Finding ragam

After many many years I attended two Carnatic concerts this season. I have been to a few conecrts outside of chennai, but there is something about the december season. Much has been commented about the parallel food festival that goes on, so I am not going to go into the details of the aapams and dosas I ate. Beyond the fantastic performances the audience were interesting to study. The ultimate point of this experience is to be able to find the ragam after all and it was quite intriguing to see who from the audience have the ability to do that and who are pretending to know and who are just there for the emotional appeal. There was a visiting professor from some US university who thought I was a student. Made my day, despite that he was in his eighties with possibly failing eyesight. He shared some of his opinions on the singer as well as the rest of the spectators quite caustically. There was a young man who seemed like he had come in by mistake but wrote down ragas for almost all the pieces. The best was the father and daughter - the father must have been in his eighties and the daughter late fifties. The daughter had to sit in a different row and it was fascinating to see the interchange. She would mouth the name of the raga and he would nod or shake his head and if she had an explanation she would write it on her phone and pass it to him. During the RTP there was considerable speculation and a few others near them also joined in the mime. I couldnt know for sure if they got 'keeravani'. I certainly didn't. What an ultimate pattern matching problem!

By the beach

Every time I go to Chennai I dream of going for a morning walk on beach road. After many many years finally I managed to do that, more than once, this time. Walking on beach road in Chennai early in the morning ought to be listed in hundred things to do in India before you die. It was amazing to have the wind against my face and the music of the waves as I walked about four kilometers each day.

Starting from the lighthouse, as you walk towards the Marina swimming pool, past the wide road you have the stately buildings on your left and the vast sandy beach on your right. The sun fresh from the east shines upon your face and the cawing of the crows fills the air. As you walk past the various statues, you could almost loose yourself in stories from the past. You have Kannagi to think about feminism and terrorism, you have Gandhi to wonder about salt and swadeshi, you have Pope to wonder about the power of language and assimilation. I wondered if anyone would care to unveil a statue of Ovvaiyar these days - we don't know her religion or caste [let me not be loud, someone might claim her], or let unveil the statue of G.U. Pope. There should be walking tours in beach road.

By the third day the waves got ferocious and for the first time I saw the sandy parts of the beach filled with water. Thane showed its might and I could feel the power of nature.

In between on a sunny day I drove down by beach road to Mahabalipuram. It was hot and crowded and I felt thoroughly tired and low.  One of the unsung victim of over population is the wide open spaces - I felt like mourning the lack of an imaginative setting that is a must for viewing the old structures of Mahabalipuram. I guess short of the Pantheon, Mahabalipuram is probably  the oldest structures I have ever visited. [Stonehenge wouldn't qualify :)] It is such a fantastic example of man's triumph over nature I thought as the waves crashed against the rocks close to the temple and the salty air that swept the carvings. I should read my copy of Periplus again.

Cleaning up

In the movie 'Pursuit of happyness' Will Smith's character has these cute lines where he describes the different stages of his life. There is one where he says, for example, "This part of my life... this part right here? This part is called "being stupid." " I was just wondering what lines would I come up with. This part is called "having potential"... This part is called "wasting it"... 

The part right now, maybe 'Cleaning up'. The figurative meaning apart, the literal cleaning up I find takes a lot of time and is oddly therapeutic. There is something about bringing order from chaos, polishing something up, removing the dirt off of that old Chinese vase and seeing that delicate flower emerge in all its subtle beauty. 

I dust and sweep and mop and wash and I have this rerun in my head of life some twenty years ago when someone I know would do all this with a song on her lips. I know she doesn't clean up so much anymore, but I wonder if she sings as much.

I don't mind these physical activities since it oddly brings a forgotten tune back onto my lips. 

Baby boy

P, the young woman who works in my house as a maid, delivered a baby boy last week. When I visited the hospital, it was quite crowded outside and I wasn't sure of the visiting hours that after a few minutes hesitation, I called her. Thanks to the ubiquitous mobile phones that even moms who have just delivered keep at an arms length I was able to reach her right away. "I will send someone," she said and added, as way of identification, that the girl coming out to fetch me was of really dark complexion. I wondered how she would describe me to that girl - bespectacled? has a deer caught in headlight look? benign with a 'pavam' look? 

The ward was  quite noisy with quite a few young kids running around. Out of the three beds in the large room, two were occupied by women who had already delivered but the third seemed to have just come in with labor pains. Their families milled about. P was delighted to show me the baby. She asked why I was not holding him, 'I am afraid,' I said sheepishly. P laughed quite amused by this. Her husband had just left to buy a cradle she said proudly. The matron came and asked some random questions.

After some time I took leave - P was still disappointed I didn't hold the baby. This little hospital with people walking in and out like a carnival, with its noise was definitely so much in contrast to the hushed environs of the upscale maternity wing of the hospital not a kilometer away. Those young mothers I felt would certainly not ask me to hold their three days old babies I felt. Which mothers are likely to get postpartum depression I wondered.

I came out to a bright, bustling, bangalore morning. The little boy with no name yet [only three months later, she told me], born at this time and at this place has all the potential for a bright future I thought. And if he had her pretty smile that brought the dimples out, then there is no doubt about it. 

Must remember safety pins

Typically whenever I blog about a Chennai trip it involves a road trip. This time though I took the plane to go to Chennai. I have a history of arriving at the airport well ahead of time and then somehow managing to be the last passenger in. Last time, thoroughly lost in some random book, I was startled by the 'last call for passenger radhika'. Then the time in Florida when I arrived so ahead of time, I spent about an hour sitting on a nice recliner reading a book. I was still the last passenger in because that time I managed to mix up the arrival time of another airplane and departure of my plane to/from the same place. And then that flight from San Jose when I realized just before boarding that I had lost my phone. I ran the length of the airport and managed to come back with the phone just before they closed the gate, completely out of breath I should add.

So this time I parked myself near the gate, set alarms on my phone and was totally alert. The old man next to me suddenly stood up and sort of gestured a  request asking me to watch his luggage and vanished in the direction of the loo. I vaguely thought about luggage from strangers etc., but wasn't really perturbed. Five minutes later I wondered if I should be worried. Ten minutes passed. Either the man had a really upset stomach or something sinister was going on. The queue rapidly dwindled and everyone but me seemed to go enthusiastically down the stairs to catch the bus [to the plane]. I stood up, fidgeted, looked pointedly at the airline staff but no luck. And then at last just before the airline staff member plucked the mic to call for my name, the old man arrived. I ran to the podium.

On the way back, for the first time I was late. Thanks to a wedding in a politician's family and rain, I arrived about five minutes before they closed check in. Apparently they don't do tele-checkin, despite my pleading. I ran to the podium and my sandals broke. If it were a bus, or even a train, I would have chucked my sandals in the nearest bin and ran barefoot. I did run to the podium holding my sandals but after checkin, tried to hold the broken strap with my big toe as I hobbled to security. My churidhar was knee deep in dirt thanks to the rain, hair was streaming all over my face and with the broken sandals that I was dragging my foot on, I must have looked quite a site.

It was so mortifying and embarrassing that I kept low even when the man next to me said some provoking stuff about the 'woman' pilot in his last plane.