The light of a thousand moons

Gouri Dange (appeared in TOI on Panditji’s 80th birthday)


Bhimsen Joshi has turned 80. I say Bhimsen Joshi, not Pandit, not Swar Samraat, none of those appellations - because as many pointed out at a felicitation for him on Saturday, he is truly above and beyond the titles. Sitting quietly on the dais, while people spoke lovingly and eloquently about him, Bhimsen Joshi had the detached expression of a small child - to whom the words mean nothing, but who simply sits there taking in the spectacle of it all. At one stage he even dozed off, while references to his mastery, his contribution, his fame were moving the audience to agreeing nods and tears. Is this not true greatness? To be so inside your self, your art, that words don't matter. That you can nod off while the paeans are playing on. When he spoke briefly later, he made a twinkling reference to his little nap, even miming how he woke up with a start to hear the superlatives being heaped on him!

Around an ageing, well-loved person, is usually a fine but strong web of 'loving immunity' - woven by the people who have journeyed long with him. It is like that with Bhimsen Joshi now - an adored and respected patriarch of a sprawling family of musicians and listeners, who flock devoutly around him. Everything about him becomes precious and intriguing.
Such a patriarch is both god-like and child-like, sometimes indulging, sometimes indulged. I once accompanied a friend who, during an interview with him, asked: "Panditji, what do you do when you are not doing music?" He grinned at us and announced joyously: “I drive my 'motaar' or I play with my dog.”

Bhaskar Chandavarkar, speaking at the felicitation - spoke of how Bhimsen Joshi erects the edifice of a raag, and then takes you on a guided tour - showing you grand rooms, tall roofs, little niches, surprising details. Uncannily, it described precisely what so many listeners have experienced. At times the metaphor is different - one feels that he is firmly in the 'driver's seat' of a huge, powerful vehicle, and he's taking you along for the ride. You are safe up there with him, seeing his world as he sees it, sure that he will take you expertly to a destination that unfolds to him as he goes along.

Many of us, particularly in the world of Indian music, are prone to be in a chronic state of nostalgia. We bemoan the fact that all the music legends were born and soared in an era before we showed up. Stories about them, old pictures and recordings, are what we hang on to - peering deeply, listening hard, wishing we could shrink the decades into at least one moment of connecting.. We are celebrating Bhimsen Joshi's sahastrachandra darshan - he has seen a thousand moons. And we realize with a pleasant shock that we too have seen some of those very same moons. Indeed we are blessed to be in the same active present, the same geographical space, as Bhimsen Joshi's reverberating and cosmic Sa.

*****

For better or for verse

For better or for verse

Chronicles of your family hidden in old films songs

A great Hindi film song (there are thousands) stands on its own strength – words, music, voice. Some songs work their magic because they fit the situation in the film perfectly, and enhance the story-telling. Sometimes a song works because it is picturized on an actor that you adore and he or she does a terrific job on screen, with the song.

But there’s another reason why some songs are simply emblazoned in gold in your mind. It’s when they set off memories that are intensely personal. The song then becomes a part of the documentation of your life as you grew up. And that’s why Hindi film music is many things to many people. Many of us grew up with a ‘radiogram’ in the living room and the saucy new entrant, the transistor radio, in our bedrooms (to be kept on even whilst studying for exams), Binaca Geetmala, EP records that gave you just four precious songs from a film or LPs that gave you the whole lot, sometimes with an intriguing bit of dialogue just before the song (Zindagi bhi ek nasha hai dost, glug-glug-glug – Dev Anand saying the words and pouring himself a drink in Guide, before Din dhal jaye hai, raat na aaye.)

These songs became part of our lives, like family photo albums. Every family has their own ‘geetmala’ in that sense. A unique set of songs that became family favourites, or marked some event or period, or were best sung by a particular uncle. In this way they become inextricably woven into family lore. And that’s why the story of any Indian family can be told via a selection of songs that served as markers to the family’s life and times.

In our family, in the sixties and seventies, my brother would come home with those little ‘song books’ that you could buy outside the theatre after a film. He had stacks of them, and these would be consulted for when a song was being prepared for a musical evening at home or up on the terrace, under a Kojagiri Poornima moon under a Bombay sky.

Of those, Manna Dey’s Kasme vaday pyar wafa sab, baatey hai, baton ka kya was one that he sang like a charm. What with the full moon, the musing words, the somber, delicate melody, magic happened. But that was not what we remembered for decades after that, so much as what that magical rendition of the song did to an Aunty family friend. She simply fell in love for the rest of that evening. A mother of three teenagers herself, she was swept off her feet by the song and the 21-year-old singer, my brother. That evening, she had eyes only for him, coquettishly asked him to fetch her water, and generally doing the eyelid batting and flirting that we younger kids, in our brutal 11-13 year-old way, found hugely funny and absurd. (At 11, an Aunty of 38 is a Very Old Person with no right whatsoever to feeling a flutter in the heart.) It became something of a family joke, till one day we were asked to just stop it, and never make reference to it again!

Some songs, you heard a family member sing often, well before you heard the actual song. My father, with his rich KL Saigal voice, would sing Janay woh kaisay, log thay jinse…from Pyasa. Only years later did I see the original, complete with Guru Dutt’s brooding presence. That was lovely too, but it was my father’s song first. The same goes for ‘Poochon na hamay hum unke liye…kya, kya nazaarane laye hai. When I first heard Asha singing it on radio, it was a shock – hey she’s singing my mother’s song!
A whole bunch of songs are recorded in my mind as nostalgic-for-India songs. Sung by my parents and a clump of Indian friends, nostalgic for home in 1970s Singapore, even today those songs take me instantly to musical evenings in that country – it’s a terrific form of time travel. Rahi matwale, tum ched ik baar, man ka sitar, janay kaisay chori chori aiye hai bahar, chedo man ka sitar…they sang robustly together, with each one taking turns at different verses. That song’s a Singapore snap-shot in my head.

The Kagaz ke Phool great Waqt ney kiya, kya haseen sitam – will forever be the song that my sister had to sing under duress. Made to perform in sulky adolescence in front of people, she would regularly sing it (very well, really) and stamp out of the room upon completion in a flood of tears. Move over Waheeda and Guru Dutt, that song’s got my sister’s name written on it.

A shy and nervous cousin coaxed to sing at a family get together once began to softly sing Har tukda meray dil ka, deta hai duaahi. He started with the first two words and Champi, their family dog, raised her head and howled. Much tittering, shushing, and the cousin was asked to start again. Again the first two words, and the dog raised its head and moaned in wolf-like woe. A couple more attempts, and that was that. That song thereafter became known as Champi’s song. The cousin never sang again.

The song from Anuradha, Hai woh din kyu na aye is composed by Ravi Shankar and sung superbly by Lataji, picturised on the angelic looking Leela Naidu. But for me, it is permanently associated with my friend Aruna, singing it in Kashmir, on a high school trip under a cold night sky by a little camp fire.

Then there was O Sajana, barakha bahar ayi…the Sadhana song that for some reason caused me to burst into tears, as a 2-year-old. My parents would try it out to show people, and I would obligingly cry copiously on cue. To date, it’s known in our family as ‘radaycha gana’ – the crying song. Yesterday it came on on the radio at 11 at night during Bela key Phool – and I nearly cried on cue then too; it was like stumbling on a very old and precious family album.
*******

interview-shinterview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUCIkjpMWf8 (part 2 and 3 appear alongside where you can go look)

the nice thing is the interviewer listened, and asked really searching questions!

Viva Voce - a weekly novel

STARTING 3RD FEBRUARY 2012 at thefridaynovel.blogspot.com and one other location. watch this space

Spring clean your Marriage

Just about everyone spring cleans their homes, at least once a year. In the West it’s during spring – when carpets can be aired, winter clothes put away, junk thrown out, windows opened to let out stale winter air and let in the freshness of spring. Here in India the cleaning fever grips us before our festivals, and the more tidy amongst us will spring clean at least once a month. We do it, not as a chore, but as a chance to run our eye and our duster over all our possessions - cleaning, mending, discarding, replacing, rediscovering. Lurking pests and fungus are shown the door, and now we’re sure that nothing scary is going to jump out at us. It’s a great feeling. Once we’re done, we have the satisfaction of knowing how things stand in every nook and corner of our home. Every area – the parts that are visible and in regular use, as well as tucked away unseen areas – have been examined and blessed with our attention and efforts. And we’re all set, or one should say reset, to enjoy the joys of being a householder.
It’s the same with our cars – servicing, regular petrol filling, maintaining tyre pressure, cleaning inside and out, listening out for any odd noises. How well and how routinely we manage all this.
Many of us do a fairly good job of maintaining our bodies too. And if we don’t, the ill-effects show up soon enough and quite obviously so, in the form of weight gain or illness - so we’re forced to take stock of our habits and make some quick and sustainable changes.
With our careers too, we see to it that things remain on track. Our own ambitions and the demands of corporate life demand that we remain focused, skillful, flexible and forward-moving; and that we learn to manage our relationships at work.
So there it is, then: our homes, our cars, our bodies, our jobs – all of them routinely get their share of attention and care.
However, the most important relationships in our lives - the ones that will outlive our homes and cars and jobs and even our bodies - we treat as if they’re completely weather-proof, Teflon-coated, maintenance-free, unbreakable and come with a lift-time warranty. We leave them out in the rain, we scratch them, we provide them little nourishment, we toss them around, making big dents and small ones.
How come?
It’s usually because our relationships are ‘expected’ to take the wear and tear. Marriage is one such relationship. The definition itself, in every culture, says ‘for better or for worse’, ‘till death do us part’, etc. But many of us don’t seem to read the fine print – or the fine print is not pointed out to us – it says: ‘highly inflammable; not to be loose shunted.’
Which means that when we enter marriage, we’re undertaking something, like all high-energy projects, with tremendous and powerful potential. And for this power to work for us, we need to handle it with care and follow certain protocols for maintenance and troubleshooting:

Fuel efficiency and body work: Tired, underfed or overfed, unkempt bodies are a serious marital-energy sapper. Don’t ignore the early warning signs that come from your mirror and from gentle jokes made by your spouse. Commit to staying fit and reasonably slim, for yourself as well as for each other. Work, kids, ‘i’ll do it if you do it’ – none of these excuses are valid. What’s the fuss really? Make small but sustainable changes in your eating habits. Don’t wait for a gym to open up nearby or the weather to change or for the right shoes. All you need is enough space to stretch, a walking track or a quiet lane or even the corridor of your building, and 30 minutes. It’s bound to rust-proof your marriage.

Odd noises: Listen to yourself speak to your spouse. So many couples complain that “he/she talks so sweetly to the rest of the world and is so careless/nasty with me”. And no, that is not a sign that you’re ‘comfortable’ with one another and being formal with the rest of the world. If this is the case, you need to rethink your definition of what communication with your spouse means. All that warmth and good cheer that you reserve for even the neighbour who irritates you – do redirect some of it homewards. And it doesn’t always have to be Words. It can be completely non-verbal, and yet caring and intimate, respectful and warm, in public as well as private.

Tyre rotation and retreading: The worst marital skids take place when we let the interesting grooves and grids of our personalities wear out. We married in the first place because we liked certain facets of each other’s personalities. Over just a few years, those seem to vanish, or are reserved only for the outside world. While the marriage itself runs on bald, featureless tyres. Redefine your grooves and patterns, evolve – on your own and with your spouse – and you’ll continue to have a great grip on the bylanes as well as the highways of marital life.

Pest control: Parasites, pests and fungi find their way into every marriage in the form of well-meaning meddlers and malicious manipulators – these could be some of your friends, family, even spiritual/financial/psychological advisers. They usually thrive on discord and your intimate secrets. Keep them firmly out. If they have crept in, take a joint decision on the best way to get rid of them. Remember, however, not to use toxic methods that could be hazardous to your marriage. Humour and a gentle nudge should do the trick. Most importantly, you have to agree with each other about who the real pests are and how best they can be thrown out.

Planned shutdowns and timeouts: Every system needs a break – a genuine one. Hectic holidays, expensive dinners, major partying – they create the illusion of relaxation. They’re usually a source of much stress, as we’ve all experienced. The airports are overflowing with bored looking couples looking in two different directions, ‘holidaying together’. Find what you really enjoy doing as a couple. Also find what you like to do alone and go do it, without guilt. It’s completely ok to seek and give each other time on your own – whether to read, stare into space, walk, play a game or go out with friends.

Safety features: Put them in place. Wear a helmet to protect yourselves from falling financial/health/emotional equipment. Wear seatbelts of restraint so that neither of you hurt yourselves and each other with sudden shocks. Install a smoke detector – so that you’re not just running from a fire or consumed by it.

Discard and upgrade: Throw out outmoded attitudes and grudges. Forgiveness, that much-touted and much-misunderstood word, is the key. All marriages have had their teething troubles – don’t cling to these and hold them up like a penalty card at each other for years later. Change, and appreciate change in the other.

Focus on core competencies: Whether it’s parenting, financial management, looking after elders, a career, hospitality…everyone has their speciality – that they’re good at and do with ease. Find it and focus on it. And do try to stop berating each other for what you are not. In this exercise, you’ll find that you’ll do away with much dust and rust and many of the original facets for which you loved each other will emerge.

So many people, when faced with the task of spring cleaning and overhauling their marriages, feel most resentful and say: “If I can’t be comfortable around my own house and spouse – what’s the point.” Comfort is one thing, and neglect and sloth is quite another. And let’s learn to make that distinction! Many relationships are comfortable – ‘like an old shoe’, as people say. But do remember, that an old shoe becomes comfortable because you’ve used it well, you didn’t drag it through muck or leave it neglected under a whole pile of things, you repaired it when required…and you chose good material to begin with. It’s something like that with a marriage – it can flourish on comfort, but it just cannot thrive on neglect and abuse.

There’s a saying in hindi – chalti ka naam gaadi. Loosely translated, this means, if it runs, it’s a car. Don’t let your marriage be one of those. Inertia never got anyone anywhere !

(appears in marathi translation in this year's Kalnirnay calendar!)

Recently stumbled upon an artist, Arundhati Vartak. I'm no art critic, so I don't have the real words for what she does, so I will simply burble on about how beautiful her portraits are - of indian trees, flora, fauna. I began to google her work, and found a little of it (Kalpana Desai, Director, Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, describes Arundhati Vartak as "one of the few artists who combines in her works a perception of the miniaturist and the technique of a modern artist.") Here are some images from my google search. Yesterday I went to her studio and saw some of her work. The parijatak with a lowering slate sky at the back, the flowers fallen around, some a day old, some fresh, some just dropping off the tree. The neem, the thick majestic tamarind...and somewhere a bird, a cat, a goat...Felt privelged to also see a few sketches that Arundhati makes, of the particular way a stem looks, or a bird sits, or a flower droopw... which she then later refines to put into one of her paintings. it reminded me of a singer or player polishing up a little phrase to insert into his larger raga, or a writer scribbling three keywords to use later in her writing. i have a growing list of 'ratnas' that shine in this city...i add arundhati vartak to my list, with much pleasure. how i love artists and writers and musicians and runners and a hundred other real achievers, who aren't constantly 'out there' working the phones and seducing the networking sites. their reticence conserves their energy to create stunning work.

Mumbai's Dabbawala

OMO BOOKS
is pleased to invite you to the launch of

the English edition of Shobha Bondre’s book
Mumbai’s Dabbawala – The Uncommon Story of the Common Man


Actor and writer Dilip Prabhavalkar will release the book
the author, the translator, and the publisher will be in conversation
and read excerpts from this uncommon story

There will be chai-coffee-biskut and discounts too!


on Tuesday, 30 August 2011, 6.00 pm
Venue: Crossword Bookstores
ICC Towers, Senapati Bapat Road
Pune

The Mumbai launch is on 13th September at the Press Club of India, VT/CST - invitation to follow

Phone: Madhavi Chitnis 9823215233
Email: omobooks@gmail.com