Some of the ‘Metro Plus’ staffers, all newbies to Carnatic music, had questions about the Season. Baradwaj Rangan attempts to keep a straight face and provide answers. (All names are changed.)
Dear BR: If we’re listening to an earnest Abheri and the smell of the adai-avial from the canteen is irresistible, what do we do? – If music be the love of food…
What a silly question. You go to the canteen, of course. After all, it is possible to listen to the earnest Abheri in the canteen, but the adai-avial won’t come to you in the sabha.
Dear BR: I want to check out Carnatic music, but I am intimidated by all the terms floating around in the reviews – alapana, kalpanaswaram, thani avarthanam… They can’t just call an auditorium an auditorium, right? It has to be a… sabha. Even December isn’t December any more – it’s Margazhi. I mean, who renames a month? – Dazed in December.
Sigh. I know. It would be a lot easier if they said “raga elaboration and exploration” instead of alapana. But imagine the plight of the newspaper if there are ten concert reviews. If they substituted each instance of “alapana” with “raga elaboration and exploration,” they’d need a special supplement. Now, take the word “emoticon.” You use it all the time, right? Imagine if your grandfather said he found it confusing and that he’d feel more comfortable if you said “a digital icon or a sequence of keyboard symbols that serves to represent a facial expression, and convey the writer’s emotions or clarify intent.” Get the idea? The trick is not to worry about the terms. Just be open to the music.
Dear BR: What do you think of people sitting on the stage and beside the performer during a packed concert? – Bill A. Hari.
I think they are called (left to right), the mridangam player, the kanjira player and the violinist.
Dear BR: What is the origin of the words ‘besh’ and ‘bale’ and why are they repeatedly used in concerts? – Gobble D Gook.
Long before “EPIC!” became commonplace, people needed other words to express their admiration. Hence ‘besh’ and ‘bale’. As for their origin, I’ll tell you only if you can tell me how a word that used to connote The Mahabharata and The Odyssey has come to signify your appreciation of everything from a Federer drop shot to a Rajinikanth meme.
Dear BR: Are silks and flowers a part of the prescribed uniform for singers? – Pattu Mami
Don’t be daft. The last time I saw Sikkil Gurucharan on stage, he was in a veshti-kurta.
Dear BR: So, okay, I go to one of these things. What if I don’t like it? There isn’t even a place nearby, in this godforsaken city, where I can drown my sorrows with a drink. – Marga(zhi)rita.
Okay, you have to stop being a baby. You hated the taste of beer at first. But you developed a taste for it, right? And now, when you meet up with friends, you say, “Let’s put a beer, machi!” So think of Carnatic music as beer. You wince at the first sip, but keep at it and you may, one day, find yourself saying, “Let’s put a kutcheri, machi!” Or think of Carnatic music as wine. At first, you just ask for “white” or “red,” but if you cultivate an interest, you may find yourself telling the waiter, “I’ll have the 1994 Concha y Toro Don Melchor Cabernet Sauvignon.” Or think of Carnatic music as rum – it features a lot of compositions by old monks. The key is to consume a lot. Someday, the music may end up giving you a real high.
Dear BR: Is it rude if I do a Yo Yo Honey Singh thing in the middle of Margazhi? Can I air guitar? – Double Cheese Rap.
I can’t honestly say I know what a “Yo Yo Honey Singh thing” is, but as long as you don’t break into a lungi dance in the middle of Music Academy, I guess it should be okay. As for air guitaring – absolutely not. You may, however, try air violining and air mridanging.
Dear BR: Do the thighs of Carnatic singers pain after heavy-duty tala delivery? – Ache Do Teen.
Um, they’re simply counting out the beats of the rhythm cycle – they’re not exactly doing lunges. Though that might be something to see. Sa, two, three, four… Ri, two, three, four…
What’s the best translation device to use if the lyrics leave you baffled? – It’s getting verse.
Well, if you’re a beginner, listen to the music first. Then try to figure out the meaning. Let’s say you go to an ice-cream parlour. Are you going to savour the taste, or will you begin Googling up the compounds present in vanilla? Or chocolate. Or… Hey, how do you expect me to answer this question if you won’t tell me what your favourite ice-cream flavour is?
Dear BR: What do you do if you enter the wrong hall and find yourself ushered to the front row of what turns out to be a lecture by a scary-looking woman who makes you clap and sing Govinda-Govinda for 20 minutes non-stop? Is there any elegant way to make an exit? – Trauma Queen.
Listen carefully. You are not in a Carnatic music concert. You are inside Ram Gopal Varma’s head, experiencing his dreams. GET OUT AT ONCE!
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2014 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Sadhana
December 13, 2014
loved the title!
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K.Seetharam
December 14, 2014
Ga-Ma radiation is ‘sar sari’. BR is an inimitable and irresistable. Somewhere I read that ‘while Beauty is ‘sahaja’, Alankara is ‘krithrima’. While the concert on the stage is ‘shaja’ your consort’s alankara is kritrima.
Consort here is the focus and involvement. As BR says ,call it Beer,Wine or Rum..Begin to like it,
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Anusha
December 14, 2014
Stop it, I am on a pun overload and I did the mistake of drinking my morning filter kaapi while reading this….gotta go find something to wipe my laptop screen
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Anu Warrier
December 14, 2014
You owe me a keyboard! 🙂
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sriramv
December 14, 2014
Reblogged this on Madras Heritage and Carnatic Music and commented:
The inimitable Baradwaj Rangan at his best
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Iswarya
December 14, 2014
Do people overuse the word ‘epic’ all that much? Maybe I live under a rock, and don’t have a fashionable lot around me who latch on to such cool words, still… It seems weird!
Rather OT: I was reminded of the most powerful instance of ‘epic’ used as an intensifying adjective, seeing this. It’s in A Streetcar named Desire, when Blanche laments the loss of her estate due to her ancestors’ “epic formications.” For some reason, maybe due to the Production Code, the movie version watered this down to “epic debaucheries.”
BR, do you feel annoyed too when movies do this to much-beloved books?
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Madan
December 14, 2014
Hilarious stuff. Let’s put a kutcheri machi, oddly syncs with let’s take a selfie pulla.
As for epic, I guess it’s used more often on the internet/social networks than in ‘live’ conversations. At least nobody I know uses that while talking. But they (the same people) might use it on fb.
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ThouShaltNot
December 14, 2014
“Epic” is an American colloquialism that has caught fire. The antecedents were “awesome” and “cool” (although, failure can be epic as well). The more prevalent (and less trendy) Indian equivalent of this overused hyperbole (outside blogs and social networking sites) is “super”. Nothing is merely good. It has to be “super”. As with any hyperbole, its overuse devalues it over time.
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Ravi K
December 14, 2014
I am currently visiting India, and I saw a drink at Cafe Coffee Day called “Kaapi Nirvana.” I didn’t realize 90s grunge had infiltrated Carnatic music.
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Iswarya
December 14, 2014
There! I just noticed the typo in my earlier comment, misspelt thanks to the overdeveloped prudery of my mobile dictionary that autocorrects whatever it finds objectionable! Incidentally, I just came to know of the existence of this word ‘forMication’ that apparently means “a body sensation that feels as if ants are crawling over the skin.”
How creepy!!
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hari
December 14, 2014
Awesome writeup …
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Kutty
December 14, 2014
Did you mean “Let’s put a Kut(ting)cheri”? Some of the names (Maragazhirita?!) hit all the right notes. This post was pretty epic .A neat job by the Hindu to orchestrate this imaginary Q&A. And with that I take a quick bow and leave the stage for the air-mridangists.
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niranjanmb
December 15, 2014
To add to the comment by ThouShaltNot, it is like the use of “110 percent” by sportsmen (and women too? I haven’t heard women utter this meaningless phrase) especially NBA players. So giving a 100 percent is now below par.
The meaninglessness of this has reached new heights in workplaces too. I know of a case where the candidature of one applicant was seriously debated over because someone had valued his work as ‘good’ and not ‘outstanding’,without the slightest consideration that good still is good!
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Jai
December 15, 2014
BR, this article made my day yesterday. My weekend was a great one indeed, having watched the Battle of the Five Armies on Saturday (found it Very good, waiting for your take) and grinning all through Sunday recalling bits of this hilarious article.
“”I think they are called (left to right), the mridangam player, the kanjira player and the violinist.””
and
“”Or think of Carnatic music as rum – it features a lot of compositions by old monks.””
These were EPIC (pun intended). How do these come to you, do you perchance have a peg of the good stuff for inspiration?? 😉 😉
@ Madan, the mangling of ‘epic’ usage used to be more online. Its spreading pretty fast offline, however. I was recently part of a panel of judges evaluating a debate competition in my alma mater. A participant rebutted his opposite number’s arguments as an ‘epic fail’. A sign of our times–he missed the best speaker award by a whisker (one of the dissenting votes was mine).
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brangan
December 15, 2014
Iswarya: I don’t tweet all that much, but the word “EPIC” and its extensions (“EPIC fail”) are all over. About the change in books, I guess it depends on how much I love the books to begin with.
ThouShaltNot: Nothing is merely good. It has to be super.
Exactly. A film either “sucks” or “rocks”. There’s nothing in between. A lot of films lie in the middle and you try to write a review that encompasses these middling feelings, and at the end someone will still ask, “Adhellaam sari, padam nalla irukkaa illayaa?” 😀
Kutty: A neat job by the Hindu to orchestrate this imaginary Q&A.
Er, no. These were real questions sent by the Metro Plus team 🙂
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Kutty
December 15, 2014
No. Wait. Then where does this sense of humor get lost between their heads and the usual final output? Are the editors to blame? 🙂
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complicateur
December 16, 2014
Here is a question “When a performer sings Sabha’pathi’kku veru dheivam samaanamaagumaa?..” are they just really brown nosing their way to another concert next season?
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Yossarian
December 16, 2014
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Arijit
December 16, 2014
I humbly register my protest at the indignation suffered by “air-guitaring” in this post…
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jerinasriram
December 16, 2014
😀 What a lovely post and such a good time too! I plan to do the rounds of sabhas like a good rasika and try to dip my toes in the holy land of Carnatic sangeetham. Of course, I have been doing some homework that constitutes mostly listening to popular artists’ kutcheris uploaded on Youtube. But such posts are always a boon.
Please keep more of these coming. If these are real questions, then why to you? I mean, I wouldn’t want to sound too surprised, but there has never been an inkling that you were into Carnatic music. Of course there have been those odd reviews of Tamil film music (unfortunately not Hindi) which sometimes went over my head purely due to their technical nature, and there have been your tongue-in-cheek Margazhi musings. But none like this. :).
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