Rasikas.org is ten years old on 10th February 2015

PUNARVASU · Post by **PUNARVASU** » 10 Feb 2015, 12:25

Happy birthday to you, rasikas.org
You have brought so many of together
You have taught so much to us all
You have been the place many of us go to
When we want to know about our music
A place where we talk about music
A place we gather so much information from
A place which has brought out the latent
Talent of each and every one of us
A place where we are happy to share
Our knowledge, how ever little it is
A place I go to when I need the the warmth of friends.
A very happy birthday to you
A big thanks to srkris, VK, CML, Shri Lakshman and each and every one here ,who , I feel, I have known for years. I am so lucky to be part of this happy group.

kvchellappa · Post by **kvchellappa** » 10 Feb 2015, 13:52

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the smart child that is the darling of all rasikas.

ananthbell · Post by **ananthbell** » 10 Feb 2015, 17:13

A birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun...10 years...wow.....Thanks and only the best to all who made this happen.

ananth

Suryaprakash · Post by **Suryaprakash** » 11 Feb 2015, 09:51

My belated birthday wishes to all the fellow-members of rasikas.org! I pray that the sharing of knowledge, the animated debates and good humour perpetuate!

sukumar · Post by **sukumar** » 11 Feb 2015, 16:46

Arasis poem is beautiful....
why a Hindusthani flute on the front page?

Happy B'day!!

srkris · Post by **srkris** » 13 Feb 2015, 03:53

Dear Sri Mannarkoil Balaji, Punarvasu, Sri KV Chellappa, Ananthbell, Sri Suryaprakash & Sri Sukumar - your presence and contributions to the community are valuable, thanks.

laxmiv · Post by **laxmiv** » 14 Feb 2015, 01:34

srkris, admins, and forum members, congratulations and sincere thanks for creating and maintaining this treasure house for Carnatic music.

annamalai · Post by **annamalai** » 14 Feb 2015, 21:40

congrats for the ten year landmark. After sangeetham.com was shut down, rasikas portal has provided a forum for online discussions.

ksrimech · Post by **ksrimech** » 20 Feb 2015, 04:01

srkris & others - Congratulations on the 10th year anniversary. May rasikas.org keep growing in following decades too.

I still remember srkris starting the forum after the sudden demise of our then beloved sangeetham.com. I was fortunate to be one of the first few members (may be even the 1st) to register onto rasikas.org. It was definitely a thrilling experience in reading many valuable discussions (half of which went over my head then!) and being a part of some (adikaprasangi!).

I still cannot forget our wonderful discussions on arasi's inru varuvAnO or DRS's kaLLanArirItigouLa or my arguments with CML and many more. But, frankly, I have learnt quite bit from all of the discussions. I am glad Arasi, CML, NickH, Punarvasu, VK, rShankar and others are still active and running the engines here. Keep up the great show. May all the service to CM keep going on and on and on......

maduraimini · Post by **maduraimini** » 20 Feb 2015, 08:07

Happy Birthday Rasikas! Srikris, Thank you so much for starting this forum, and all the work you put into that. Thanks to VK and CML, the moderators, many veterans like arasi who make it interesting with their inputs and so many others who give information about CM and the Music world. I second Nick- Srikris built this house and we visit here often and use his hospitality to have our meetings there. Thanks to all the members of Rasikas.

maduraimini · Post by **maduraimini** » 20 Feb 2015, 08:17

Ganesh_mourthy,
Just for your information, I am older than Arasi and may be the oldest rasika here!
I forgot to mention Lakshmanji, who is an important part of Rasika, helping everyone with lyrics and other info on demand!

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 20 Feb 2015, 10:21

Not quite, M&M

There are a number of slightly seniors!
And, I don't have to race to catch up with your age. I'm almost there

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 20 Feb 2015, 13:58

ksrimech wrote:I still remember srkris starting the forum after the sudden demise of our then beloved sangeetham.com. I was fortunate to be one of the first few members (may be even the 1st) to register onto rasikas.org. It was definitely a thrilling experience in reading many valuable discussions (half of which went over my head then!) and being a part of some (adikaprasangi!).

Back in those days, I don't think I knew anyone here off-line, face-to-face, or I might have arrived here earlier. After sangeetham, there was still a section of forumhub, and I think it was probably somebody there that let me know about the new rasikas.org. I wonder who it was! Anyway, whether it was weeks, months or a year I don't remember, but rasikas was fluently thriving already by then.

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 20 Feb 2015, 14:13

ksrimech wrote: I still remember srkris starting the forum after the sudden demise of our then beloved sangeetham.com.

The history of rasikas.org was discussed in 2010. Read few important posts particularly cml,rajeshnat ,rshankar, kulkarni etc tracing the rasikas.org in this thread
http://rasikas.org/forums/viewtopic.php? ... am#p167484

For those who donot have time to read the above thread again , rasikas was started atleast a year before the demise of sangeetham but participation was not there till sangeetham went completely down.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 20 Feb 2015, 18:33

rajeshnat wrote:For those who donot have time to read the above thread again , rasikas was started atleast a year before the demise of sangeetham but participation was not there till sangeetham went completely down.

I didn't have time to read the thread

--- but it was gripping. A thread I couldn't put it down. I have just one page to go, which I am saving for later

rshankar · Post by **rshankar** » 13 Mar 2015, 01:05

Srkris (Chembai) - can you please change the title page to indicate that rasikas is 10 years old (currently, it says it will turn 10)....?

ramakriya · Post by **ramakriya** » 13 Mar 2015, 05:20

Can't believe it's been 10 years! Long live rasikas.org!

parimalphadke · Post by **parimalphadke** » 20 Apr 2015, 18:59

bravo!!

Rasikas has been such a great resource...

Thanks for being there

S.NAGESWARAN · Post by **S.NAGESWARAN** » 21 Apr 2015, 17:57

I am happy to be a member of this forum.
S.NAGESWARAN.
21.04.2015.

msakella · Post by **msakella** » 21 Apr 2015, 18:33

I am extremely happy to know that our kid has become 10 years old and is able to serve all our people efficiently. amsharma

bala747 · Post by **bala747** » 23 Apr 2015, 22:09

IT's been a while... I wonder who still remembers me.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 23 Apr 2015, 22:29

I do and a lot of us do, I think. Singapore dwelling, violin playing CM rasika with high standards for music which reveals itself in your reviews of CM concerts. Jumbo as rajeshnat used to refer to you then

bala747 · Post by **bala747** » 23 Apr 2015, 22:50

Listening to the most perfect rendition of Punnagavarali by the incomparable Balachander. I am convinced he was an alien sent by an advanced life form to show us what music really is.

If I were to be allowed to hear one and only one artiste for the rest of my life, it would unequivocally be Balachander. Even above MDR and Rajarathnam. (Although I would sorely miss MDR's 'Hariharaputram' in Vasantha, and S Kalyanaraman's Subhapanthuvarali but I'll manage).)

And amazingly enough I am at the forum where I met the kind gentleman who sent me this concert seven years ago.

I am now the proud dad of two kids, Sahana and Daniya.

Since the passing of my mother I have kind of dropped out of music discussion, or even listening to new concerts. I find the current crop of musicians to be of a very high standard in terms of knowledge, but somehow it all appears the same. I really find it very hard to tell one singer from another (and I used to be able to even tell violinists apart so it's not that I wasn't able to) and I find myself pretty much listening to the same ragas.

I guess the way I see it, the music system has become somewhat standardised. I don't see that changing in the near future, so if the Thodis are going to be sung the same way I'd rather listen to Madurai Somu than Abhishek Raghuram (I am not even sure if he is still a big deal so pardon my knowledge I have really not been keeping up with the scene, apart from when my brother performs in Chennai and even that, to basically ask what he sang and why). If I wanted to listen to a concert I'd rather listen to MDR or (strangely enough) Maharajapuram Santhanam than anyone currently performing. I have nice earphones, a comfortable easy chair and no need to deal with the many fevered egos that seem to attend concerts. I have attended a grand total of five concerts in the past five years or so. I think I wrote a couple of reviews here in that period, for Suryaprakash (again the only artiste I would bother attending the concert of, and a real gentleman to boot).

The local music artistes are also all drying up as it is not sustainable and they are replaced by Indians from India (again nothing wrong with it per se), but none are really worth paying more than a passing attention to. If anyone from that group is reading this, I don't mean it as a personal insult. I mean SIFAS concerts barring a few exceptions are so poorly attended usually it's immediate family or whomever they could cajole into the building that day). So there really is nothing in the music scene today to make me want to follow it with any sense of earnestness. Besides, with family life taking up so much time it has really been a challenge. I still listen to a lot of music, but I just talk about it with a small group of five or six people at the most.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 24 Apr 2015, 01:19

Bala,
The eagle (I mean, the jumbo) has landed! Eagle because you always soar high in your standards!

Very happy to hear from you

So much has happened in your life since you last posted. For some reason, if you would believe it, I was thinking about you (I know why. I was recollecting the names of those who wrote interesting and educating reviews, and also had unusual forum IDs. Ninja The great appeared once sometime ago. We still miss and think of Vijay (knew him by meeting him several times) who has forgotten us in his busy life, I think.Bilahari (your compatriot) and Srinivasaraghavan are so wound up in their studies, I think...

Very sorry to hear that your dear mother is no more. Wasn't she the main source of inspiration in your musical life?

Happy news is that you now have a life partner and two daughters! They both rule your life, I bet, just as Rajesh's daughter does! I do hope they inherit the family's love for music and introduce you to their favorites in the coming years:)

The best to you and yours

rajeshnat · Post by **rajeshnat** » 26 Apr 2015, 06:13

bala747 wrote:I find the current crop of musicians to be of a very high standard in terms of knowledge, but somehow it all appears the same. I really find it very hard to tell one singer from another (and I used to be able to even tell violinists apart so it's not that I wasn't able to) and I find myself pretty much listening to the same ragas.

I guess the way I see it, the music system has become somewhat standardised.

Bala747
You are again with a bang , I will atleast hunt the punnagavarAli of Balachandar to start with. Your post and entry into forum is always milestone based , congrats on your second kid. I can vouch that there is enough of talent in present day generation , but how much you hear and how much you pass , I have no clue that too in singapore.

Pratyaksham Bala · Post by **Pratyaksham Bala** » 26 Apr 2015, 06:34

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6H4zzkq1jY

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 26 Apr 2015, 10:15

B's Favorite of B's song through PB. Thanks PB. Be happy!

wow, incredible punnagavarali. Listen to that little thing he does at 8:49. Unreal. He does not repeat that intonation until quite a while later.

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 26 Apr 2015, 21:15

A treat to my ears, Kokilam.

bala747 · Post by **bala747** » 30 Apr 2015, 16:39

Hi rajeshnat I will email it to you. Didn't know you were active here.

I know there is talent. Plenty of it. Not taking away anything from anyone performing today. I guess my tastes haven't changed.

bala747 · Post by **bala747** » 30 Apr 2015, 17:52

I posted a reply and it disappeared. Ah old times! Yes that very same punnagavarali! Right after that the song I picked was Balachander's 'ayye methakadinam'.. A song introduced to me by coincidentally enough, Sri Suryaprakash.

Brilliant.

venkatakailasam · Post by **venkatakailasam** » 01 May 2015, 17:00

I said earlier that while it is time to celebrate, it is also time to reflect..What prompted me to say so?
well..In ten years time we are able to garner only 7700+ members..while the extension of rasikas.org group in face book, we have 12000+ members
in a span of about 2.5 or 3years time...Why is it so...reflect..

bala747 · Post by **bala747** » 02 May 2015, 09:58

Better one rasikasiromani than a hundred gnanasoonyams.

venkatakailasam · Post by **venkatakailasam** » 02 May 2015, 12:08

A humorous way of reflection....

Humor at its best..

venkatakailasam · Post by **venkatakailasam** » 02 May 2015, 18:51

Management being same, What is the extra attraction at FB...or what is lacking here...

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 03 May 2015, 01:07

Good question Venkatakailasam. These milestones are indeed there for celebration as well as as a time for reflection.

It is hard to say definitively why FB beats us by such a wide margin. If you are thinking that it is due to the nature of the discussions here that is indeed a possibility. Also the type of people who assemble here, the welcoming or combative nature of the people etc. also make a difference.

My own assessment of the chief contributing reasons are:

In Facebook, you sign up once and having crossed that barrier to entry, 'liking' and signing up to individual groups is as easy as a click. And there is no real cost of that click to you, you can simply be a silent observer. That click is still counted. You can simply be an observer, or occasionally 'like' things and even more occasionally offer a one word comment and quite rarely add a few sentences. FB is designed for those kinds of things. A great social network. That is why it has a quarter of the world's population there. For example, Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi recently posted a picture in her facebook timeline of a crow visiting her when she was practicing. That is a charming photo. People were all quite delighted to see that and offered comments. I am not sure if people will take the effort to do all that here.

With respect to civil behavior, Facebook insists on real identity whereas here anonymity is perfectly fine. This forum is in the tradition of old style internet where anonymity and privacy is the default and it is upto the individual people to reveal as much as they want. Facebook is quite the opposite. That has a huge bearing on the nature and type of interactions and conversations. At FB, it is much more like real life because your 'friends' circle know who you are. So you may or may not be open in expressing your thoughts and feelings.
It is easy for people here to be open about things due to that anonymity which has its positive aspects and definitely has negative aspects.
But it is a good thing that such options are available to people so they can 'live' where they are comfortable.

Thirdly, from my own observation and anecdotes I hear from people, we have a lot more readers of the forum than members. It may still not equal the FB membership but just stating that consumers of the conversations here are reasonably broad and not just limited to the members.

Lastly, the modern social network is typically evaluated by numbers like the way you portrayed it. Number of friends, followers, retweets, mentions, likes etc. Which is perfectly fine since that is all quite natural, social and human. It reflects people's natural tendencies. This forum's objectives were not that at all, as desired by the Admin srkris. He wants it to be natural and organic. he does not particularly care about those numbers. I am sure he likes to have a large membership because that makes the conversations broader and more people get to benefit from such things. But no special effort is taken to promote the forum. If he wanted to have a higher number of members,I think there are definitely some low hanging fruit efforts he can undertake to achieve that. But this forum is not about that.

The only 'social counts' we have are 'how long you have been a member here', 'the number of posts' and 'likes' for individual posts. We had the last one for a while which is worthwhile bringing back. I do not think people here care that much about the reputation based on 'number of posts', though that number has some limited use.

But what matters here is a reputation of a different kind. The true kind which is not captured by social interaction counts. This reputation is like the real world reputation which is formed by people through the sum total of their interactions with you. It is quite abstract but people filter what you say through that reputation mask they have of you. As an example, if someone joins and posts something critical of an artist as their first post, I think most of us will discount it quite considerably. That may be unfair because that member may be expressing something genuine and not due to any axe to grind. But that is how it is, these are all snap judgments. Just as in real life. On the other hand, someone who has a reputation of being fair to artists and are level headed in their conversations here, will have a better reception to their ideas even if those ideas are critical of the artists or the music or whatever. Just like in real life.

varsha · Post by **varsha** » 03 May 2015, 06:04

brilliant piece of writing

venkatakailasam · Post by **venkatakailasam** » 03 May 2015, 20:16

Good write up vk....

Hours together, this group goes with out a single member on board mainly from 10 am to dusk....Probably , waiting for Western countries to wake up...

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 03 May 2015, 20:44

VK could, if he feels it's an interesting question, probably give us a breakdown of the hits and/or posts from different parts of the world. Here's my guess: the bulk of rasikas.org is written/posted from Chennai, Bangalore and various parts of America. The gap that you notice could be Indian office hours? Despite the patent slant of carnatic audience ages towards the elderly, I think that quite a few of our members, including some of our best contributors and reviewers of Indian-City concerts, are still young enough to have to work.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 03 May 2015, 22:33

It will be good to know. I have asked srkris to comment.

srkris · Post by **srkris** » 05 May 2015, 00:32

Apologies, I have not put in any statistics counter to monitor these statistics.

However I have taken such statistics at points in time in the past - the distribution of visitors is something like 80-90% from India, about 10% from the US and the rest from elsewhere.

If there is a specific need we can do that study again, or make a public counter visible on the site for anyone to track?

arasi · Post by **arasi** » 05 May 2015, 01:08

Ah, there you are! karumamE kaNNAyinAr (a hard worker who does not indulge in lesser things), leaving all the chatter to us

Bless you for your being there for us

PUNARVASU · Post by **PUNARVASU** » 05 May 2015, 05:46

VK, nicely explained.
FYI, I also commented on the picture of the crow posted on FB by Lalgudi G.V.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 05 May 2015, 06:07

May be she was playing काकप्रिया (kAkapriyA)

Punarvasu, yes I did see your nice comment to her.

PUNARVASU · Post by **PUNARVASU** » 05 May 2015, 17:12

VK, so you are a silent reader on FB!

venkatakailasam · Post by **venkatakailasam** » 05 May 2015, 18:02

Development of an institution or a forum like this one is not a small matter.
when there is stagnation or growth is seemingly slow, it is a matter of concern.
Rectification action may be called for after ascertaining the reasons therefor..
It is not beneficial to all just to say that it is a small matter and keep things to drift...

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 06 May 2015, 00:18

venkatakailasam, I am not sure slowing growth is a matter of concern to everyone but that is a different conversation.

Addressing your point directly, you seem to feel it is a matter of concern. You and others who feel that we need to grow, please share what actions you would like to take to make that happen. No promises that any of that will be implemented since it is not necessarily in my hands but it will be good to know what the options are in case there is consensus that we do indeed need to grow more rapidly

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 06 May 2015, 01:05

I don't find it to be a matter of concern. Of course, continuous and perpetual shrinkage would be: it would lead to the demise of of the site.

I do feel a little sad when I meet people who tell me that they used to post here but left years ago. The site has had its ups and downs, and they may have had good reason for walking away when thy did, but things change, and it would be nice if they gave us another chance from time to time.

Communities grow sometimes, and shrink sometimes. Their composition changes, as some go, and others come. Unless there is something specifically negative which is driving, or keeping, people away, I don't think intervention is required.

mahavishnu · Post by **mahavishnu** » 07 May 2015, 08:18

I think there are more meaningful, sustained interactions here than on a more generic social media site. As VK said, people sign up for Facebook etc and might click on the rasikas page there but the participation is very shallow. However, if you want to share news, pictures and other forms of media, such sites are indeed very useful.

And in rasikas.org, the membership participation distribution follows Zipf's law. A few people make the highest number of posts and the majority is silent; this seems to a universal distribution function. Of the 7000 odd members, maybe less than 10% have posted at all and an even smaller number post actively. And then there are the transients that Nick mentions and others who left for whatever reason.

Most popular threads get about a 1000 views on average and I think that is very healthy. I would rather have a smaller number of people with interest and knowledge interacting here than a whole bunch of yahoos whose participation adds little value.

Nick H · Post by **Nick H** » 07 May 2015, 13:36

I compare forum membership to the cloud on the mountain top. From a distance, it appears to be static, but it is not, in fact it it is not the same cloud from one moment to the next as the wind blows over the peak.

OK, internet-forum change is a little more gentle and some of us manage to hang on to the mountain instead of being blown on our way, but it is almost always meaningless to speak of the total membership numbers, as so many are water droplets that passed on their way. Actually, I was surprised at the numbers srkris posted the other day: they were much higher than I expected.

vasanthakokilam · Post by **vasanthakokilam** » 08 May 2015, 22:23

in fact it it is not the same cloud from one moment to the next as the wind blows over the peak.

Very good, Nick.

You analogy brought to mind another phenomenon that a lot of people are surprised to learn. Though we think we are the same person, we are not in the physical sense. There are 50 and 75 trillion cells in the body organized as several types of cells. Each type of cell has its own life span, so in our life time they all would have gone through several recycles, so what we call as our physical body is not made of the same physical stuff as it was a few years back.

I know that is not the kind of dynamism we are talking about here