Ripples on the brain

I remember in the 1990’s when bilateral series were not as common as they are today. During working days our school library had a TV that we used to watch in between classes and during breaks. If time was very short, we would just ask anybody coming from the general direction of library for the score assuming he/she is coming from the library. He would probably give a third person’s account of the score (he wouldn’t have actually seen it himself).
While going back home in the evening, there would generally be buzz in the bus as everybody would want to know the score. Mostly, there would be a guy with a transistor and the whole crowd in the bus would be around him. On a couple of occasions, a request would be loudly made in the bus for a guy who understands Hindi so that he could listen and do the translation for the anxious folks around. I have myself answered the request on those occasions and would be summoned to listen to the commentary and do the translation. I recall those moments so fondly. Cricket was one of things that united us so much. Suddenly all inhibitions would go away and we would discuss the nitty-gritty’s with the stranger about what the captain should do next and so on. It would be as if that was the only objective in life for all the 20-odd people in the bus. I remember the same events repeating when I was in hostel. We would crowd around a transistor (which was, by the way, banned inside the hostels) and listen to the score and inform the rest.
Other than cricket, one of things that unite us, I think, is film music. I’m a fan of Anthakshari and have always enjoyed participating in formal and informal Anthaksharis in any sort of get together. In an intense session of Anthakshari, you invariably find that after a while the most enthusiastic bunch just sings irrespective of whether it is their turn or not. There are some songs, especially for my generation, some select Illayarajaa numbers that are very difficult to hear and not hum. There is some sort of camaraderie I feel when I’m in such a gathering.
Something similar happened when I was at a close friend’s wedding recently. This guy was marrying some big shot’s daughter and the wedding was a grand affair. But what attracted us most to the reception was the band. There were a couple of guys that were mediocre, but one of the guys had an amazing voice and my office colleagues and I were glued to him whenever he was singing. But before the dinner, the troupe was singing current chart busters which didn’t impress us so much. When we returned after dinner, there wasn’t that much of a crowd and the troupe had also warmed up. Then the guy with a good voice started dishing out some Illayarajaa favourites. Most of us were forced to stay back and listen. I think he sang some 3 numbers and the last one was “Mandram vantha thendralukku” from Mouna Raagam. There was a buzz in the hall (though there were only a handful of people) even as he started the initial humming. As he started singing the main piece, I could see at least 3 or 4 people singing their own versions of the song parallel and enjoying. There was instantaneous applause as the guy finished with the song. Surprised at such a vociferous applause especially as the hall was almost empty, that guy thanked us. Though no words were spoken, so much had been communicated. We were so happy he sung THAT song at THAT time. And he got the message and responded.

At various times, a single song takes over the entire state and all radio and TV channels play it over and over again. Then a positive externality gets created through passive hearing, live requests and so on and the song continues to resonate all around the state. In the recent past, “Vaala meenukkum” and “June ponal” readily come to mind.

The current favourite seems to be Subramaniapuram’s “Kangal irandal“. I watched the song once and instantly fell in love with it. I remember when Minnale’s audio was first released, “Vaseegara” captivated people like me so much that we couldn’t wait to see how the song was picturised. When the movie was released, we actually regretted seeing it as Gautam Menon entirely killed that song. Thankfully “Kangal irandal” has been picturized very well. The 80’s feel (similar to Nizhalgal), wonderful lyrics (after a long time), a lovely leading lady suiting the lyrics, some funny portions - very pleasing overall.

Update: Isn’t the beat of the song very similar to “Ithu oru pon maalai pozhuthu“? Also, the nadaswaram interlude reminds one of “Poongathave thazhthidavaa”

For your listening pleasure:

It’s amazing how brain works sometimes. Subconsciously, my mind associates some specific songs to some specific events. Those songs then become sort of favourites for me for sometime and whenever I hear the songs later I vividly remember the events with which those got associated in the first place.

I visited New York city for the first time some 4 years ago. I remember we hired an 8-seater car and travelled on I-95 to New York. The city skyline that presents itself after one crosses New Jersey was an awesome sight for me as I had never seen anything like that before. At that moment, the song “Aval Ulaga Azhagiye” from “Lesa Lesa” was playing in the stereo system and my mind made an involuntary connection between these two disconnected things. Later, not only did the song become a personal favourite, but whenever I heard the song, I automatically recollected the sight on the drive to New York. Last week, the converse happened. I was on a cab traversing through the streets of New York and I automatically started humming the song. It required a puzzled look from the Egyptian cab driver beside me to stop me from humming .

During my engineering college days, I became fond of a lot of songs this way. During one of our annual alumni meets (when I was a student), a senior sang “Sangeetha Megam” so well that I got hooked on to that song. On another occasion, this non-descript song “Naa saltkotta, nee saidapettey” (from the movie “Pennin Manathai thottu” or some such crap; Prabhu Deva and Raju Sundaram dance for that song) played at one of my friends’ room on the eve of semester examinations. At that time, this song appeared to be soothing admist the stress we all underwent and it got added to my favourites list so much so that I used to force my friend to play it every single day during the study holidays. I listened to the song “Konjum Mainakale” (yes, Sadhana Sargam killing Tamil while singing for a character in the movie that was supposedly a Bharatiyar fan) from “Kandukondein Kandukondein” just before I was to appear for my campus interview for my first company. The interview was successful and the song became associated with it.

During my ISB days, we had these music nites when we all got into a studio and sang all through the night. We had a couple who used to sing exceedingly well together. During one of these nights, they rendered “Sangeetha swarangal” from “Azhagan” and I fell in love with that song ever since. At my first job, like any other fresher in the IT industry, I used work on every other Saturday and we used to play songs loudly during those times. One of the songs that I admired at that time was “Melliname melliname” from Shahjahan which used to loop continuously in winamp. Now on Saturdays, we also used to have these amazing Aloo paranthas with curd at a restaurant near Stella Maris (I forget the name of the restaurant). So, this song got associated to those laid back weekends and aloo paranthas

At other times, there have been some songs that people I know or whom I’m aware of mention as their favourites and those eventually become mine too. A famous blogger once mentioned about “Malarndhum Malaraatha” from “Paasamalar” in his blog and I immediately downloaded that song and couldn’t stop listening to it for some days. The story about the song “Vaazha meenukkum” from “Chittram Pesuthadi” is even better. A friend at ISB pointed us to the song when it was playing in one of the channels. He said he liked the simple picturization of the song and predicted it would be hit. At that time, the movie was just released and the song was no chart buster. We all booed him down that day and a fornight later learned that the song and hence the movie was actually a hit in Tamil Nadu.

Just yesterday, as I was looking at the collection of Thiruppavai, I observed that Ariyadkudi Ramanuja Aiyangar has composed the first five verses in the following ragas: Nattai, Gowlai, Arabhi, Varali and Sri - the same sequence of ragas that appear in the Pancharatna kritis of Thyagaraja!

On October 23, 1966, MS Subbulakshmi, gave her now famous concert at the UN. I was listening to the speech delivered by the then UN Secretary General U Thant after the first portion of the concert had ended. He appreciated MS and her accompanists without naming them. He also later thanked T.Sadasivam who was among the audience.

I found it ridiculous that he didn’t name MS’ accompanists (V.V.Subramaniam, T.H.Murthy and Vinayakram) in the concert but chose to thank a person who was among the audience (though I understand the speech may have been written by someone else and Sadasivam’s name would have been added by possibly CV Narasimhan, the then Under Secretary General).

A report on the concert can be found here.

Happy Ramanavami. Just today I realized that I have got some good collection of songs on Rama. I made sure I listened to a few of those in the morning. My favourite one at the moment is the Tyagaraja kriti “Telisi Rama chintanako namamu seyave o manasa” in the wonderful raaga Poornachandrika. The kriti has a good pace, especially when the chitta swarams are sung. The version that I listen to, sung by S.Gayathri, is just divine and lingers in me long after I hear it.

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.

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.

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.

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.