The Bliss of a Gift

This lovely magnolia and the Japanese maple in our garden, which are my favorite trees, were a Fathers Day gift to me from the kids (some 35?) years ago. Though the blooms last hardly two weeks or so before wind blows them away, they are still not only a great sight to see but a lovely reminder of the gift of loving children a parent can have. Yes, Mr. Wordsworth, not only daffodils but many other things of nature do 'flash upon that inward eye, the bliss of solitude.'

Interesting but with dissonant notes

Title: On That Note - Memories of a Life in Music

Author: Sanjay Subramanian with Krupa Ge
ISBN: 9789360454043
Westland Books, 2024

   This book is an autobiography of Sangeethakalanidhi Sanjay Subrahmanian, as narrated by him and prepared with the the help of Krupa Ge, describing various transitions through his life -  in the words of the author: "as I break genre and change my bio from 'Carnatic musician' to 'singer'," the latter indicating big steps outside the confines of classical Carnatic music.  It gives a good glimpse of the man behind the celebrated stage personality, his wide range of interests from sports to reading, and, above all, his compulsive creative urges and inner push to go beyond erstwhile achievements, his personal insecurities, and challenges faced.  It makes an interesting reading although the reader must be warned that if what one seeks is some great revelations about music per se, one is bound to be disappointed.  Take it also with a pinch of salt as autobiographies (the likes of 'My Experiments with Truth' exempted) are, by and large, sanitized selective accounts of one's life to project oneself in the best of light.

   We begin by learning that Sanjay, as a young boy, was more interested in cricket and play than music, turning down even the opportunity to be tutored by the great violinist Sangeethasagara A. Kanyakumari and was drawn from violin to vocal music mainly by his grandmother who was his first vocal teacher.  That his father constantly played  Carnatic music on the radio at home and his disciplinarian mother did extract necessary music drills from him for rewards such as attending an MSS concert are noted by him as significant contributors to his growth in music - a fact that all parents should indeed take note of; classical music flourishes in households where such music is heard regularly and with interest.  Sanjay was also blessed with the presence of a grandfather who, though not trained formally in Carnatic music, could sing beautifully to the extent of being credited for some phrases Sanjay uses such as for example in ragas like Ritigowla.  It is amazing to learn how young Sanjay filled the gaps in his learning from his grandma 'Rukmini patti', such as for making kalpanaswarams, by jamming with his friends like Sriram, the violin maestro T.N. Krishnan's son.  Further down, he was to have the privilege of having his music honed by interactions with some great musicians like K.S.Krishnamurthy,  nadaswaram vidwan Mayavaram SRD Vaidyanathan, and many others of whom Sanjay talks with great reverence and affection.  The story in summary shows clearly that the ascent to Sangeethakalanidhi by Sanjay was indeed the result of a goal he had set for himself and striven arduously.  A happy marriage and family also served as a great asset to him throughout.

   It indeed shocked me to read that Sanjay, one of the biggest crowd pullers, with a voice most would envy 'never had a good opinion of it' and considered it as his 'weakest attribute.'  [Indeed, a person I highly respect as a superb and musically knowledgeable rasika once had remarked to me, 'At times, he sings like he is fighting with music,' but I have always viewed those attempts only as setting higher and higher bars for himself particularly in the upper octaves.]  That he can talk about it with such candor, and even more importantly that he is taking steps to overcome those limitations and the strain they impose on his vocal chords by proper training, that too at a later age and after becoming a Sangeethakalanidhi, make him a perfectionist worthy of admiration.  His ascent along the maturity scale is also shown in how he describes his futile attempts to impress T.N. Seshagopalan with an effort ridden atana that was to be called out by a close friend of his and led to a constructive exercise in self introspection.  These and other tales like how his initial arrogant attitude towards Prince Rama Varma quickly was overcome to result in a close and lasting friendship show growth of Sanjay not only as a musician but as a man along the likability scale.

   'On That Note' is not without some dissonant notes, but blissfully they are very few in number.  Thus, Sanjay in one place (p. 61) gripes about some sabhas not being ready to pay him what he thinks he deserves, without recognizing that institutions have their own constraints and have to balance social optimization of supporting new talent (whose exposure often results in losses) against individual optimization by established artists some of whom forget that once they themselves could have been the beneficiaries of such social optimization.  His caricature (p. 127-128) of the US NRIs is honestly in poor taste and in the spirit of biting the hand that fed and continues to feed.

    What makes me, as a reader, truly happy is seeing Sanjay who once told me that there is no need for new compositions and 'periyavaa ellaam naRaiya vittoottu poyirukka' is now taking on a lot of Tamil kritis and is even aspiring to compose some of his own.  I sincerely wish him sucess in both of these ventures.  I can relate to the new found freedom he feels after reaching the goal of Sangeethakalanidhi  to get seriously into other genre, but it would indeed be a tragedy were it to come at the price of greater and greater disengagement from the Carnatic where he has much vested and also at the cost of having to eat crow in front of philistine  producers and underwriters of major productions who may not bear enough respect for talent and the talented especially when music in the production is not the main theme.
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The author, Dr. V. Ramaswami, is a past President and Secretary of CMANA.  He has written many compositions in Carnatic music with three albums by Sri Sikkil Gurucharan and one by Dr. R. Suryaprakash.  Views expressed here are strictly personal.

A BAD RULE FOR VOTE-MONGERING

I have been very vocal against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the loot of the Middle East by the Western powers of Europe over Centuries and by our own oil tycoons in the not-too distant past, and the denial of freedom and a state of their own to Palestinians. As a Democrat, it is not easy for me to criticize a Democratic President I rooted and voted for, but I have criticized Biden too for tolerating the atrocities in Gaza. So, let no one accuse me of islamophobia or religious intolerance. As a Hindu, I would be equally opposed if this were a Hindu temple.

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This new rule in Minneapolis is bad in every respect and is more a vote mongering gesture than anythng else.

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1. A call for prayer should be a right in USA, but in these days does it have to be on a blaring set of speakers mounted atop a tower that disturb the peace and the beauty of silence that is already disturbed by so much noise pollution due to all kinds of traffic and electro-mechanical devices?

2. Today's Internet and wireless phones provide ample ways to make a call for prayer and reach those who want to be reached without disturbing others

3 What about my right not to be disturbed by unwanted loud blaring of devices irrespective of any religion and except to warn people of emergencies?

4. What about children, senior citizens, the sick and workers including doctors and policemen on call whose rest and sleep will be disturbed by loud noise?

5. The holy books of the religions were written when no such technology like loudspeakers existed and do not require such an onslaught on people's ears.

6. Are we going to have a competition in cacophony by competing religions as you see in every major town and city in India and other places?

7. Left alone, this runs the risk of increasing religious intolerance, and particularly against minority religions, and causing more division in this nation.

This rule is more than WOKE!!! It is dumb, stupid, and non-democratic in every way except perhaps to religious fanatics. I appeal to all moderate and progressive muslims to kindly stand up against this; your own school going children and old and sick will be impacted, and this will only increase the resentment towards Islam in general. It should be challenged in the courts and reversed at the earliiest opportunity. Point #2 above alone should show that its reversal will not curtail freedom of religion.

PEACE NOW !!!

Israelis protest for Peace.

While no one or nothing can justify the killing of innocent civilians, and our heartfelt sympathies for their families and the outrage for and condemnation of this terrible act should be strong and unequivocal, let us also remember that there are no winners in any war, especially among civilians caught in the cross fire.

This new violence has its genesis in Netanyahu's disregard for previous agreements as well as Trump's unwise backtracking of US policies that emboldened an already rabid Netanyahu and pushed Hamas to the wall. Biden's placing his own re-election concerns and the resulting kid glove approach to Netanyahu also compounded the problem. Indeed, there are more than two bloody hands and more than one continent responsible for this tragedy.

Let there be no more bloodshed, and let the call for immediate peace be made in the strongest terms with supportive action to curtail all violent participants.

One thing the Palestinian supporters in the US need to consider is if indeed things would be better or worse for Paletinians (and Israelis, and the USA too) with Trump in power. Will Kamala Harris make a difference, or better still can it be that she does not have to even bear that burden by Biden becoming more cognizant of the damage done and being done each day by the warring parties and by his own hemi-paresis (i.e., one sided paralysis)? PS: A person with paresis has muscle weakness, but can still move the affected muscles, albeit more weakly than normal. Paresis is also known as partial paralysis

PARAMETERS FOR A VOTE

Do I feel angry at those who support any specific candidate? Do I hate or even dislike them? No. How can I ? Some have been friends or good acquaintances for long, most of them are 'otherwise' nice people and helpful, and all said and done it takes all kinds of people to make a world.

What I truly feel is a sense of amazement at how vile politicians and selfish rich men and women can con people into believing that they have the back of the common man. I have seen this in India where people placed such men and women in power discarding true selfless leaders in various state governments, and they still do falling for their divisive talk and false promises and slogans. Those states are today known mainly for institutionalized bigotry and corruption with the political class alone getting rich beyond imagination in droves.

I request all to consider only these in the upcoming November and always:

1. Shouldn't personal integrity be a prerequisite for our trust?

2. Isn't it true that our speech reflects our level of evolution, culture, and empathy?

3. Who do we want our own children to emulate and take as examples to follow?

4. Can a democracy sustain itself without giving a reasonable level of equality and representation for all? How many countries have seen themselves descend to total chaos and destruction through riots by those who are kept down by force? Is that the group of nations we want to be in?

5. Can a divided nation achieve as much as a united one?

6. Don't we sound hollow and hypocritical when we deny women equal rights and equal pay and deny even their right on their own bodies and yet preach to other nations?

7. Should not the goodness and basic humanity in us reflect in the leaders we support and choose?

THESE 50 YEARS IN THE USA

Today marks the 50th anniversary of my first entry into the US.

The greatest boon of this migration is certainly the enormous opportunities our children Priya and Prem have got that have made them highly successful professionally and in many other ways. (While talent cannot be stopped from succeeding, it would have been much harder for them in today's Tamilnadu marked by unbridled reverse discrimination and corruption.) Soundaram also could continue her studies to get a Ph.D without facing any age restrictions then prevailing in India . She has had a rewarding career, first as the head of testing and evaluation in the largest public school system of NJ and later as a faculty in education guiding 28 students' doctoral work and see many of them rise to leadership positions in the NJ public school system, one of the best in the nation. To me, the biggest benefit has been the ability to support my family both here and in India while remaining a researcher all through. It is a profession where one trades intellectual satisfaction and the hope of attaining a sliver of immortality through one's scientific contributions in exchange for losing many a monetary and other opportunity. Doing that as I did, and also in times when we were treated very much by some as intruders (our colleagues and superiors did not grow up with us or other Indians in schools and colleges as is the case for our children), it has sometimes made me wonder if the tradeoff has been personally worth it, often resulting in an answer in my mind in the negative. But in all honesty, I must say that compared to the transience of monetary gains, awards, etc., the fact that I could indeed contribute some fundamental results in probability theory (some bearing my name) and apply them to improve communication systems that everyone depends on (one piece of my work has also been life saving for vast swatches of this land) has made my life an interesting and exciting one. Being truly foreign to this nation as we were, the friendship and support of the Indian community here are what sustained us. The opportunities denied both of us at work were more than compensated by the ability to build and serve in organizations serving this community with a great sense of thankfulness for what they meant to us and also for our posterity. We take great pride in that we did not stop with just the Indian community in extending our help but could help many local ones too helping the poor and needy. Our modest way of living did allow us to do these in spite of not raking in a lot.

As we age, our concerns are two-fold: (a) Will the greater acceptance of us recent immigrants that we saw, be sustained and allow our children serve what is indeed their nation and the only one they know to their fullest capacity? Or, will it diminish and the clock reset to an undesirable level through the hateful and ugly rhetoric of the likes of Trump? (b) Will our grandchildren and successive generations understand, cherish, and pass on the high cultural heritage and family values we grew up with and got ingrained as Indians born and brought up in India? Will they understand that those enduring values are those that truly distinguish us and can indeed make a difference in many ways both personally and societally?

Well, it has all been a wonderful life overall. Once again, I thank all our friends and colleagues who have helped us over the years one way or the other seeing each other as fellow humans and not through any lens dividing us. Most importantly, I thank the J.N. Tata Foundation, the K.C. Mahindra Foundation, and Purdue University. While the former two helped me with scholarships, Purdue gave me a Fellowship. Without these, I could not have come at all. It was indeed my great honor to be named.a Distinguished Science Alumnus by Purdue, an award given to only a handful of people each year.

'Nil nisi bonum' and Biden

With most US Press and Media including its most incisive reporters and interviewers, "De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est' - "Of the dead nothing but good is to be said" - seems to apply equally to outgoing US Presidents as much as to the dead.  Biden is no exception, and his treatment now by the media is also in line with our American jingoism that our President (sorry SCOTUS, should I say monarch?) can only be good.  Biden indeed does have a number of achievements in his one term Presidency, and some will bear fruit soon in what is hopefully to be a Kamala Harris presidency. Our American press and people will mainly focus on those, leaving what happened, or happens, around the world almost out in any consideration in the evaluation of  any administration.

The unfortunate fact, however, is that the Biden-Blinken-Austin trio has acted in ways showing little regard to non-American lives (except may be of some close allies) and pursued a policy of hegemony of the 20th Century that, in a highly changed environment obtaining now, compromises the long term interest and standing of our nation for short term gains.  The callousness shown towards the genocide in Gaza and the neighboring areas, the way the Afghan retreat was handled, the continuation and feeding of the flames of the Ukraine war, and the arbitrary seizures of Russian assets will all  be judged quite differently and negatively by history than it is in today's environment where, if one may quote Cholmsky and Co, both content and consent are manufactured.  The last of these seems to have already shaken the trust in the US as a banker with dire consequences for the primacy of the US dollar.  The world can indeed breath a sigh of relief that this trio will be gone, but that relief can be validated only in the policies of the new administration to come.

America, as always, is focused mainly on internal affairs - the economy, continuing second class treatment of women who can't even own a right to their own bodies, religion, and of course pocketbook issues.   Most have probably not heard of Bangladesh or the recent allegations that an elected leader has been ousted there, and that is suspected to be our machination as a reprisal for not giving us a military base. No one asks why we repeatedly side with autocratic governments, monarchies, and dictators and let in people suspected of high handed terrorism against other democracies (eg Rana against India).  No one seems to challenge Kamala Harris on what her foreign policy would indeed appear to look like.  Is she going to continue the international policies of Biden that have tarnished the American image and credibility significantly around the world and caused serious supply chain and other problems hurting our economy?

By all means, we should pray for Trump's loss in the election since the alternative will throw the world into greater chaos.  For now, Kamala Harris' foreign policy details  remaining obscure can work to her favor where the oppositon's slogan 'America First' is bought with no examination of how it may get rolled out.  Also, given the conflicts going on, it is best if America plays with its hand not fully exposed (quite contrary to Trump's unwise comments in this area.)  But the American intelligentsia and the Press and Media do owe  us Americans to challenge the leadership and move this nation, supposedly with 'a government of the people, for the people, and by the people,' in the right direction, not only in its internal affairs but also in its external affairs.  The stakes are too high for America in the world stage, and it is high time that some fair time is allocated to foreign affairs and the like too in interviews and debates.