Had an opportunity to take part in a sensory experience this evening, at a combined "performance" of an artist (painter) and a South Indian classical dancer. A very thought provoking session as we settled down to think of arts and appreciation in general.
On the way back, the Mrs started a spirited chat about how Indian classical dance forms are quite complex in that both movement and expressions mattered. (Gross generalisation alert) There aren't many other dance forms we know of that can narrate stories with as much detail and embellishment as them. That led us to discuss further on about the dance forms, and then came an "aha" moment for me - when I realised that to be a true connoisseur of, say, Bharathnatyam, you had to be able to appreciate:
- Dance movements and grace
- Expressions - face and body
- Language - to appreciate lyrical quality
- Classical music - to appreciate the arrangement of the swaras
- (Hindu) mythology - to appreciate the stories being narrated
- And a sense of "fashion" - to appreciate the clothes and ornaments
If that isn't a rich (albeit esoteric) treat for the senses, what else is!! I don't think I will ever find such a recital boring in the future. In fact, if anything, it's an overwhelming sensory offering that might make one sweat at the task of having to receive, assimilate, and appreciate all this awesomeness in parallel.
The more I thought about it, the more it hit me that this is yet another memory of India's exuberant past - when people were fed, clothed and housed enough to be able to think beyond the essentials, and afford the luxury of nurturing such composite and complex art forms. And when one looks at the quality of our commercial artistic expressions these days, one wonders where we went astray in these past 1000 years, to end up playing to the gallery at this scale. When artists have started dancing to the tunes of audiences, as against taking the lead in sensitising them to more mature and advanced expressions. Beep songs make a lot more noise than December season performances - literally and otherwise.
As an allied train of thought, I began wondering what "beauty" really is. Why do any of our senses find something beautiful?
My dad often describes symmetry as a synonym of beauty. As a photographer who swears by the rule of the thirds, I couldn't take that.
My "Creativity in Arts and Sciences" prof at IIMB (Mr B Sekar) found beauty in contrast, among other things. As a big fan of high key photography, I couldn't buy that in its entirety either.
And as it stands now, my definition of "beauty" of any kind (visual, aural, oral etc) is: equilibrium / balance - which envelopes symmetry, contrast and any other definition I have come across.
He was a rank enemy.
As in, we fought for the first rank.
And when you are a 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 year-old nerd, that’s quite serious business.
But that wasn’t the only issue with him.
He was a natural leader and was quite popular in school. The sort who knew quite a few 12th standard guys while he was still only in his 5th. And for the detail oriented – ya, they knew him well too. Why, even the Principal knew him by name and would often call out for him in public, in implicit acknowledgement of him being a star.
So my association with this fella didn’t really start sweet. It was all of anti-incumbent disregard. And the reciprocation was equally ill-willed.
It couldn’t have been any other way, as we often grabbed the least opportunity to get at each other’s throats (WWF was our PT period sports activity). He was IRS, and I don’t think I called myself anything at the beginning. Not that I wasn’t dramatic; it was just that I didn’t follow WWF until later.
I particularly remember a session of fisticuffs that started during a lunch break in class. Our conversation had started out in a rather civil fashion. But when he made fun of Karate, it awakened the “sleeping lion” in me. All because I had just joined Karate classes around then, and considered myself the global guardian of general respect to the art form. Although I didn’t know much more than “ose”, I couldn’t bear the ridicule. What followed was 15 minutes of juvenile entertainment for the rest of the class.
Trust me, I was generally a “good boy” throughout my childhood. The kind of ar****le that every parent liked and most kids abhorred. The male version of Hermione Granger. Prim and proper. Not a toe out of line.
But something in him brought out the Satan in me.
So much so that the only prank I have ever played in life outside of home was on him.
One day when he was off sick from school, I hatched a master plan. After school, I went over to a friend’s place. This was a guy with the proud privilege of being one of the few folks in class who had a phone at home. And my archrival was among the others. With the customary handkerchief covering the mouthpiece, I dialled him up:
Trrrinnggg…
Him: Hello?
Me: Hello.. Unga veetla fan sutthudha?
Him: …… Neenga yaaru? Ungalukku enna venum?
Me: Sollu da.. Fan sutthudha?
Him: ……. Hmm… Sutthudhu..
Me: Appo neeyum kooda saendhu sutthu po
[Click]
Ok, I must admit it wasn’t my idea. I borrowed it from someone else.
Ok, I must admit now it doesn’t seem like an idea at all. But back then, for whatever reason, it felt brilliant.
[Facepalm]
My first ever school play was in Tamil - “Ellaam avan seyal”. It was a story of the fall of arrogance. And my role was that of Kuberan – the Lord of Wealth, the King of Yakshas. Having grown half a foot taller than the rest of the class did have its perks.
And He was in the play too. As Naradar.
Day 1 of rehearsals. Scene 1 starts…
Kuberan caresses mounds of gold coins and looks around with an arrogance that only rich folks in Tamil cinema could match.
Naradar walks in.
"நாராயண நாராயண"
"வாணியின் புதல்வரே.. ஆணி முத்தைப் போல் அழகு சொற்களால் அவனி வாழ நல்வழி காட்டுபவரே.. தங்கள் வரவு நல்வரவாகுக"
“STOP”
That wasn’t Naradar. It was Tamil Ma’am – our director.
"என்னடா குபேரா இது! இது தான் அகங்காரமா? வீரமா? உன்னை விட நாரதனுக்கு வீரம் ஜாஸ்தியா இருக்கு. ஒழுங்கா நடி"
[Followed by customary giggles of girl gangs around]
I went red-faced in public embarrassment at having been one-upped by Him, as He carried a smug look around.
Thus began an artistic association that went on for a while. We were standard lead fixtures in any play in the school for the next few years, and even won a few inter-school competitions. Agarwal Vidyalaya was a particularly prestigious stage for us.
And all of this went on for 4 years, at the end of which I moved on to a different school.
Thus bringing to an end, years of nasty stares and under-breath mutters as a daily activity.
Thus bringing to an end the rivalry too.
It’s hard to compete when you aren’t both in the same battlefield. The warcries make no sense then.
When it came to our careers, we went different ways too. I followed the conventional route of “success” – Engineering >> MBA at a premier B-school >> Going abroad. But he has always been out of the ordinary. A nomad. The kind who would cut himself away from all human contact for a few days and go out in search of his destiny. So it’s no surprise that after starting out conventionally successful in a top-tier T-school and moving on to a plush role in automotive S&M, he gave it all up suddenly. To go in search of his higher calling.
Film making.
It’s been a couple of years now I think, since he gave up boring daily routines, and jumped into a field that’s a lot more risky and fulfilling to the creator all at once. And when a married man from a middle class family does that, all you can do is look on in awe and salute in respect.
And it wasn’t a baseless risk. He does have the flair when it comes to the visual arts. Flashes of brilliance were evident in his debut shortfilm, shot with friends “with-whatever-I-have”. But when he took the giant step ahead into professional short film making of the kind Tamil audiences have recently been generally blessed with, it all became a lot more evident.
When he released the teaser for “Yavarum Kelir” a few months back, it made one wonder what it was going to be about. Where it left no doubt was that this was going to be an intense little piece.
I made a mistake.
Of watching this during a service break on a long motorway journey. And it took a long time for me to recover from the impact, wipe my eyes dry and carry on with my journey. The treatment to the story jolts you up from your reverie. So make sure you are ready to take it on when you watch this:
Ya I know - I have not been posting much since my landing in this country. Been planning to post something about my first views of the place for about 3 months now. But you know how it is with blogs - you always wish to post something, and you keep delaying, and before you know it, you keep delaying even further.
As is customary with any blogger who has shifted base to a new location, I shall now pretend possessing total knowledge of everything about the place I am in and deliver verdicts with the apathy of those suited reviewers on Sun TV movie reviews.
So this is my FIR about my experiences in England. Or United Kingdom. Or Great Britain. Or whatever else this place is called. Trust me, I don't think many natives here know the difference between UK and GB. Being a consultant, I had to illuminate a Brit friend here with that knowledge (that I myself had acquired from Wiki) to get "Oh is that so? Never knew that. Thanks!" for a response. God promise!
In the months I have been here, my biggest learnings have been about the social customs of the place.
Being polite to others is a way of life here. I suspect if they don't perform any act of kindness to others in a day, they'll end up with digestion problems in the night. The most common 'act' you will find here is - opening doors for others.
Back home, opening a door was a simple process.
1. Reach the door
2. Open
3. Exit
Here, people have a fairly elaborate procedure for this.
1. Reach the door
2. Open
3. Wait like a sentry until someone else turns up
4. Then smile at them, and say 'After you'
5. They will smile back at you and insist that you go first
6. Smile, shrug, and go over to the other side
7. Then hold the door open for the other to pass through
8. Say "Cheers" and leave (not "What ho" or "Pip pip" or any of that stuff you read on PG Wodehouse)
I have had some fairly interesting experiences with this protocol.
Once after an unduly long meeting, I had to rush to the restroom (don't snigger, grow up). As I reached for the door and opened it in a hurry, I saw that it lead to a small passage with another door at the other end. And as providence would have it, at exactly the same moment, someone opened the other door from the other side. I know this might sound confusing, so I have taken the pains to draw out this complex graphic for you:
I guess you got the point now - there were two of us standing at the two ends of the passage, each holding a door open for the other. Remember multi-threading deadlocks? Exactly that. The atmosphere was tense. The air was crisp. Sweat covered both of our foreheads. Our brains were trying to work a way out of this stalemate. Furrowed brows. (But still, smiles on the lips). After a volley of "After you"s from both of us, we made a mutual decision to 'do it' in sync. Falling just short of counting to 3, we left our doors and lunged to reach the other door at the same time.
And we succeeded.
As the other guy heaved a huge sigh of relief and turned back to smile one more time at me, I had already rushed in to reduce my weight by a few grams.
Then there was the time when another complex situation arose cos' of this protocol.
I was just reaching the entrance to my office and was about to push the door open, when it opened by itself. There was a man on the other side wanting to get through. As I smiled and stepped aside saying "After you", he smiled and stepped aside saying "After you". And a lady joined in from his side, also wanting to get out. That's 3 people trying to get through 2 ways of 1 door. If that wasnt complex enough, add in the "After you"s and the fact that 1 of the 3 is a lady, you get a potboiler.
Eventually we guys somehow sorted it out and went on our paths relieved, but confused if we had followed the right protocol. And no - I don't remember how we really got ourselves out of the tangle.
But I had learned an important lesson that I have been putting to good use ever since - now if ever it looks like I would be reaching a door at the same time as someone else, I would dish out my phone with nonchalance, move away from the door with nonchalance, and nonchalantly start speaking on the phone until the moment of embarrassment passes by.
Yet another social custom I took some time adjusting to is: the greeting. On my second day at my client's office here, as I reached my seat, my neighbour looked at me, smiled, and asked "Are you alright?". I froze in my tracks, and wiped my face, checked my hair and de-creased my shirt and responded to him with a very doubtful "Well.. Yeah.. But.. Why?". By the time I managed to say all that, he had turned away. The incident affected my balance - was something wrong with me that I didnt know about? Shortly, I rushed to the restroom and checked in the mirror. Everything seemed fine. Perplexed, I returned back a confused man. It was much later that day that I realized that this was the standard greeting here; their means of saying "How are you?". And it is meant to be responded with "Not bad". Felt like an idiot when I learned that.
(Apologies for the long-ish post. The happening meant a lot to me. Hence the long-winded post)
The 3rd of July in 2006 was the day I entered the Indian workforce. For the first time.
It was a symbol of growing up of sorts.
I would be staying in a PG then on. I would wear a tag with my photo and name on it. I would start using Outlook and use email for non-forward purposes. I would be dining ‘outside’ every single meal. Mostly at one of the dharshinis that gave idly-vada for 15 bucks in the mornings, and roti-curry for 15 at nights. I would have a CUG sim, with a postpaid connection. And a credit card, very soon.
I am a very passive listener of songs. In the sense that I never pay attention to the lyrics. Not that I don't want to. But I just don't (manufacturing defect).
So on those rare occasions when I actually listen to the lyrics by some luck, I get stunned sometimes. And mostly I find that's when Vairamuthu has penned the lyrics.
(Ok frankly, I cant differentiate Vairamuthu from Vaali or anybody else. But just thought that last sentence will make me look intellectually more adequate.)
This is a listing of some immortal lines from Tamil film music that have attracted me.
Usuroda than keeren machi's!!! After suffering from life at IIMB and the complete joblessness thereafter, I am back!!
(Ok this is the closest icon I could find that kinda indicates a historic return. My intelligently thought-up search terms ("back") took me to a lot of backside pictures (wink wink) that I don't like seeing.
in office.)
A lot has changed in the world since the last time I blogged (except my blog itself). For starters, my course at IIMB is done. And as a result I have been re-inducted into my family. Been enjoying loads of quality family time in the past couple of months. Felt so refreshing to be back in context at the home turf.
The last weekend was an amazing time - took for a trip to the Mysore region with a gang of friends. Just after midnight, early Saturday morning, 7 of us (including self and the missus) trooped into a rickety old Qualis and made our way to Gopalaswamybetta.
We reached the hillock at around 7 am only to be treated to rib chilling cold and mist and fog! Some pics from the Godly place where mist hangs around till noon apparently!
I am not so much of a supporter of diets. I believe more in working out rather than in cutting one's intake. The missus is a proponent of dieting. And I usually fight with her over this.
But I heard about the GM diet a couple of days back. Anyone I spoke to about this had a good thing or two to say about it. So in a sudden pang, we decided to jump into it yesterday.
Day 1: 86 kg before the beginning of the diet. All fruits day. Was kinda tired of all the fruiting and pissing around all day! And had to suppress a lot of temptations :(
Day 2: 84.7 kg! 1.3 kg down in a single day! Today's an all vegetables day. It's evening, and slowly getting used to the diet. It feels great though :) More tomorrow..
Day 3: 85.2 kg :( Gone up a few hundred grams! Not worried though.. The first 4 days are only supposed to be preparation for the last three days of dieting, which is when the actual weight loss is supposed to happen. Lets see.
Day 4: 84.1 kg :) Ah! Back on track!
Day 5: 83.6 kg - Not a stellar fall from yesterday. Nonetheless its a fall at least!
Day 6:
83.1 kg - Things look great!! 3 kg in 5 days!!
But alas :( This was the last day of my diet :( Given that this is my Thalai Deepavali, couldn't really argue with the in-laws on the validity of my diet. So broke the diet today!
And didn't measure my weight for 3 more days. Kept feeding heavily on sweets and stuff. Finally reached 86 after all the munching on the occasion of Diwali. So am back at square one, but the diet prevented me from reaching 89! In that sense, was successful!!! And the inches I lost haven't come back (as yet). And now am quite conscious of the amount of food I take, and am able to say no anything, however tempting it might be!! So on the whole, I give this diet a thumbs up.
(Note: Some people complain against this diet, saying it might lead to side effects like loss of hair. I have always been losing hair rather fast, so I didn't notice anything odd)
Small is big nowadays. From Twenty20 to Twitter, the message is loud and clear. One more example in this list is FML.
FML is not a very popular site - as yet. But I think it will grow bigger. The concept is simple: it eats on our tendency to gossip, to pass judgments on others, and to crib about life in general. And it is only a couple of hundred characters in length. One more instance of micro blogging a la twitter.
Drawing from this idea, this post is an attempt at another form of emo-blogging (sorry, my coinage!). This is a request to all readers to mention what made you HAPPY today. Please don't use more than a line or two. It could be a smalllllll thing, but then small is big!
He he he.. I haven't given up on this series :) Not yet at least! Cos my best moments of the trip are yet to be featured! Anyway, am getting bored of narrating stuff. So planning to put only pics in the 2-3 remaining posts. Here goes...
The next day began at Ile Aux Cerfs (pronounced ee-loo-surfs) beach island - Awesome place for adventure sports.
Amazing ride this!! Zooming around and falling into the ocean!!
Me - almost reached the rubber thingee.
Wifey - swimming for dear life a few metres away.
We didn't realize the ocean was only 5 feet deep beneath us!
Tandem Paragliding - this wasn't scary at all! God knows how!
They dip you once during the trip :)
A cruise ship on the way back from Ile Aux Cerfs
Outside our hotel room - just after the rains
Ditto
Freshhhhhhh!!
The stillness after the rains
(reminded me of that blue-colored Alaipayuthey shot)
Carrying a tripod around helped!
This was the REAL colour in REAL life then (8 PM)!!
Never knew nature could be so strikingly colorful
Now on to some photography lessons of sorts. The following three shots appear pitch-dark because they were taken at around 10 PM with the auto mode set in the camera.
What follows are pics of the same frames taken with the controls set manually. Basically just had an extended exposure - about 15 seconds for the first and second; 30 seconds for the last. No flash was used for these shots. Flash kills beauty in the dark!
This last pic won me a photography contest :)
(The 30-second exposure pic)
That was Dec-31 2008. Celebs at midnight!
Just when we had almost retired for the night, the revelry began all of a sudden. Fireworks lit up the sky and the ocean. And a Sega dance troupe began performing. (Sega is the Mauritian Belly Dance). Here's a video:
Sometime a couple of months ago, Rakesh came up with the concept of creating a patriotic video for IIMB. Mile Sur Mera Tumhara was the last rage, and he felt it was maybe time to try out a new one. So we set out working on ARR's Jana Gana Mana.
The videos were shot in a single day - surprisingly almost everything went off well that day. We had fixed time slots for the shooting for everyone - from the director of the insti, to the housekeeping staff. We simply couldn't afford to get delayed anywhere given the packed schedule. And we also had to tug along the heavy camera, monitor, tripod, blowers et al and run all around the campus. Was a verrrrry hectic day! Luckily had a good cameraman - Mr Rafiq who understood exactly what I wanted. And even more luckily have a very devoted wife who wanted to be the 'squirrel' and ended up being a lot more!
Anyway, here is the final product of my first 'professional' attempt :)
As Nov gets nearer, the home front is getting more and more active. As D-Day (literally!) arrives, my sis D is harder to talk to. If only her phone were any smaller, you would think it was her earring - always by her ears! And ISD isn't a barrier anymore. VoIP to the rescue of the future 'woip' of an America maaple.
To the point: This post is a request to all Chennai-ites - please suggest some good wedding photographer in Chennai. I am looking at online sources and reviews, but nothing like first hand reviews!
So if you folks know someone good in Chennai, do let me know - in the comments or by mail!
-------------
Update: More than 8 months later, I keep getting many hits on this particular post. So some gyan for those who land here from Google:
- I ended up booking Mr Sabari (Priya Vision, Coimbatore) - he is an amazing photographer with a very artistic eye. Drop me a mail for his contact (vishwa (dot) suren at gmail)
- Udhaya from Trichy is another great choice. See Chandy's comment below to get to Udhaya
- Raja Ponsingh is the undisputed leader in the Chennai wedding photography market. If you have landed here from Google, the odds are that you have already seen his webpage. He is expensive, so if your budget does not allow booking him, Udhaya or Sabari can be good alternatives.
(All these three are people who do concept wedding photography. They do not simply shoot pics and put together an album. Their albums are like story books with each page themed to a particular concept. Just see their portfolio to know what am saying)
This is an impulse post. Just heard from Techian junior Srikkant that he has scored 760 on the GMAT. This is something I wanted to tell him, but posting here as they are derived from some convictions I have in life.
---- Awesome da! Congrats and best wishes! The most important thing now for you is to make proper choices. And live with them. I often am asked by people if I settled for less despite my GMAT score. I personally don't think so, though I am not sure how many will be able to see the sense my decision makes to me. When I took my GMAT, it was just a backup option for the future in case CAT 2007 didn't work out well. By God's grace, both worked well for me, and I stuck to my priorities I had decided on before the results came out. I am extremely happy with IIMB and am sure I made the best possible decision when I had the choices in my front. So also when I chose Tech over Anna Univ after my class 12. People still curve their eyebrows when they hear of that decision of mine. But again, absolutely no regrets from my side. Totally happy with that choice too. But had I not been so sure of my happiness with these decisions, others could have drilled into and weakened my conviction about these past choices of mine. It did require me to be considerably apathetic to others' opinions and stick to my guns, and that did require some effort. So, in short, make your choice with good reason, and NEVER EVER regret about it later. Cheers! ----
Well that ends the letter of sorts.
I personally got very excited hearing of this news from him because GMAT had never been so popular an option at good ol' Tech. Placements had always been choice no. 1. GRE and GMAT were not too common until around the time I graduated. GRE was becoming hot at that time and saw loads of Techians seeking US visas. GMAT is still awaiting that sort of patronage from Tech. When I chose to write the exam, there were no seniors to guide me. Found it a bit difficult to accumulate exam gyan from different sources and organize them into a package of sorts (and hence happened my GMAT posts on my other blog). But again, around that time, a few of my mates at Tech took the GMAT too (JP thalai, Rathu thalai, Phalgun, Deepthi etc). I hope successes like these will lead Tech folks in greater numbers towards the GMAT.
(p.s.: For the uninitiated, 'Tech' is the general word used to refer to PSG Tech in and around Coimbatore.)
This was one of the trips I went on during my internship at Mumbai. Muru gracefully agreed to come with me and was a real pain in all the wrong places with his constant bickering at my slow pace.
Lesson #1: Never take non-photography-enthusiasts on a photo walk. Or if you do, make them the models. They will shut up for a while (at least, Muru did). While it was a nice trip overall, and for once it was great to see a well maintained place of interest inside the subcontinent, the dilapidated statues at Elephanta are a sore sight. The more one looks at it, the more painful it is. And mind you, this is not the result of inept maintenance. A few hundred years back, the Portuguese landed at these caves, and used the statues as target practice and defaced them!! As a result, what we have today is a bunch of ex-statues. Really painful to see if you know the story. While one goes expecting 1000 yrs of history, all one gets to see is 400 years of misery. Anyway, the sob story apart, here's what transpired in that hot Mumbai afternoon of April 2009.
Adra Sakka Adra Sakka!
It's quite a long walk (half a km) from the jetty to the base of the small hillock atop which the caves reside. There's a small train that ferries people along this route.
The principle icon of Elephanta Caves - The Trimurti
That's my model - Muru - posing shamelessly as passersby look on
Practical geometry!
1 kilo mutton paaaarrrrcelllll!
Frankly an awful pic. But liked it for some vague reason!
