What's in a name?

[harimau]

"What is in a name", asked Shakespeare and answered it himself. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." A story is told about a nagaswaram vidwan who, after hearing a melody, played that elaborately even though he didn't know what raga he was playing. When someone asked him the name of the raga, he replied, "Would sugar be any less sweet if you didn't know its name?"

The converse also seems to hold good. There is this eating establishment in Chennai that has been in business for two decades though bearing the name "Hotel Runs". (Am I the only one who thinks 'runny stools' upon hearing this name?)

Nevertheless, choosing a good name seems to guarantee if not success at least the ability to draw even folks like me. With a name like "Bhakti Sangeet Utsav", how can Carnatica go wrong? After all, how many persons would like to be thought of as "mad elephants", as Sri Thyagaraja has referred to people without bhakti? Certainly, not moi.

That doesn't mean that I would go to the inauguration and listen to Swami Gauthamananda without the appropriate incentives to the stomach. Even then, I would require that the refreshments not be catered by Hotel Runs.

Another thing is this business with the name "Gautham." I thought only NRIs in the US, Australia, etc., have a fondness for this name. In fact, it seems to rival "Karthik" and "Arjun" as the preferred names for boys. I have a suspicion that if you walk into a school in New Jersey or Chicago and yelled "Gautham", 60% of the Indian kids would respond. Yelling "Karthik" would elicit about 45% response and "Arjun" about 80%. Some of you may object that these numbers add up to more than 100% but you forget this business of a middle name so most kids are stuck with two out of these three names. Then of course are the "Rajeev"s and "Vikram"s who constitute about 20% of the Indian adolescent population. "Gautham" is anyway the given name of Buddha along with Sid Hearth, and the last mentioned is gaining currency among Indian parents as it has a Western ring to it. But I fully expected a swami of the Ramakrishna Order to take more of a Hindu name. I myself am considering "Gnanambikananda" when I embrace sannyasa as that would reflect the name of my favorite caterer of weddings and of course December Season canteens.

Without further digression, this is why I skipped the first day's ceremony and concerts. The fact that I would be avoiding a whole bunch of Kabir Das bhajans was an added incentive. And I had to attend a South Indian wedding reception too, though not of the kind I had mentioned in an earlier post.

The next day promised Marathi kirtans. I was afraid this was a ruse to get me listen to abhangs and like an intelligent elephant, I avoided this deep hole from which I could be rescued only if I consented to buy CDs of abhangs and listen to them night and day. It also had a namasankeerthanam scheduled for the end of the evening. Instead of "Vittala Vittala Vittala", you get "Panduranga Pandarinatha" in ever increasing volume and tempo and my poor body certainly could not keep pace with that tempo if I felt in the mood to dance.

It is thusly that I skipped the first two days and went to the Villuppattu program on July 4th. Though they condensed a 3-hour or longer program into about 75 minutes, the program was very well done. In particular, the young man named Kalaimagan who sang "Kaayatha Kaanakatthe" from the 1942 movie "Sri Valli" was outstanding and, if you closed your eyes, you would swear that you were listening to T. R. Mahalingam who sang it in the movie.

After this came Nisha Rajagopal on the topic of Alwars. Now, this is a topic after my own heart as I find that the Tamil hymns provide me with a lot of ammunition to silence the lioness at home. My fans may recall the incident about my asserting my couth by quoting the pasuram "Nokki Yasodhai Nunukkia Manjalal". Incidentally, I was thinking of sending a chit requesting this as a viruttham but thought the better of it and backed out.

The main reason for attending this program is to figure out how one could sing for 90 minutes in the same sing-song fashion without losing the audience. A visit to a Perumal temple would explicate what I mean by this. Any one of the 30 Tiruppavais, or the thousands of pasurams, or the "Pallandu" are all sung to the same tune (or, non-tune) by priests and pious laymen. And how would Nisha do an alapana?


I now have to blame Ariyakkudi for my disappointment. It was he who tuned the Tiruppavais in Carnatic ragas and this encouraged musicians to deviate from the established patantharam followed in Perumal temples. Thus, I heard pasurams sung as virutthams in Carnatic ragas and Nisha started an alapana of Saveri as a prelude to a Tiruppavai. While her singing was good, I could not contain my disappointment and left. I also had the good excuse that I had to attend yet another South Indian wedding reception.

The next day, I went to a nearby Perumal temple so that I could hear the pasurams in their original tunes. The minor disappointment was that I missed the sweet pongal that is distributed to the devotees because I didn't make it in time to the temple but listening to the songs in their original patantharam made up for it.

I skipped the next day as I can and had watched the Basaveswara Bhajan Mandali on TV.

The following day featured a katha-kalakshepam by B. Suchitra and S. Saindhavi. I arrived to find that the latter of the duo had severe laryngitis and so could not sing but stayed on stage, lending her august presence to the proceedings. Everyone knows the story of Bhadrachala Ramadas and I have always wondered why Rama & Lakshmana chose to appear before the Sultan of Golconda. After all, Sri Thyagaraja had to recite Rama's name more than 10 million times to get darshan of Rama
whereas a Muslim sultan got the same darshan for imprisoning a Rama bhakta. This didn't make too much sense to me and I was hoping for an explanation. I would have taken the sultan's route too, if I were Thyagaraja!

The explanation was brilliant. The sultan was an ardent devotee of Shiva in an earlier birth and had started an abhishekam of the linga. He either lost count or was interrupted and could pour only 1007 pots of water as opposed to the required 1008 pots of water. For this transgression, he was cursed to be born not as a Siva bhakta in the next birth so that he could start with 1008 pots all lined up but as a Muslim who probably went about breaking Siva lingas. Strange logic that strained my
credulity but I can hear you saying that this denotes my lack of bhakti so I shall not pursue this further.

The story ends with Bhadrachala Ramadas being released from prison and both the sultan and Ramadas being taken to heaven by the pushpaka vimana. This is a satisfactory resolution from everyone's viewpoint except for the palace minions who would have searched high and low for the sultan the next day. I also wondered how the succession to the throne proceeded.

These nitpicking questions took me to Wikipedia. It seems Tana Shah had to fight a war with the Delhi Sultanate and he was captured and imprisoned for 12 years -- the same length of time Ramadas spent in prison -- in Aurangabad where he died.

I guess the story now has to be re-written so that Sultan Tana Shah is punished for imprisoning a Rama bhakta and then being taken to Vaikunta -- the pushpaka vimana, being owned by Rama since the days of the Ramayana, could only ply between the earth and Vaikunta and could not have flown to Kailasa no matter how much the Sultan protested about being a Siva bhakta in his earlier incarnation. I don't think hijacking was in vogue in those days, having come into use only in 1971.

This was followed by a nice presentation of Thyagaraja's Utsava Sampradaya and Divyanama Keerthanas by Smt. Sowmya.

On the last day, I arrived rather late to find that the story of Rama Mahima was being presented. Nagai Mukundan, who was billed as the co-host along with Sowmya, was absent. If he had laryngitis, I would have expected him to grace the stage with his presence as did Saindhavi the earlier day but I missed the explanation for his absence by being late. In fact, I was so late that most of the stories and associated krithis had been dealt with and I heard one song each from Bharat Sundar and Raghavendra Rao.

Sowmya then came on the stage and talked about the krithi in Sahana (I think it was "Raghupathe Rama" in Khamas) and waxed eloquent about it. She said, "You could do pretty much what you want with this krithi. You can choose the tempo to be medium or slow, it is set to Rupaka talam but....". Right there, she caught
herself and didn't say one could sing it in whatever tala one chose.

But the damage was done. Because when Sriranjani Santhanagopalan started an alapana, it was in Harikambhodi.

Or, perhaps Sriranjani took a leaf from T M Krishna's book and did alapana in one raga and followed it with a krithi in a different raga.

The final program was a bhajan sandhya by the ever popular O. S. Arun. One of the bhajans was in Maand I thought but he announced it as Misra Maand. The next one he said was in Misra Dwijavanthi but it had more Sahana in it and could have been called Misra Sahana.

Then an elderly lady got up and said "Nanda Lala".

Sri Arun obliged her at once.

He started out with:

Nanda lala, Nanda lala
Nanda la, Nanda lala.

He then followed it up with

Nanda lala, Nanda lala
Nanda la, Nanda lala.

He continued the theme by singing

Nanda lala, Nanda lala
Nanda la, Nanda lala.

He rounded it off with

Nanda lala, Nanda lala
Nanda la, Nanda lala.

Up to this point, it could have been in any language, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam. But not Bengali. In Bengali, it would have been "Nonda Lala" and after 16 of those, naan nondu noodles-aap poyiruppen.

Then came the song: Kaakkai chiraginile Nanda Lala. I was afraid it was going to be yet another misra raga and Sri Thyagaraja has declared such misrams are understood only by Lord Sankara. So I decided to leave the hall and continue to a wedding reception.

Later, I had occasion to ponder about this particular song. Why is it that I feel the urge to dance to "Vittala Vittala" but not "Nanda Lala Nanda Lala"? I was going to suggest that Sri Arun could get some tips from the Proprietress of Ye Honorable Olde & Originale Abhangerie.

But in a few more days, it dawned on me like a flash of lightning. It is because the abhangs are sung first to make you lose your inhibitions. By the time you have lost your bearings in some unknown raga, they hit you with the chant "Vittala Vittala". If Sri Arun would reverse the order and start with "Kaakkai Chiraginile" and end with the rhythmic chant of "Nanda Lala Nanda Lala", he may also be able to move his audience to the dancing level.

All these ruminations led me to introspect that I have not reached that state of bhakti where I would be guaranteed admission to either Vaikunta or Kailasa. So, I decided to explore alternatives. Now, my knowledge of Western theological thought is limited to what I have gleaned from comic strips. I have noticed that upon being ushered past the Pearly Gates, folks are fitted with wings, a toga and a harp. Heaven is full of people in unisex clothing strumming harps. That is almost like Mylapore where everyone you meet is a musician and musicians don't get an audience. Chennai musicians think that the music scene here is Hell but actually it is Heaven. When will they get this?

But I saw a difficulty. I am tone-deaf and cannot play an instrument. So I may be condemned to listen to endless number of harp concerts in Heaven without me being able to inflict similar punishment on the others. The harp in my hands would be just a useless appendage.

Then a thought struck me. I eagerly looked at the BSU invitation, at Carnatica's website and at all their CDs that I have purchased. Right there in one corner or other is a harp!

Wow! I have found my saviour. I shall enroll in harp lessons at the Carnatica gurukulam starting this Vijayadasami so that I shall be at par with all the Mylapore musicians. I will counter their Lydian scale with a DeBussy scale. If they try Sankarabharam on me, I will throw Kalyani back at them. I shall not remain defenseless against the horde of harp-wielding harpies!

There is still one minor hitch: I haven't found a harp in Chennai. Hopefully, Carnatica has one in its store.

[rajeshnat]

Harimau
U just rock, time to sleep now , Nanda lala, Nanda lala Nanda la, Nanda lala

[rshankar]

Harimau - hilarious!
And the following comments are in the same vein - with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek...

I now have to blame Ariyakkudi for my disappointment. It was he who tuned the Tiruppavais in Carnatic ragas and this encouraged musicians to deviate from the established patantharam followed in Perumal temples.

Don't you have to blame Sri Chandrasekhara Sarasvati, the pontiff of the kAnci kAmakOTi pITham who askes ARI to tune them?

And, by the way, do you fix these South-Indian weddings? - looks like you attend a large number of these!

[Nick H]

And we never hear of his joining the horse-drawn bride and groom in a North Indian wedding! I want to hear of Harimau's enthusiasm for Punjabi dance!

As for shouting names in school, Nathan will get you two different samples, with just a little adjustment of spelling, as will Arun, if you take a little more liberty with the spelling.

[arasi]

Harimau,
Simply stupendous!
I dare you, try to wipe the grin I wear on my face now, the after effect of reading one of your oeuvres after a long time.

As Ravi asks, among your other talents, is match making one? What else puzzles me is: how do you end up at receptions--with those northern dishes--instead of at muhUrthams? You mention punjAbi dance. Do you also possess a secret yearning for the cuisine?

Your nanda lAlA bit cracked me up. Still, kAkkai siRaginilE nanda lAlA is in a class by itself--BhArathi's imagination and spiritual yearnings are evident there.

I have a feeling that when you were away at wedding receptions savoring vaDakkathi food, Carnatica did have some very good programs.

By the way, one of the things I would like to see in CM is the minimal use of the word thematic. (Corrected this sentence. Thanks, Nick! You knew I meant it this way but phrased it to sound the opposite

Thanks--a gem of a Harimau piece. Hopefully, I will run into you in the Gnanambika canteen this season!

[Nick H]

Well, I guess it took me some time before I could appreciate Harimau's writing :$ --- but it was worth it

Arasi, you want to see the use of the word thematic? I think you can already!

[arasi]

Nick,
Thanks! I have corrected it in my previous post.

[MV]

Harimau I'm still chuckling after 2 days and a few re-reads.

I was actually also wondering about the number of receptions you attend. Even more so, about how you maintain your health and fitness after all that 'Kalyana Sappadu' including the North Indian fare-horse-drawn or without . I'm struggling after 7 days of Navaratri.

[gardabha_gana]

Excellent Harimau! Is the "Hotel Runs" the one opposite Adayar Bus Stand - that is frequented by IITians?

[Nick H]

The Runs Hotel is in Adyar, yes.

[mahavishnu]

actually, the food is not too bad. I haven't eaten there in over 20 years though! So my opinion should be taken with a pinch of salt and loperamide

[Nick H]

It's err, non-veg (will that replaced by censored-word on this forum? ] ) so many forumites would not want to step inside.

According to a Chennai-burrp reviewer, it is 35 years old, and he has seen some of the same staff there for twenty years.

[mahavishnu]

They probably have more veg choices than the average restaurant in the west.

[Nick H]

They probably have more veg choices than the average restaurant in the west.

he remarked, as he sank his teeth into...





... An aubergine, of course. What else?

[Rsachi]

Harimau,
After reading your hilarious piece, I am imagining an intelligent elephant in search of food who is easily offended by names, music and stories.
What's in a name?
Harimau is the Bahasa=Malay word for tiger. There is also a place called Harimavu in Karnataka.
Saindhavi comes from Sindhu (reminds me of the giant not-so-nice brother in law of Duryodhana, Saindhava Jayadratha) and is also a name of a ragini.
Rahul is the name most commonly heard nowadays. I won't go into its etymology, but Rahul was Gautama Buddha's son.
Finally Gautama is one of the saptarishis!!! He was the husband who cursed Ahalya and whom elephants don't seem to like.
I drew my mental map of you (with some help from the Internet):


Hope you aren't offended!

[mahavishnu]

brilliant, Rsachi.

[Rsachi]

By the way in my time it was Hotel Coronet at IIT bus stop, that we avoided. I do remember Hotel Runs came up later outside IIT gate (Google Maps tells me there is now Liu's Waldorf there!) Evidently there are many healthy choices nearby to poison one's stomach.

[rshankar]

Bahasa-Malay word for tiger huh? That must explain Harimau's verbal maulings!

[arasi]

Ah, the multifaceted rasikAs we have here! Sachi is a cartoonist too!

Now, Hari is a lion in sanskrit. Narahari is a familiar name in Karanataka as Narasimha is. Does the malay word mean something 'like' a lion??

Your picture (rosy mental image) is darling. There is a chance of some cartoon film producer stealing her away for his next movie. If that happens, rasikAs here are entitled to free tickets for the movie

Harimau in pink? He might wear pink shirts--not in this shade, though!

VK,
Did the harp bring back some memory? Harimau certainly would have rejected your once Rasikas badge design suggestion

I looked at the picture again--and at the tail. Is it a lion after all, in elephant's clothing?

[espras]

It is admirable how Harimau has conjured up this hilarious piece weaving together different and disparate subjects employing the woof of music and the weft of humour.

To us at Rasikas, he is a mysterious man. No one knows him, although he will boldly announce the row and the seat he was sitting in, listening to a particular concert. At other times, he will cover himself up with a shroud to be inconspicuous.

Thus, we can only surmise the identity of this person.

The caricature that Rsachi has produced (#15) of Harimau should be very close to what the actual would be.

Although we all harbour deep suspicion that Harimau, beforehand, fixes weddings on those very dates that different concerts take place at various places at Chennai, and that he also fixes people like Gnanambika as caterers at these weddings, we do not express it freely and openly for fear of this man and his sharp wit. We do not try to beard a lion.

Being a highly knowledgeable and informed person on issues and intricacies related to Carnatic music, he has a high degree of expectation of the music quality that artists dish out. If it is not to his liking, he leaves the concert hall and heads straight to the dining area of any predetermined marriage hall.

This has been happening so regularly of late. More often than not, Harimau can be found in weddings than concerts, doing full justice to Gnanambika offerings.

Thus, if Harimau has assumed such gargantuan elephantine proportions, it is no wonder.

From now on we shall look keenly at any ++ sized man at concerts.

S. Prasanna.

[Nick H]

126 ++sized men step forward, stating, "I am Harimau!"

[MV]

Ah, the multifaceted rasikAs we have here! Sachi is a cartoonist too!

Forumites
I think you have left Harimau speechless... he hasn't come back to this thread.. Or maybe there was a reception he needed to go to.

[Rsachi]

That's my worry! This Laden-esque silence is ominous, and I think the '++size' is a ruse to throw us off the scent.

[varsha]

Code: Select all

he hasn't come back to this thread.

What's in a face ? - He will come back arguing , no doubt . But why would any of you try to figure out the face . It is like looking at the Sun .

That one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything—Like the sun at noonday, which explains everything else by the blaze of its own victorious invisibility

With apologies to a famous philosopher . :tmi:

[sureshvv]

By the way in my time it was Hotel Coronet at IIT bus stop, that we avoided.

Which half-decade was it?

You are getting your Hotels mixed up.

Hotel Runs is the oldest of them all, situated opposite the Adyar Bus Terminus (pre dates the terminus itself).

Hotel Coronet is situated at the Adyar siignal (south west corner).

Hotel Assembly, now defunct, used to be located at the IIT gate near Waldorf's.

[Rsachi]

Sir,
Hotel Coronet was the designated stop for IIT buses- before they were allotted a 'stand' to park, as I remember.
You're of course right about my mixing up Assembly and Runs...that is where Waldorf's location is now marked. I didn't remember much about any of them- getting on in age, you see.

Talking of half-decades, I was in IIT when man landed on the moon, and we had mardi gras, not Sarang. They played Discotheque ala Carte on Saturdays at the OAT when tall German blondes walked in to sit in rattan chairs. We had Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Chandrashekhar, Arthur C Clarke, Northcote Parkinson, Mike Brearley, come and chat with us. The IBM 360 had not yet arrived.

All seems so long ago.

And your half-decade?

[sureshvv]

Sir,
Hotel Coronet was the designated stop for IIT buses- before they were allotted a 'stand' to park, as I remember.

And your half-decade?

The Adyar bus stand I mentioned is for Municipal buses only. In my time, IIT buses used to wait close to the Theosophical society gate.

Guess I am of more recent vintage, from the early '80s.

[Rsachi]

SureshVV,
We are a whole generation apart. The IIT buses used to be parked for 20 min each trip, at Adayar here, from 1969/70 onwards.

[espras]

#21 Nick H
126 ++sized men step forward, stating, "I am Harimau!"

Nick,

That is quite unlikely.

As your experience at Asthika Samajam a few days ago would indicate, it is sometimes difficult to find 126 normal sized rasikas, let alone all ++ sized ones, at a concert; even if those concerts are by some very good artists.

I am keeping a wary watch for Harimau’s next salvo.

S. Prasanna.

[Nick H]

126 ++sized men step forward, stating, "I am Harimau!"

... as a slim man slips away to a wedding reception

it is sometimes difficult to find 126 normal sized rasikas, let alone all ++ sized ones, at a concert; even if those concerts are by some very good artists.

Well, that's true, and sadly unaffected by whether or not it is wedding season.