If there was an article in The Hindu that I had me
sputtering in shock and disbelief, it was this article in today’s Metro Plus
titled “Peddle Power”. If you have not read the actual article, power politics,
media-politics nexus or something on those lines will probably cross your
mind.
You are totally off the mark my friend. The “Peddle” was
supposed to be “Pedal” actually. We are talking environment conservation here.
Wonder how? Cycle rickshaws! I can hear your “huh” now. Not my idea folks. I
will be at a psychiatric ward before I come up with such an idea. This is the
wonderful idea that purportedly won Ms. Nicole Faria the title of Miss Earth 2010.
Ms. Faria’s reasoning behind the fabulous idea – cycle
rickshaws save fossil fuels and provide employment. And oh! I forgot, they come cheap plus we also get entertainment and tourism guidance as an add-on by way
of chatting with the rickshaw-puller. Can you understand my shock now?
One human hauling another manually is nothing short of
slavery and servitude. I know there exist other forms of exploitation in the
world today. But atleast slavery is something we got rid off, and way back in
the 19th century for that matter. And here we are instead of working
on getting rid of the other evils, talking of getting one back on board. Yes,
we still have the cycle-rickshaws in some parts of our country and that is very
sad. And efforts are on in various quarters to do get rid of the practice.
How can one get away with such a statement? And get awarded
the Miss Earth for that! God Forbid! Where are our Human Rights Organisations
now? Are governments the only ones who will be condemned for human rights
violations?
Almost as an afterthought, there is a mention of
bicycle-renting(or I think that is what she meant) Bicycles and cycle rickshaws
are galaxies apart, one noble and the other deplorable. Does she even know the
difference? I don’t know what to think.
The Hindu of all newspapers published this
“interview”. And made a headline out of that statement and spelt it wrong too!
Please, not The Hindu too, going down the drain L
As I started writing this, I google’d for “Nicole Faria on
cycle rickshaws” and noted with even more shock(if that is possible) that quite
a few news articles had quoted it. I simply cannot believe it. How can this be?
Has everyone lost their head or am I the insane one??
The upcoming year is ridden with challenges for me. Yes, as
the title of the blog post indicates, I am signing up for another Reading
Challenge. This time it is Violet Crush’s “East and South-East Asia Challenge”.
This one has me really excited. I love reading books set in
different cultures and I really look forward to engaging with the EAS(East Asia
Summit) and the ASEAN with this challenge :) My exposure to this part of the world,
though I live pretty much in the immediate neighbourhood, is pretty limited.
“Good Earth” by Pearl S. Buck is the lone representative of this
geography(corporate lingo ;) ) in my “I’ve-read-list”.
And this is not too ambitious a challenge – 3 books is
pretty much the best deal you can get. I am yet to pick my books. I will list
them here later.
1)
2)
3)
& Hopefully a 4)
Or, I will add them in a separate
post – if I am so enamoured with them that I want to rave even before reading
them :)
P.S: Also, this should show you I did not sign up for the
Mystery Challenge only for the ARC :D
2010 has essentially been a messy year for me. I did loads
of things, but many of them haphazardly. And my reading was one of them. I read
with a fury then slacked. I wrote/blogged in spurts, then again slacked.
Determined to rectify my vagrant ways, I am set to welcome 2011 with a vision,
a mission and a challenge!
With my “discovery” of book blogging, I invariably
discovered Reading Challenges. I looked at a whole lot of them, was tempted by
many, but decided to be rational and pick something I can really hope to
complete.
Book Chick City’s “Mystery & Suspense Reading Challenge 2011” is a cool option for various reasons. Mystery is a wonderful genre that
can accommodate variety. The one thing I was skeptical about in participating
in Reading Challenges was that I might get bored with monotony. A Mystery and
Suspense Challenge has no danger of that. Also, twelve books is very doable.
And of course, the offer of an ARC of “The Survivor” by Sean
Slater from Simon & Schuster adds to the pull:P So “Mystery & Suspense
Challenge” here I come!
I have reason to believe every US President is a stimulus of
economic activity in his own right, the reason being the number of books
written on him. And these books are popular regardless of the President’s
popularity or effectiveness. The fascination with the First Ladies seems to be
even more hysterical. I had thought this began with Jackie Kennedy, but it goes
long into the past.
I chanced upon “Lady Washington, The Story of America’s
First First Lady” by Dorothy Clarke Wilson in a Reader’s Digest Condensed
Edition (which I pick up without bothering about the books or summaries,
provided they are pre-1990) volume of 1984. I was intrigued because I was just
reading about the period of the American Independence and its related events.
Set in Virginia, the initial part of the book reads almost
like fiction set in colonial America. There is not too much about the
plantations, trade and related issues of the time. The focus is on the
households of the plantation owners, socializing and the Colonial Assemblies
that are more social affairs than political. Martha’s character buildup is
quick and not very colorful.
Once George Washington comes into the picture, political
events make themselves felt but only mildly. The author takes great care to
ensure the book does not deviate into political waters or turn onto Washington.
Washington is always viewed in Martha’s eyes. The author deserves credit for
her focus here.
Contrary to my expectations that the book would become more
interesting with the Declaration of independence, confrontation with Britain
and the Presidency, it progressively became monotonous and slow.
Always following Martha, the writing style is very dry and
often feels like a chronology than a story. As we go on, one can almost predict
the sentences. There are repetitive phrases like “.. and his arms were around
her.” every time Martha meets Washington after a separation. The lives of
Washingtons seem to scattered with deaths of dear ones – they are also
mentioned in the same fashion over and over again. Another lacking aspect is
that there is very little on her interactions with her friends and contemporaries.
They are mentioned only in passing, only exception being her first interaction
Mary Washington, George’s mother.
Washington is portrayed reluctant to be in public affairs
all the time. And Martha in the vortex
of it all, has no leaning towards any political ideology or opinion. She remains only a devoted and
supportive wife for a very long time. While she has won the affection and
admiration of the people by her unassuming self and good-naturedness, it is
only at the end of his first Presidency that she actually realizes the
significance of her position as First Lady. Even her caring for his soldiers is
the duty of a wife to her husband’s affairs not patriotism.
The book in its devotion to correct chronicling of events
misses out on innovation in writing. The narration of six years of Washington’s
campaigns seems almost as tiring to the reader as the actual campaigns were to
Lady Washington.
The book is a glorifying account of the life of Martha Washington and is all praise for George Washington's devotion to his country and modesty. It fails to make any mention of, or rather diligently avoids, the controversies surrounding the Washingtons, esp with regard to slavery. It only mentions that George Washington sets his slaves free in his will. This was either a bad condensation(it is thick enough with 175 pages) that did not capture the
essence of the book very well or the book itself has been written in a plain
style. The book can be called informative at best, but netiher a very engaging read nor a non-partisan account. It
can be read for its history – one who is ignorant of American independence
history might find it useful and even a light way of understanding the sequence
of events.
As I stretch out listening to BBC podcasts subscriptions, I
send a silent prayer to bless the developers of Miro yet again for the handy
tool. As to my friends here, I have not forgotten my promise to write about my
other discovery this week. In fact, this has been quite the “discovery” week.
But I will not reveal my other web-treks as yet – yes, they are mostly
cyber-world discoveries. I will save them for future posts ;)
“Discovering” Book Blogging almost three years after my baby
steps into the world of blogging, does throw into sharp relief what an amateur
I still am ;) Another irony of this discovery is that, my first blog post ever
was a book review! One would have thought I would be a veteran in book
blogging! Well, things did not progress on that front as you can see. I spent
too much time racking my brains and keeping my eyes peeled for things around me
to blog about, that I missed what has always been close to my heart. Sure, I
have blogged about books and bookstores. But I never got into mainstream book
blogging. This is not to say I will stop boring you with these musings :P and
do only book reviews hereon, but I do intend to make an attempt at reviewing.
A lot of the book blogs I looked at were semi-professional –
there was a proper book review policy, reviews done on books picked up from the
store as well as on requisition by author, etc. I am not aiming to get into the
high-flying league though. Even I am not that deluded you see ;) My reviewing
will be mostly for my own sake. I went back and re-read my first post and my
only book review in history. I remember the pleasure I experienced writing it,
my first piece of writing that was not a school essay or exam paper. And it
helped me refresh my memory about the book beautifully and inspired me to pick
up a book from my to-be-read stack as well. And that is reason enough for me to
try book blogging!
I am just a couple of days away from my longest vacation in
these three years – two weeks, yay! That doesn’t necessarily mean I am too
harassed with work, yet I have never taken such a long stretch off and it is a
luxury not to be bothered with checking mail every morning and evening. The
off-side of a long vacation usually means an overflowing inbox on the day back
which can drain away all the bubbling enthusiasm(even if half the mails are
official, company-generated spam). But this time I need not even spare a
thought to that, cos it is Christmas season and not too many mails would flood
in(even spam might take a break!).
Ok, before anyone who knows my plans for the “vacation”
reminds me it is not going to be all sleep and fun(in that order), I know, I know…
But it is still a luxury not to worry about the mailbox, don’t you agree? :D
I am a couple of days away from my vacation, with loads on
my plate, official and otherwise, to finish off before then. Yet, being the
vagabond that I am, I did not stick to what needs to be done and went on to
explore… well, quite a few things. And yes, writing this entry is another thing
that is not really required to be done at this point of time, but don’t remind
me please! That said, I will move on to my real topic.
The first discovery that I made this week was Miro! I know
this discovery is not going to win me the Nobel, but it is important to me.
Read on to find out why. The path that took me to Miro was BBC, blame the stiff
Britons ;) Wandering all over TamilNadu last week, I missed following the news
so much, that I went digging into all the news sites I frequent, both regularly
and haphazardly. BBC podcasts beckoned and I was frustrated that the last time
I had followed two consecutive episodes of one of my favourites “From Our Own
Correspondent” was in August. And I was on the road only last week, so that was
not an excuse. I decided it was high time I got “something” to organize my
favourite audios for me, since I was not getting anywhere with the job myself.
So I went hunting for “podcatchers”, the of course, in the
very top was “Google Reader” which I immediately vetoed. Google knew too much
of me already(this blog included) without knowing my news and music tastes as
well. iTunes was up there too. I hesitated a few minutes before I decided to
give it a try. I am not a fan of Apple’s proprietary products, and only
grudgingly do I admit that I love my iPod. I convinced myself that having come
up with the iPod in the first place, Apple deserved a chance. So with that very
noble reasoning I set out to try and configure iTunes with a sample feed. It
refused to connect to the web. Excellent, that is it! I decided and struck that
option off my list. Alright, I was just waiting for an excuse to get rid of the
iTunes option, so what? I had never been a fan of iTunes and the reason I even
had it on my laptop was only that worked with my iPod Shuffle(courtesy of IBM).
With the two recognizable choices off my list, I was now
faced with Miro, Nimiq, Juice and a few others. I played around with the idea
of having a web-based podcatcher, something that would just keep track of my
preferences in one place –on the web, not on my laptop. Of course, it had its
drawbacks, but atleast it would save space on my already overcrowded harddisk.
But I did not get a decent enough option, or maybe I did not look properly
enough.
Anyway, I was now left with only the regular podcatchers.
Miro looked cute(atleast the red sheep logo did) and the features seemed
sufficient for my limited requirements. I hit the download button and forgot
all about it for the next few hours. When I realized there was a dialog box
open waiting for me to approve the install, I clicked the “Yes” and decided I
would configure it ASAP, no IMMEDIATELY. Otherwise it would be another couple
of months before I got to it.
Once installed, I saw it was a simple interface, nothing too
fancy - a sidebar that listed the podcasts and a bigger right pane that gave
the details of each one when clicked upon along with the Download and Play
buttons. Adding feeds was simple and it somehow seemed to know when I copied a
RSS link to my clipboard. Auto-download options were easy to configure and
sensible, though the “Keep outdated items” options of 0, 20,50, and 100
appeared to be on the clumsy side. More importantly, it had an option to pause
Auto-download when the number of unplayed items hit a threshold. That is
crucial, for I am sure I will not listen to all the feeds I
over-enthusiastically subscribe to and like I mentioned earlier, space on my
disk is a problem.
I do realize that these features are simple and probably present on most
podcatchers, but I am happy with it. Too bad it does not have a facility to
follow Text/webpage RSS feeds as well. I have tried many and discarded and am
yet to find a FeedReader I really like. And oh, I forgot! Miro is targeted at
video-playing and it is not their fault if a primitive like me bothers about plain RSS feeds.
My next discovery is Book blogging! The discovery is still
in progress and will be updated soon…. Till then happy no-crypticrunes time!
(What else do I say when I bore you faithful readers with a drab post on podcatchers
and my non-specific vacation plans :P)
Myself and a couple of friends strolled out on a beautiful
Sunday evening with a chillness in the air that brought to my mind the fabled
Bangalore climate of yesteryears, and for us just the climate for an ice cream.
A few delightful scoops at Corner House later, we were on our meandering way
trying to hit the vicinity of MG road to board a bus. We were due to be present
at Jnana Jyothi Convention Centre, Central College campus the occasion being
the “In praise of Vitthala, Abhangs by Aruna Sairam”.
It was to be my first live music concert of any genre or
form. My appreciation for and limited knowledge of Carnatic music is completely
attributed to my friend Saranya. I literally had no ear for music before I
entered my engineering course, the best I could do was recognize the most
popular tunes of Tamil Cine Music. I was afterall the genius who unabashedly
hazarded Ganagaiamaran as a guess in a quiz when asked to identify the voice in
a classic carnatic rendition by Balamurali Krishna. In the numerous mini-concerts
we had in our hostel room, Sarani would sing to us and explain not just the
nuances of the music, but also the lyrics when rendering Sanskrit or Telugu kirthis.
Her favourite vocalist Aruna Sairam slowly became my favourite singer too for
her lively renderings.
So that said, a concert by Aruna Sairam under the aegis of Novemberfest
by The Hindu was a tempting proposition. The concert was on a Sunday evening.
All seemed perfect, save one small glitch – Abhangs, sung
in praise of Vitthala, the deity at Pandharpur in Maharashtra, were Marathi and my
Marathi-knowledgeable friend was out of town on the concert date. Well, I of
course know music is languageless, etc, but I usually prefer to understand atleast
the theme of a song to appreciate it better. Nevertheless, I decided to go for
it and I am extremely glad I did.
We landed at 7.15 pm on the dot and settled into our seats.
The auditorium was three-fourths full and we looked like the only ones under
forty there, not that we minded it.Given that the concerts lined up under Novemberfest ranged
from Abhangs to Hindi Retro to African-Rock, the décor was contemporary
and tastefully done. For the evening’s concert, a raised platform was setup in
a semi-circle and the instruments in place. The audio by Bose was of course
impeccable.
The instrumentalists who were to accompany the vocalist were
introduced. The artistes manned instruments ranging from the regular gadham,
mirdhangam, violin, tambura to some unconventional ones - a drum of sorts
and some others Icannot identify by name. The star of the evening walked in draped in a blue and green
Kanchipuram saree and folded her hands in a namaste
bowing to the audience. Before she let her powerful voice sing the praises of
Vitthala, she gave the audience an introduction to the varkari sampradaya,
the pilgrimages to the Pandharpur and the devout, simple peasant men and women
for whom devotion to Vitthala transcended everything else. Arunaji encouraged
the audience to treat the evening not as a concert but as an experience and
invited everyone to sing along, clap and dance if one felt like it.
Abhangs are a unique blend of folk and traditional
devotional styles and Arunaji’s singing was in keeping with the style and
spirit of the music. The renditions were lively and soulful. She moved from one
song to the next with ease, interspersing them with anecdotes and insights into
the culture and lives of the originators of this unique genre of music. As she spoke, her perfect
diction was a delight to hear.
The songs were highly energetic and the high-energy
performances seemed to only increase the enthusiasm of the performers and not
once did Arunaji appear tired. About halfway through the concert, Arunaji and
her instrumentalists requested lights in the audience section be turned on, so that the
artistes could see the reaction of the audience and connect with them. She
mentioned again what she has stated time and again in her concerts - the audience were the source of energy for
the performing artistes.
As the evening progressed, audience vied with each other to
request songs close to their hearts. Arunaji cheerfully obliged and her
trademark renditions of Maadu Mekkum kanne, Bhaktajana vatsale, etc filled
the hall. We overran the concert schedule and requests still kept coming in. Arunaji finally had to entreat the
audience to trust her judgement and let her go back to her original planned
sequence for the final renditions to bring the evening to closure.
What I loved most about this concert was the range of songs
– Abhangs by Sants Gyandev, Tukaram and others of course were the
central theme, but also rendered were bhajan-type namasankeertham from
south, a Meera bhajan, a rendition dedicated to Kolhapur Goddess Saraswathi
and Bengali and Gujarathi songs.
A proper or more precise listing of the songs can be found
here, so I will not list them here in detail. I would like to focus instead on
the spirit behind the compilation of the song sequence. The journey to
Pandharpur took a unique route, through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Bengal and even
Thirupathi. The sheer expanse of the Indian subcontinent covered by the
renditions was a marvel in itself. Integration of a nation as multi-faceted as
India can only be achieved and developed by an equally multi-faceted approach –
democracy, arts, law, sports, etc need to come together. If there is a single
thread or theme in the history of our country it is definitely the assimilation
of cultures and traditions. We have always welcomed with open arms and generous
hearts, the communalism that troubles us today is largely a “modern”
manifestation. This rich history of cultural growth comes from people who
studied and embraced without inhibition, languages, cultures and arts of people
other than their own region or community. And it is this unique aspect that one
seems to miss in our present times. How many of us would even know of Kohlapur or Gondhali folk if it wasn’t for this concert?
Music is indeed boundless and boundaryless; music brings people
together. And we need people like Aruna Sairam to realize this power of music.
And even more so in these troubled times, to show us how close we Indians
really are to each other. For this alone, my salutations to Arunaji!
It has been over a couple of weeks since the
concert, but the music and the atmosphere remain with me. An evening I will
always remember…
I guess it is high time I updated this.. Hmm.. Well, "About me" has never really been my strong point.... I have a choice here, I can ramble till I hit the 1200 char limit or I can let you get on with my blog posts and frame your own idea.. The latter sounds better, what do you say?
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