scattered

been so long.
been travelling, been ill. in fact, the same old story.

this last bout leaves brain in a delicate state of yogurt-ness. no concentration, no focus, just daze and diffuse.

in delirium, i had a post somewhat composed, and just as I had a few coherent sentences, a few words leaped out and multiplied themselves several times over, overrunning the rest, taking over the page and then running away altogether.
i expect them home shortly however, when they will be spanked, reproached, scrubbed clean and presented to you again, as if nothing had happened.

Kahin gungun kahin rundhun

…ke jaise naache zamin.

Have been handed over from song to song today. Morning had me humming Julmi sang aankh ladi re and so to Madhumati. Salil Chaudhury’s lilt with Chad gayo paapi bichua, the romance of Aaja re pardesi and the grief-stricken Toote hue khwabon ne.

That triggered of images of another superbly atmospheric movie, Dil Diya Dard Liya. A morose Dilip Kumar pacing the hallways of the huge gloomy bungalow… Guzren hai aaj ishq mein ham us makhaam se. Then, of course, Koi Sagar just demanded to be played as well as Dilruba maine tere and Sawan aaye ya na aaye.

A pattern was emerging here, so I picked up another Dilip Kumar starrer, Naya Daur. Maangke saath tumhara, Yeh desh hai veer jawanon ka, and that wonderfully developmenty Saathi haath badhana saathi re.

Salil Chaudhry, Naushad and OP Nayyar. Shailendra, Shakeel and Sahir. Ab kya bolna?


Links:
Madhumati
Dil Diya Dard Liya
Naya Daur

The days are just packed

Nice things this weekend. One excellent documentary on elephants, the Federer-Gonzalez final, a sitar recital and the icing, a temple dance.

So rare these days to see living arts. We see dance performed of course, but it was satisfying to see it as part of ritual, as integral to prayer, to living. Temple dance sank earlier this century along with the morass of the Devadasi system surrounding it, and what we attended yesterday may or may not have been the authentic thing, but it was fascinating anyway.

It was a Iyengar temple for Lord Ranganatha, and the occasion an annual 8-day Brahmotsava. The dancers circled the temple premises, the priests placed offerings, recited shlokas and invoked 11 deities, with invitations to come grace the festivities. There was Brahma, Garuda, Indra, the elements Agni, Varuna, Vayu, the yaksha Kubera.... Among the directions was Ishan, whom the dancers interpreted mainly as Shiva. There was another whom I hadn't heard of at all: Neruti or Nairutya. Apparently the god of the south-west, a rakshasa-god in charge of controlling the egos of the gods. And his vehicle? Man, or rather, higher man. Not a very high profile chap, wonder why that is. Reminds me strongly of Pratchett on gods and fashions, but too lazy to go look up and quote now.

mice and men

Sat down a little while ago to check proofs, with ambitions of getting through a good many pages in one sitting. Only, I'd organised atmosphere too well: I had on Ulhas Bapat playing Bhoopali, and there I was staring at the grey blocks and not one sentence sank in.
I can never remember if I'm dominated by my left or right brain (one test put me bang in the middle), but listen to music while I concentrate, I cannot. So while it plays out, this post.

Suddenly, chatty

The day starts with unexpected energy this morning. I had to deliver proofs to the ICRISAT bus stop, where people kindly take my packages and deliver them into the hands of folk at the communication office. Having dawdled over my coffee I had to make up for it with a filmi sprint to outrace the bus, as Bhavani garu and the gent from accounts looked on (presumably) encouragingly.

This by no means is the most interesting thing to happen to me these past few days, or the most profound, but it’s recorded on this blog for posterity (?), because I felt like it. Hah the power!

Which brings me to ponder over what actually makes it to these pages. If it means too much, it’s out; if it’s too inconsequential, I hesitate. If it makes me angry, then I wait till it blows over, if it makes me unhappy or muddled, then I’m too incoherent. So it happens that the window narrows to strictly middle-of-the-road stuff that is neither too intense nor too irrelevant. This, moreover, should time and inclination coincide. All of which is just too chicken, but there it is.

House of Flying Daggers

Watched Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers yesterday. All by myself, which is fast becoming my favourite way to watch movies. Just me in my head.

I loved Yimou’s Hero, which was a phenomenally visual experience. Flying Daggers tops that for meticulously choreographed fights, if not colour. Belongs to the Wuxia genre, Wikipedia tells me, with its trademark martial arts heroes.

859 AD. Feng Tian county, China. The House of Flying Daggers is a secret rebel society that robs the rich to give to the poor. Government lawkeepers, Captains Jin and Leo, have assassinated the leader of the Daggers and have now been ordered to kill the new leader within ten days. There is a new dancer in the Peony Palace, the local brothel. The Captains have information that the blind girl Mei is the daughter of the old leader, here to have her revenge. After first trying conventional methods of arrest and interrogation, they decide to approach it differently. Jin goes undercover as a lone warrior and rescues Mei and aids her escape, hoping that she will lead them to the headquarters of the Flying Daggers. Some things go to plan and some don’t.

That then is the bare bones plot. But it is how Zhang Yimou clothes it that is so remarkable. Early on, Captain Leo challenges Mei to a round of the Echo game and the scene is set lushly in tones of peach and turquoise. She stands surrounded by drums, and as he flings beans that ricochet off them, she must imitate the patterns. The sound is designed as well as everything else in the movie.

Later as the General’s men hunt down Mei and Jin, there is one prolonged, beautifully-choreographed battle in a bamboo forest, where the shoot is used in the most versatile of ways. Soldiers swing from the very tops of swaying trees, attacking the two and finally trapping them in a rather stunning-looking cage.

The plot twists and turns, and the tragic climax takes place with a blazing red-orange autumnal forest as backdrop. As the pitch rises, black clouds gather and pelt down snow, leaching the colour out of the scene, leaving behind snowwhite frames. Inevitably, the virgin snow is soon sullied. Blood is spilled in an orgy of machismo and the tale breathes its last.

On the whole, I liked Hero more. There was greater control there, I think; it was tauter and altogether more deliberate. In Flying Daggers, emotions descended too easily to melodrama and for all its beauty, it was less noble.

: -o

Deathly Hallows, aa? Deathly Hallows! Kya, ma.

Camping out in Nirmal

Back from three glorious days in Nirmal, Adilabad. All birding trips are fun but this one was a right treat.

BSAP members were invited down there by Waheed saab, DFO, Nirmal division, a man I’ve written about once. Wonderful man. For this trip, we were supposed to stay at the Rest House in Nirmal with all urban comforts, and make short jaunts around for purposes of birding. But Waheed saab looked around at our expectant faces and came up with a plan: ‘Would you like to stay out in the forests for a night?’ Is the Verditer flycatcher beautiful?

So we went. Aaha, oho, what to tell you of the beauteous things that awaited… I will not start on birds here, but there was a lakeside, a tent, a fire and a thin sliver of yellow moon.

We don’t often realise it, looking up from well lit, polluted cities, but the sky is a glorious glittering, jewelled affair. To lie out on the rocks with binoculars pressed down on your spectacles, linking the stars to form impossible constellations leaves your mind rather forcibly widened.

We went walking through the forests at night. Dark it was as we scuffled over roots and leaves, avoiding forest trenches by thin beams of torchlight. The forest officers shone their powerful searchlights into the woods but there was not a neelgai or sambhar or even owl to be seen but it was enough to be able to walk in black silent forests. The pitch black was practically a new colour to us citified folk.

We came back by midnight to a fabulous meal arranged by the forest staffers: rice, yummy dal, tangy tamatar-aloo curry and chicken. We’d forgotten it was Christmas Eve but Rajeev Mathew hadn’t. He brought out this delicious plum cake that we devoured and compounded with bananas and enormous meetha paans.

During the small hours, the mist came off the lake like a beast and our tent was sodden. Morning brought the sun and a stork-billed kingfisher. Yes, life is good.

Baithe muskaye

For someone whose work is communication, I find myself devoid of words fairly often. Happy most times to let experiences wash over me, letting stay what wants to stay, letting go those that leave no residue. And unwilling, even unable to talk about them in either case.

____________
Title is from Kabir:
Akath kahani prem ki, kuch kahi na jaaye
Goonga keri sarkara, baithe muskaye

Samaroha – Day 4

The last post on the music festival, I promise, and the last on classical music for a while, but I just have to get this much out.

The morning session on this last day was pushed to the evening and the programme was packed. Started with Devki Pandit, whose list of gurus reads like the who’s who: Jitendra Abhisheki features there as well as Kishori Amonkar. She sang one of my favourite ragas, Madhuvanti. Nice voice she has, great shruti and it rings out clearly. But also a bit boring.

Pt Prabhakar Karekar was next. We rubbed our hands in anticipation. This man has one of THE most mesmerising voices I’ve heard and he’s got taseer like you wouldn’t believe. We settled ourselves, ready for a high treat.

He began on Bhoopali and dismay! he was struggling. He was greyer than we remembered, and Shweta turned to me, pale, “He can’t have grown that old, can he?” It wasn’t that, just a congested chest and tiredness. It was like watching your favourite player play with an injury – you feel for them at every wince and you’re torn between having them retire and take care of that pain, and carrying on. However, it got better, and genius burst through more frequently. The great ones it seems do play hurt.

Karekar was all for rising after the one piece but was persuaded to sing one very sweet-sounding Marathi natyageet, after which he wrapped up determinedly.

Samaroha – Day 3

My first proper exposure to Dhrupad. I’ve heard so much about how the khayal nearly pushed this ancient style of gaayiki into extinction, and how fascinating a genuine recital can be. The Gundecha brothers from Bhopal are among a fistful of singers who still maintain the purity of the form and are leading a revival.

They started yesterday with Shuddh Kalyan, and for the first half hour or so, reminded me persistently of elephants. Prolonged notes, often near infrasonic rumbles, sustained vibrations. The raga was being picked out strand by strand, with such long pure notes as to make it seem like you had to move far back to see the pattern. Dhrupad’s priority, I felt, lay with sound, not necessarily melody. That came too, but the point was austere, primeval sound, set in a sophisticated classical pattern of three speeds.

They followed that up with a Shiva stuthi in Raga Adhana – dramatic, rousing: Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shankara, Aadi deva, Yogi, Mahadeva…

Then, at Pandit Jasraj’s request, Kabir in Raga Charukeshi with Jheeni jheeni keeni chadariya. I was extremely moved, but as I struggled to translate all that sensation into some form of communication, Durga Jasraj came up and quoted Javed Akhtar: “Hamare yahan badon ki taareef karna bhi badtameezi maani jaati hai.” Which said enough.

If the audience sat solemn through these two hours as individual islands of feeling, it all became communal with the violinist brothers Kumaresh-Ganesh, who were remarkably polished and very enjoyable.

Samaroha – Day 2

Ghate ka sauda

Am thoroughly upset with people at concerts these days who greet every successful nuance and turn with thunderous applause. I wish they wouldn’t. Yes, it’s appreciation but wouldn’t a well-placed ‘wah’ or a murmured ‘kya baat hai’ do? No, they break into claps, and people next to them wake up and then it goes around the gathering in ripples. It breaks the flow for the artiste, and if some people have been transported by the music, they’re brought to very rudely.

This happened rather often with the Ulhas Bapat performance last night. But then he had more than the audience to contend with: he had as accompanist on tabla, Vijay Ghate. Bapat started off with in Raga Charukeshi, a very lovely alaap that augured well. Once Vijay Ghate joined him however, Charukeshi was pushed into the background, a mere foil for his prowess. Completely oblivious to Bapat’s plans for the recital, his intention to examine phrase after phrase, and weave them into a many-hued tapestry, Ghate jumped in and thundered away at his drums with short gimmicky flourishes. The audience obligingly clapped every time, and the santoor man’s smile became increasingly fixed.

Why cannot accompanists stay within their roles? Can they not see the bigger picture? If you’re asked to play a humble cog, you play that goddamn cog. Even if you think you can be the entire wheel, or the chariot. Because that’s what is needed of you this minute, your cogness. Anything less, or anything more is useless.

The Jasrangi jugalbandi

This jugalbandi is an experiment of Pt Jasraj’s, and as the maestro outlined his vision for what would unfold, Arjun whispered to me, 'This is either going to go very well or flop miserably.' It went well, oh, it went well.

The Jasrangi jugalbandi has two singers, one male and female. Based on the system of moorchanas, the two singers sing different ragas in different scales at once. The pancham of the male voice becomes the shadj for the female voice. I have a very tenuous grasp on the technicalities, but it sounded heavenly.

Clearly the ragas must be chosen with care: the first piece had Abhyankar singing Purya Dhanashri and Ashwini Bhide Deshpande coming back with Haveli Basant. Two distinct ragas in conjunction. Sometimes, while they bantered in swaras, it seemed as if this was a cultured argument, each person with their clearly delineated point of view, understanding the other, but preferring nevertheless to hold their own perspective. It celebrated the divide of the sexes as well as possibilities of union.

Ras bar’sat tore ghar

The Jasrangi exercise has been done before but singers on those occasions had been disciples of Pt Jasraj, all from the Mewati gharana. This, we were told, was the first time two different gharanas attempted to come together thus.

The second piece had Abhyankar on Kalavati and Ashwini on Abhogi. They chose to sing a composition popular with Bhide Deshpande’s gharana, Jaipur Atrauli, and succeeded beyond hope. Superb, simply superb.

Ashwini Bhide was a little nervy – the screeching mike didn’t help, and nor perhaps the fact that she was on Mewati turf, so to speak – but she carried it off fabulously. As for Abhyankar, he approached god-like dimensions yesterday, channelling the essence of Kalavati from the very first note.

Gundecha brothers today, followed by Carnatic violinists Ganesh-Kumaresh.