Change and Continuity - A lecture by Dr.K.Srinivasan

Miscellaneous topics on Carnatic music
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sureshvv
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Joined: 05 Jul 2007, 18:17

Change and Continuity - A lecture by Dr.K.Srinivasan

Post by sureshvv »


shankarank
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Re: Change and Continuity - A lecture by Dr.K.Srinivasan

Post by shankarank »

There is only one silver lining about the IIT(s). No other institution taught the very basic sciences so well! May be that was there in old St. Stephens or old Loyola!

As regards Engineering, one professor put it rightly - the branching of engineering streams date back to Macaulay. And he complained, there was not a single biology course ( may be it would have changed now!) .

And he also lamented that Accounting and Managerial control was the most popular course at that time.

shankarank
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Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Change and Continuity - A lecture by Dr.K.Srinivasan

Post by shankarank »

And that Mr Unit vector who taught us constitutions of the world, read from his notes almost. Never provoked any debate. It was just a mandatory credit.

Of course he made fun of the Maharaja of Travancore and the Padmanabhaswamy to whom the kingdom belonged!

To know the real view on that, one only had to read Suchindra Nath Iyer:

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-there-mob- ... e=d4ee2479

Now for kicker. The NCC ( along with NSO or sports for those who qualified) which took us to Gun ranges and such! Dr Chalapathy Rao ( I think from Aeronautics or Fluid Mech lab) , was officiating officer from the faculty along with Servicemen who were assistants. There was this assembly post all the activity in a class room - when a student who is in the know of NCC stuff, blurted out towards people to take their caps out.

Dr Chalapathy Rao was livid and didn't know who it was. He made stern remarks , pointing to the national emblem in the cap how whatever this student did was an insult to the chain of command! Of course no one had courage to turn him in.

Post that session, the general vibe was how these NCC commanders were a pack of jokers - typical stuff expected from convent dropouts ( yes I said it!).

And that's it - there went the nation, civilization, and all the other things we stand for! How the hell Appaya dikshitar became relevant now? I don't know.

There are two enemies north of us, and thats where the focus should be! The humanities is rightly discussing the enemies within - under the guidance of Shri Rajiv Malhotra!

Of course DRDO/ISRO were filled with Junior engineers who discussed the stock market , went the vibe. In reality those organizations have done some phenomenal thing! I don't how many of IIT brains really got into those.

Some of my class mates got into Hindustan Lever for soap selling after an IIM to boot.

shankarank
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Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Change and Continuity - A lecture by Dr.K.Srinivasan

Post by shankarank »

And that article by Dr K Srinivasan and his feelings about the environs, old smithy, printing press etc. sounds like what former Director Prof. Indiresan ventured to do in a place called Narayanapuram to be a relevant technologist , relevant to Indian conditions.

Prof Indiresan started a furniture factory with institute's funding, typically to make what IKEA sells today and later that story was covered in the farewell humanities credit ( long after the professor ceased to be in the institute) with much glee and ridicule. It was recalled how that entire project was such a flop!.

sureshvv
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Re: Change and Continuity - A lecture by Dr.K.Srinivasan

Post by sureshvv »

shankarank wrote: 28 Aug 2018, 07:30 And that Mr Unit vector who taught us constitutions of the world, read from his notes almost. Never provoked any debate. It was just a mandatory credit.

Of course he made fun of the Maharaja of Travancore and the Padmanabhaswamy to whom the kingdom belonged!
Should have been a good debate.

And that's it - there went the nation, civilization, and all the other things we stand for! How the hell Appaya dikshitar became relevant now? I don't know.
That is why knowledge of history is necessary. To know what is relevant.
There are two enemies north of us, and thats where the focus should be! The humanities is rightly discussing the enemies within - under the guidance of Shri Rajiv Malhotra!
To me, looks like Humanities is on the right track.

Ranganayaki
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Re: Change and Continuity - A lecture by Dr.K.Srinivasan

Post by Ranganayaki »

Being from the campus myself, I took a quick look at this article, but it did not interest me much. But my cursory glance caught this one line which stood out:
The Great Banyan Tree of the Theosophical Society outranked every other ficus on our campus.
This writer/speaker has missed an amazing, magnificent banyan that grew on the campus, a hundred meters from my house, just off the beaten path (a road now?) that led to the Peeli Amman temple. It's a great joy for me to talk about this tree now. I loved it! As trees go, this was a skyscraper which grew to an immense height worthy of the canopy of a rainforest. And it's architecture was like a cathedral. But all the thick undergrowth would not let you see how wide it spread. This tree must have outranked all the other trees, not just the ficuses, in the whole city, if not in age, at least in height. To my dismay, I found recently that it had fallen, and is no longer quite as tall, but the last time I looked, it was still alive, and its main trunk was still on the ground, on its side. I don't think anyone paid attention to that tree in its heyday because it was slightly hidden in the woods, but it was part of the view from my window 😊.. My house itself is no longer there, it was demolished to make way for a high-rise, I'm told.

sureshvv
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Re: Change and Continuity - A lecture by Dr.K.Srinivasan

Post by sureshvv »

Ranganayaki wrote: 29 Aug 2018, 09:27 This writer/speaker has missed an amazing, magnificent banyan that grew on the campus...
"Peeli-Amman was, to begin with, a divinity of the forest, a vana devi, who
it is said, graced an ancient tree at the edge of an enchanted lake. Our campus
engineer built a resplendent RCC structure to house this mother of the wild.
Shortly thereafter, and most unusually, the core of the tall, majestic banyans by
Peeli-amman withered away, followed by several lesser ones all across campus".

There is also a picture.

SrinathK
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Re: Change and Continuity - A lecture by Dr.K.Srinivasan

Post by SrinathK »

And that's what happens when man interferes with nature...

shankarank
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Re: Change and Continuity - A lecture by Dr.K.Srinivasan

Post by shankarank »

In the JalakanTESvarar temple, a group of professors were doing an impeccable recitation of rudram every pradOSam. One of them is an expert in pronunciation and sandhi rules. Another one knows the svara sandhi rules. In rudra triSati, one will observe that when the padas are recited stand alone , they have a different svaram. So when padas are combined, they combine using sandhi rules of the language and the svara also combine to form a new svara for the combined sentence.

That is the sabda parampara of the vEdas. if so much was done to secure that ( with artha parampara being a challenge), that has some parallel implications for music as well.

sureshvv
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Joined: 05 Jul 2007, 18:17

Re: Change and Continuity - A lecture by Dr.K.Srinivasan

Post by sureshvv »

shankarank wrote: 31 Aug 2018, 08:34 In rudra triSati, one will observe that when the padas are recited stand alone , they have a different svaram. So when padas are combined, they combine using sandhi rules of the language and the svara also combine to form a new svara for the combined sentence.
Examples please.

shankarank
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Joined: 15 Jun 2009, 07:16

Re: Change and Continuity - A lecture by Dr.K.Srinivasan

Post by shankarank »

नमो॒ हिर॑ण्यबाहवे॒ नमः॑ । से॒ना॒न्ये॑ नमः॑ ।
becomes
नमो॒ हिर॑ण्य बाहवे सेना॒न्ये॑
In that the नमः॑ after हिर॑ण्यबाहवे॒ is not to be considered, as that is applied for every 3 nAmas or so.

In Ghana pATha when padas combine in various permutative order, the individual svara of the padas become relevant to arrive at the svara of the combined phrases.

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