Fumigation of mridangams for travel to NZ and Aus

[Sam Swaminathan]

My Anna Easwaran is presently in NZ for some concerts and on his arrival at Auckland airport, his mridangams were promptly held back by the ministry of agriculture and fisheries ( MAF) on the grounds of unsafe leather products requiring fumigation to NZ standards. Anna has visited these shores before multiple number of times, every time with the certificate issued by this fumigation company located in Broadway, Chennai. There had been no problems what so ever. However, this time it turned out to be different. It appears that the fumigation company had used wrong chemicals and even though their certificate affirms that the work had been done to the exact standards required by NZ law, it was not to be. Either they were unaware of the regulations or they have not kept themselves up to date with changing requirements around the world. NZ aurthorities confirm that these regulations have been in place for the last 2 years, atleast.

The mridangams are in their custody, being refumigated with the correct chemicals following the correct procedure. The units will be released to me in the next few hours. Currently I have located some other unit with the same sruthi and he is managing with that. Needless to say, I have spent a sizable amount of money in rectifying the situation. Money spent in Chennai was a waste of time. This fumigation company in chennai is supposed to be a professional firm providing services to exporters worldwide. There is some thing missing here!

Be that as it may, I am providing a link where I have stored the document showing the actual requirements with the official name of the department at the bottom. They advised me that with this little incident they have now alerted their system to priority mode so that every time any other artists visit NZ such person would come with in their radar.

Please bring this to the attention of other mridangam artists whom you know so that they are aware of this and they do not go thru what I have gone thru here. In case you are wondering how anna has taken this, don't worry, he is relaxing now that the problem had been shoved to me!

Here goes the link

http://db.tt/4viWvTmv

Regards

[arasi]

Sam,
Sorry to hear this. Shame on that company in Chennai--you had to deal with it all.
Glad to hear that your Anna is not unduly perturbed about this. Yes, he can rest (on his laurels) after his impressive performances in Cleveland.

It's a good thing you are alerting others who do not have a thambi en situ, should such a crisis arise. Seems as if what's good for the US and Canada is not good enough for your country. The Chennai fumigating company was very irresponsible. Percussion artistes may want to smoke 'them' out!

[Sam Swaminathan]

Thank you Arasiji....NZ is essentially a farming and agricultural based country. Due to inadequate exposure to sun, the country's eco system is extremely fragile given to bouts of plant deseases sweeping across the country with in a matter of weeks! In the early 2000, due to an intrusion of some moths, entire apple industry harvest got wiped out costing close to a billion dollar to the economy. Hence the MAF is extremely cautious to the point of being pedantic at times. But then, I do not blame them. Any such disaster in the economy has a roll on effect causing depression and unemployment and a concomitant negative impact on the economic life of the country as a whole. So to that extent standards in this regard varies from that of US, Canada, Europe and even Australia ( in certain areas ).

Glad to advise that I have now collected the units. I will take them home for Anna to check them out. Hopefully, they are ok. Will report later.

Regards.........Sam

[rajeshnat]

Sam
I am assuming irrespective of how the job is done by chennai based fumigation company , mridangist still have to do it in India once before boarding the plane to NZ/Aus.I hope either you or Easwaran Sir can pass this pdf and give feedback to the chennai based company(giving them a benefit of doubt).

I am happy that the authorities did finally allow the mrudangam instead of permanently quarantining the same.

All this makes me optimistically think that after two rounds of fumigation the nAdham of mrudu angam may even get better . . I am sure you following your dear brother would be the first to spot tha t . Best wishes for the concert series

[mahavishnu]

Sam, Glad that you have picked up the mridangams. I hope (like Rajesh) that nadham gets better after fumigation!

Last music season, I attended a lec-dem by Sri UKS at Krishna Gana Sabha where he showed his newly crafted mridangams that did not use leather materials. He specifically stated that they would not cause problems with Aus/NZ customs. He has developed a collaboration with people at CLRI in Chennai to arrive at the right synthetic materials. After doing frequency analyses (using CV Raman's methods), he concluded that these mridangams passed his stringent sound tests.

I know that your anna has entertained the idea of fiberglass mridangams; perhaps he might not be opposed to considering one of these synthetic ones as well.

[sreecons]

So, is there another company in Chennai that follows fumigation procedures correctly? Are NZ policies stricter than Australia in this regard? Very interesting to note.