Maestro,Music and Maargazhi utsavam

Well ‘Maestro’ is one title that gets tossed around frequently but when it comes to Ilayaraja There is no arguments at all,absolutely. Raja has revolutionized Music in Cinemas with his unique blending of carnatic ,Western classical,folk and some Rock too. The way in which he uses the orchestral Violin is simply Sheer genius in the mould of a bach , Mozart,or a Beethoven as also the Profoundness and aptness of his background scores which are magical to say the least. We have had so many legendary and good composers who have enthralled the masses with their brilliant music like the Burmans, MSV, ARR, Jatin-lalit, Ismail Durbar, Ravindran, Shankar-ehsan and Loy to name a few but somehow they all appear to me to be content with accomplishing the important part which is satisfying the audience,and giving musical hits , they don’t push to the next level and precisely this is where a Raja differs from the rest he does the important “job” and more , he transcends the mundane to brilliant to Genius (a territory beyond mortals reach) in his countless numbers which will just leave you gasping and out of the world. Somehow I think Raja has not received enough recognition from the Wider Indian public and this is best illustrated in the fact that he has bagged a paltry 3 National Awards even after scoring music for more than 800 films primarily coz he has done the bulk of his compositions in Tamil. Agreed Music is beyond Language barriers but this is one major reason why most of his numbers remain largely unheard beyond TN , On the contrary ARR enjoys a massive following throughout the country largely coz he has successfully translated most of his popular numbers into Hindi and also has considerable Genuine Hindi numbers under his belt. Recently I happened to listen to Raja’s 1986 album “How to name It” and must say who better than him to give a tribute to Bach and Thyagaraja??. Raja in his long career has Dealt so many classical Ragas imaginatively and perhaps my good friend Ram gopal is best suited to shed more light.

This being Margazhi ,the only month when carnatic music shows some signs of revival,all the sabhas will be busy with concerts.The modern day concert spanning an average of 3 hours and in many cases even less is more of a 20-20 affair, people just don’t have the time and patience anymore.The performer is under pressure to wrap up his alapana pretty quickly and has to cede to popular public demands which can often lead to repetitive numbers.”Thani avarthanam” long thought to be an integral part of any concert has now become the default break-time during which the phonies take their time off to launch into Canteen food, who gives a damn for a bunch of percussionists blaring away anyway? A handful of Rasikas still do and they maybe the reason this margazhi festival keeps happening year in and year out. So when do these Phonies actually return? They comeback just in time for the Thillana, Thukkadas in the end and promptly give a standing ovation at the ‘mangalam’ still munching away at their pottalams,Bravo! Its appalling how much Madurai has changed from say 30-35 years ago when people had the luxury of attending concerts at more than 6-7 sabhas not to mention the ever happening concerts at the temples , we are not so fortunate anymore in that we barely have any choice at all.. Thanks to the Patronage of the TVS group Lakshmi sundaram Hall and Sruthi arts academy in TVS lakshmi continue to be the glorious exceptions. This coming from the city that has produced so many stalwarts and legends of classical music such as Madurai Shanmugavadivu Subbulakshmi, Madurai Mani Iyer, TN Seshagopalan among others presents a truly grim picture indeed.

So it is Recession time and What are the hot jobs currently?Catering could be a profitable option especially at sabhas,The intensive,and increasing security checks that IT professionals are subjected everywhere means Security personnel is also another viable option.Con artists (ever an option) in Bangalore always have the last laugh and like SriRamachandra murthy says “Muruga indha naata enna maadhiri mutalgakitta irrundhu kaapaathu”

From the diaries of 'Chi-damn-bram'

we are at that juncture again ,staring at the polls not far from now and it is high time we list out the several achievements that this govt has successfully meted out and the several challenges we ve managed to scale.Surely the Grandest of em all will be the conclusion of the historic ground breaking N-deal with the US with the govt spending every ounce of its entire 5 yr term solely dedicated to this and successfully withstanding a massive no confidence motion in the process against all odds.The revoking of the 'draconian’ POTA law is right up there as well,it was being grossly misused and even more importantly preventing people from expressing their true spirit..we must first salute the solidarity and spirit of the people of Ahmedabad, Delhi,Jaipur,Hyderabad and Bengaluru who remained unruffled in the face of repeated acts of cowardice.The abolition of POTA thereby gives more such cities that opportunity to express their 'spirit' and, perphaps show the perpetrators of violence that a few serial blasts will not affect normalcy in any way ..The fact that all these cities were up and running barely hours after the blasts is testament to that spirit and character

The most people friendly budget in probably the last 10 yrs was also rolled out this yr..The loan waiver will no doubt be a huge relief for the farmers and the rural sector in general and go a long way in preventing the plethora of suicides in many parts of the nation, that farmers owning more than 2 hectares of land will not come under the purview and hence Vidarba farmers –r missing out is largely unforeseen and ironical, but plenty to cheer otherwise.Fears have gripped the market with crashes in the investment banking sector- post 'subprime' crisis, but I assure you that Indian banks are completely under control after all we have pumped up adequate liquidity and yeah the bear is changing to bull.. we are definitely getting there ..

We have always believed that safeguarding the minority interests s paramount and so am unable to understand as to y the failure to contain the communal violence in Orissa and Karnataka ,both saffron ruled states are being attributed to us?(we are after all jus in the centre),the fracas over Amarnath issue was also another political blame-game and nothing more.

The threat of the DMK MPs to resign if the govt doesn’t look into the srilankan tamils issue is completely justified (even though one suspects this threat has come a lil too late) we cannot question y they remained mum for the last 4 yrs to rake up this all of a sudden coz after all v cannot afford to lose em like the communists(political dharma remains intact )

Yeah 'chandrayaan' has a probe for checking water in the moon meaning the water pbm of the aam admi per se s taken care of long term..

Diwali is round the corner, so wat does one expect ..??

A Bomb in the closet possibly...Nah not joking ..

Oh to be an Young gunner!!

Looooooooong Hiatus is not Quite the word that ll fit the bill when it comes to describing my close-to-two-year absence from this space,Lets assume its a second innings of sorts

something in the manner of a Lance armstrong??!![:)]

These are very exciting times to be a gooner ,especially since it pleases a great deal to c  all ur potentials coming of age in a big way..But ever related to a young gunner??ever felt wat a young 

gunner feels at the moment coz thats precisely wat i feel.Lets contemplate for a second the circumstances that led to the "decisive"switch of a walcott,a nasri or a ramsey we all know they are immensely talented and there could have been a hajar places they could have gone but y arsenal? Firstly coz arsenal play "real" football,secondly the absence of a billionaire owner coupled with a trusting manager at the helm will mean u ll b thrust in with greater responsibility something ur peers can only dream of-but with such responsibility comes the risk of overexposure and the weight of enormous expectation and constant pressure something u mus be willing to tackle and Finally money should never be your motivation ,if u manage to put ur hands down and c  off the initial phase u are bound to reap huge benefits in the aftermath -Think of a fabregas who earns close to a handsome £100,000 a week, but more importantly cesc has learnt the trade expertly and is now a completely developed footballer..It remains to be seen whether a walcott,nasri,or ramsey will emulate fabregas ,they have already done the difficult part which i reckon is the 'choosing' and mus now realize they are on course for bigger things if they keep up the path..

I for one certainly realize that -as my scenario at EMC is more or less similar..These are exciting times after all!! (isn't it??!)