Kadalekai Parishe, Basavanagudi

‘Bengaluru Nagarada Basavana Parisheya Badavara Baadaami Kadalekaayi’, a folk song describing the age old annual groundnut fair of Basavanagudi, Banaglore, that I heard from my father.

Badavara Baadaami Kadalekaayi - the groundnut is considered a poor man’s almond, among the Kannada people.

I always wanted to attend this fair and last week, I did, for the first time. And what a fair it was. The Bull Temple road was like an anthill swarming with a million people.
So many people, so many delights, colourful sights, snacks to eat, knick knacks to buy, vendors and their queer contraptions, plenty for the camera.
And of course, there were the groundnuts.

The age old fair is one of those few links that connects today’s Bangalore to our charming Bangalore of yesterday. And what more, the vicinity hasn’t changed much either – there is the Ramakrishnashrama, there are the trees of a garden city, there is the bugle rock garden and the Bull temple and other temples close by.

Amazing Tapioca chips to the right.
I will have to retract my request for these chips from Malayali friends – disappointed with the hurtful tapioca chips sold at Hot Chips – they were so hard they actually hurt my teeth, jaws, tongue and the inside of my mouth, I had asked my Mallu friends to get me some from Kerala.

This guy with his flourishing little push cart business amused me.

Check out his contraption. I did not check where the power supply was coming from. I should have.

And I should have asked him what this neat brush was made of.

A mixture of roasted baby corn, chopped raw mango, pineapple and cucumber with salt and green chutney. It turned out to be a big portion and he took fifty rupees for it!

I gave him a business tip – give out smaller portions and charge half – more people will want to go for it. No maam, he said, I already have so many customers buying this he said with a smile and showed me his business cards – he caters to parties, weddings, birthdays!!
8 years in IT and I never bothered to have a business card!

Boiled peanuts – and shelled. At last, I no longer have to shell them myself – a real value add and meaningful customer care.

Gooseberry with ginger, tamarind and another root that’s my favourite – don’t know the name.
All you need for making pickle.

Dry fruit – figs these, threaded together. And at last, they have become clever – the cart is covered in a metal mesh so window shoppers will not pop raisins and dates into their mouths.

A pretty sight like a bouquet – these salted tapioca chips.

Not sure if these are sweet potatoes or tapioca.

Rangoli stencils. And they have lots of new designs apart from the traditional ones – much innovation here.

Irresistible. Aren’t they? 20 rupees a piece, I bought some 11 pieces at 15 each.

A paper worm tied to a string that wriggles when you pull. Chumma – just to do time pass – go for a walk with this and scare unsuspecting passersby on the street.

Astrologer. Put on the headphones and listen to your future.

Turn the key and have cute babies crawling all over.

My grandmother used to take some Rangoli in her hands and wave her hand across the floor in a sweeping motion, like a magic wand, skilfully pushing the white powder into the slits between her four fingers. I never learnt the art from her.
Thank God they now have a plastic equipment to help you do it.

These pipes are also for ‘just time pass’ – they are filled with liquid and bubbles – you turn them up and down and see the bubbles moving rushing upward, dancing, wiggling.

This doll was the most amusing of all. It dispenses a gummy multicoloured candy. The candy inside a plastic bag is twisted around a thin pole tied to a cycle. The vendor squeezes out the candy as needed and makes small shapes out of them and then gives them away. He has customers from a little boy to a grandma.

We will have to wait an year for the fair, and make sure you don’t miss the it.

Letter to The Prime Minister

Last week, I received an email from http://theviewspaper.net/, India's largest youth paper.
It informed me about their campaign ‘the PMji Samjhoji! Letter-a-thon - The day India will write to its Prime Minister’, and asked me to send my letter to them which would be published on 2nd December along with the letters of eminent Indian personalities – journalists, educationalists, activists, musicians etc. who were also participating.

Here is the letter I wrote. It was published and here is the link to it. http://theviewspaper.net/soumya-hs-writes-a-letter-to-the-prime-minister/

It remains to be seen whether the prime minister will read it!

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In a country, most of whose tall claims rise from its niche of spirituality, yoga, meditation and enlightenment, its ironical that nobody has any regards for silence.

I am wakened in the morning, not by the call of a cock nor a cuckoo, not by the murmur of a human voice, not even by my alarm clock, but by the rude, loud, honk of an automobile.

A day begun thus, moves from one noise to another, with all kinds of noises (that nobody needs) creating the most cacophonic tapestry of sound ever, woven so closely that it is silence proof.

I believe I have a right to go about my everyday life peacefully without being startled, vexed and abused by a rude jarring sound at every corner, every turn.

Just as air, water, food and clothing are our basic needs, silence too is a basic need - to me and to all people, whether or not they realise it.
Therefore, silence, I believe is our fundamental right.

Dear Respected Prime Minister,

I request you to accord this belief your recognition and protect our right with the help of measures, a few of which I have suggested below.

1) Every vehicle should be built with more effective silencers, may be double silencers, if we could have such a thing and all citizens should be required by law to drive/ride such vehicles only.

2) We should have a catalogue of permissible horn/beep sounds for every vehicle type – two wheelers, small four wheelers, buses/trucks/lorries, and each vehicle should be fitted with the horn defined for its type with no legal provision to change the horn. The catalogue should include music for the reverse gear too.
These sounds in the catalogue should be carefully chosen such that their frequency and loudness represent ‘humble requests to please allow me to pass’ and not ‘commands to get out of my way’.

3) It is becoming increasingly common in residential neighbourhoods to fit door frames with heavy metallic doors in addition to wooden doors to alleviate the perpetual fear and mistrust in which people are having to live in these times. And with that comes the excruciating pain of banging and clanging of metal doors, much to the misery of sensitive people like me. All metal doors should be required by law to have a rubber layering wherever they make contact with the frame so the bangs and clangs will be replaced by soft thuds.

4) Everyone owns a mobile phone these days. Most of these people make a nuisance of themselves in public, by using loud mobile ringtones, by shouting loudly into their phones, talking incessantly, playing loud music in buses and other public transportation.
School and college curricula should be revised to include lessons on mobile manners. This should be done for every grade so that repeated emphasis will help to implant the teaching in students with permanent effect.

5) With the sudden boom in economy that our country has seen in the last two decades, everyone is suddenly rich, and has acquired the arrogance of ‘new money’. Humility and restraint are scarce and the attitude of ‘its your problem not mine’ is rampant.
The sun sets but human activity continues well into the night without the diminishing of speed or intensity. Even after the lights are turned off I can hear from the floor above mine, people talking to each other loudly, guffawing, watching TV full volume, singing and more. When I ask them for my share of peace, I only get the response, ‘its your problem not mine’.
Again, people should be taught in schools/collages, lessons in public sense, manners and very importantly, ‘rights of neighbours’.

6) In cases 1, 2 and 3, enforcements can be and should be rigorous similar to road traffic policing.
Additionally, all citizens should be provided with the facility to report instances of violation both in cases 1, 2, 3 and well as 4 and 5. A toll free number as well as an email address should be made available to receive these complaints.
While violations of type 1, 2 and 3 may be handled as per law, we are somewhat helpless with cases 4 and 5.
The good old practises of social ostracism that guarded our society for thousands of years would have taken care of 4 and 5 but now, with the institution of society becoming eroded by individualism and freewill with non-responsibility as an inevitable accompaniment, we don’t have a way.
I would suggest measures like individual counselling, campaigning through media – Newspapers, Television, Radio, Internet etc.

Noise is a dangerous toxin. It befuddles the mind, makes focusing difficult, leads to distraction from purpose and meaning, causes or adds to stress, bitterness and frustration that are at the root of most of our problems.

May noise recede to occupy its proper place and silence heal all of us.

Polytheism

It’s a constitutional malady of the west to classify and label anything and everything under the Sun even though they may know very little or close to nothing about it.

Instead of cultivating the humility and patience to grasp what is foreign to their culture, or simply admitting that they do not have the adequatio to understand certain things, particularly the sublime things of the East, they take the easy and presumptuous route of classifying the thing into one of their available gross categories.

And unfortunately, the thing, over a period of time, actually becomes transformed, at least in our perceptions, to a lower, inferior form of itself in order to fit into the flimsy shell that has been accorded to it.

The Sanaatana Dharma became Hinduism, one of their silly childish ‘isms’.
The Vedas cognized by the sages became ‘mere rituals and rites’ and ‘songs by bards’.
The sublime knowledge that form and formlessness are the necessary manifestations of the Supreme One became ‘stone and animal’ worship.
Eating with one’s fingers became ‘barbarism’.
And more...

Polytheism is one such thing.
It’s a ‘universally known’ fact that Hindus are polytheistic.
We have this wedged and entrenched so deeply within our minds that if I were to tell you that we, the Hindus are monotheistic, you would dismiss me.
But that’s what I am going to do.

We do worship many many Gods and Goddesses – but in doing so we only worship different forms of the same God.
We believe that God is one, but there are many manifestations, many forms, so each one of us may pick that which appeals most to our own nature, inclinations and most importantly, purpose.
The Supreme One with a thousand attributes is represented by thousand forms, one form for each attribute. Lakshmi for bounty, Saraswati for learning, Brahma for creating, Vishnu for sustaining, Shiva for destruction and so on... but we know that there is Only One God.

And how many proponents of this Unity, this Oneness there are! One does not have to dig deep into scriptures, they are right before us – and yet we do not see.

There was Adi Shankara who professed Advaitha – non duality or Oneness – not only of God but of all creation.

The Gita says – Sarva Dharmaan Parityajya maam EKAM sharanam vraja...
(if the numerous Gods, philosophies and traditions confound you), then, leave them all and resort to ME ALONE.

A simple subhaashita says
Aakaashaat patitam toyam yatha gacchati saagaram sarva devanamskaaram Eeshvaram prati gacchati
Like all water falling from the sky eventually flows into the Ocean, prayers to the many deities reach One God.

The shaasanas or stone edicts, that record the rule of kings and emperors, thousands of years old, profess the unity of God. Here is just one among them.
Yam shaivaaha samupaasyate shiva iti brahmeti vedaantinaha, bouddhaaha Buddha iti pramaana patavaha, karmeti meemamsakaaha arhan ityati jaina shaasanarathaaha, karteti naiyyayikaaha soyambho vidadhaatu vaanchhita phalam trilokyanaathassada
The One who is worshipped as Shiva by some, as Brahma by the Vedaantis, as Buddha by the Buddhists, as Arhan by the Jains...may HE grant all their wishes.

Whereas, polytheism of the Middle East is very different – there, people indeed worshipped different Gods and not merely different forms of the same God.

Moreover, the above is the only explanation that will save the Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam.

A year ago I read the Old and the New Testament.
When I read about the Lord God of Israel, again and again asking his people to set fire to that town, or kill these people because they worshipped a different God, when he brought plague and starvation upon his own people for going to a different God, I wondered “what sort of a God is this and what sort of people are these who burn towns and kill people simply because they worship a different God?”

I asked how such intolerant religions came to be counted among world’s great religions.

I was hoping I had missed something.
I thought there was possibly some interpretation that helped to uncover some profound truth behind these seemingly defective aspects of these religions.

Now perhaps, I have stumbled upon an explanation.

The people upon whom Lord God of Israel frowned did not merely worship different forms of the One God but actually worshipped different Gods, perhaps lesser Gods, Gods that did not stand for truth and love, but lesser things. Hence God of Israel became angry. Which is understandable.

Otherwise, if that different God was just a different form of the One God and The lord of Israel had people killed and burned for worshipping ‘that other God’ and if that implies that such a God would like to see us, the people of the East ‘who don’t worship him but other Gods’, burned and killed too, then, I am not willing to think much of such a God or of the religions who follow such a God.

In summary, polytheism of the Middle East, condemned in the Testaments, is not the same as ‘polytheism’ of the Far East.
We believe in One God and hence we are monotheistic, but THEN AGAIN, it is not the same as the monotheism of the Abrahamic religions.
There is the distinction – we don’t INSIST that there is one God, though we know it; we merely suggest. We not only allow complete freedom to all to choose their God from the many forms, but we accept into our midst even those who argue that there is no God!
Charavaka was an atheist and his works actually find a place in our religious libraries!
For, Sanaatana Dharma is not just a religion but also a social system, a way of living, a culture, God, spirituality, polity, economy, diet, science... it’s an integration of all the above, and an integration so complete so absolute that its components could never stand separately without losing some of their meaning and purpose.

The west may note therefore, that they do not really have a label at their disposal to confer upon a tradition such as ours.

But I am happy to see that things have changed in the recent past and are changing even now. Many people of the west, scholars as well as commoners have taken interest in the Eastern traditions, written sincerely about their greatness and accorded us the position, respect and recognition due to us.

What remains unfortunate however is that, our own people, especially the youth, having grown accustomed to the mean shanties that the west once assigned us to, have made it their home and now do not want to move to the palaces and mansions that was always theirs, for what else does it mean that Indians, especially the Hindus revel in self deprecatory talk?

A Silly Post

Why did you do this to me, asked Everest, of the Almighty.
Pumori is made of almond coloured stone and finished with patches of snow. The one next to it has the markings of a giant greedy tongue that licked the dollop of creamy buttery snow on it.
My neighbors have blue green ice sculptures carved over their facades.
Some have slopes like exponential curves and summits so pointed.
Why, one of them has two summits!

And me?
Grey in colour. Almost bare with hardly any snow on me.
My summit too is so blunted, I don’t even qualify to be called a ‘peak’.
Why am I a plain Jane and all others enchantresses, wailed Everest.

Because, you get to be the tallest of them all, came the reply.
People the world over will know you.
People from near and far will trudge their way through land and water, stone and sand, thorn and ice to get a glimpse of you.
You will be the hardest to get and most coveted among all.
People will die on their way to your summit.
You will have a veil of clouds at your service to shroud you most of the time so people will wait indefinitely to sight you just once.
And when the veil parts, all eyes, having seen the enchantresses, their shapes, colour and all, will turn to you, the plain Jane, and finally rest on you.
You will even receive the rising sun before all others, everyday.

And that’s why you will be a plain Jane.
For, you can’t have everything. No one can.
It’s the law of my universe and you are part of it, said He.

And by the way, he added laughingly, your crown was blunted, not by my mighty hand but by tiny feet. Of little men. Who danced the victory dance after they made it to the top of the world.

Faith & Fact

One is not really guided by information and facts that one reads in books and other sources of knowledge. One is guided by his faith or by scepticism. One's understanding of what one reads is guided by his faith or scepticism.

A person who has faith uses information to reinforce his faith. And a sceptic uses the same information to verify and support his scepticism, scanning the information for ‘faults’, contradictions, loopholes and defects.

What else does it mean when someone tells you he has read the scriptures, the epics, the Gita, and a whole library of sacred texts, a feat you think remarkable, not achieved by most of the believers you know, even father, grandfather... you listen in awe, eyes wide open for he even knows Sanskrit and then...and then it turns out the guy believes Krishna was wrong, Arjuna was vindicated in the end, the Gita is imperfect and the Hindus merely put it on a pedestal to compete with the Bible of the Christians, that religion is mere clever arrangement to enforce conformance in societies?

One isn’t guided by what one reads. One reads to verify what one already ‘knows’.

That applies not just to religion but to everything. Almost. Our opinions and beliefs – on politics, sociology, economy, history, philosophy, ideology...

We ‘know’ and then we set about to verify.

Imperfect India

A friend of mine while talking to me after a very long while said, “I don’t like Gandhi, but the one thing I take from him is the ‘Quit India’ movement...I want to leave this wretched country... Those days of patriotism, hot blood are gone...Realism has dawned upon me”

This guy ranks among the top five intelligent/sharp/smart people I have known in my life – a guy with arguments, opinions, ideals, philosophy, principles – the kind you would expect to argue vehemently against migration and to stay here and make a difference, a guy who would not miss the short sightedness of the west, for all their tall claims to all sorts of things.

Further, he said, “This country has gone to dogs. Especially in the last 5-10 years. I have been paying taxes for the last 7 years and what do I get? No infrastructure, no healthcare, no regards for merit, no... I am definitely leaving India for 10-12 years....who the hell wants to live in a place where you have to wake up every morning and check whether there is power, water in the tap before you take a shower?”

Another friend of mine, again, an intellectual, also echoes the same frustration, “We are a very un-evolved people...the amount of noise there is, vehicles honking... I am afraid to eat in Indian restaurants...do they wash vegetables properly?...I don’t like being in Bangalore...we have always been a backward society...I don’t like being in India...

I, for one, being head over heels in love with this country, grateful to it for all that it has given me, asserting now and then that this country has given me more than I asked for and more than I probably deserve, feel sad, almost hurt when I listen to people who complain about it and wish they were born elsewhere.

But it’s not really the validity of their views, or of the glorious past of India – oldest civilization, yoga, heritage, etc., that I think about after I have heard them.
It’s, ‘what is it that makes me have no complaints...that makes me love this place to the point of having tears in my eyes at times, as if it were a living person...what is it that makes my experience of the same reality so radically different from theirs and more importantly, why do these people miss what I am seeing?’

One difference in our situations of course, is that they are ambitious and I am not. When you have high ambitions, things like infrastructure, taxation, ease of doing business etc. matter unlike when all you want to do with your life is read, read, read, think, write a book, and then get some work done in office as well without worrying about hikes.

But then, the people complaining about this country are doing very well in their career, and have been able to fulfil their ambitions, unaffected by infrastructure or policies of the state.
Reservation and State policies don’t affect the IT sector, do they?

So there is much more than career orientation that distinguishes our situations.

Actually, it’s not that I don’t have complaints about India. I am sensitive to noise, I grind my teeth every time my neighbours bang the metal doors against the hinges; there is an empty site a few blocks from my home that is piled with garbage; I hate the hundred dogs on every street of Bangalore; I can’t stand people talking loudly into mobile phones, auto drivers giving attitude,...
why, I don’t even own a vehicle, I commute by bus or walk and hence expose myself to more failings of the system perhaps than do others who drive air-conditioned cars door-to-door...

I get very angry at these things I can’t stand, but my anger lasts only as long as the cause of anger is active, and then it leaves me so I can be my happy self again. My anger I see, comes in short bursts, like spikes, frequent and very sharp but short-lived on an otherwise steady smooth graph.

For once the cause of irritation has passed me by, I am claimed...
... by the delight of that dance drama I watched yesterday, or the melody of her voice in that music concert I attended last week, or the brilliance of the play I went to a few days ago, or the hilariousness of the joke of that Stand Up Comedy Show last month that has not stifled my laughter yet, or the beauty of that flower show in Lalbagh I just saw, my excitement about the poem I will be reading at the weekly poetry reading by the Ulsoor lake, or my new found inspiration to continue my Sanskrit studies after the Sanskrit Conversation camp I attended, or my sense of accomplishment at the progress I am making in my music classes, or the stimulation of my intellect caused by this new perspective I saw expressed in a gathering of friends or the anticipation of the Old Hindi Film Songs Nite coming up next week, that I look forward to or...

And there I think, lies the answer.
With so many delights vying for my thoughts all of my waking time, I am left with the attention span of a child towards all the faults around me.

Living in this city that has abundant cultural delights to offer, I haven’t wasted the opportunity and filled my life with beautiful events; I am preoccupied with their delights all the time – either the hangover of an experience bygone or the anticipation of a coming one...so much that I go through life oblivious to all the defects around me.

When you are close to culture, you cannot have many complaints in life. It is when you are engaged in utilitarian pursuits all the time that you have discontentment in life.
For, if you think about all the grievances people usually have – infrastructure, potholes, taxation, corruption, etc., what sphere of life do they affect most? The utilitarian sphere, isn’t it?
If you are caught up in the utilitarian quarter only, you will be left with nothing but problems to deal with and failings to vex yourself with all the time.

In general, a broad classification of our living – our thoughts, words and actions, into two spheres, the utilitarian sphere and the sphere of beauty & culture and the subsequent thoughtful apportioning of all our resources to these two spheres is a prerequisite for direction and perspective in life.

To all those who are frustrated with this system, I would say, spare a few hours every week, may be during the weekend, to attend some cultural event happening in your city – be it music, dance, drama, art exhibition, whatever you have access to...
Your problems will not disappear – there will still be potholes on the road, corruption will still be there, but you will be able to live with them without being too bothered, without becoming vexed, because you will also have beautiful experiences, memories, hangovers competing for some space of your mind.

To use the analogy of the sea, when you have only litter on the beach, you will be disgusted but if you also have pearls, corals and other treasures washing up on your shores, you will busy yourself gathering them and ignore the litter.
Those waves that wash up treasures on the shores of your life are the waves of culture. Proximity to culture is what changes our experience of the reality around us from an impoverished one to an enriched one.

And as you soak yourself more and more in culture, you may even begin to see that the fulfilment it brings in life is worth all the superficial imperfections of this country.

Elsewhere, you may find perfection at the superficial level – clean, nice, polished and ordered surfaces – but if you dig beneath, would you find the riches that you do here?

India may be imperfect; but more than ‘imperfect’, India is ‘incredible’.

But then, I am not asking you to give India a chance. I am only asking you to give yourself a chance.

Stand up Comedy @ Ista

21st September 2012
Venue: Ista, MG Road
Sponsored by Black Dog
Associate Sponsors: Ista hotels

First of all, thank you Ginger Claps Team for inviting me to the event. I want to thank them for two things specifically. One, they gave me an evening filled with laughter, that too in a star hotel with a great ambience.

Two, when I asked them why they had given me a free pass, they told me I was an influential blogger! Really? Why so? I had more than 15000 visitors to my blog in one year, it seems, and that made me influential! I was flattered.

Secondly, I am sorry for the delay in posting this article about the event. It should have come much earlier... and I don’t seem to have valid excuses.

Having attended one such show at Costa Coffee, I had known that it would be mostly adult humour. But when the first comedian, Praveen Kumar opened the show with the line ‘the cleanest word you are going to hear today is f***’, I thought, ‘Really? Dirtier than that? Haven’t we, by now, had all the adult humour there is to have, spared nothing to imagination, thanks to the new emboldened generation and it’s undaunted dabbling-splashing-soaking in adult stuff everywhere –movies-books-music-SMS-facebook-public forums? Haven’t we gone overboard already? Is this evening going to be further going-overboard?’
It was as difficult to imagine as the idea of ‘more dead’.
But when Ashwin Mathew finished speaking, I thought, Praveen was right!

It was on the face and uninhibited.
But it was laughter all the way... before I embark on my views, my opinions, and so on, let me tell you that I did enjoy the evening thoroughly and laughed like I hadn’t for the longest while.

The show started an hour late, I don’t know why. Guys, you ought to do much better in time-keeping. We waited and waited...

We had three comedians – Praveen Kumar, Dr. Anil Abraham and Ashwin Mathew.

PRAVEEN KUMAR

He has some really good jokes – I will not give away all his jokes but will mention some of them.
I liked the ones on Rakhi Sawant(you can die quickly by jumping off a cliff in Khatron ke Khiladi or go for slow death by ,marrying Rakhi Sawant), BITS (Birla Institute of Tech. and Sciences), thank God, Tata did not open the Institute!, a desperate gay without a partner could become a suicide bomber – for he then could blow himself!, a TV show with 2 and a half men – Akshay, Shah Rukh and Karan Johar :-), Dhoni could campaign for Whisper for he is going through the worst period of his life, Chaminda vaas’s son has such a long name that his ID card is the only one that says PTO! Kurkure Ad on abdomen belts of cricketers – Teda hai par mera hai...

Quite original all of them and good ones too. They are the kind that are safe in any forum – no one would be offended for they are not racist, not sexist, don’t make fun of cities, ethnicities, etc.

But there were other jokes that were sexist- jokes about women drivers, husband-wife jokes, jokes about cities – Bombay and Bangalore, and jokes about ethnicities/races – Tamil vs the rest of India.
I am not saying such jokes must be avoided, they bring out the laughs too, but one has to be careful not to go too far, for some of them can be irritating and also seen as self defence/promotion of personal views in the guise of humour.

But then it also depends on the geographical location of the speaker.

For instance, I liked the jokes about Bombay – ‘while you live in what is called a ‘house’ in Bangalore, the one you get to live in, in Bombay is called a ‘shoerack’, Bombay hotel rooms are so small, you cannot even think of porn!’
But if you are speaking in Bombay, you may not want to go on and on with these jokes.

The self deprecatory jokes about ‘Madrasi’s were funny too. And given how sensitive the Tamil people are about the perceptions others have about them and how offended they usually are at Madrasi jokes, this kind of joking by a Tamilian is a good sign – it’s a healthy change. It’s high time the community learnt to laugh at itself.
The Gujjus, Marwadis, Sindhi’s, Bihari’s, Mallus, all of them endure jokes about themselves, don’t they?

Since we had a Tamilian speaker on stage, the mention of rajnikanth was inevitable. Again, this is the kind of stuff you want to be careful about. Don’t take it too far. As it is, we get to see enough of this everywhere – offices, social circles, public forums, other stand up comedy shows – all around, we see Tamilians carrying their rajni with them on their backs everywhere they go and thrust him upon people around them – comparing him with everyone – Shah Rukh, Salman...
But they are careful not to compare him with Aamir Khan or Amitabh. Clever fellows. They know they don’t really have a chance if they go that far.

These are the kind of things that reinforce perceptions that others have about the Tamil community – insular, fanatic, unable to identify with the rest of India and Indians...and so on.
For a change you should try cracking jokes ABOUT Rajni. Bring him down from his pedestal, make him look like a Buffoon, laugh at him...for a change. It’s not very difficult after all. If nothing else, you could crack jokes, in fact plenty of them, definitely on the theme of ‘beauty and the beast’!

There was however one joke about Rajni that was superb – A girl lost her virginity and Rajnikanth gave it back to her!

The self deprecatory jokes about his(Praveen’s) person were not funny – ‘whatever is below my belt is a joke’ and such others..., for no one in the audience has any knowledge of it! People laugh only when they are able to imagine, when already know what you are talking about; if you talk about things they don’t know, they are unable to imagine.

While he has content, Praveen could work on delivery. The way he delivers his jokes – pronunciation and accent – you could adopt a complete Tamil accent, just like Dr. Anil, who spoke in a pukka South Indian accent which actually gave more effect to his humour or you could be free of accent, but you need to be on one side – don’t be on the fence.
Another thing is voice intonation and modulation. These need much improvement and they could, if corrected, bring out double the laughs.

DR. ANIL

This guy was cute, funny.
He had donned the attire of a grandpa, a wig to go with it and a pukka South Indian accent. In pretending to be trying his best to keep clean in his joking, he brought out much laughter.
His ‘innocent’ accidents such as ‘pleasant mammary’, ‘booby trap’, ‘tit for tat’, ‘social cervix’ were very clever. And funny.

It was very thoughtful of him to make use of ‘accent’ to create humour. The pronounced South Indian accent at once won the people over even before the jokes began.

His use of a character of ‘Pakkada mane Sarasamma’ – bringing her in now and then, also was a great idea.

Bringing in such elements – funny costumes, accents, characters – has many advantages. It wins over the audience immediately. It eases the burden on the speaker for he does not have to rely on content alone, it gives added effect to humour, it makes it possible to make people laugh using simpler content (closer to reality), for instance, the ways of ordinary people – you could also make use of a particular geography, a particular time etc., and not rely heavily on sex, film stars etc.

But it also raises people’s expectations, and a speaker, if not prepared with good content could become slack, lose the audience’s interest, kind of disillusion them about his costume-accent and all.
There were such moments, a few of them, where I thought Anil’s content could have been better, keener, sharper... some trimming would be good and of course, more jokes in place of the ones that meander.

My favourite is this.
‘....pretty girl in a medical college...’
‘Pretty girl!? In a medical college!? What is she doing there? For, all the Cinderella’s usually take arts, Aishwarya’s and Rani’s and their like take journalism....but Cinderella’s two ugly sisters will defffnettly go to medical college!
A completely clean joke that drew laughter from all.

And I loved ‘Pakkada Mane Sarasamma’.

ASHWIN MATHEW

Of all of them, he had the lion’s share. And he needed it for the number of jokes he had.

There were all kinds of jokes. Jokes about people, the idiotic questions they ask, the things they do, the way Indians scratch their crotch, Mallus, their accent, their idiosyncrasies, about growing up, religion, Obama, Clinton, facebook – what is this poke, and poke back? And what’s with this ‘like’ feature? Someone says ‘my dog died’ and six people have ‘liked it’ : )... buying condoms, lots of jokes about Kerala...horny mallus... there was some slapstick too.
He was the dirtiest of them all. His dirty jokes were so dirty, on the face and bold that he made the other two look clean.
But they were also so power packed, so funny, so irresistible that you burst out laughing and after you laughed for a full minute you thought you should have grimaced perhaps.

He had the right expressions, vigorous body language as well as voice intonation. Are you a voice over artist?

He was highly animated, appropriately most of the time - but there were times when I thought he shouted too loud into the mike, at times too fast, that I missed a word or two.

I thought he could organize his speech better, reorder the jokes such that he kept the tempo gradually rising. There were, oftentimes, hilarious jokes that were followed by a slack one. The ones about boys taking beatings from their mother, for instance – I thought was overdone and mixed in between some other jokes that were more hilarious.

I loved the ones below... loved many others too, but can’t recollect them or cant mention them here!

‘How much did you get in maths?
22
Out of?
22 out of pity’

And this one...from the Bible!

When the people gathered were about to pelt stones at the guilty woman, Jesus said ‘let the first stone come from the one who has never sinned in all his life’. There came a stone flying right through the crowd and hit the woman on her face. Jesus looked the thrower and said ,’Mother, sometimes you piss me off’. (Mary had never sinned, you see, not even in her conception)

His last act was truly Grand Finale.
A scene – A veteran Tamil actor is approached by his son who confesses he is gay. The actor clutches his chest, his face muscles twitching and all – and Ashwin did a great job of showing this, and says in tamil (as dramatically as you can imagine) “In that film, in the song where Kamala Hassan and Silk Smitha are dancing, when I am looking at Silk Smitha’s thighs, you, my son, you are looking at Kamala Hassan’s ass****?!!!

A few days earlier I saw Ashwin in English Vinglish. Though it was a small role, it was a job done well. I hope you get a lion’s share in movies too.

To all the comedians, I must say, while I did laugh a lot, leaning on sex is the easy way out. It is far more challenging to make people laugh without the use of sex. It would require true talent.
In fact, the ability to make people laugh with clean humour is what separates the wheat from the chaff.
I must mention Rajneesh Kapoor, whom I saw performing in Costa Coffee, a few months ago. He was the best of the performers that evening and he steered clear of sex, his jokes were clean.

You may use sex but could you keep it subtle?

Because at this rate, very soon, you will all run out of matter and find yourself scrambling for topics and ways to make people laugh, just like Mallika Sherawat, having revealed all, has nothing more to reveal and cannot get anyone to take interest in her anymore.
It’s always advisable not to run headlong into the subject but move around it and leave something to imagination.

And of course, my thanks to the sponsors notwithstanding... ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION IS DETRIMENTAL TO PHYSICAL, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH!

High Culture. Low Class Emceeing by a Monita Bala @ Bangalore Sangeeth Utsav 2012

High culture. Classical music and dance. Performances by Padmashree/Padmavibhushan artists, dedicated to their chosen art for decades.

And what did the event management team have in mind when they chose this apology of an emcee, Monita Bala, for the event, that too for the first performance of the first day?

Really poor-quality, inappropriate emceeing by Monita Bala.
Perhaps she is fit for a profane thing like a fashion show or a beauty contest but certainly not for high culture.

It became obvious within minutes of her opening her mouth that her emceeing had no class, that she had very little talent and really no exposure to classical music or dance. For all her excitement about ‘Indian culture’, ‘Indian Culture’ at the mike, it was evident she knew and cared very little about our culture.

Worse, she had no sense of the etiquette, protocol and decorum expected and followed in the world of high culture. And this, to the extent that many of us in the audience were offended. God knows how the artists felt.

Someone said, she does corporate events mainly.
I would say, she would be unfit for corporate events as well.
For her English is quite poor.
Firstly her grammar is bad.“...the only woman ‘in’ the stage...”, “...giving an opportunity ‘for’ all of us...”
There were many other pathetic ones. How did she become a professional emcee with such poor English?
Her vocabulary consisted of half a dozen words. If I had to give some concession, I would say, half a dozen sentences; that too, sentences which were rehearsed before, cliche and not spontaneously issuing to suit the performance that had just been given. Like I said, very little talent.

And no homework.

The way she addressed the artists, for instance.
“...These guys...”, “...these guys are wonderful...” How appropriate to refer to Padmashree artists as ‘guys’?
I was told she addressed Kadri Gopalnath as “Mr. Kadri”, and he was offended. Breach of protocol, throughout.
I am simply grateful to him for not walking away, refusing to perform for ‘this crowd’.
But then, the crowd belonged to a different league, not the culturally impoverished one represented by the emcee; the crowd was sick of her.

After the dancers had finished, she made ridiculous and immature remarks, one after another.
“They have demonstrated what we all call Indian culture!” Cliche...a pathetic one. A westerner would have come up with better lines.
“...they danced for 1 hour non stop!...”
If she had any exposure to/knowledge of classical dance she would have known that classical dancers usually perform for 2 to 3 hours continuously. By expressing her surprise at their ability to dance for one hour, she not only revealed her ignorance but also embarrassed the artists, who would have preferred other finer points to be noted about their performance.

“You have my respect!”
Indeed!
The artist is already highly respected by all and does not need any of your patronizing.
Who do you think you are encouraging? Some amateur struggling youngster who looks up to you for your little encouragement and will be grateful to you for your respect?
These are accomplished celebrated artists who are revered everywhere they go by all and there is no question of someone not respecting them.
Like I said, she does not know the etiquette.
If you don’t know the right thing to say, you could just keep your mouth shut.

And once again, “You have my respect. And I am sure you have the respect of every one in the audience too”
“Thank you, like I said, for demonstrating Indian culture” Cliche again...

“...Can we have a huge round of applause for...?”
Again and again, she appealed to the audience to applaud.
This again must have been insulting to the world acclaimed artists: to have applause from the audience after repeating goading by an emcee.

The right thing for an emcee to offer artists of such high culture and calibre on the occasion of their performance, in a gathering such as this, is humility and gratitude. The tone of speaking too has to be humble and grateful and not animated and over excited as in a college festival.
Even appreciation, if it is not coming from someone who really understands the art and the artist can be immature, embarrassing, even offensive to the artist. Imagine saying something like “....they danced for 1 hour!...they demonstrated Indian culture!’
If you wish to offer appreciation you better be sure you understand what you are endeavouring to appreciate.

Apart from all the above deficiencies in the emceeing, a glaring lapse (the very first thing) that I and everyone else actually noticed was the conspicuous absence of the Bindi on her forehead!
She could be without her make up, hairdo, high heels...nobody would care.
But the Bindi? It was the first thing expected.
For what is the first thing about Indian culture, as far as the appearance of a woman goes? Is it not the Bindi on the forehead? The one ornament that is indispensable to the rich and poor woman alike, the others being optional?
I don’t wear a Bindi every day, but on the occasion of a cultural event, it’s the first thing I put on. And why shouldn’t we?
Even after several senior persons in the audience as well as the organisers personally requested her, she refused to wear a Bindi!
How could she go on stage without it, on an occasion like this?

And those annoying heels.
While all the artists on the stage were barefeet, in humility and reverence for Saraswati, the Goddess of art, music and learning, this woman was strutting about the stage in her high tick-tocking heels.
Where is your sense of propriety?

You may feel like telling me ‘there is no one standard, one code, etc.’
There may be many standards but you have to choose the one that is required of the occasion, that is appropriate for the occasion.
What would you think of someone licking their fingers at dinner in a party in a 5 star hotel? No etiquette? No manners?
Or someone in an IT office who when offered a handshake, will shirk from it and do a Namaste instead? Impolite? Not aware of protocol?

While we take care to follow the protocol of the westerners, feel ashamed when we fault at it, or follow it even when not required, like eating with fork and spoon in the privacy of our homes, why don’t we feel ashamed of our ignorance of the social protocol of our own culture?
Not following the expected protocol in a traditional environment is as much a matter of poor etiquette, manners, as shameful as not following the prescribed protocol in an English environment.

I feel sorry for the artists who had to perform in the presence of such an inadequate emcee.
I know how sensitive, self respecting these artists are: they could have easily said “we will not perform for such a crowd” and walked away.

You may wonder why I am so angry. I generally can’t stand it when I see half cultured fellows, with poor breeding, especially in cities, having acquired some style, strutting about, thinking themselves very smart and cool. This post is not about one emcee, but a class of people she represents, who though culturally impoverished, have delusions about themselves, having acquired money and ‘modernity’ of style. She only happened to be the last straw.
I am angry because the woman did not have the humility to accept feedback and respect requests made by elderly people in the audience – request to be more respectful towards the artists, to wear a Bindi, to change her emceeing style to suit the occasion.
Not knowing something is pardonable, but not having the willingness to learn, or even worse, to think of your yourself as great while you are actually pathetic – that pisses off people and you feel like showing them a mirror and putting them in their proper places.
And from her attitude, it became apparent she thought herself great while all she had was some style (which is useless without substance), substandard English, very little talent and no exposure to culture.

When we asked the event management folks why they picked her of all the people, they said she has ‘many profiles’.
That’s the unfortunate thing about the half cultured, half educated crowd in these so called cosmopolitan cities that will applaud and approve of any Tom Dick & Harry.
I see it so often, especially in the theatre.
Sometimes, it’s an obviously disappointing play but most of them in the audience are laughing, clapping and enjoying themselves, and saying ‘awesome’, ‘awesome’ as they come out of the theatre.
The standards are low and tastes, poor. Anything with style, some cheap masala, with or without substance, can be a winner.

I really wish event management teams, would choose, for such cultural events, a person who has exposure to culture, who has learnt music or dance, or even a person who simply loves the arts, most importantly someone who has an attitude of reverence towards high culture and not someone to whom this is just another emceeing assignment, an opportunity to earn some money, not some jerk who treats models/film stars and classical artists alike.

Fortunately, for the afternoon session which started with the golden voice of Shri Vidyabhushan(of Udupi), we had a different emcee, a woman who knew where she was and what she was doing. She conducted herself in a manner that became the occasion; her tone showed that she possessed a sense of occasion and her remarks, eloquent and thoughtful, showed much talent.

Bangalore Sangeeth Utsav 2012

3 days of high culture – classical music and dance performances back to back, from accomplished artists. For those who lived near Malleshwaram or had the time or both, this was an opportunity not to be missed.
I live very far away from Malleshwaram, far for someone who commutes by public transport, but I had the time and of course, the interest.
I was perhaps one of the first ones to buy a ticket online, for the first day; I had to choose a day and it had to be the one, when Vidyabhushan of Udupi was performing.

Fortunately for me, the event started late and I reached just when Kadri Gopalanath had started playing the saxophone.

The saxophone, of all the instruments, is rarely played on the stage as far as I know.
I have not heard much of the saxophone, but what echoes in my ears, clear and loud, is the rendition of the song ‘Nanati Baduku’ in raga ‘Revathi’, my favourite of all ragas, many years ago, in my little village of a few hundred people, during the annual car festival of Lord Venkateshwara, as we walked behind the procession or Utsava of a deity alongside the artists who played the saxophone, all of us barefeet. Was it kadri Goaplanath then? I don’t remember.

I entered Chowdiah already in love with the Saxophone, hoping I would get to hear ‘Revathi’ again.

I am not qualified to be a critic hence won’t say much. There are a few pictures and a few points...

Revathi was not played, but there was ‘Hamsadhwani’ as I entered, followed by other pieces, familiar to me. There was a full-fledged ‘Bhajare Manasa’ in ‘Abheri’ and I enjoyed the short ones rendered after the felicitation.

The Mridangam, allowed to perform solo and in Jugalbandi with the Tabla towards the end was a little too loud and aggressive I thought.

It had been a Friday and unfortunately, the hall was almost empty, with only the front rows occupied in addition to a few seats here and there.
There was moving camera that was an eyesore to the audience and must have been a distraction to the artists.
The Emcee (Monita Bala) was a misfit to the occasion and even offensive on account of a few points (more on this in the next post). We were lucky that the acclaimed Kadri Goplanath performed for us despite the above.

And yes, we must have more of Saxophone performances in the arena of classical music, for its sheer power, clarity and malleability.

An interesting trivia: Vocalists usually practise with an instrument, like the violin. I am given to understand that the Nadaswara, of all the instruments is the most challenging to a vocal artist practising with it. Nadaswara is not really an instrument but a category of instruments which includes the Saxophone.
Very rarely, artists practise with the Nadaswara; those, with the aim of training their voice to perform incredible feats; but very soon, they lose their voice. Sanjay Subramaniam, I am told practises with the Nadaswara.

Next, there was Bharatanatyam performance by two dancers accompanied on certain pieces by other artists.
If I know a little bit about music, I know even less of dance.
The piece on ‘Navarasas’ interested me. Shringara, Hasya, Roudra, Bheebhatsa, Shanta, Karuna,...

The two main artists could have been more synchronized in their steps. I could also see that when they performed as a group, one of the artists, now and then looked at the other dancers to be sure of her step.
But it’s alright, dances, especially group dances are a delight, what with their colourful costumes and their chiming anklets.

After lunch break, we had Vidyabhushan with his troupe.

What a golden voice! How soulful!
His renditions are not strictly classical, but he sings with ‘Bhakti’, a devotion so total, that it cannot fail to invoke devotion in the listeners and take them closer to God.
Also it cannot fail to receive appreciation from the more puritan of classical musicians.
His ‘Pillangoviya Chela Krishnana’ is his most popular song. I was sure that he would sing it, but he had other songs for us.
When he stopped, I wished he would go on for another hour, even the whole day.

The camera was mounted on an even longer arm and had grown long and uglier.
Fortunately, we had a different Emcee for the noon (and evening) who spoke words not only appropriate for the occasion but also lyrical, musical and words that revealed talent.

The stage was now being prepared for Bharatanatyam by Vani Ganapathy.

I looked forward to her performance, for I had heard her name (who hasn’t?) but never seen her dance.
It was a long wait, almost an hour long, before the stage was prepared, the musicians took their positions and she appeared. Using a cassette would have been quicker but perhaps having musicians singing live had other advantages.
Whatever may be the case, waiting time should be minimal, for people start leaving the auditorium one by one and also it has a cascading effect on the next performance in the programme.
I had wanted to sit through Manjula Gururaj’s singing – the first few minutes, but had to leave, as it was getting late.

The first piece by Vani was Krishnashtakam. As I said before, I understand every little of dance, but there are sevaral things I really liked about Vani.

Soon after the first piece, she was at the mike, saying in very clear terms that the moving camera was a big distraction, that she had not been informed about it, that she would like the event team to stop the distraction at once.

Assertiveness and self respect are impressive attributes.
The urban population which has very poor exposure to high culture needs to be taught how to treat classical artists – to give them due respect, to look up to them with humility, reverence and gratitude, to show sensitivity in maintaining an atmosphere conducive to performance of high art and not treat them like any other professionals who have been paid to perform a job.
The camera was not simply a technical point, but it showed an attitude of irreverence and insensitivity, not to mention ignorance of high arts and the decorum practised therein.

The audience, by now tired of the huge instrument flying all over, gave her a resounding ovation as if thanking her for voicing their own grievance.

But I wish she hadn’t forbidden us from using our cameras to take pictures or video recordings. All of us, having come so far, having braved Bangalore traffic, having sit patiently through performances we understood, liked and others that we didn’t, the least we can take back with us are a few pictures, a short video or two – as a memory, as a souvenir.
Asking us to be careful about the flash going off, that’s certainly agreeable, but to deny pictures?
Copyright is never a gracious thing, according to me.

Another thing I liked about her was her speaking to the audience in between pieces.
Apart from helping her achieving personal connect with the audience, it served a very important purpose.

Most of the people, even those who understand classical music well, do not understand dance, the mudras and other nuances.
Vani, before every performance, stood before the mike, and explained with mudras what she would be depicting with her dance, where they had taken choreographical liberties, what the story was all about, how many characters there were etc. And this really helped us understand her dance and follow the story that was being told.

As far as I know, dancers usually do not explain their act to the audience and sometimes, throughout the performance, the audience (most of them) is clueless as to what they are witnessing.

It would be most helpful if every dancer, in the manner of Vani, helped the audience better appreciate their performance and their art.

The treatment of 'Aadisidal Yashode Jagadoddharana', a song in raga 'Kaapi' that all of us have heard, was interesting. The character of Purandaradasa was introduced in the performance, shown arriving at Yashoda's home, being amazed at how Yashoda had tied Krishna up and his asking Yashoda to release him.

It was time for me to leave and I walked to the bus stop, song in my heart and dance in my step.

It was a day well spent, a day of fulfillment and my gratitude to all the artists.