Amba and Sunanda Tharoor!

Women never stay quiet when it comes to resurrecting their reputation and/or bringing injustice rendered by their menfolk to light . On that count Sunanda Tharoor resembles Amba, a character in Mahabaratha. Though the world may  perceive this as washing their linen in public, but what choices do such women have?

Amba ran from pillar to post to seeking justice. She shared her story with the King of Hastinapur, represented her case in his assembly, and lastly, took the matter to Parasurama, guru of Beeshma. Surprisingly, the wise and righteous didn’t act and let her down. Similarly, Sunanda started her justice seeking mission on Twitter and then contacted journalist to expose the face behind the mask, but before truth could be exposed, her voice was muffled and her life was extinguished.

A few days ago, Sunanda tweets clearly exposed her pain, disappointment and desperation, something doctors at KIMS/AIIMS would have never detected or diagnosed. She blew the cover when she exposed the affair between her husband and the Pakistani journalist with a link to ISI on Twitter.

Call it damage control or control the dame, Mr. Tharoor desperately twiddled his thumbs to spin the web of stolen identity to cover up his exposed low morals. He coerced Sunanda to retract her confessions to a few journalists, and announced a happy marriage. But a few hours later came an unhappy ending!

Was Dawood’s money involved in Sashi’s IPL stake? Was the Pakistani journalist a messenger of ISI and Dawood? Was Sunanda an innocent benami who got punished for speaking up and making efforts to save her man and marriage? Did Sunanda misread the conversation between the female journalist and her husband as an affair?

Autopsy reports may turn inconclusive, CCTV footage may fail to identify the culprit, government controlled investigation agencies (CBI) may cover up the truth, and the bench of judges may never be able to deliver justice, and a few journalists may never reveal her confessions, but it is not hard for us to connect the sequence of events and corroborate the true story.

Let’s us hope that Sunanda will reincarnate like Amba to avenge the guilty. H(e)ar h(e)ar Mahadev!

PS: Sunanda may compare to Amba, but it doesn’t mean Mr. Shashi Tharoor compares to Beeshma. Never! No way!

2013 December Season Vambu

I am continuing the second part on the 2013 December season on vintage musicians and other popular artists.

R Vedavalli: Was too good and I felt that I should not hear anything after her concert. She was supported by her disciple Sumithra Vasudev. Started off with Sukhi Evvaro in Kannada of Thiagaraja and ended up with Poorvikalyani javali.

Parasa Ponnamal – sadly no concerts this year in chennai.
Suguna Varadachari - not been to the concert at raga sudha hall. there was a lec dem as well.

Suguan Purushothaman - She dint sing this year.

Aruna Mami - No concerts this year. Understand that her daughter is not keeping well and she in US. She dint sing at Chettinad vidyashram as well.


Neela Ramgopal concert at Music Academy was good. The Hindu Friday review carried an article as well.

TNS: Rasikas were nodding their heads, the hall was full, but I need to reserve my comments.

Sudha R was given the Sangita Kalanidhi yesterday at the sadas at 5pm by ELV Narasimham AP Governor. Many are unable to digest this. There are senior artists like TV Gopalakrishnan,, Kanyakumari, etc. I also understand there was competition between Chitra Veena Ravi Kiran and Sudha and the later was chosen for the title.I was going through the Shruthi magazine about Sudha and gosh she is close to 58 years. I was taken aback and all that make up, mallipoo and silk saree does cover up ones age.

2013 December Music Academy – Young Artists

 

While my Paris sojourn has given me an opportunity to attend western classical concerts and Operas, but that hasn't taken my ears away from Carnatic Music and specially the December Music Season and the gossip that comes along with it.

I reached out to people asking for season updates from the ground apart from reading blogs, newspaper reviews and watching clips on YouTube. Here is an interesting update shared by a friend in Chennai who attended performances of young artists at the Music Academy, the Salle Pleyel of Chennai.

The December festival was ok... Mostly I was at Music Academy listening to the upcoming artists which I prefer to.

Dec 16, opening day was Vishnu Dev Namboodari (2013 Carnatic Music Idol Contestant) - Good singing.. started with Devamanohari (Kanna thandri na pai), a brisk alapana on Vasantha (Brihadambikayi - dik comp), followed by Todi of Thyagaraja comp.

Amrutha Venkatesh: Was ok, it was more of a nasal singing. Kalyani was good, (Bhaja re chitta balambika).

Vignesh Eshwar: Good singing... Started with Sriranjani (Marubalka), and main was Shankarabharanam - manasu swadheenamu.

DB Ashwin concert was good. He is a disciple of Seshachary (one of the Hyd bros).

Bharat Sundar : nothing great..... Sri ragam - varnam, Vachaspathi – Parathpara – Papanasam Sivam.

Prasanna Venkatraman: Sanjay Subramanyam’s disciple. He struggled to reach higher scales.

Akkarai Sisters: Was a mind blowing concert.... started with ragamalika varnam (Intha kopa melara - Veena kuppaiyer), Srinathadi (Mayamalgowla), brisk alapana on Lathangi (Mare vera dikkevvaru), and Sahana (Emaya - Thiyagaraja)..

RTP in Todi was too good.......

Sriranjani Santhanagopalan: I moved out of the hall since she was shouting.

Trichur brothers: Somehow I felt they should slow down their pace with every song on the run way mode.... nothing new ones repeating the old ones like Natya narayani (maha ganapathe). Valaji RTP, and others. Todi (Thaye yasodha) tamil pronunciation should improve and it became more evident when they sang Enneramum undhan in Devagandhari.

Btw, Amritha Murali was given the prime slot (6.30 pm).

Swarna Rethas (disciple of sanjay) was very avg. diction problem.

Sandeep Narayanan: was ok.

Ramakrishna Murthy - jam packed and was more devotional singing.

Rithvik Raja: Matured singing. His Poorvikalyani was good rendering the composition of Shyama Sastry.

K.Gayathri, Ranganatha Sharma, Kunnakudi Balamurali, Surya prakash were given prime slot sat 4.15 pm at the Music Academy.

(NOT BEEN TO ANY CONCERTS OF R&G, SANJAY, TMK, GAYATRI.VENK, MALLADI, SUDHA)

Come back for more season vambu next week!

Exploring new boundaries at 38…

 

Not sure if I should say I burst into excitement or broke down in excitement, but for sure I was numb and didn’t know how to react and whom to share with when I touched 20mins on August 9. It may sound simple, ridiculous and even frivolous to many, but to me, who’ve not been able to run for more than 10mins in the past 36 years, this milestone a month before my 38th birthday is an icing on the cake.

Two years ago, same time, I was struggling with palpitations and my entire family was helplessly watching my every move. And now with no one around to watch or/and cheer, I felt like a glutton feeding on my own success and celebrating it. Three months after the surgery, I was back at the gym and 7mins on the elliptical was a challenge and I had to constantly watch my heart beat and not take it beyond the permissible limit. Last August, I cycled some difficult terrains at Maine and there were moments I had to get off the cycle to catch a breath, but I successfully managed to complete the entire cycling expedition despite rain and cold breeze on the last day. And when I took the fitness challenge test upon to return to India, I passed it by covering a mile in 10 mins but at the end of the test I was tired to even brag about it.

When I moved to Paris, I was determined not to skip gym, something that I have committed to for over 13 years. To be honest, I spent more time looking for a gym than for a home. I looked at the equipments, the distance from home and work, evaluated the crowd to draw my inspiration to perspire. I know you will smirk at me for all this due diligence, given that I was hardly achieved the one mile challenge in 10 mins a year ago.

How did I come around to achieve 20mins at a constant speed of 12.5kmp on the treadmill without panting and puffing? What happened in the last 12 months? Did I use any performance enhancing drugs? Did I train specially to improve my lung capacity? Infact, I had taken a 45 days break from the gym before I achieved this milestone. 

Before I shared the news with my close friends, I ensured this was not fluke and I repeated the experiment multiple times on multiple machines. I even repeated this on the elliptical for 20 mins and held my heart beat at 170 beats per minute for over 15 minutes and achieved more than what I did on the treadmill from calorie, distance and heart beat perspective. I tried out Elliptical and treadmill combo for 30 mins. 

At 6 am on August 9, I felt like a blind man who got his eyesight, a deaf who got back his hearing, and the dashboard in front of me immediately sent serotonin levels to my Sahasrara chakra and dumped endorphins into my blood stream leaving me in a state of shock and excitement. And since then I have been at the gym everyday repeating this feat and ensuring this is not a stroke of luck.

And when I finally shared it with a few close friends, they were really supportive, but all of them sounded cautiously optimistic given my heart condition. A doctor friend of mine and a marathoner and living in the UK, suggested that I get off the treadmill and start running outdoors. Another marathoner from Chennai suggested the same and advised that I reduce my speed and sustain myself for longer. He even spoke about a few heart patients running marathons and guided me to go on a few websites from where I can learn beginner tips for marathons. They know and I know I have no Ethiopian gene running in my family to think or attempt a marathon, but their words came as a big motivation.

While resting at the locker room, I recalled the scene from the day after my heart surgery, my lungs were struggling to expand, while the woman next to me, twice my age practiced lung exercise on the hour with dedication and discipline. My age helped me to walk out of the ICU ahead of her, but I made it a point to stop by her bedside and let her know that she had silently taught me a lesson for life. And two years later I read about the achievement of another septuagenarian who earned her PhD researching on the musical aspects in Thirumangai Azhwar compositions. I realised that moment that life doesn’t begin at 38…it begins at any age as long as you have a sense of yearning, direction and discipline.

There is still one variable that I am yet to test i.e. external factors: change of place/equipments, high levels of motivation/inspiration from fellow buddies, and cooler temperatures. While most of us all claim fatherhood to all our achievements and gobble up all the credits, but I will only take credits for my commitment to continue gym and yoga post surgery. I never imagined or even set out to achieve 600 calories 30 mins or achieve 2.5 miles in 20 mins.

In the journey of life we will all cross such milestones (this is insignificant to many) that expand our boundaries, break our mental barriers, physical challenges and leave us with a momentary  high but and confidence to go beyond. And with these thoughts, I get ready to celebrate my 38th birthday with another challenge....a hiking trip in the Austrian side of Alps (Salzkammergut) for 5 days covering 70 kms. So wish me well on the next challenge and come back soon for more pictures and stories.

Movie review: Elysium

 

I watched Elysium today at UGC Montparnasse. Unlike India, mobiles don't ring, people observe silence and there is no intermission that kills the pace of the movie. Btw, there is an option at UGC cinemas to get a 1-year membership for unlimited movie watching and I did. 

Elysium: The storyline seemed like a mishmash of the story of Dhruva who wished to have a place in the sky, Parikshit who was cursed to lived for just 7 days and did all the good he can, and Nachiketas who tricked the god of death and lived forever. 

From another angle, the movie resembled the struggle between the capitalist who want only heaven for the rich and give no damn about the poor and live off their blood like parasites, While the socialist want heaven and equality for everyone. 

Nevertheless, Matt Damon holds the story together again! Btw, Hollywood must avoid cliches: Patel the president of Elysium and Koreans the data/semiconductor specialist on Elysium. On a serious note, when will Hollywood stop thinking beyond paranormal, alien invasion and apocalyptic plots?

In India the movie opens on Aug 23.

Language: A Reason, season or treason?

Language is like friction, a necessary evil. It can bring out important dimensions of a culture that may be otherwise hidden and it can also take humans to the flash point quickly. Here are my two experiences with French language…diametrically opposite in the same week.

So, what did the English do to French and what did French do to the English? Or should I be asking what did the English and French do to the hot and sweaty Indian? That night under the cool breeze of the English fan, I asked myself : are they languages born out of reason, season or treason?

 

The language of reason: I am not French literate, and I have no idea about the language, usage and how words moved into English or was adapted (may be stolen, hijacked or even pawned by the French?) by English Language. Btw, statistics says 28% of English words are from French, but nobody will give you the percentage of words whose English adaption is very appalling, discriminatory and not inclusive. A week after I arrived, I sat down to fill the necessary paperwork to get my resident card and when I had to choose my status, which made me ask  what did the English do to French?

 

Celibataire – in French simply refers to a single and doesn’t say anything about vow or abstinence

Celebate – in English refers to an individual who has taken a vow (often religious) to practice abstinence and stay single

Concubinage – simply refers to co-habitation without legally married in French and is a legally accepted status in a French Government application

Concubine – refers to an illegal wife or mistress in English – puts women in dark light or treats her like a social outcast and an object or toy of pleasure and ridicule

But, why do adaption of French words into English language target status, physically intimacy and portray them in a bad light? Is English language really judgmental, narrow-minded and less tolerant to various engagements an individual prefers to hold? Aren’t simple words given complex societal interpretation across the English Channel? Is this the sea of change between French and English? To me, the French language seemed more accommodative and inclusive, less discriminative, and socially more liberal and accepting.

The language of season: Fans are a standard fitting in our homes in India now rapidly replaced with

air-conditioners and when I found neither of them in Paris, I was pleasantly (not really) surprised. May be the architects, residents and even the weathermen swear that the city never gets that hot and hence finds no place in a house? And my arrival was just in time to test the Parisian weather and reality of no fans and air-conditioners. After experiencing a long, humid and harrowing summer in India, I arrived in Paris just in time for the summer. Call it a double whammy or an extra dose of Vitamin D, I don’t care.

 

Especially this year, people have been complaining about long winters and a direct jump into summer with no spring. And when it hit 35 deg C yesterday, the locals started to complain and went one step ahead to create a supply demand situation at the home stores.

And I made a trip to the store and asked the salesman for a fan and received no response from him.  I felt it was my strong accent and gave it another try, and this time I was slow and gentle. He still had a puzzled look on his face. I didn’t know what to understand from his silence and I decided to help myself. Unable to find one, I exited the store and proceeded to another one. I was met with similar silence and a cold response when I asked for a fan. 

Even a small child will know what a fan is, but Parisians had no clue. What would be a breeze in any English literate nation, really turned out to be Greek in France. More than the heat, the inability to explain frustrated me more.

And this time I was persistent to get an answer. I made gestures with my hand, I showed him the ceiling, and finally asked the sales guy for piece of paper. And when I drew a picture of a fan, he yelled “ventilateur ”. But I was looking for a fan not a ventilateur, a breathing device used in hospitals. And I felt like I was on a ventilateur trying to describe the simplest flywheel that uses electricity to make breeze. But then I had no clue if he was referring to a fan or a de-humidifier or an air-conditioner. With more confusion swirling my hot temper, I left the store.

To add to my frustration, that store was also out of it. Now that I knew the terminology “ventilateur” I hunted the neighborhood stores for one. To add to the heat of weather and complex words in French, most stores had an announcement at the entrance publicizing the non-availability of ventilatuers and asking customers to check back in a few days.

 

That evening after my grueling experience with a French word, I found an "English Fan" in the store below my flat. I rejoiced! And what rejoicing that was when I found the manual of instructions in English and, I mean, in English only!

 

Rue de Paris or Rude Paris!

This is my 12th move in 15 years and that averages a move every 18 months. And my kith & kin, near & dear must be tired of updating their phone books with my new number and keeping track of my moves, I don’t blame them. But I have always had interesting stories for them. It has been 5 days since I landed and I am already finding my roots here. Here are some interesting experiences.

 

Rue de Paris or Rude Paris?

Paris can be tough if you don’t speak French and I felt the pain many North Indians experience when they land in Chennai. Houria, my dear colleague was around to help me get over the language barrier. She helped me get a mobile connection, cable and internet at home, ofcourse the most important a bank account! God bless Houria!

Before I moved into the house, a surveyor (a Public servant) inventoried the contents and condition with a dictaphone and camera. He even examined the condition of the mattress, counted the number of spoons, knives, glasses and plates. To me this looked like an Income tax raid back home. And the real estate agent, like many others, was greedy and was asking me to recommend him to others at my work place. You need to look at the picture album below to find out what I inherited from the earlier tenant.

Rue de convenience
I am going to recommend to the Municipality of Paris to rename the street where I stay to “rue de convenience”. Below my apartment is a supermarket, a laundromat, a grocery store, a pharmacy. 500m from home is Oberkampf metro station, and LCL bank. Across from my home is a bakery, and Pierre Sang’s restaurant (a Korean a master chef who serves a 6 course French meal with Korean touch and people queue up from 6 pm for dinner that opens at 7pm).

 

Making a boiling start
A Tamil proverb goes “Amma katti kodutha sorum and solli kodutha varathaiyum yetthanai nalaikku?” which means how long will mother’s words of wisdom and food from her kitchen last? I remembered this proverb when I started to set up the new kitchen. Don’t we all need to cook our own food and develop our own wisdom to lead our life?

Keeping up with the South Indian tradition, I boiled milk. Since it was late in the evening, I couldn’t invite anyone for a little get together and serve milk and fruits. But still gave a traditional start to my life in Paris. And this news would make my grandmother feel proud and happy. I imagined grandmother next me as I boiled the milk for the 12th time in 15 years.

 

Finding roots and making it home

Like animals humans are also territorial and we find our space by leaving our pug marks and scent. And when I finally unpacked the 4 boxes not only did I find a home for my belonging, but also created my own space that I can come back to at the end of every day. Another way of feeling at home is to discover a portion of your country in the new place. It could be a small temple, music from back home, or a store that sells our spices. A trip to La Chapelle makes you happy, nostalgic and takes your back to your root. Apart from Saravana Bhavan and Sangeetha, I found drumstick (Bhagyaraj remedy or comedy or malady?), jasmine flowers, bitter gourd, dosa & idli batter and mangoes from Pakistan that rarely comes to India. At the Cash & Carry store, I picked up Toor dal for Sambar, Rice, broken wheat for upma, chilli powder, some raisins and cashews to make payasam. I am yet to make a trip to the Ganesha temple at rue de Pajol, but I saw a poster at the grocery story about the car festival for Ganesha on September 1.

My maternal grandmother takes so much comfort in cooking and feeding, visiting temples and when I call her this week I will I will have stories to make her feel elated. She may even want to visit me in Paris, who knows?

Fear of the unknown
The first night at the apartment, I was a little scared and felt unsettled (like many girls and boys). Yes, it was the fear of the unknown! I didn’t know who lived there and if the vibes of the place was good. If I consumed alcohol, then a few shots would have calmed me down. But instead I tired myself throughout the day from unpacking, shopping, and doing other chores and soothing music from back home helped me land instantly in slumberland. And next morning when I woke up I felt rested and rejuvenated and it was beginning to feel like home. 

Every day begins with filter coffee
For a South Indian, that too a Tamil Brahmin (Tam Brahm) a day doesn’t begin without piping hot South Indian Filter coffee. Paris may be famous for expresso, but can it match up to our filter coffee? I played old Tamil film songs from 60s, 70s, 80s (mostly MSV, Illayaraja) and started to cook. And I kept the French windows open to let the waft of our spices and music invigorate Rue Oberkampf in Paris (arrond. 11). Want to know what I cooked on day 1? Aha!

A story is born from our interpretation of a place and life, so flip through the album for a short glimpse of my Paris - https://picasaweb.google.com/108289564546757100555/ParisParis#

 

Don’t be scared to visit me in Paris and be rest assured that I will make you feel at home. Merci Beacoup!