An Equal Music

Every Saraswathi Puja, we place books at the Goddess feet and pray her grace allows us to learn, understand, appreciate better.  It is usually anything and everything - Ash elementary Hindi letters, Gau phy/chem/math, Tao and the art of watercolour and finally "A Southern Music" by TMK.  I opened the TMK book randomly and came upon a page where he talks about how to define classical music, how delineating folk and classical music is a form of oligarchy (Some Harvard prof said that. That brings me to a news article I read yesterday, more on that later).  It felt drier than my thesis and I closed the book.
Today morning the Friday supplement headlines read "An Equal Music", a conversation with L Subramanian and Kavitha Krishnamurthy about an upcoming concert in Music Academy.  The title niggled and it dawned on me that it was the title of a Vikram Seth novel, a love affair between a pianist and a violinist.  I ruminated over my memory of the story for a while, remembering the catholic guilt felt by the heroine, just like the one in the Graham Greene novel (End of an affair)  and how it is surprisingly not prevalent in hinduism.  Meenakshi from A Suitable Boy doesn't feel any guilt as far as I can recall.   Then I was thinking over how Vikram Seth was so much more interesting than Rushdie and how his craft sublimates the usual melodrama of loves gained and lost.  Then for a fleeting moment, I thought how equal music could apply to the commonality of all musical experience, karnatic/folk/western.  It is perhaps the listener who imbues intense feelings to music, music like math just IS. Like GEB (Godel Escher and Bach, a book I never really finished or understood, if any of you do get it, I will be your disciple :)  suggests, the mechanisms underlying a system which encodes "knowledge" about the system gives rise to the identity of the system. It becomes an independent entity, not just something created by the creator.

So my thesis with its borrowed physiological simulator, added sensors and actuators could with the addition of some intelligent programming become a self sustaining  system with identity, i.e. a "I" like one of us? That brings me to how we are probably an experiment/simulator concocted by Mice and Dolphins probably as suggested by the inimitable Douglas Adams in HHGTG.  Books are awesome, aren't they?  They help your thoughts ramble and carry you far far away.


 I still had the folk music, classical music dichotomy in my mind when I came to this gem:
Emi Sethura Linga

I can't believe I have never heard these before! And how great is the violin subbing for a ektaara?  It is so rare to find songs on Lord Shiva by BMK.  Joy in the singing and joy in the listening.  Doesn't he look very pleased at the end of the song?

I get why Bharati says "Sundara Telugu"  Really.  I do.  Listening to BMK sing anything.

I have this fantasy at times that man kind will come to a point where they become immortal after a fashion - take best moment's of a life and play it over and over.  Take away the sense of deja vu so that you don't realise you are an infinite repeat mode.  The awe of the first time I listened to this song would feature on my playlist - it was the perfect setting hubby at work, Gau in school, Ash asleep me working and listening to music and the skies about to burst forth with monsoon rains any moment.

Speaking of absurdities, my friend, one with whom I shared this link, noticed the concert is held in AKG centre, name after the famous COMMUNIST leader A K Gopalan.

I needed one more fix of this beautiful music and I come to the next gem:

Ninu vidisiyundalenayya

And no, I didn't forget my PhD.  My macbook stood in for all my research papers, and thesis.  It was also in the puja.

And IMHO, folk music focuses on the lyrics, classical music, could focus on anything from the lyrics to technical talent of the musician.

I have just started to have organic vegetables delivered home, D2D Organics.  becoming a self-determining system, the decision to cook organic forces me to cook healthier too - they gave me a bunch of murugakeerai, hard to cook and difficult to force feed.   I used the last 1/3 cup of millet I had left over with raw rice and dals and a good 3 fistfuls of murugakeerai to make Adai for dinner.  Friday evening wd have been toast and maggi otherwise.  Maggi is back!  I don't make maggi more than once a month, but all the governments inept actions, perversely makes me want to make it frequently


  1. 1/3 cup millet
  2. 1/2 cup rice
  3. 2 red chillies
  4. 1 green chilly
  5. 1/2 cup toor daal
  6. 1/2 cup chana daal
  7. 1/4 cup moong
  8. 1 cup murungai leaves, washed, destemmed and chopped.
  9. Salt to taste
  10. Oil for making adai
  11. Lots of finely chopped onions/shallots/spring onions (optional)
  12. Grated coconut (optional)


Soak 1-2 for 1 hour
Grind 1-4 to a paste.
Grind 5-7 to a paste
Mix the two batter add salt and the greens.
Heat a cast iron pan.
Make thin crepes with the batter on medium heat
Serve hot with grated jaggery or mileage podi.

batter

adai
adai with milagaipodi




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