Relatives, friends etc.

In 29th pAsuram of ThirumAlai, the Lord asks whether the AlzvAr had relatives or friends in divya desam, to which the AlzvAr replied, "uravu maTTroruvar illai" i.e. he had no relatives or friends living in any divya desam. "maTTroruvar" as per Periyavaccan Pillai means "exchange of eye glances with other bhaktaas in the Kovil". The modern interpretation would admit a wider interpretation whether - you are in contact with other bhaktAs over whatsapp or facebook? If yes, the Lord can think of doing something. So, even if we have no house, relatives, friends in divya desam and do not visit Kovil, we should be in some group of aastikaas which discusses glories of Lord. The question to the self should be - are we in such groups. We are only busy in forwarding crass jokes, baseless rumors and posting self-glories.

Ideal tenants

Read a funny ad in the newspaper…or, no! The source was the maid who brings across much more entertaining news…gossips of our neighbors with whom we are more connected, of course, through the maid only. This particular item was more of a news rather than gossip; a news which only amazed me to think, “to what extant folks go out to kill old age”. One Mrs. P, wishing to rent her 2 BKH plush flat laid out the following conditions: 1. Husband should be working; 2. wife also should be working; 3. preferably no kids; 4. or only one kid; and 5. no parents. After all, the flat, built from Dirham, was much dearer to Mrs. P which had made her to deposit consign her mother-in-law to a home; the expectations from the tenant was to maintain the flat and send the parents to a home for old people spoil the wall…floors…entire flat. It is because of such Mrs. P that the demand for play school, day school and homes for parents have gone up. We are only growing attached to things and using our parents. The icing on the cake – the maid announced one more condition: 6. tenant to appoint her as the maid – this gives comfort factor to Mrs. P that her maid continues to keeps her flat neat and tidy and fills her up with gossips about the tenant. Death is our final destination and yet we, humans, run far from it by abdicating our responsibility which we owe to our parents. Mrs. P and her club members may be reeling under the notion that they are immortal. But… “Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” ― William Shakespeare, As You Like It I only wish the likes of Mrs. P that they reach the last stage to reap the fruits that they have sown.

Hit

It was the familiar hunting spot and I noticed the pair with tinge of blue slowly moving in circles as if dancing…celebrating their love; this was despite being doused with lethal dosage of Tetramethrin, Cypermethrin and Imiprothrin. No. This was not an execution by khap panchayat of same gothra lovers. The two cockroaches refused to die and I once more liberally sprayed and their movement picked up speed; with satisfaction, I was about to make a turn and at that precise moment I could suddenly hear voices…dying voices making fun of me…us. I heard the first one boasting about its adaptability skills and mutations; I heard, “we are more evolved than our predecessors and have altered our taste buds to avoid sweet poisons, we are growing resistant to water and our R&D department is focusing on better wing spans and our eventual goal is immortality. You foolish human, we two were working in project immortality and we were close to achieving the formula”. My eyes stared at them. What were these? Ageing superstars or some psychopaths like amudhan and ilamaaran. The other one jeered at me, “Two type cockroach in the world. Two type. One us, coming from gutter. One you, coming from the society. We biting, you going sick. You biting others, bloody whole society going sick. You spray us with Hit, we going upside down. But there is no Hit for you society cockroaches”. Saying so, it went upside down. I was amazed that this one knew some film dialogues, which were quite old. Wondering when and where it saw this movie. The first one movement’s quickened and it became a past tense after quickly muttering these cautionary words, “Civilization is a thin, dangerously fragile veneer, and when that veneer cracks, man shall became one of the beasts again, falling back into the slime of the primeval abyss he prides himself on having climbed up from.” I had seen this one grazing on Sidney Sheldon’s “The Naked face”.

kiss...of death

She was so enchanted from the very first day her friends introduced him in her life that she dictched her current boy-friend; after all her friends deemed fit to introduce him into her life on her birthday. He was the birthday present; he was a charmer, smooth-talker, much more refined than her ex, was very well connected, very good singer, all-round entertainer. He was so sweet that she called him 'lollipop'. He brought into life new friends...connected her world wide. The only problem was he was 'rich looking'; she had to finance all their endeavours but did she care. She was so smitten with him that she chose to overlook her parents warning, 'foolish girl...you are spending too much time on it'. Calling him 'it' was contemptuous enough; she was full of him. He loved her soft ears the most and caressed her; she loved him being there. Her parents warned her not to get reckless but she had other plans; that afternoon, on their way to cinema theatre, while crossing the road, she was all engrossed with him when she got ran over by a sand truck. Though she got badly crushed but he lay in her blood soaked palm...alomost intact. He was her android lollipop smartphone.

No-concert by T.M. Krishna

Finally the day arrived – 19.04.2014; the day on which I along with Ashok saar attended T.M. Krishna’s concert or concept of “no-concert”. Though I extensively listen to TMK’s cd’s, this concert was my first experience of live performance; had literally primed Ashok saar for this concert else he would happily spent the day with his kids. The venue was Boys Hostel, Indira Nagar, Adyar and was organized by Hamsadhwani. TMK was accompanied on violin by Dr. Hemalatha and not by Shriramkumar, on mridangam by Arun Prakash and on ghatam by Chandrsekara Sharma. I went expecting an auditorium but it was beneath a corrugated roof but the podium had fancy lights which certainly made TMK very uncomfortable so much so when electricity went for one phase, he gladly wished that ‘it need not come till the end’ and so it did not, while leaving the left side of the audience high and dry. I also expected a sales counter for cd’s and his book “A Southern Music – The Karnatik Story” and bingo, it was there. The book was priced at Rs. 799/-; I would have bought something but Ashok’s saar sagacious advice prevailed and I refrained from buying anything. To start with, the seating arrangement of the artists was contrary to what we see in our traditional concerts; it seemed that artists were on equal footing except for ghatam player. The organizer spoke few works about the release of the 2nd edition of the book and about ‘marveling on TMK’s music’. I was on tenterhooks as to how the concert would shape up, what krithis etc. TMK started with brief alaapanai of ragam Abhogi followed by “sabhapathikku vera” (with neraval) in an ultra slow tempo – never heard this piece at such a languid pace; could sense the difficulty for the mridangist. This was really a sedate start something akin to what Manoj Prabhakar used to give as an opener to Indian innings. And then came another alaapani which I thought was Janaranjani but Ashok saar corrected me and it was Purnachandrika; both the ragams are janya ragams of 29th melakartha (Dheerasankarabharanam). The alaapanai was a breezy affair and then came the tanam out of nowhere rendered superbly; TMK had to poke the mridangam vidhwan after finishing off the tanam fo action. Since this was the no-concert concept and hence, came thillana composed by Poochi Iyengar as a thunderbolt rendered without any flaw. Ashok saar sat dumb-founded – he is more of a tradionalist and could not digest the selection of ragam and then the thillana. Then came ragam aalapanai Useni followed by krithi “sri kalahasti” rendered with superb bhava again at chouka kalam. Another aalapanai followed in Suruti ragam; one maami seated behind me remarked “mudika porana (is he going to end?)”. Just when we were guessing which krithi would it be, then came another aalapanai in ragam Kalyani. At this point, TMK asked, “till what time can I sing?” I announced to Ashok saar that it would an unconnected krithi with the ragam and so came “Jagadhodharana” in ragam Kapi. And then came another aalapanai in ragam Khamas followed by krithi “sujana jeevana” followed by taniavarthanam in sankeerna jathi thriputa talam. After this krithi, followed the tukadas – virutham-hey govindan hey gopala, baro Krishna and mangalam. The accompanying artists fully utilized the opportunity given to them; I felt that the mirdangam and ghatam were under utilized. The concert, overall, was set up at slow pace and made the audience very restless; one maami dozed off very early and another senior person next to me was following the IPL score. One more thing which is patently noticeable is that - all the music concerts are attended by our senior citizens – maamis donning pattu sarees and jewels; this crowd at Adayar was more sober. The next gen is busy watching IPL or poking elsewhere. I personally liked the concept of ‘no-concert’; all these years our minds have been conditioned in terms of our expectation from a concert. TMK has changed the format or to put Ashok saar words ‘de-structured’ the elements; all the aspects are present but not presented in the manner we are used to. We, after all, are used to ‘the sheep behaviour’ – keep on following the earlier one. Kudos to TMK for trying to pave a path for another structure. This particular concert was dominated by ragam aalapanai and bhava laden krithis rendered impeccably and thus, was very sedate. TMK should have sensed the restlessness of the audience and ought to have shifted gears and sung krithis like ‘manavyalakin’, ‘nenarunchinanu’ to keep the audience interested.

the balacing act

Just had a glimpse of 'India's got talent' yesterday night; gabbar singh made his daughter, reshma, to do the rope balancing trick with few variations. It was no new trick and i have seen such performances many a times, right from my childhood (the photo was taken last year at marina beach, madras); this is not to take away any credit from the perormer, a kid of 5 years, but one fact which could not be digested was the reaction of the judges especially karan johar. KJ acted as if he was seeing such an act for the first time in his life and if he truly was, then one must reach a conclusion that he lives in a world devoid of reality. Kareena's plastic expression simply gave away that she was on a acting mode.Mrs. kehr was so afraid to see the act itself that she covered her eyes with saree pallu; malaika arora khan was the only judge who gave some sane reaction that of giving the kid a hug. Pity these celebrities...

Caught!

The day when I was caught in the act and that too by my dad; that day, that very moment remains fresh in my brain. It was something straight from some movie script. He had come to drop me at Mattuthavani (an integrated bus terminal just outside Madurai). It was around 6 pm; the sun was slowly retreating but heat was still on. The bus to Bangalore was delayed; we stood watching the usual melee associated with arrival of a bus; men and all scampering to get seats through the door and windows, some threw their luggages including chappals on the seats as a mark of advance reservation.

As I was scanning through various shops, I saw her. My heart raced on seeing...it was almost a week's separation; we had parted company around Othakadai. Soon I started pestering my dad to return, there was no point in wasting time. He, eventually, gave-in to my request and said bye.

I rushed and soon we kissed; Bangalore had taught me not to worry about others. There was no guilt in me; I had earned this. I was fully immersed in my little world and thus, failed to notice pat on my shoulder. Eventually I heard some voice saying, "dey! the bus is parked there". And I turned to see my dad standing as I let Wills cigarette smoke on his face. I saw him hit his forehead and expected a long sermon but he tersely said, "fire at one end and fool at the other". Pointing me the bus, I saw him walking out slowly... with the cigarette firmly in place between my fingers...soon I crushed the stub...forever.