Why we Indians never lose our cool!

Consider this. Somewhere in India, it is night, and you are sleeping peacefully. Suddenly in the middle of your deep slumber, you find yourself being rudely woken up and informed that you are now in Pakistan!  National borders have been redrawn, and the land you are in now, belongs to Pakistan. You are told that you will have to vacate immediately and that you will be given your space in your new country instead of the one you cede now. What'd you do? You think that such crazy things don't happen ever?! Think again! As a nation we’ve been through it before, and it was called Partition!

In terms of the extant of its impact, what happened on November 9, 2016 was no less shocking. Only, instead of a home, this time, it was currency. I agree, the scenarios are not strictly comparable. But I can’t think of another close enough event in our post-independent history that has tossed about an Indian’s life as this has, not even the dreaded ‘emergency’.

 Also, it is not the quantum of impact that I’m comparing here. While economists and political commentators try to assess the complex economic and political outcomes of demonetisation, it’d be equally interesting to look at this issue from the point of view of the people for whom the disruption caused to their everyday lives is substantial (even if temporary).

To reiterate, this  is not a comment on the government’s decision. Rather, it is about how we Indians have reacted to the supposed ‘surgical’ strike on black money, and why.

Seen through  this lens, two things strike one immediately. One,  that we are a very tolerant people - very very tolerant. Two, that we are survivors.  Tenacious survivors!

But first, on our virtue (?!) of tolerance. Barring a few sporadic incidents here and there of people complaining about their hardship, there has hardly been any show of impatience or belligerence by the common man. Despite the severe inconveniences caused to him, he stands stoicly, waiting hours for his turn to exchange old notes, irrespective of whether he understands or agrees with the move. Good for the government and the society at large!

But, can you imagine this happening anywhere else in the world?

For example, contrast this with the protests that broke out (also during the same week) by the detractors of President-Elect Trump, who took to the streets proclaiming that they had not voted for him and so they didn’t want him as their President. The episode turned nasty with the police resorting to shooting to curb the protestors.

Has this ever happened in India, the world’s largest democracy? Have we ever disagreed with the results of an election conducted duly under the aegis of the EC?

Why not?

While it can be debated if such tolerance is good for the society, the more interesting question to ask is ‘why’? Why are we Indians so tolerant? What’s it about us that makes us stoic?

 Is it because we are fatalists, believers of karma theory, and can take anything that comes our way and explain it away as our fate?

Or is that years and years of successive invasions and foreign rule have broken our spirit and weakened our psyche that we’ve lost the courage to question?

 Or, are we so used to being overrun by our rulers’ whimsical decisions that we don't find anything odd about yet another?

 Or, is it that we have so much faith in our rulers that we accept all their decisions unquestioningly? (It can't be denied that many people appear convinced that the government’s move to demonetise  is only a temporary irritant to be suffered for a larger good.)

Maybe, the answer is some or all of the above. But, apart from the socio-cultural and religious reasons, I suspect there is yet another reason for the unending tolerance we display, and that is a basic lack of entitlement in our dealings with the government.

We Indians don’t really ‘expect’ the government to work for our welfare. We simply perceive it as an unwelcome but unavoidable element of our lives, something to be wary of and kept at arms’ length.

Blame it on the Colonial hangover, if you will.

In his book ‘A South Indian Journey’, British historian Michael Woods says how for thirty years between 1749 and 1781, the Tamils from the delta region of the river Cauvery were caught in the crossfire between the British, the French and their ally Hyder Ali, with each of them trying to stake claim to the ‘Chola lands’. Unspeakable atrocities were unleashed on the victims - their agricultural lands destroyed, women violated, temples looted and places of worship desecrated. Surprisingly, Wood says,  at the end of it all the Tamils ‘bore few grudges’ towards their perpetrators!

Surely, this speaks volumes of the attitude we take towards our ruling polity - that of benign resignation and apathy!

Even seven decades after independence, the constitutional assurances that the government is ‘of’ the people and ‘for’ the people remain but mere words. To most of us, the government remains but a peripheral entity - an irritant or an interference at best, an avoidable bully at worst. In other words, it is an entity we would like to have minimal interactions with.

 This attitude can also explain the poor participation of Indians in government organised Citizen Forums for schemes like the Swacha Bharath Abhiyan, which have failed to take off as a people’s movement. But, on the positive side, our apathy  has enabled us to survive bad, indifferent or even absent governments. (The most recent example  is how for the last few months, the state of Tamil Nadu, even in the absence of active governance, has been functioning without descending into anarchy.)

And that is exactly how we Indians are dealing with the current crisis on hand. We want  to dispense with it as quickly as we can, so we can get on with our lives.  In a way, we Indians are taking this disruption like how we would deal with gum sticking to our boots!! Indulgent at best, apathetic at worst! You could call it ignorance or myopia. But, maybe, that’s what makes us big survivors….    

                                                                       On our ability to survive….. in the next blog

Of Ki & Ka and us androgynous Indians

Finally caught up on the movie ‘Ki & Ka’ on DVD after having missed it in the cinemas.

For those who haven't watched it, it is about a young man Ka(bir)  (Arjun Kapoor) who sets aside an IIM degree and  a super rich dad, choosing instead to become a 'house husband' for the successful career woman Ki(a), (Kareena Kapoor).

Why?!

Simply because his mom is his inspiration and he aspires to be a home-maker like her.

Well, why not?! If a woman can get into a man territory, why can't a man get into a woman’s?

Good enough start, but not before long, the couple get embroiled in a battle of envy, jealousy and ego that threaten to destroy their partnership. Of course, the knots do get disentangled along the way and the movie ends on a happy note. But not before Ki's wise(!) mom reminds us that in our society, the economic contributor has always had an upper hand over other members whose services cannot be assigned an economic value.

At the outset, the idea of social role reversals and flipped power equations seems like an all new concept. But, when you really think about it, you realise that it is not!

The ‘Ki’s & ‘Ka’s have been around us for a long time! Only we haven’t noticed!

Ki & Ka have a long history

Culturally, we Indians are somewhat androgynous people, who hate to be boxed or typecast (we even have an androgynous God – Ardhanaareshwara). And we also loathe boundaries of all sorts. (which is why we hate rules and rarely follow any, and our chickens cross over the fence into our neighbour’s farm all the time :)) 

So, our men and women stray into each other’s territory all the time.

Even our Gods switched roles (and sexuality) if the situation demanded it!

For example, the South Indian pantheon of Hindu Gods includes a female avatar of the Lord  Shiva (called ‘Mathrubhootham’ in Sanskrit or ‘Thayumaanavar Swamy’ in Tamil – literally meaning ‘one who in the form of a mother’). Legend has it that one of Shiva’s ardent devotees went into labour with her child, but her mother could not reach her on time for help. So the Lord himself took the form of her mother, rushed to his distressed devotee and helped her deliver the child safely. 

Coming down to lesser mortals, in the paddy growing regions of South India, the economic roles of men and women in the working class were never quite rigidly defined because women worked alongside men on the fields. Farming as an economic activity thus relied heavily on the woman’s contribution.

As a result, we have had our share of matriarchs in a supposedly patriarchal society. In the yester years, when women didn't die of childbirth at an early age (the single largest reason for their mortality), they frequently outlived their much older husbands. Hence, it was not uncommon for women to be left behind with their husband's estate to fend for after his demise. 

Such was the case with my great grandmother’s sister. She was widowed at a fairly young age. Her husband not only left her childless, but also with the arduous responsibility of managing large tracts of agricultural land on her own. To make matters worse, she also went fully blind from cataract, which had no cure in those days. But she did not let the handicap come in her way. She successfully took care of her husband’s estate till her last breath before passing it on to an adopted son.That was no mean feat in those days! And, she was not even literate!

If this was an example of a woman venturing into man’s territory, tales of widowed men doubling up as the woman of the house to raise their children were not uncommon either.

In fact, even today, in several conservative South Indian households, the man of the house takes over the kitchen and other domestic responsibilities every month when the woman of the house has her menstrual periods, and needs rest.

The point is, role reversals and load sharing happened seamlessly, without any declarations or fanfare.

And balance of power was maintained in the household.

Sometimes, it was the woman who dominated the household and sometimes it was the man. In Tamil Nadu, a household where a woman calls the shots is jocularly alluded to as ‘Madurai’. This is in reference to the temple town of Madurai where the chief presiding deity of the temple is Goddess Meenakshi, and not Shiva as in most Shaivite temples. 

Surely, a woman-dominated household must have been a common enough phenomenon to have earned a nickname!

As opposed to the working class, where women were significant economic contributors, an upper class household (where the women did not assist men on fields) had more rigid roles for men and women. But that did not necessarily skew power equations in the household.

An upper class house had clear territorial allocation for men and women. The front part of the house belonged to the man. You could rarely find young women here. (Older women were, however, an exception.) And, the rear part of the house was the woman’s domain, particularly the kitchen, which the man rarely entered. 

But, womenfolk exercised sufficient control over their men by controlling the food they fed them. In some cases, errant men are known to have been reined in by reducing the salt in their food, which rendered the men weaker and hence more amenable to falling in line. With the female and male territory marked geo-spatially, the matriarch of the household also got to control the private time men got to spend with their wives by citing good and bad days for sexual intimacy.  

Game, set and match!

Of course, disintegration of joint families and the shift from an agrarian/pastoral economy has significantly altered the social roles played by men and women. While the agricultural age saw women as parallel, if not equal economic contributors, the industrial age bypassed most women, thus reducing their economic value-add to the family. Nuclearisation of households during this phase also meant that the responsibility of child-rearing fell entirely upon the woman of the house, leaving her with very little time for economic pursuits. 

But even the industrial age was not without its exceptions, as the Tamil novel 'Thaayumaanavan’ by the renowned author Balakumaran illustrates. Apparently set sometime in the active trade unionism days of the 1970-80s, the novel tells the story of a man who is forced to stay out of work because of a prolonged lockout in his factory. To make ends meet, his wife takes up employment, while he cheerfully assumes the responsibility of running the household. The novel talks about the challenges he faces as a home maker and his positive attitude that helps him sort out his new role.

More recently, we saw a rerun of similar episodes during the period of the global financial meltdown of 2008-09. Several men working in the financial services and related sectors lost their jobs and ended up handling the domestic responsibilities while their working spouses became the sole bread winners for the household.

So it seems the story of Ki & Ka is not as new as it is made out to be, but has been told before, time and again. 

Ilayaraja, the Thyagaraja of film music

Many of you may be aware that music composer Ilayaraja recently completed composing music for his 1000^th film  - a Tamil movie titled ‘Tharai Thappattai’. Fans like me are hoping that he will be acknowledged as the world record holder for the largest number  of compositions in popular culture someday soon.

Till then, who is celebrating this milestone?  Unfortunately not  too many outside the Tamil film industry!! That’s tragic, as his is no mean achievement.

The reason for this milestone not being widely acknowledged by the artists fraternity lies in their attitude to popular music. The connoisseurs of art in our society have traditionally considered popular music a poor cousin of classical music. 

I beg to differ.

In my opinion, as a music composer, Ilayaraja deserves to be put on equal pedestal with a classical music composer, say a Thyagaraja or a Tansen.

Is the genius of Ilayaraja for real?

Let me play the devil’s advocate here first by raising two key questions.  

1) Can film music composition be an independent art form when it borrows heavily from the cornucopia of classical music?

2) Or is it such a big thing to walk the path laid out by the musical giants such as the Carnatic music trinity or the Western music trinity who have composed elaborate musical works, works that have stood the test of time and continue to inspire today’s generation of musicians?

Well, I think the answer to both the questions is a big resounding ‘YES’, and here’s why.

Good music is about touching a chord (pun unintended :))

Good music, I'm sure you will agree, is something that appeals to our emotional brain; chords that soothe our mind and rejuvenate our soul.   It is a harmonious combination of melodious strings and meaningful lyrics that elevate music to being a soulful experience.

Taking this as an acceptable definition of good music, let's compare the scope of work of a classical music composer vis-à-vis that of a popular music composer.

To start with, take the case of the Carnatic music trinity (Thyagaraja, Muthuswamy Dikshithar and Shyama Shastrigal). The key rasa (emotion or feel) in their compositions is Bhakthi or devotion. They may have composed their songs under different situations (Thyagaraja's compositions, for instance, are believed to be anchored in incidents from his real life),  but their compositions remain primarily rooted in the communication/propagation of devotional ideas. Again while composing, these composers may have used different ragas,  each imparting  a different emotion,  but the flavour that dominated these ragas eventually was the Bhakthi rasa.

Secondly, the works of the classical music composers were confined to a particular genre of music – mostly classical, or sometimes folk as in the case of composers such as Purandhara dasa or Annamacharya.

Now, contrast this to the demands from a film music composer.

His primary mandate is to compose  music that'll help communicate or reinforce a specific emotion - love, pathos, anger or yearning - as the situation in his film demands. 

While this does widen his canvas, it also calls for immense creativity and a sound knowledge of well...sounds, and their ability to invoke a chosen emotion.

And using sounds to kindle a desired sensation is something that Ilayaraja excels in.

Here, I've compiled a set of navarasa (nine expressions) kritis of Ilayaraja, that convey  a specific feeling or an emotion brilliantly.

(I'd urge you to listen to the music with your eyes closed to have a singular musical experience. Wherever possible, I've used audio-only tracks as I found the visuals distracting at best and utterly unbefitting at worst.)

I must add that in several of these compositions, Raja has effectively  harnessed the feel native to a raga. For eg, Hamsanaadam, a sensuous evening raga has been used brilliantly in ‘Isaiyil Thodunguthamma’  from the movie ‘Hey Ram’ whereas a peppy raga such as Shanmukhapriya has been used to convey joy in the ‘Tham Thana tham thana’ number (links given below).

The Navarasa  kritis of Ilayaraja

 (Here, I've deviated from the accepted list of navarasas to compile a selection more fitting in a filmy context.)

Wonder (Adbhutham) - Idu Oru pon malai pozhudu

Romance (Sringaram) - Kaadalin deepam onru

Sensuousness (Sringaram) – Isaiyil Thodunguthamma

Yearning (Sringaram) – Sundari kannal Oru seithi

Sympathy (Karuna rasa) - Uchi vaguntheduthu pichi poo

Joy -  Tham Thana Tham Thana Thaalam

Heroism  (veeram)  - Manitha manitha

Pathos–  Then paandi seemaiyile

Devotion (Bhakthi) – Amma endrazhaikatha

Film music calls for equal if not more creative prowess than classical music
(My apologies to TM Krishna who has been vociferous about his disdain for the music that passes off as classical music in film songs :))

Ok, I can hear the classical  music aficionados cry themselves hoarse saying that film music composers don't have to operate within the grammatical framework laid down for classical music. In other words, a film musician does not have to maintain the purity of a particular raga or tala (rhythm) in his music.

True, technically, a film music composer does seem to have more latitude as compared with his classical music counterpart; but that is the whole point!!! 

The less well-defined the framework, the more difficult the job!!

Imagine you are asked to make a nutritious Kimchi salad. If you have sliced cabbage, garlic, ginger and oodles of soya sauce, then it's no big deal. How you slice the cabbage, how long you marinate it, whether you roast the spices or not and the amount of soya sauce you add decides the quality of your salad. But, you've got to take care of only four ingredients and use them in pleasing  proportions,  and you are done!

That’s classical music for you – nice and healthy  for those who have the appetite for it.

On the other hand, if you are asked to make a tasty salad for children, seasoned with stuff they'll enjoy, but also uses healthy stuff such as cabbage, garlic and ginger in titrated doses to make it a nutritious meal, then that becomes a tricky proposition!!

You have to mull over various options before you can arrive at something tasty that children (rasikas like us) like, at the same time ensuring that the specified ingredients are used and the health quotient of the salad is not overly compromised.

And that precisely is the challenge before film music composers!

Having said that, there are several compositions of Ilayaraja that are rooted in hard core classical music ragas. Here's a very small sample:

Classical Ilayaraja

Aadal kalaiye de an Thanthathu - Raga Charukesi

Janani Janani - Raga Kalyani

Sollayo Vai thirandhu - Raga Shanmukhapriya

Om Nama Shivaya - Raga Hindolam

Mogam ennum theeyil - Raga Kanakangi

Click to read an interesting blog on the use of Classical ragas by Ilayaraja in Tamil Film Music

Moreover, film music also requires a deep understanding of a wide genre of music - from Indian classical to western classical to folk to pop to even African American music now.

And music aficionados who follow popular  music do admit that Ilayaraja was extremely adept at giving a native feel to western classical rhythms. Here’s a list of songs from his repertoire which combine indigenous and western classical to create a unique musical experience.

Quintessential  Ilayaraja

Poova eduthu Oru malai

Kanmani nee vara kathirunden

Pani vizhum malar vanam

Putham pudhu Kalai

Thendral vanthu theendumpothu

Yetho Mogam Yetho thagam

Oru Jeevan azhaithathu

Kodiyile malliyapoo manakkuthey

Of course, no eulogy of Raja would be complete without mention of his folk music based songs in Tamil films. He is one man who is credited with having given folk music its due through his compositions. Again a very small sample from his popular hit list:

Folksy Ilayaraja

Madurai marikozhundu vaasam

Vetti veru vasam

Sandu pottu Oru sandana pottu

Kuzhal Oodum kannanukku

And that’s not all.

Orchestration is a key component of film music, and Raja excelled at it

Yet another realm that a film music composer has to be adept at is orchestration,  which demands a deep proficiency over musical instruments besides the judgement to use them wisely to suit a given situation.

On this count, Ilayaraja is considered a class apart from his peers who frequently outsource the BGM score, interludes and the orchestration required for a movie/song. Ilayaraja  is indeed a rare music composer who is known to handle the entire spectrum of music composing right from orchestration, arrangement of instruments to notations.

While Raja is known for his love affair with the violin, and has used the instrument extensively across his works, he was himself a gold medalist in Guitar from London’s Trinity College of Music.

Here’s a list of some songs which stand testimony to his superb orchestration skills. This is one area where his genius literally pours out.

Instrumental Ilayaraja

(Check the lovely preludes and interludes in these songs.)

Thuli  ezhunthathu paatu

Endha Poovilum vaasam undu

En Iniya pon nilave

Poo malaiye thol seravaa

Ilaya nila

Rakamma kaiyathattu

Ananda ragam meettum

Poonkathave thalthiravai

Paruvame pudiya padal

Aasaiya Kathula Thoodu vittu

Above all,  the film music composer has to choose the right vocalist who can carry his piece-de-resistance  effectively to the audience.This calls for high inter-personal skills to coordinate with various artists and get the desired output.

And last but not the least, he has to balance the artistic expectations of his director and the commercial expectations of his producer.

To summarise: the propensity to convey a wide range of emotions musically, proficiency in several musical genres, the artistic acumen required to use different instruments to varying effects, and above all the ability to create music within a specified commercial and artistic framework, would, in my opinion, put film music composers on equal footing with the great classical music composers of the yesteryears.  

With that, I rest my case.

Ilayaraja has been the most prolific music composer ever

Of course, every film music composer is expected to deliver on most of these parameters. What makes Ilayaraja extra special?

Simply, the quantum of his work!

Over 5000 compositions across 1000 films, not counting independent compositions (‘How to name it’, ‘Nothing but Wind’ and the ‘Thiruvasagam’ symphony) is no small feat!!

Even accounting for some repetition, some more mediocrity and several inspired pieces, it is still a whopping number of original compositions for any individual composer!!

And finally, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The fact that Ilayaraja has been in the reckoning over the last four decades amidst wide ranging cultural changes in our society is proof of the timeless of his music.

Friends, even if we discount all the above analysis and statistics, we owe it to this man for having given us all several great musical moments and many sweet memories of the best part of our lives!!

2015 - The year of 'wapsis' (returns)

As the year 2015 wound to a close, I let my memory run through the high and low points of year for India. When I did, I found this one word coming to me, again and  again, which  I found to be the thread that bound the events of the year.

And the word of the year is ‘wapsi’ or ‘return’.

In the political space, the year started with AAP led by Arvind Kejriwal ‘returning’ to power in Delhi after assuring the people that, this time, he was here to stay. And the year ended with Nitesh Kumar ‘returning’ (from a self-imposed sabbatical) to claim the chief ministership of Bihar after his brainchild ‘Maha Ghatbandhan’ swept the assembly polls in November.

In a first for the carmaker, Volkswagen agreed to the ‘return’ of 3.23 lakh cars it had sold in India, which allegedly used software that cheat the country’s emission norms. Das Auto?!!

Meanwhile, Apple ‘returned’ with yet another hideously over-priced and hyped up model, iphone 6 s, at the stiffest ever price tag  (Rs. 65,000-75,000) for a mobile phone in India.

Reliance Jio’s soft launch of its of 4G services in December marked the ‘return’ of Mukesh Ambani to his dream telecom venture, a decade after he had lost Reliance Infocomm to his younger brother Anil, in the partition of the Reliance group assets in 2005.

The  Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu also ‘returned’ with yet another of his grandiose dream projects, a la  ‘Cyberabad’– this time to build the slimmed down state’s new capital city, Amaravathi at an estimated cost of about Rs. 27,000 crores....(for those who can't fathom this number, remembering it as only one-fourth the cost of the loss to the ex-chequer in the 2G spectrum scam can help)

On the flip side, food  price inflation ‘returned’ with a vengeance after a brief sabbatical, and the prices of pulses skyrocketed with zero help from ISRO (sorry, couldn't resist that  PJ :P)

On the positive side were Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu’s welcome initiatives to ‘return’ Indian Railways to its days of past glory, one of which was to rope in  Ratan Tata to spearhead innovations and reforms in the Railways.

The year also saw a dizzying $9 billion being pumped into Indian startup ventures by risk-crazy investors, in the hope of seeing big ‘returns’ (read valuations) in future.

Sadly, but inevitably,  the year also saw the ‘return’ of India’s most loved,  People’s President, APJ
Kalam to his celestial pavilion.

The intellectual elite of the country took the ‘r’ word to a new level, when they started to ‘return’ their awards and titles - which they had received either from a previous Government or a Government-aided body - in protest of what they felt was rising intolerance in the country.  It is a different story that their act failed to fluster anybody other than the neo-loud Indian media which used up precious airtime to discuss the issue ad-nauseum!!

Even as the Congress Party tried its best to ‘return’ all the bills tabled in Parliament unpassed, Indians desperately waited for their PM Modi to ‘return’ to his homeland from his endless  overseas tours to address the burning issues at home.

As if to counter all attempts by the right-wing fringe elements to flare up  communal unrest, the Muslim community in Chennai turned out in large numbers to volunteer for the mammoth relief work
undertaken during and after the Chennai floods, thus ‘returning’  hopes of communal harmony in our society.

Post  the launch of its hugely successful MOM mission, ISRO ‘returned’ with a bang to successfully launch a record 21 satellites into space, of which 17 were for foreign nations.

After punishing several hungry children and lazy bachelors during its brief absence from our p(a)late, Maggi, the queen of junk foods, ‘returned’ to the hit list of national cuisine towards the end of the year!

And finally, what  sweetened my ‘returns’ story was that our IT department deigned to assess my 2015-16 IT returns on time and actually ‘ return’ some of the extra tax I had paid last year!!! Yippee!!