If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Arun says here that learning Carnatic music is a life long experience, should one be so inclined. I think learning music, regardless of the type, is certainly a journey that lasts an entire lifetime.

My musical journey began when I was about 6 years old, when amma dragged me by the ear to Iyengar maama and requested him to give me violin lessons. I think it all began when I once came home bleeding after taking a stone to my forehead. So amma was forced to do something to keep me off the streets while she was at work.  And that was how I started going to Iyengar maama’s house every evening (or was it every other evening) while the other kids continued their stupid game of “catch the stone before it becomes part of your face”. My violin lessons continued till when I was 16, when amma decided that I should study for my boards. If only she knew.

But even after a decade of learning classical music, I still cannot remember the names of ragas, let alone misidentify them. I used to think that I wasted 10 years of my life on violin lessons when I could have better spent the time perfecting my straight drive or my doosra.

And then a couple of weeks ago, I had my own epiphany. I was talking to someone who said she had learnt the Bharatanatyam for over 8 years and had gone through the arangetram phase, but *hates* dancing and had gone through the whole rigmarole only because her parents wanted her to. I could sympathize with her, but I realized something.

I don’t hate music by any measure. I am always humming or singing something, much to the irritation of people around me. And I am able to catch subtle similarities sometimes between musical pieces that I quite proudly point out to people (my latest catch is this ad, which sounds so much like this song). I realize now that while I hated the time I spent learning the violin, I now regret that I did not pay attention. For quite sometime I was extremely bitter at amma for forcing me into something that I did not have any interest in, but now I know better. The poor thing was only try to do what she could to keep me out of trouble.

Makes me wonder what if. But then, I think it all evens out when I realize I have had 6 teachers in the 10 years I spent learning. And I have had breaks ranging from a few months to a year whenever there was a transition from one master to the other. And on top of all that, I have had to pretty much start from scratch every time I changed teachers. Every teacher I had (barring the first one and the last one) was of the opinion that his predecessor was crap. Little did they know that the pupil was the culprit.

However, I have to look at the positves. My basics are obviously strong, thanks to the umpteen number of times that the basic lessons were repeated. So, while the sarali and janta varisai pages in the Ganamrutha Bodhini are dog-eared and almost disintegrating, certain other pages are in mint condition.

Ok, I am starting to lose my touch with titles on blog posts. That title is so lame. So let me first explain what this post is about.

This post is not about callipygian features. It’s about allegiances and disappointment, specifically my allegiance to the the Old Lady of Mount Road and the disappointment resulting from reading her newest stable-mate. (more…)

Ten days ago, Lekhni tagged me and urged me to essentially recycle 5 of my old posts. Normally I don’t do tags. I mean, unless there is potential for me to play the fool and essentially evoke a few laughs even if the joke’s on me. With this tag, however, the laugh potential seems to be rather marginal, but then I remembered something else.

I realized that I was closing in upon a milestone. By the time this post is online, it will be 5 years since I started blabbering. My first post was posted on Blogger on the 10th of February, 2003. And barring a few months early on and around 100 days in late ‘04 and early ‘05, I have been posting rather regularly.

Looking at Lekhni’s tag, I realized that she had given me a good chance to take a retrospective look and to reminisce upon these five years gone by. But the problem with my blog is that, as my erstwhile tagline goes, it is the record of an egoist’s road trip through life with cricket, music, books, cars and movies for company.

Which means that this blog is about me and me alone. So, as the days go by, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember the odd posts that one has “written” relating to some of the keywords of this tag. Also, the difficulty is compounded by the fact that I took an oath, with myself as witness, that I wouldn’t post anything personal here. So the odd heartbreak has almost never found an outlet here, even if some friends (both online and IRL) have heard me obsess over it.

I have come to a conclusion that wherever I think I won’t be able to fit within the confines of the tag, I will bend the boundaries to my whims and fancies. Hey, this is MY blog and I do what I think is right. Also, my ego prevents me from sticking to the “1 post per keyword” rule of this tag. I will hence go ahead and regurgitate multiple links wherever possible. But let me just make the basic rules clearer to everyone. (more…)

THALAIVAR?????

Rediff’s Rajaneesh Vilakudy says,

If top industry sources are to be believed, Shankar will work with Rajnikanth in Robot, which was planned to be shot with Shah Rukh Khan in the lead and as producer. But the project apparently did not work out owing to ‘creative differences’, with Shah Rukh himself confirming the separation.

(more…)

Is this India’s answer to “The God’s Must Be Crazy“? Either way, one’s hoping to see Senthil get back with a bang!

I got this picture as an email forward yesterday. This is one of the VERY few cricket related email forwards that actually made me laugh. For those of you who are not in the know, the conversation is actually from this movie. Non-Tams, please excuse. The point of the joke’s lost upon explanation.

Enna kodumai sir, idhu?

Five years ago, in my first ever guest post on Cricinfo (other posts here and here) , I wrote,

But why have most of us chosen to turn a blind eye towards a player with all the prerequisite skills and caliber required of him? Just because he seems laid back, or is this another case of the “regional bias” that has plagued Indian cricket over the ages? The second excuse seems a bit far-fetched, considering that many players from the same zone have won places in the team in the last few years; I must stress, incidentally, that the quality of such players is never in doubt.

Although I do not know the reason, Sadagoppan Ramesh seems to the black sheep that nobody wants in the team. Is his footwork, or rather the absence of it, the cause? Admitted that this aspect is quite alarming, but his flowing strokes and awesome timing still catch the eye.

A online survey to pick the 16-member squad for the West Indies reveals the flawed and perhaps mistaken opinions largely prevalent in the minds of the average Indian cricket fan. At the time of penning this piece, Ramesh’s replacement Deep Dasgupta gets twice as many votes as Ramesh (913), while Shiv Sunder Das gets more than four times as many. I attribute this more to ignorance than to clarity of thought. Ramesh’s career stats should be a eye-opener to anyone who thinks that he does not merit a place in the team. (more…)

Update: Thanks for the clarifications, Su. The post’s duly updated to reflect your clarifications.

A couple of years ago, I had ranted (parts 1 and 2) about the disdain shown towards “massy” dappankuthu (and in general non-Hindi/non-Bhangra) type numbers by DJs and the “classy” crowd at dance parties both here in videsh and back home in India. But my personal experiences have mostly been outside Chennai, in fact outside India.

And those who know me will attest that, at times, I can be as “massy” as one can get, mostly in the (few) aforementioned dance parties that I get to go to. And most of the DJs I have seen in these parties, suck. One DJ even went as far as feigning loss of the mix CDs (they magically re-surfaced at the end of the party) that a couple of us had painstakingly created so that he has a mix of Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Marathi numbers to play during the party. But that old post immediately came into mind when I read about the fiasco Radio Mirchi RJ hunt party at Dublin, the disco/night club at the Park Sheraton in Chennai. (more…)

YouTube link