the artist was doing Farmville updates on his Facebook profile, which makes the whole experience fluctuate between charming and disturbing.

The Ramani concert was a more intimate affair, a small-ish hall next to the temple tank. The performance was superb, even to Philistine ears. The violinist also sounded like a very manodharmam, paddhati, thirukuzhikundram sort of fellow. Enjoyed the whole thing thoroughly. The vennai on the pongal, as it were, was a speech by one sabha organizing mama that punctuated the performance. "Andha Todi! Enna Todi!! Onnume vidaame oru Todi!!! Todi si bewafaai..." and so on. Just scintillating.

Part of the concert paisa vasool is, of course, watching audience maamas and maamis putting taaLam. I have spawned a theory, bear with me.

Personally, I find it impossible to listen to both the main performer and the percussionists at the same time. If I start foot-tapping with mridangam, I can't pay attention to the other fellows, and vice versa. This reminds me rather of the time that my sister tried to measure my pulse rate, and thereby hangs a tale. And honestly, I suspect that the audience M&Ms (multi-coloured as they are in pattu podavais and angavastrams) are in the same boat :P It just comes us an utter surprise to me and the candies when on some downward foot-tap, some momentous conclusion occurs on stage, and we're all very thrilled with each other and much mutual pleasurable beaming occurs.

Usually, I end up scouting the neighbourhood to see if there is a competent and authoritative looking taaLam putter, and try to copy-paste her gestures. Once in a while, I will lose my count, but will catch up sooner or later. Unfortunately, ever so often, I end up picking some number which is mutually prime with the actual beat, and will only catch up after 17x8 beats. Ah well....

Finally, the audience demands the sabhas next year that the promising artiste on the tanpura yesterday become a feature during the season!

Of Rivalries

A happy conjunction of conjunctibles is able to giving rise to this post on rivalries.

I. Cambridge v. Cambridge

Paul Samuelson died. The world lost a great textbook author. Apparently he was also a great economist. RIP.

[Aside: As Abi has pointed out, Subramanian Swamy wrote a tribute to his guide and mentor. Curiously, the Rediff version has a few choice not-so-nice things to say about certain "Left triumvirate" including a certain other Nobel laureate. Pretty much the same tribute, minus the not-so-nice is in the Hindu. Either some editor has wielded the selective scissor of Hindu-style political correctness, or Swamy himself, for all his brashness, went easy on the masala.]

[Aside': This is a first derivative aside. Aside to the above aside. Heh heh. Some lovely lectures happening at IISc over the next few days. Damn.]

Enough asiding. Onto the rivalry. Our good economics professor friend and lurker on this blog who goes by the epithet That Man Keynes And His Homosexual Intrigues told us about a Samuelson rivalry that possibly only economists know or care about.

The Cambridge Capital Controversy is a debate from the 1960s that pitted Samuelson and Robert Solow from Cambridge, MA against Joan Robinson and Piero Sraffa from Cambridge, not-MA.

Apparently, the debate was

...concerning the nature and role of capital goods (or means of production) and the critique of the dominant neoclassical vision of aggregate production and distribution.

Whatever. It seems that the debate was in many senses inconsequential. Wikipedia says:

Despite the highly technical nature of most of the discussion, in many cases it generated more heat than light.

Over at Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen says:

Sadly I must characterize the Cambridge capital debates as a fruitless diversion.

Like all highly technical questions in most subjects, the details need not concern us ;) The consensus is that the culmination of the debates was a more or less hands down (if inconsequential, as noted) win for the Poms. I remember That Man Keynes... saying that Samuelson had the good grace to admit as much in writing, and pretty much capitulated in front of Robinson, at least as far as this issue went. He must've been a great man.

[Aside: Joan Robinson was arguably one of the greatest economists of her generation, and sadly (? post-Obama and Kissinger) never won the Nobel. That Man Keynes..., the source of so much of the economics tidbits claims that the Nobel Committee pretty much waited for her to cop it, before awarding the Nobel to one of her rivals. Details will follow, if I can find them.]

II. Krishna v. Srinivasan

The Hindu carried a piece last Sunday by the vocalist T.M.Krishna in which he (pretty unambiguously) criticized the use of certain instruments in Carnatic music, because they cannot render all the notes and microtones needed to make a raagam what it is. Violins and mandolins can apparently be successfully re-incarnated in south Indian avatars (ugh!), but saxophones and pianos cannot. This was the opening salvo.

Today's Hindu Sunday edition has a riposite from (my friend!) noted pianist Anil Srinivasan. Anil, while agreeing in part with Krishna, argues against being "...autoregressive when discussing the preservation or conservation of a tradition. Trapping it in a time capsule and not allowing it to breathe or acquire newer characteristics is antithetical to the very notion of an intergenerational transfer."

By this time, the issues are abstruse enough that people like me whose aesthetic sense was last seen headed in north-northeasterly direction across the Siberian tundra have only a vague notion of what both sides are talking about.

Surprisingly, today's Hindu also contains a re-rejoinder from Krishna, who says that Anil misses his (Krishna's) point entirely. The show goes on. One wishes it didn't end here and moved into blogosphere. Rahul Siddharthan is doing his bit to make this happen!

III. Sibling v. Sibling

Vijay Nagaswami eschews the customary "end of year" ramble for his column and writes quite sensibly about relationshipsbetween siblings. Very readable, my brethren and cistern.

Here endeth the year. Blogging will possibly be more prolific in 2010. By the way, we must take this opportunity to announce that alack! the Filter Coffee will no longer be served in the new year. But every silver lining has a cloud, in the form of more enthu and content for the choultry.

Take care, y'all.

Swine Flu Over The Cuckoo's Nest

Here.

On A Scale Of Five

Which is about music.

Musikkutho Muddulaadalaa?

Lyrikkule nenu paadalla?
Mikellu Jacksonnu blahblahblah...

Room With A View

These (more or less) used to be the views from my (corner) office (on the 13th floor of 5 Cambridge Center in 2003-2004.


View Larger Map







This is view from current office.


View Larger Map



O Fortuna
velut luna
statu variabilis,
semper crescis
aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem,
egestatem,
potestatem
dissolvit ut glaciem.

This lament is more familiar to us from childhood TV ads with these lyrics, of course.

O-oooo-ld Sp-iiiiiiice
Old Spice,
Old Spice,
Old Spice,
OLD SPICE,
OLD SPICE,
Old Spice,
OLD SPICE,
O-ooooooo-ld Sp-iiiiiiice

Songs I Would've Loved To Dance To (And A Dark Secret)

Of course, a whole other gigantic post is waiting. Long time, no post. Long to post, no time. In lieu, and mourning the demise of Worldspace in advance, we present 5 a few Indian film songs which we would've loved to dance to if we had the talent, necessity, insobriety, etc. In no particular order.

Song 1



Almost any Shammi song, of course. This one is merely one of the genre.

Song 2



For a movie of such overwhelming obscurity, Gumnaam is remarkable in that it has another eminently danceable song.

Song 3



Yes. Seriously. Ah woood, if ah coood.

Song 4



Ditto. Good ol' Madras in the mid-90s.

Song 5



Is actually marginally ahead of #4 in the list, but only remembered it now.

Song 6



An old favourite and a classic, even if there isn't much by way of dancing happening. Mmm. Amala.

Song 7



Oh, the 80s. Those trousers, that rhythm, those "steps", Maruti 800s and Premier Padminis, that tinny voice, ta-ta-ta-tatiyaow, ta-ta-ta-tatiyaow.

Song 8



We were looking for the Telugu version, which appears to not be available online.

Song 9



The latest and greatest. KK Menon is in fact the best dancer in Indian cinema. Ever.

Song 10



A deep, dark secret. Used to be utterly obsessed with this song for a period of about 6 months in 2001-2002. Not that we would want to actually dance to this song. Would we?


Would we?

Your turn(s).

The Best Hindi Movie Song Ever

We've believed this to be true for a long time, and have seen no reason to change. Yet.



Caveat: By "best" we mean the best "overall" performance, there are admittedly more soulful lyrics, more dulcet voices, superior music, possibly better cinematography (Really? Where?), better actors, better movies etc. but as a complete package, not many things come close.

Cinematographer talks about shooting the scene:



A long 3 part audio interview with him is available.

Ghazal Du Jour

Why write something when someone has already said it and you can copy-paste?

itanii muddat baad mile ho
kin socho.n me.n gum rahate ho

tez havaa ne mujh se puuchhaa
ret pe kyaa likhate rahate ho
kin socho.n me.n gum rahate ho

kaun sii baat hai tum me.n aisii
itane achchhe kyo.n lagate ho
kin socho.n me.n gum rahate ho

ham se na puuchho hijr ke qisse
apanii kaho ab tum kaise ho
kin socho.n me.n gum rahate ho

-- Mohsin Naqvi

Ghulam Ali sings.

The most famous Mohsin-Ghulam Ali combo offer is of course ye dil ye paagal dil mera, kyon bujh gayaa avaargii. Video.

But itanii muddat has more kashish for us, what to say?

Buy One, Get One Free

Which is about a jugalbandi

Just got back from Sunday evening concert at the Ravindra Bharati. "Bombay" Jayashri Ramnath in the South corner, and Shubha Mudgal (who even has what seems to be a very up to date blog) in the North.

Now pretty much everyone knows that we have issues with frequencies in general. Cannot tell some in the visual spectrum apart, ditto also with audio frequencies. We have a very eclectic music taste, dipping into this, that and the other. Another way of saying the same thing is that we're tone deaf.

Be that as it may, Ms. Jayashri has long been on the "want to attend live performance" list, and so also Ms. Mudgal (perhaps just a little less, not having heard much beyond ab ke saawan). Tonight was a chance to remedy this, and it really was worth it. Both the ladies seem to have a base octave (or whatever) that is nicely lower than many of their higher pitched contemporaries, which is definitely one reason why we like them.

The whole Jayashri thing started off (perhaps like for most people) with that vaseegara song. This was to Jayashri what ennavale was to Unnikrishnan, and random sampling of more of her stuff resulted in much joy. Then we read Baradwaj Rangan's interview with her. She makes a point which possibly sets her apart from the rest of them.

Because down the ages, we’ve had it drummed into our heads that the essence of Hindustani music is shringara, love, while Carnatic compositions are capsules of bhakti, or devotion. And here’s Jayashri, implying otherwise. Or is she, really? "This is bhakti, but to the music – not to Krishna," she says. "We're not in an era where we're into that kind of bhakti. Because if it's just bhakti, and if it's just about Krishna or Rama, why would I – someone who doesn't come from a very religious or ritualistic background – revel in it? I don't think I love God more than I love music. Why would a European sitting there, who doesn't know the difference between Krishna and Rama, listen to this music for two hours? Why are instrumental concerts so popular? Do we know if the performer is playing a kriti in Kannada or Telugu, or if that kriti is talking about this lord or that deity? Our music is not about religion."

More power to you, lady. Mudgal's blog seems to be very interesting, isn't it great when someone like her has a post called Eeks! Look what I found! with a bare midriff picture of Rakhi Sawant?

Back to the concert: It was 90% good (there was one Hindi song that didn't quite fit too well). Aneesh Pradhan on the tabla and Embar S. Kannan (whom we've heard so often on Worldspace) on the violin, the mridangist and the haromniumist were all very nicely in sync, and seemed to sincerely enjoy the evening, which really helps. The percussion (oxymoron alert) jugalbandi tanniavartanam was a big hit with the audience, these things usually are.

They started off with saraswati namostute in saraswati raagam, did a kamaas/khamaaj thingy and so on. The bestest piece we thought was something called pAyum oLi nI enakku pArkkum/papiihara mat bol, very soulful and tragic. We can find the lyrics to the Tamizh song, but need the meaning. Can't find the Hindustani one anywhere. Help!!

A splendid time was had by all.

pAyum oLi nI enakku pArkkum vizhi nAn unakku tOyum madu nI enakku tumbiyaDi nAnunakku
vAyuraikka varugudillai vAzhi ninran mEnmaiyellAm tUya shuDar vAnoLiyE shUraiyamudE kaNNammA
2: vINaiyaDi nI enakku mEvum viral nAnunakku pUNum vaDam nI enakku pudu vayiram nAnunakku
kANumindOru ninran kaNNin oLi vIshudaDi mANuDaiya pErarashE vAzhvu nilaiyE kaNNammA
3: vAna mazhai nI enakku vaNNa mayil nAnunakku pAnamaDi nI enakku bhANDamaDi nAnunakku
jnAna oLI vIshudaDi nangai ninran jyOti mukham Unamaru nallazhagE Uru shuvaiyE kaNNammA
4: veNNIlavu nI enakku mEvu kaDal nAnunakku paNNU gati nI enakku pATTinimai nAnunakku
eNNi eNNI pArtiDilOr eNNamilai nin shuvaikkE kaNNin maNi pOnravaLE kaTTi amudE kaNNammA
5: vIshu kamazh nI enakku viriyu malar nAnunakku pEshu poruL nI enakku pENu mozhi nAnunakku
nEshamuLLa vAn shuDarE ninnazhagai EduraippEn Ashai madhuvE kaniyE aLLu shuvaiyE kaNNammA
6: kAdalaDi nI enakku kAntamaDi nAnunakku vEdamaDi nI enakku viddaiyaDi nAnunakku
bOdhamuTra pOdinilE pongi varum tIn-shuvaiyE nAda vaDivAnavaLE nalla uyirE kaNNammA
7: nalla uyir nI enakku nADiyaDi nAnunakku shelvamaDi nI enakku kSEma nidhi nAnunakku
ellaiyaTra pErazhagE engum nirai pork-kaDarE mullai nigar punnakaiyAi pOdum inbamE kaNNammA
8: tAraiyaDi nI enakku taNmatiyam nAnunakku vIramaDi nI enakku veTriyaDi nAnunakku
dAraNiyil vAnulagil shArndirukkum inbamellAm oruvarumAi samaindAi uLLamudE kaNNammA

On The Road - Funda, The Fifth

More RaamaayaNaa, geekiness, no science (haven't had time to trough at the feeds), and so on

One more trip to Madras. Phew. Time to move? Not much this time by way of audio-visual media. Almost duffilled again, this time in Kavali. Completely forgot that the Madras-Tenali line is a double line, was blissfully waiting for the crossing train to cross, and wham, off she went. Made it back on board in one piece, as you can see. Almost slept all the way through to Hyderabad, luckily the pandemonium at Sec'bad was pandemoniacal.

This picture, of a tired Coromandel Express gliding into Central should soothe you.



The RaamaayaNa is suddenly all over the place. We pointed to one source in funda IV. We come back to find (via this Passion for Cinema post) that there's an animated movie called Mahayoddha Rama that's in the making apparently. The trailer shows a glimpse of what RaavaNa is going to look like. Most disappointing.

There seems to be (i.e. some (mostly North Indian) friends and acquaintances have told us) that this whole RaavaNa-as-a-sympathetic character is a figment of the loony Dravidian chauvinist fringe imagination. How then, to explain, that at least some of mainstream pauraNic Telugu cinema is very sympathetic to the dude? See any of the YouTube clips of Bhookailas, for example. RaavaNa is played by NTR, no less!

Or Falstaff's interpretation, more power to him. And also Nina Paley's (via Samanth).

In 2002, Nina Paley got dumped by her husband, over email. But instead of reaching for the nearest bottle of Prozac, Paley began to sketch. The result: Sita Sings the Blues, an animated retelling of the Ramayana and of Paley’s own break-up, set to the 1920s jazz of Annette Hanshaw.
...
I didn’t understand why my husband had dumped me, or why I still loved him and wanted him back, but apparently Valmiki was writing about such things 3,000 years ago.

The Hackszine has a post on "Relational database using jQuery and HTML tables" i.e. a relational database implementation (joins and all!) that runs inside a web browser thanks to HTML and some voodoo called jQuery! Seems wayy too cool.

There is a somewhat intimidating discussion going on at Space Bar's. Positively terrifying, actually. Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann and all. There's something about writing poetry in a programming language or something that caught the eye, and we beg to drag everyone's attention to Perl Poetry.

Jacob Cass has 2 fantastic posts (1, 2) about "Awe Inspiring Must See Creative Photographs".

Sepia Mutiny has been most interesting, lately. Ennis points us to the "Kenya sings *" series. For example, Kenya sings India, i.e. Jana Gana Mana. Absolutely fantastic to see a bunch of Kenyans give it a go. National anthems don't do much for us, seeing as we're horribly afraid of nationalism and patriotism, but this is somehow different.

Abhi writes about the Washington Post's much talked about Pearls Before Breakfast experiment (wasn't this on NPR some time back?). The idea:

Writer Gene Weingarten helped orchestrate a brilliant “stunt” on commuters passing through L’Enfant Plaza last January in order to take a stab at settling the debate above. He took one of the most gifted violin players in the world, dressed him up as a humble busker in jeans, and asked him to play his 3.5 million dollar violin on the metro platform. Who would recognize brilliance? Who would even stop?

Go on, read the whole thing. All sorts of questions about art and taste will emerge.

Abhi also has a post provocatively titled Don't let your desi mom read this post.

Especially if you are a smart, attractive, single desi woman.
...
Slate.com recently published, The Eligible-Bachelor Paradox, which makes use of game theory to explain why the best women often end up single and alone if they wait "too long" to get married.

Don't shoot the messenger.

We've either lost or lent out our copy of "A Poem at the Right Moment: Remembered Verses from Premodern South India".

:(

The iPod Shuffle Tag

Which we got from Srini and are passing it along

Rules:
1. Put your MP3 player on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. You must write the name of the song no matter what. No cheating!

And ours went like so:

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY?" YOU SAY?
Pukaro mujhe naam lekar pukaro - Fursat Ke Raat Din - Mukesh

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
Aaj mausam badaa beimaan hai - Rafi

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Shubh din aaye - Mughal-e-azam - Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
She's Leaving Home - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
Macavity - Cats

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
Fireball - Deepest Purple - Deep Purple

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Pappa pappa pappu thapalam - Pelli Pustakamu - S.P. Balasubramaniam (heh, Srini will be happy!)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
Maate mantramu - Pelli Pustakamu

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Ek akela is sheher main - Fursat Ke Raat Din (this is the one that came closest?!)

WHAT IS 2+2?
Hori Khelan Kaise Jaun - Evolution of the Thumri - Shobha Gurtu

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Dharmam Saranam Gachhami - Swathimuthyamu - SPB

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Fat bottomed girls - Greatest Hits - Queen (this was also pretty close :P)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Kitaabein padhi hain - Baazigar (and this too!)

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Susie Q - Chronicle Vol.1 - Creedence Clearwater Revival (yes, we want to be Susie Q)

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Let's get rocked - Vault - Def Leppard (Coffee? Je suis le President du Burundi!)

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
I've Got a Feeling - The Beatles Anthology 3 - The Beatles

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
I Get Along Without You Very Well - Lady in Satin - Billie Holiday (ha ha ha! prescient)

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
In My Life - The Beatles (nice, we're happy with this)

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Pyaar Deewaana Hota Hai - Kati Patang - Kishore Kumar

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
The Art of the Fugue BMV 1080 (Contrapunctus 9) - J.S.Bach

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Thilothamma - Aasai - SPB

WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS?
Don't Pass Me By - The Beatles (White Album) - The Beatles

Moon is now but Yellammathota

Where we dig up a priceless lyrico-musical nugget for the enlightenment of our audience

Many years ago, on one dark and dreary fall evening in New England, our then partner in dramatic crimes introduced us to something that forever changed the fabric of the space-time continuum for us, from that point forward.

After a successful opening night performance as Sculder (or was it Mully) in that critically acclaimed and commercially successful blockbuster "Holy Cows In Outer Space" (directed by the partner in crime, a story which will have to be told another day), yours truly and That Man Keynes And His Homosexual Intrigues (as he calls himself on this blog) had visited el Directoro at his digs. After potations and libations had been imbibed, el Directoro disappears, and re-enters slipping an LP record out of its sleeve. TMKAHHI were expecting Pink Floyd, or The Moody Blues, or something like that. Instead, something literally out-of-the-world wafts over the ether.

Turns out that the LP had 2 songs on it, one on each side. The singers were Dr. PB Sreenivos and Ms. S. Janaki, and the lyrics had been penned by the good doctor himself. The songs appeared to be a sort of commemoration-celebrations of the Apollo 11 moon landings. Self and TMKAHHI were blown away (reasons follow).

Years passed, until this afternoon, when on one of those tangential internet explorations that happen, we stumbled across Dr. Sreenivos' web page. And sure enough, in the Multi Lingual section, were the two delicious songs. We urge all our readers with the loony senses of humour to promptly download and listen to "Man to Moon" and "Moon to God". As an appetizer, we will give you the opening lines of "Man to Moon":

          Man has set his foot on Moon
          Moon is now but Dehra Doon
          Moon is now but...Dehraa Doooon
          Armstrong isn't mere arm-strong
          He is mind-strong and aim-strong
          Aldrin is the another man
          Who too walked on moon and land(?)

That apart, the meda meeda meda katti(WMA file) song from Preminchi Choodu (1965) is very entertaining (and is what we were searching for in the first place), as is it's Tam version medai mele(WMA file) are very peppy (especially the videos, if they can be found).

Dr. Sreenivos is not alone in experimenting with the English language. Mohammad Rafi sang The She I Love Is A Beautiful Beautiful Dream Come True to the tune of the rollicking Hum Kaale Hain To Kya Hua Dilwaale Hain:

          Ha ha ha ha!!! It is a lover's duty
          To fall in love with Beauty!
          The she I love is a beautiful beautiful dream come true
          The she I love is a beautiful beautiful dream come true
          I lau her, lau her, lau her, lau her; and so will you!

The lyrics are outrageous ("Because she thinks it pleases me, like a cat a rat, she seizes me, she tickles me, she teases me...") and presumably not by Rafi himself.

Rafi also sang (at the UN General Assembly, apparently) the unforgettable "Although we hail from different lands", set to the tune of bahaaron phool barsaao. Unfortunately, the English version is not available online, although Ludwig has the MP3, for anyone who asks nicely.

Three Quarks for Muster Mark

In which Ludwig is reminded of food and music by an unlikely book that SpaceBar showed him

We used to live in a first floor hostel room that, through a brace of ashoka trees and over a rusty phalanx of forgotten bicycles, looked down at an eatery judiciously named Quark. Judicious because Quark is the kind of name that carefully attenuated to be simultaneously cool and geeky enough to appeal to a wide cross-section of the student populace.

The fare at Quark was mixed. Variations on the "oily gobs of semolina with shreds of vegetables and meat" theme were passed off as products of Szechuan and Manchuria. Vanilla ice-cream was cheerfully and sometimes inevitably (given Madras temperatures and power cuts) melted, optimistically christened "milk shake" and peddled for a princely Rs. 10. The menu was written on a whiteboard, and some of us went there just to find out what spelling they'd used today ("Kobe Manjuriyan - Rs. 15").

The piece de resistance of the cordon bleu experience, as it were, was the delicious kheema porotta. The porottas were of the excellent Mallu variety, and for the connoisseurs amongst our readers, enough said. The kheema was fine grained, spicy, in generous quantities (enough to warrant an extra porotta) and quite sexy. In hindsight, one fervently hopes that the meat came off some traditional ungulate, or at least an herbivorous quadruped. Who is to say?

When the thing was cooked, one of the waiters would put on his best American accent and announce loudly, "Khhheemmmaa porrotttaa, exxxtrraaa porrrotttaaa!!!". And as his shriek died in the prosopis plants that infested the place, you could swagger up to the counter, and everyone would know you were spending big money tonight.

Quark had a "fountain Pepsi" machine. Remember those things? It is reasonable to suspect that a number of people patronized Quark because they were mesmerized by this hissing-panting consul-general of liberalization and globalization in the midst of our customary squalor. If the Starship Enterprise had landed in the hostel quadrangle and Captain Kirk had invited us to play at the battle bridge we couldn't have been happier. For 5 seconds while the plastic cup filled up and the beaded bubbles started winking at the brim, we were on an American campus.

Dining was al fresco. This is another way of saying the management couldn't be bothered with putting up any kind of roof over our heads or providing any furniture. Which was just as well. The future has come to pass, and a recent visit threw the "advantages" of progress into Stark Relief. Shudder. Instead we had trees, and a bunch of cubical and cylindrical concrete blocks, sturdy specimens that had survived the rigours of destructive testing in the structures lab, now living out their retirement respectably as stools and tables.

The management were also proud purveyors of the sketchiest selection of Hindi and Tamil "chartbusters" of the mid-nineties. They'd rigged up an elementary stereo and loudspeaker system that pelted us with scratchy (yet loud!) versions of such classics is main maal gaadi hoon tu dhakka lagaa, subah ko leti hai, shaam ko leti hai, and sarkai liyo khatiyaa, jaadaa laage.

But those were also the days when Kaadhalan and Rangeela were young, and Gulabi and Bombay were around the corner. And how was one to concentrate on the intricacies of the serendipity element or fathom the thought process behind Terzaghi's theses, when coffee, cigarettes and conversation punctuated by urvasi, urvasi or beat in my heart beckoned?

Perhaps Quark was a metaphor for a campus and a country in transition. The hep name, the unorthodox fare, and the English-speaking wait staff were all harbingers of the fifteen kazillion such eateries that dot metro India today. The Hawaii chappals, crap music, ersatz sundaes and the makeshift seating harkened back to something altogether less complicated.

Carnatic Conundrum

In which Ludwig starts giving voice to unspeakable Friday morning thoughts

If 'Mandolin' Srinivas played the mandolin, 'Flute' Mali the flute, 'Ghatam' Suresh the ghatam, 'Chitraveena' Ravikiran the chitraveeNa, 'Guitar' Prasanna the guitar, and 'Fiddle' Subbaiyer the fiddle (heh!), what, pray, did 'Tiger' Varadachari play?

Bole Re Wagtailuva

In which Ludwig takes pictures and rambles on again about the rain in Begumpet

Summer has been beating down upon us with her usual diligence and fervour. However, the last three days have been unusual. The mornings have been pregnant with expectancy, the afternoons hot and muggy, the evenings windy and leaden-skied. Yes, against all odds, it has been raining (drizzling, anyway) in Begumpet. Wednesday and Thursday weren't very great productions, a lot of wind reeling drunkenly hither and thither, fatal hoardings, but very little by way of precipitation.

But today, finally, the weather decided that it had had enough of the thillana variety stunts and tried to settle down for a proper katcheri. A hush descended over all the land, there was no wind to speak of, the setting sun turned syrupy golden.


And then, quietly, it started to rain. As showers go, it wasn't much to speak of. Garden sprinkler variety output. But it did leave everything wet, and green, and squelchy, which is always good.


We whipped out the trusty Powershot S45 and started clicking like there's no tomorrow. The lights went out, and mercifully put an end to all the lingering air conditioners. Quite appropriately, the laptop launched into bole re papiihara (YouTube, you can find the full audio and lyrics here). Who are we to argue with Fate? We lined up a bunch of "rain" songs and let fly (1).

The kids from the building were playing galli cricket downstairs, and their easy Hyderabadi admonitions floated upstairs, "What re, vy your dooing li' that li' that?", "Notredee-notredee-notredeeeee! Rrrredeeee!!!" . Presently, it stopped drizzling, so we hauled ourself onto the roof to see what was to be seen.


Per usual, the cupolas of our local Kremlin, the Hyderabad Public School, gleamed creamily in the distance. The grotesque new foot overbridge butted its way into our picture, and someone seems to have spilt a palette of watercolours on the sky. After some time, this fellow came fluttering by and with what seemed like visible relief, perched on a handy construction rod.


It was quite tired, wet, and frazzled. It sat morosely there for a bit, incessantly wagging its tail and shaking out the droplets from its fuzzy breast. Eventually, it decided that enough was enough, and let out a few experimental trills. Having discovered to its apparent astonishment that all was in working order, it flitted off towards Hussain to catch the passing 1021 Dn Konark Express, itself all wet and gleaming liveried. It seems like it was this, but alack, we were too busy trying to photograph to notice whether the supercilium was supercilious enough and so on...


And then, the lighting of the lamps...

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1. There are so many of them...

• bole re papiihara perennial favourite in miyaan ki malhaar
• kahaan se aaye badraa from Chashm-e-baddoor, which we don't listen to as often as we should
• ghir ghir aaye badariyaa kaari, from Sardari Begum, a relatively orthodox rain song
• rim jhim gire saawan (YouTube) from Manzil, of course, even if it isn't (is it?) a rain raagam. Visually, we like the one which Lata Mangeshkar sings, with Amitabh Bachhan and Moushimi Chatterjee wandering through the rain in a stunningly pretty Bombay. For a number with no "skin show", it is stunningly erotic, blows your mind away.
• ek bas tuu hi nahin, a Farhat Shehzaad poem set to miyaan ki malhaar and sung by Mehdi Hasan. Not a raing song, per se, but love this one, because it taught us to (sort of) identify miyaan ki m..

Sadly, we've skipped (PARENTAL DISCRETION ADVISED) this classic and this one, which were...umm...influential...in our formative years.

Die Beschwerdechor von Lakdikapul

In which Ludwig tries to get a cribbing jam session going...

We have to thank Veena for this, who in turn has to thank the always interesting Abi. Thanks to these worthies, we are now aware of the existence of complaints choirs. This is a simply brilliant concept that originated in Helsinki.

It all got started during a winter day walk of Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen in Helsinki. Perhaps it was due to the coldness of the day that they ended up discussing the possibility of transforming the huge energy people put into complaining into something else. Perhaps not directly into heat – but into something powerful anyway.

In the Finnish vocabulary there is an expression "Valituskuoro". It means "Complaints Choir" and it is used to describe situations where a lot of people are complaining simultaneously. Kalleinen and Kochta-Kalleinen thought: "Wouldn´t it be fantastic to take this expression literally and organise a real Complaints Choir!"

The result was the Helsinki Complaints Choir. The idea is simplicity itself. The algorithm appears to be as follows:

1. Constitute a small core team, including someone who can compose music. This doesn't have to be a latter day Mozart or Ilayaraja.
2. Publicize, publicize, publicize. At the same time, get together the beginnings of a choir. 30 seems to be a goodish number.
3. Collect all the complaints, cribs, gripes, frustrations that ordinary folk in your city have.
4. Do some whittling and pruning of the complaints list, maybe rhymify it, set it to music etc.
5. Practise, practise, practise.
6. Record it. Film the recording. At the same time, film the choir singing in various parts of your city/town.
7. Do a little bit of syncing of song with video, some careful editing, and you're done.

The videos of several choirs are here and on YouTube (search for "complaints choir"). They're stunningly fascinating. The "Complaints Choir" site has a forum where you can learn about other cities that are attempting choirs, advice if you're attempting one of your own, and so on.

We heard the Helsinki, Hamburg, and the St. Petersburg versions and all have their charm. The Helsinkians were the path breakers, but they seem to be relatively benign. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that even in Scandinavia, they have very standard cribs (not getting rich by working, length of vaccum cleaner cords, "bullshitters get on too well in life", "tramline 3 smells of pee" etc.) The cribs about the sauna lend a touch of local colour to the proceedings.

The Hamburgers are kind of a whole lot more sombre and dirge-like at the start. (The Hamburgers are also kind of a very delicious meat patty and bun based sandwich). Then they oscillate between this foottapping rhythm and the Gregorian chantish incantations. Their cribs also, very evocative (mascara always gets smudged, tax declarations are too complicated, "my roommate sleeps with my ex-girlfriend" etc.)

The St. Petersburgers are, astonishingly, not a kind of foodstuff. Not even a sauce. Their choir is probably the soundest musically. Very rich baritone, melodic and all that sort of thing. It actually sounds beautiful, like one of those Russian patriotic/folk songs one hears in movies involving Russian nuclear submarines.

A common thread running through all these north European cities is the anguish about the shortness of the days, the coldness of weather, and in general the annoying behaviour of the cosmos.

Finally, how about getting together a Hyderabad version, eh? Takers? Of course, we'll have to tailor it to local conditions. Maybe do a Tollywood dance thing with the choir and so on. It might be fun. If enthusiasm exists, let us know at choultry AT gmail DOT com, or at our other email addresses.

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Need help in finding an MP3. We recently came across a ghazal by Faiz, by way of the Worldspace Farishta channel. The ghazal has been set to music and sung by various people. There is a Nusrat version at MusicIndiaOnline, a kind of a repulsive "disco" version (MP3) by Talat Mahmood, and possibly other versions also. However, the one they played on the radio is from the 1986 movie Anjuman. Sung by Khaiyyam and his wife Jagjit Kaur, it is wholly more melodious and satisfying. We are now desperately looking for MP3/online version. Please to assist.