Ripples on the brain

1. What do you think about watching a movie, “Aarar Asaipadar“, on your favourite musician? Great? Okay, then how about watching it with the man himself (Sanjay Subramanyam) sitting behind you? Wow! This was my feeling today when we went to Sree theatre in Satyam complex to watch the documentary on Sanjay. When I saw Sanjay at the entrance, I was like, “Could I have asked for anything more today morning?”. The movie/documentary is kind of a pioneering concept, since it is filmed on a great artiste and released in his prime. The usual documentaries of eminent artistes in Carnatic music usually come towards the end of their illustrious career/life or even after that, if they are made at all that is. Sanjay has been acknowledged by everyone in the Carnatic music circuit as one of the greatest to have ever performed this art form and this movie reiterates this fact. Moreover, there was a short impromptu interview with the person himself (sitting in front of us) at the end of the movie. It must be said that the multiplex structure allows one to innovate to movie-showing and watching experience by adding stuff like these. Great!

Though the idea of a movie on the musician is an excellent concept, this movie was just that - a concept. The movie maker completely failed in implementing the concept. Though I had learnt from an earlier review that the movie drags on quite a bit and was mentally prepared for it, I must admit I couldn’t sit through the 85 minute movie. What the film maker wanted to convey through this movie by showing bits and pieces without any continuity was very unclear. There was no voice-over at all, most of the time was taken over by Sanjay’s singing and the audience learnt most about Sanjay from an interview taken by Anita Ratnam for some other programme but which featured in documentary (some of the other content also didn’t look original). I couldn’t believe that Sanjay agreed to be a part of such a poor effort. If given a chance to be in his home for a day, honestly I could have made a better movie with my 3.2 mpx digital camera. No exaggeration! To me, it looked like the original idea was to film his routines and compile them into a documentary some 10 years down the line, but a sudden development made the film maker to release it this year itself.

2. I’m totally pissed off with the way the news channels telecast the clippings of Saddam at the gallows. It made me low full of yesterday. As if that was not enough, some channels showed another video where he was taunted and humiliated after having his hands tied and a rope at his neck (i.e seconds before being hung). Such a sad state of affairs! I used to think how uncivilized Homo sapiens were that they watched their own ilk being devoured by carnivores in the Roman era. I think we are no more civilized today, ready to watch a man being hung.

3. Other thing that has put me off is the sad story emerging in Gurgoan after bodies of children were unearthed. It’s good that I’m not following that story at all.

Okay here comes 2007! Wishing all of you a happy new year.

To me, a visit to the ISB couldn’t have come at a better time. Though many of my friends were living close to each other, we couldn’t meet as much as we would have wanted. In that scenario, it was great that most of us could make it to the annual alumni reunion. In fact, more that 100 guys (approx. 30%) from the 2006 batch could make it to the event. Personally, I had a gala time on both the days with the parties and the games. I relived our 8th term glory days during this trip.

The current batch of students seems to be experiencing the same set of doubts, disappointments and emotions that we had experienced at this time last year. With placements round the corner, many are re-evaluating their career options (after doing it for the first time during their application to ISB and during the pre-terms before the academic rigour took its toll and they forgot all about it). As one of the guys pointed out, the options seemed to increase initially after joining ISB and just when placements stare at them, they seem to be very restricted now. “Career switch” candidates are busy charting their course. Resumes are out for multiple reviews and suggestions.

I had a chance to talk with a lot of IT guys and set their expectations right. We had talked to them even during orientation, early this academic year, when we had a candid discussion on IT opportunities and salaries post-ISB and so, I guess, the discussions now weren’t as much shock to them as it was to us last Solstice. But, we assured them that the brand of ISB was obviously there and it will help them in career, even if (for a minority), it doesn’t help them in their first jobs. The message from my side was that the salary is not a pointer to the nature of work they will do. Many guys perceived to have had offers on campus with “low” salaries last year had terrific fitments to their role and had an opportunity to work on interesting assignments onsite very early into their jobs. The IT industry, save for a few leading companies, haven’t come to terms with giving the right opportunities to its MBAs, though the industry as such is convinced about the value these resources can bring. So, most of the guys will face the initial trouble before getting the role of their choice. For those that don’t fit the job well, the opportunities outside continue to be immense.

At this point, I can only imagine the flight of emotions the students will go through during the rest of their ISB life. The self-doubts and tension will increase exponentially into the placement week. The placement week will itself put them into such a severe stress that they would have hitherto experienced. Almost all the guys will emerge highly relieved from the placement week to enjoy their last terms thoroughly.

All the best to the Class of 2007!

Secunderabad station - Hyderbadi Hindi - the auto ride to Gachibowli - Mehdipatnam - ISB security gate - student villages - hot shower - the path from SV1 to academic building - Sarovar breakfast (esp. the omlettes and double-egg-double-fries) - foosball - volleyball (volleyball, volleyball, volleyball….:D) - ISB parties - LRC (naps) - Exec housing - literature - late nights - red eyes - recreation centre - placement season ( and gyaans ) - friends (friends, friends, friends …).

I know it’s cliched, but life’s wonderful.

It was a very hectic day for me yesterday. It started with the Musicforum’s 3rd workshop on Identifying Raaga in a concert. I will write in detail about it in my next post. Then, I left it halfway to attend a concert of Mrs.Vijayalakshmy Subramaniam at Music Academy. It was nice to see so many rasikas turn up on Sunday afternoon for the concert. Initially the hall had some audio problems which was later rectified to enable the audience enjoy a wonderful concert. I had to leave the concert towards the end to go to a TM Krishna concert in YGP auditorium. It was an uncharacteristically slow-paced concert by TMK. Even during this concert, the problems with the audio system initially had a nervous YG Mahendaran on his toes. When “Manavyalakim” was in progress, I, in fact, took a short nap! I had to leave the concert after the main piece was sung to go to Sanjay Subramanyam’s concert in Vani Mahal. Sanjay was amazing as usual. The violinist, Nagai Muralidharan, played so wonderfully, especially for the varali raaga. I returned home at around 10pm after 8 hours of continuous music altogether! There has been an overdose over the weekend, so I may take a break from attending concerts for the next few days.

Kendriya Vidyalaya IITM’s alumni meet happened today. I look forward to this event every year since I get to meet a lot of very eminent and interesting people - the old students, and obviously my teachers. My mom is still a teacher there, so I get to visit the school frequently anyway. None of my batch mates in school ever turn up for this event every year, so it has never been a “reunion” for me with my friends during such meets.

KV IITM is a school that had such a glorious past with so many students excelling in academics, sports and culturals. The school has definitely lost its sheen over the last many years due to several reasons, but the good thing is that I think everybody realizes that and each one of us is trying to bring the school back on track. Personally, I feel, the kind of student intake in the school has changed over the years and hence based on the nature of students that are there in the school currently, the metrics used to track the school should also change. For example, instead of tracking how many students make the broad jump into IIT, the school should now be tracked on its pass percentage and so on.

To me the greatest part of this year’s event was when we paid rich tributes to one of our own, Lt. N. Parthiban, who laid his life while serving the country. The announcer, who himself had been in the army, mentioned how Parthiban bravely chose the infantry (that is directly involved in the ground battles) division over the other divisions when he passed out of the Officers Training Academy. Explaining the events on his final day, the announcer mentioned how Lt. Parthiban was responsible for preventing infiltration in the Dras sector, how infiltrators are tracked using the special night vision devices, how Lt.Parthiban identified a gang of millitants and moved along with 4 of his colleagues to create an ambush, how these ambushes are dangerous where you expose yourself to the gang of millitants after which it becomes a free-for-all with automated rifles firing in all directions, how Lt. Parthiban, who had himself killed 3 millitants only days ago, killed 2 more that night, before exposing himself to a wounded terrorist, whom he thought was dead. Little did I realize then that I was sitting next to Lt.Parthiban’s family, his father, mother, sisters and other relatives. As the announcer was giving the details, the family was totally in tears, each one of them crying as if they were hearing it for the first time. The father wiped his tears before presenting a framed photo of his son to the school. For the mother, the flow of tears simply refused to stop. I was moved on watching this from close quarters. “We are proud of Lt. Parthiban, for he has achieved what every soldier yearns for: laying one’s life in service of the nation”, the announcer said. It made me think for a moment, “This boy, 4 years younger to me, has laid his life to protect people like me. Do we deserve it?”

The Tamil month of Margazhi begins today. To me it means Thiruppaavai Thiruvamppaavai, cold, and of course more music. Listening to Thiruppaavai Thiruvamppaavai in the early morning when you’re not fully awake is absolute joy . I have observed that whatever tune I hear at that time of the day gets registered in the mind and I keep humming it the whole day.

For a long time we listened to Bombay sisters’ rendition of the compostions. Then when the cassette finally could be no longer played, we bought a new one in which ML Vasanthakumari had sung the verses. Since Bombay sisters’ version of Thiruppaavai Thiruvamppaavai has settled in my memory, I am not able to digest the variations to it in MLV’s version .

I have found Thiruppaavai Thiruvamppaavai to be a good collection of raagas. Many a times, in a concert, when a piece is sung in a raaga that appears in Thiruppaavai Thiruvamppaavai, I’m able to relate to it and identify it.

Suddenly I find doing the daily chores too boring. For the last few days, I wake up at 7am feeling completely miserable at having got up at all. The gong of my door bell almost one after the other for newspaper, maid servant, food vendor etc. leaves me irritated. My bike ride to Guindy, the suburban train to Tambaram and the ride through the uninviting potholed roads inside MEPZ to reach office are pretty uninteresting and tiresome. The work day continues to remain dull. I return to a dark, unkempt (of course thanks to me!), lonely home after an hour long commute with nothing interesting to do late evening. Come Wednesday morning, I start looking forward to the weekend. Every weekend looks promising but ends before it starts, or so it seems.

I don’t know why I feel this way; probably because I’m staying alone, probably because of my work, probably because I have still not got used to work life after a year’s break, or probably a combination of all the three. Hopefully things change for the better sooner. My parents will be back here next week and that should lift the mood. I’ll at least have something different to look forward to everyday.

The news about the facelift to bus termini in Chennai caught my attention.

“Think of bus termini in the city sporting marble flooring in place of the dusty, pot-holed bus bays, a small play area for children to while away time till their bus arrives and digital display boards showing the expected time of arrival and location of the bus.”

I think the MTC passengers’ discomfort has more to do with the attitude of the bus crew rather than facilities the termini per se. I have been to most of the major bus termini in the city and problems just stare you at the face:
1. Buses don’t stop inside the terminus. Don’t trust me? Visit the Besant Nagar bus depot. Though a vast, covered terminus has been constructed, buses mostly stop outside the terminus.
2. Display of bus timings need not require electronic boards (yes, they will definitely be more comfortable, but if the MTC really wants to help the passengers, they can do it even now). My father tells us that all the pre-1969, all the buses used to have a small black board where the bus crew would write the time the bus would leave. This was a very simple solution and would definitely not involve too much work from the crew. But, the pampering of the State employees by the subsequent State governments with an eye on the vote bank ensured that they avoided doing even the simple things that help the passengers.
I had pretty scary experience a year ago in Central Station bus terminus. I boarded the route 1 (from Central to Thiruvanmiyur) at the Central Station at 5:45am after returning to Chennai early morning. I could see the bus crew moving from coffee to biscuits to newspapers while the tired passengers from the overnight trip didn’t even have an idea of when the bus would start. When it was 6:10am, I approached the “time-keeper” to ask him when the bus would leave to which he replied 6am. I politely showed him the time at the Central Station tower. He got irritated and responded that the bus would start once “sufficient” number of passengers board the buses. I asked him what “sufficient” meant since there were atleast 15 passengers in the bus, most of them with heavy luggages, like me. What followed was something I cannot forget - around 10 bus drivers and conductors confronted me and talked absolute nonsense defending themselves with some obscure reasons; some even threatened to hit me (one said to the time-keeper, “neenga mattum inge ille na, inge ivana deal panre vithame vera sir“). I should also add here that none of passengers in the bus came to my rescue at that time.
3. Most of the bus drivers also adopt sinister ways to fool passengers. They start their buses and drive it to a short distance, and as passengers get in with great difficulty, stop the bus again outside the terminus and return to their tea shop. The sadistic smile on their faces for having fooled the passengers cannot be missed.
4. There are no time tables available in most of the bus termini; even if one is available, it is almost always never adhered to. Time keepers, when confronted by passengers, blame it on things like traffic, unavailability of enough number of buses that are beyond their control. Ask them the reason why 2 buses with route number 29C just left the terminus one after the other, they just sport a weak smile.

Hence, I think the proposal of the State government can only be termed Paswanque (remember former railway minister, Paswan, painting the exterior of the train coaches even when the interior stank with unclean toilets, dirty floors and poorly maintained berths). Without changing the general attitude of their employees, I don’ think any proposal would benefit the public.

Raga Sudha Hall, near Nageshwara Rao Park in Luz, is currently host to the first Chennaionline music festival. Sikkil Gurucharan performed yesterday as a part of this festival. He was accompanied by Nagai Sri Ram on the violin. It was a high quality concert which was thoroughly enjoyed by the audience. I liked the main piece of the concert in varali raaga “Aadiya Padhame”. The alapanais of both the vocalist and the violinist were excellent.

The hall was packed for most part of the concert, even though there were other concerts of eminent artistes at other locations at the same time. This, infact, makes me doubt the assertion that the rasika base for Carnatic music is decreasing every year.

I was watching Times Now news channel day before yesterday (Thursday). These were the contents of one particular sequence of news in the ticker at the bottom of the screen:

1. South Africa: Sourav Ganguly scores 50(83).
2. South Africa: Ganguly scores 83.
3. South Africa: Ganguly scores the highest score yet by an Indian batsman on this trip.
4. South Africa: Irfan Pathan completes 100.

How can Sourav Ganguly score 50 & 83? If Irfan scored 100, how did Sourav get the highest score on the trip?