Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Remembering musicians of the recent past
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cpblog
Posts: 233
Joined: 07 Jul 2009, 22:01

Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by cpblog »

Dear Rasikas,

Tuesday May 12, 2015 night witnessed one of the most tragic rail accidents in the history of Amtrak, in nearby Philadelphia,USA.
One of the casualties, was a most loving and enduring personality called Jim Gaines, who was also instrumental in starting the "Parvathi" Blog.
Please welcome to http://chowdaiahandparvati.blogspot.com/ and with our prayers for the healing of his family.

Respectfully,

CPBlog Team

Ranganayaki
Posts: 1760
Joined: 02 Jan 2011, 06:23

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by Ranganayaki »

I'm so sorry.. Condolences to all who enjoy the blog.

Nick H
Posts: 9379
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 02:03

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by Nick H »

Very sad: condolences to you all

cacm
Posts: 2212
Joined: 08 Apr 2010, 00:07

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by cacm »

VERY SAD; GREAT MAN.......VKV

rshankar
Posts: 13754
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:26

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by rshankar »

Condolences to his family and followers of the blog. May his soul rest in peace!

maduraimini
Posts: 477
Joined: 22 Sep 2009, 02:55

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by maduraimini »

Condolences to the Jim Ganines family and others who died in the tragic accidentt. RIP.

vasanthakokilam
Posts: 10956
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 00:01

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by vasanthakokilam »

very sad to hear. Condolences to his family.

arasi
Posts: 16774
Joined: 22 Jun 2006, 09:30

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by arasi »

Very sad. He was so young :(

We need folks like him to live forever--to be snatched away so soon! A caring man taken away due to the carelessness of another? Victim of another tragedy :(

News like this bring sobering thoughts. How music and friendship bind us! When we quibble over trivialities, get insensitive to others, these are sobering moments, indeed. It recaptures another loss--of John Higgins, again a victim to the carelessness (callousness?) of another.

Though much older, another loss to the music world is in the news today. B.B. King is no more. Musicians, music teachers, friends in the music world, all those who nourish us, leaving a void behind...

Life is precious, that too of those who come to earth to improve our lot by their goodwill and friendship. Music too, of course.

Condolences to the family, and friends like you...

cpblog
Posts: 233
Joined: 07 Jul 2009, 22:01

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by cpblog »

We acknowledge, on behalf of the Gaines family, the many beautiful and kind sentiments expressed here by the many respected Rasikas. The Gaines extended families joined the many Chinmaya Mission devotees of the Princeton Chapter, in prayers with the Bhagawad Gita "Akshara Brahma Yoga" and "Vishnu Sahasranama".

CPBlog Team

Sreeni Rajarao
Posts: 1283
Joined: 04 Feb 2010, 08:19

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by Sreeni Rajarao »

Sorry to hear about the loss. Sincere condolences.

thanjavooran
Posts: 2972
Joined: 03 Feb 2010, 04:44

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by thanjavooran »

Very sad. condolences to the team
Thanjavooran
17 05 2015

Sundara Rajan
Posts: 1081
Joined: 08 Apr 2007, 08:19

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by Sundara Rajan »

Heartfelt condolences to his family and friends. Some are never forgotten and Jim Gaines is such a one. Every time we listen to the recordings in
"Parvathi Blog", we will be reminded of his contributions and will continue to pray for his soul.

mahavishnu
Posts: 3341
Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 21:56

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by mahavishnu »

Sincere condolences.

cpblog
Posts: 233
Joined: 07 Jul 2009, 22:01

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by cpblog »

What’s in a Nom de Plume?

Image

So, I am sitting here with Jim Gaines, on a particular morning.

If you must know it’s that coffee shop to the right with those red awnings.

It is too early on a winter’s morn to be seen bundling up and to be sitting here (no, the morning is not as clear as in the photograph ).
It’s actually quite bleak.

But the aroma of ground coffee, percolated, is very welcome, and we’ve also chosen “to get some work done” (Jim’s words).

I have managed to buy into Jim’s sympathy with my story of a very unique home in the annals of music from India. It doesn’t really matter what type of music it is (most of it is definitely an alien one to Jim). What’s important is that our temperaments matched; he has been a good listener and I have been dying for many years to tell an uncommon story.

So, now that we’ve gotten our steaming coffees together and have found our favorite cozy corner, we break the gruff of a winter’s morn for a brief few minutes before each of us settle down.

Jim then starts to go silent on me. He is conjuring up whatever it is that swirls in his brilliantly technological head and to which he breathes away a steady life, through a keyboard.

For myself, I am in some kind of a misery with this weather.

The mind braced by the coffee, however, soon sluggishly starts to unravel.

As usual, it starts to go philosophical (a non-sequitur). I wonder why I am thinking of the Samskrutha (Sanskrit) word ‘parinaama’; of how everything changes and nothing is forever.

I am told one day, that the house named 'Parvathi' which had a long vibratory life, too, had just vanished. I have difficulty, digesting that part of it. How does a house that has lived with so many graces, so long in supposed eternity, and as beautiful in description as perhaps a ‘Tara’ in ‘Gone with the wind’, not exist anymore?

Damn, I can even now see myself at seven swinging on its silvery painted gates.

I can even now smell that yellow ‘Champaka’ flower, ever fresh in its unique fragrance wafting from a majestic parent tree; a tree that grew right next to the gate. The same smell that used to find itself in a soothing passage towards the olfactory senses of the illustrious ones like Vasudavacharya, Lalgudi, KVN and Ramabhadran who all acknowledged its presence.

Below that very tree used to be a beautiful white, granite, stone bench. On many an evening of an annual visit to that very home, I would find myself appropriating a space on it. On some nights, too, I would discern a resplendent moon, soft and soothing, casting a glow as it hung low over the same ‘Champaka’ tree and wrote its own beautiful sonnets in a beholder’s mind.

Given that picture, would you blame that master flutist N. Ramani for seeking to run away from everybody into an altogether peaceful solitude, on a similar night, after a 3 hour wizardry immersed in soulful dedication? That poetic picture, long frozen in the memory of the custodian of the house who had beheld it, would periodically unwind in some rapturous expression over many occasions.

* * * * * *

From reminiscences of that lonely feel, my mind soon takes off jumping to a bitter sweet memory of life in Kolkata (then known as Calcutta). I am now done with the life of a high schooled and looking towards becoming a collegian. But, I have also graduated into becoming a ‘nut’ case and I am looking forward to some sort of a ‘torpedo’ to the life. My version of it is to be found in hanging about in a place called Trincas all day and listening to the juke box .

Anyway, the association with Trincas music in that juke box moves me on to another name, in a different place.

Within the same moodiness, I now find myself in Brooklyn and New York in the 1970s. Back in the 70’s, New York is anything but the ‘disney land’ type of appearance one sees these days.

In the 70's, the rage in Manhattan is to be able to do the ‘Hustle’, in more ways than one. Along with the myriads of sounds of Disco which has flooded the imagination, the one that has topped the charts and that is being played out constantly in the streets and out of the bars and pizza parlors is something called Kung Fu Fighting’.

Coming back to the dorms one day, I espy the jacket to the record with a friend who is playing it in his room. The blurbs said that the hit was produced by somebody called ‘Biddu. Now, it didn’t take me long to figure out that the name sounded Indian. But who could this Biddu be? and if it was an Indian name how could he be doing something so marvelous in 1974, something that I had never heard of ?

It didn’t take me long in my tenacity to solve that one. When I found out the answer, it brought a warm oozy feeling. This happened to be the same 'Biddu’ whose poster I had seen advertised once as ‘Biddu and the Trojans’ at the earlier favorite Trincas. I could have come across him equally as well in the Junior Statesman that would engross me in the earlier days.

This was just not a Biddu, it was Biddu Appiah from way back home in Bengaluru and he probably spoke Kannada just as well. But, he had vanished completely from the Indian scene and now here in my US stay his song was on everyone’s lips.

I am thinking now, of all the fabulous numbers that Biddu rolled over repeatedly, one hit after another….'Summer of 42' (a song on a movie of a similar name with the stunning Jennifer O’Neill, I’d seen back in Bangalore….'Voodoo' something….and then it was 'Nirvana'…… ]

* * * * * *

It’s this last number that is playing in my mind, when I’m woken out of my reverie.

It’s a voice speaking to me.

It’s Jim and he is asking “So I’ve finished putting in the title….created a url ( link), and created a password which I’ll give you….what would you like the publisher’s name to be?…you want your first name?....both your two names?.....”

For some reason, I don’t want to think outside my reverie – not just yet.

I also don’t want my name to be associated with anything that could be as mercifully destructible as Parvathi’ in her material form.

I begin to reach towards things that one cannot crush – air, the sunlight, the Soul …… the transcendental ones…Sat….Chit….Ananda......?.

I hesitate … I grope…. Finally, I get it.

I cry out rather hoarsely “Nirvana!

“OK, 'Nirvana' it shall be!”
(Jim’s words echo a final seal to the blog).


[ For a refresh on those that mattered as we roll over another calendar year from 2015 to 2016 ]

cacm
Posts: 2212
Joined: 08 Apr 2010, 00:07

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by cacm »

VERY INTERESTING.....HAPPY NEW YEAR.... MAY SHOW UP IN B'LORE TO Shrinivasan .Viswanathan's house in JAN sometime (may be around 20th?) for a week.....If you are free see web cast of JAN 15TH MS CENTENARY FUNCTION at Sastry Hall 5:30 to 9:30 P.M by parivadini.....VKV

cpblog
Posts: 233
Joined: 07 Jul 2009, 22:01

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by cpblog »

Sir VKV,

Many thanks for a quick and kind response.
B'lore ah, yes! (would give anything to escape the winter in N.E. USA).
Please enjoy....I am sure you will be in great company.
- Nirvana

Rsachi
Posts: 5039
Joined: 31 Aug 2009, 13:54

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by Rsachi »

Dear Vishwa,
For Nirvana, or coming over to our dear ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು, you need to give only two things =a credit card to the ticketing agent, a valid passport with visa to the immigration.

Bg 5.24

yo ’ntaḥ-sukho ’ntar-ārāmas tathāntar-jyotir eva yaḥ
sa yogī brahma-nirvāṇaṁ brahma-bhūto ’dhigacchati
Word for word: 
yaḥ — one who; antaḥ-sukhaḥ — happy from within; antaḥ-ārāmaḥ — actively enjoying within; tathā — as well as; antaḥ-jyotiḥ — aiming within; eva — certainly; yaḥ — anyone; saḥ — he; yogī — a mystic; brahma-nirvāṇam — liberation in the Supreme; brahma-bhūtaḥ — being self-realized; adhigacchati — attains.
Translation: 
One whose happiness is within, who is active and rejoices within, and whose aim is inward is actually the perfect mystic. He is liberated in the Supreme, and ultimately he attains the Supreme.

Even Modi knows this. He came over to Mysuru (and Bengaluru) y'day! And your neighbour Manjul Bhargava came over to Chennai. :D
Happy Mew Year!
(a cat that mews cosily is always in nirvana, and we should follow the marjala nyaya)

cpblog
Posts: 233
Joined: 07 Jul 2009, 22:01

Re: Jim Gaines: The man who started the 'Parvathi' Blog

Post by cpblog »

Dear RSachi Avare,

That ringing call from you in Australia “I am mad about Music!” still reverberates in the mind, even after these many years. :D

As Shakespeare might have alluded to such things “ the stars make it possible”. We tend to simply say ‘Muhurtha”.

It is all however that spirit within which one is named, the ‘Sat-Chit-Ananda’, that made you resurrect the voices of the scores of masters over almost six decades; of a continuous presence over ten days of Ramanavami, during years of Gowri/Ganesha, not to mention scores of impromptu playing whenever each person’s will suited them.

…..and all of it just from one mere home and not from any public ‘sabha’.

Now, ‘Sat-Chit-Ananda’ is prompting you to ring the BG in each heart! :P

Yes, there is the passport, there is a carrier to Bangalore, and in the US there is also something called the ankle bracelet! :lol:
But I will quote a higher purpose, the words of the Sage Ramana:
“ ……whatever is destined not to happen will not happen; what will happen is bound to happen…….”
(and within finite minuscule minds, we are free to interpret free will in any which way)

Best wishes for a 2016 to your great contributions and to all the august Rasikas of this forum!

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