Breach the Skies

I watched Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya with mixed expectations, and emerged from the theatre with mixed feelings. The company I went with hated the movie, and although I did curse and mutter on my way home, lest my peers brand me unintelligent and sappy, I couldn't help feeling that I was being harsh on a movie that had its moments.

VTV is a long, twisting climb to nowhere, but so is its subject - love. That sounds depressingly bleak, I know, but I'm just speaking from personal experience. Love (and more particularly, relationships) is (are), for the large part, pointless. Once their initial freshness wears off, they are boringly repetitive. (Just like VTV.) You like the same things about each other, you fight about the same things, your peeves are the same. Love, at the end of the day, is a facade, a front, a construct even - reinforced by years of popular cinema, popular music (how many non-metal songs are about anything other than love?), literature, peer pressure. Hell, sometimes I wonder if man was ever built to be monogamous...

I had you there for a second, no?
Tee hee.

Lets get back to the main 'review'.

VTV is a long, twisting climb to nowhere, but so is its subject - love. On the surface, the 'obstacles' to love in VTV are the usual ones - parents, angry-bearded-don't-touch-my-thangacchi-type brother (he comes as a package offer with a gang of men with unkempt hair and beard also), religion, age and other usual suspects. But these are only ancillary to the obstacles inside his leads minds - Jessie's confusion and Karthik's obsession.

The reason for neither is clearly spelt out. Karthik is madly in love with Jessie merely because she's walked past him a few times. (Hosanna, en vaasal thaandi ponaale/ Hosanna, verondrum seyyaamale...) Sure, his obsession escalates as he gets to know her better, but it is born in a very Maniratnamesque manner (think Madhavan in Alaipayuthey, Arvind Swamy in Bombay, Shah Rukh Khan on the railway platform in Dil Se (in both cases, the wind blows the veil off Manisha Koirala's face), Rajnikanth when Shobhana walks past him in Raakamma...). But that isn't completely unrealistic. Firstly, he has to contend with Trisha walking past him looking absolutely phantasmagorical in that sari. Moreover, it's not improbable, is it? Men do fall madly in love (lust?) at first sight - we only cool-ise and stop admitting it to ourselves and the rest of the world after a while. (What men don't do is thump their chest or jump around like apes like Simbu keeps doing in the movie.)

Jessie, on the other hand, is never sure of Karthik. Does she like him enough to marry him? He does make an impact on her, at some level. She admits to that much. Perhaps she's not convinced about Karthik's seriousness? She ends their relationship when he refuses to come back from Goa. Or is she scared of her parents? Does that vague back-story of her sister weigh on her mind? Jessie's confusion creates VTV's most engaging moments. For instance, you know Jessie's not going to get married at that church to the random Mellu groom. But you aren't sure how and why it will happen. Karthik looms ominously in the background and you think he's going to jump out at them and do something. Jessie seems slightly off, slightly nervous. In the end, Jessie just tells people she needs more time to think about life. You're still not sure if Karthik's the reason for her confusion. Even when she admits it to him later that night in a lovely little exchange, she doesn't do it convincingly.

Or that scene in the cameraman's house - when they're unwilling to let go of their hug and Karthik declares that he wants that moment to last forever. We've all made such declamations (inspired by cinema, perhaps?). But Jessie makes a comment that could have only come from a character like her, "This might be the last time?" It strikes an odd, discordant note, and you immediately know. Their romance will spiral downwards from there. Then, there's that superb scene towards the end where declare love for each other at Central Park. It is a mushy, mushy scene - the dialogues are cliched, long and leave one pretty winded. But there's an honesty to this scene that makes it really beautiful.

This is why I liked VTV. It gives you that space to chew on the characters. And it gives the characters enough meat to let us chew.

Now for what I didn't like in the movie.

It was slightly longer than it should have been. This, I fail to understand. After making tight thrillers like Kaaka Kaaka, and Vettaiyaadu Vilayaadu, why has he made two rambling messes of movies (VTV is slightly less rambling than Vaaranam Aaiyram, I will admit)? What happened to that slickness?

Also, the dialogues were really problematic. First, I don't like the English that Gautham Menon uses. He pokes fun at it early on in one of those meta-moments that has become fashionable in Indian cinema these days, but one cannot forgive him for some of those lines. "This was a one-way ticket to heartbreak city." Really? Dude? I can understand being true-to-life and all that. But that line? Really? Simbu? And tell me this - how many average, mechanical engineering guys go tell a girl they've spoken to thrice in their life, "I want to make love to you"?

Even otherwise, some of the Tamil dialogues were just so execrable, they killed scenes for me. The other problem was that the movie, in parts, got too talky. A silence here, an unsaid emotion there would have made it more effective, more honest.

Gautham Menon needs to watch more Wes Anderson, I think. Or even Dibankar Bannerjee (No, I haven't seen LSD yet, I'm going on the evidence from OLLO). He needs to learn how music works on an image. VTV has such wonderful music, but each song is murdered by its video. Systematically. Line dances for everything? Really? This brings me to a question - does a director need to know music? Let me give you an example. In Hosanna, the song bursts into life and colour at the words, "Vanna vanna pattupoochi..." (listen to the sudden euphoria in the background music at this point), but the image just has Simbu jumping around, just like in the previous verses. No bursting into life and colour. He jumps off some steps, yes. But the image was not even vaguely as exuberant as the verse.

In the end analysis (at the end of this maundering review that eerily resembles VTV itself), VTV was an enjoyable movie. I would, probably, even watch it again. But it left one with the sense that it could have been so much more...

The Two Disappearances - Part IV

Much belated. Sorry. Continued from here.
***

Mani's cell phone was switched off for a week, his landline was 'disconnected' (Ajith wondered if he had forgotten to pay his bill) and Ajith was too nervous to go to his house without calling him first. For three days after the first interview, Ajith expected no call and didn't get one. Then, like a husband with his wife nearing her 'due' date, he began expecting a phone call at any moment and obsessed over being around his phone at all times. At the end of the week, he decided that he had to be the one making the phone calls, but met with the irritating switched-off-voice. Slowly, he grew desperate and started calling Nethra everyday, whining to her about geniuses and their need to show to the world that they are eccentric. People always mistake eccentricity for genius, he told her, and most often, geniuses are taken seriously only when they are eccentric. Nethra suggested that Ajith should go directly to Mani's house.

The very next morning, Shankar called. "Sir wants you to come at three-fifteen this afternoon."

At three-ten, Ajith found the front door wide open and Shankar sitting in the verandah with ironing a veshti with great concentration. The old iron traversed the garment in careful straight lines, crisping it in the process. Shankar looked up when he heard the gate and peered happily at Ajith through his thick glasses. For a moment, the iron-box left the garment and rested on a side table.

"Hello!" Shankar exclaimed. Ajith waved, as he approached the verandah. Shankar placed a chair next to his own, and asked Ajith to sit. Ajith obeyed. Shankar then disappeared inside the house. Ajith, partly mechanically, and partly because it seemed like fun, began ironing the veshti. Almost three minutes later, Mani appeared at the front door, preceded by a four-legged walker and escorted by Shankar.

"Good afternoon!" Mani said, sounding as cheery as he did the other day, "You don't have to iron my veshti, you know! Only my students do that..."
Shankar lunged to take the iron out of Ajith's hand, while Ajith put the iron away on the side table. "It's an honour!" Ajith said.

Mani laughed. Shankar went into the house and returned in a moment with a folding easy chair. He placed it in the verandah facing the road. Mani sat on the chair. Ajith and Shankar then took their seats next to him, and Ajith put his recorder on the armrest of Mani's chair.

"You're looking much better today!" Ajith said.
"I feel better! But the end is near... I can feel it," Mani said, in a natural, cheery tone.
A silence followed that statement. "Where were we?" Mani asked, unmindful of the reaction his declaration had caused.
Ajith took a second before replying, "You told us about the girl in Thanjavur..."
"Madurai," Mani corrected him.
Ajith looked at him curiously. "You said Madurai? I somehow thought it was Thanjavur..."
"No. Madurai."
Ajith was pretty sure the short story by Janani referred to the Thanjavur Railway Station, but he wasn't sure of what Mani had told him. He couldn't believe that there could be a discrepancy between Mani's story and Janani's.

Mani broke the silence with, "That story's over. What next?"
"You were saying... You were saying you met that woman again, but she didn't recognise you..."
"I don't know if I want to tell you that story," Mani said, looking mischievously at Ajith through the corner of his eye.

Ajith's face fell. But he collected himself to ask, "Any other women?"
Mani laughed, "Too many!"
"Tell us about them?"
Mani smiled, "No."

There was another pause. Ajith broke the silence this time with, "Sir, are you actually a recluse? Or is that just a perception?"
"I'm not fond of social gatherings. Except kacheris," he chuckled. "I like smaller groups of people for social interaction... You know, I get uncomfortable when I am at a wedding or a function. Too many people know me, too many people have met me. I am always worried that I'm inadvertently ignoring people, or I've slighted someone, or I've been over-friendly with someone I don't know too well. It scares me. So, I avoid all these events. So, people think I'm introverted or anti-social. I like a group of three or four people. Then, we're all talking to each other, we can all have our conversations, I'm spending time with all of them. In a large gathering, I'm not spending time with anyone. It's overwhelming. Frightening."

Ajith did not know how to maneuver this odd convesation. Mani then said, "To tell you the truth, the world inside my head is far richer than the world outside it. I prefer living there."

Ajith knotted his eyebrows. Mani signalled something to Shankar. Shankar got up and went inside the house.

Then, Mani said, "Even in my childhood, I had a world inside my head. It was, usually, a version of the world outside. Real people are more complicated in my head than they are in real life. Emotions are stronger, responses are magnified, scenes are in full colour and 3-D. If my father was actually cold and strict, in my head, he would be caring - and perhaps he was on the inside! If I was known for my singing everywhere, I was an actor in my head. I always wanted to act in the movies, and imagined my Abhimanyu play being made into a famous movie. When I watched Ben-hur in Bombay, I was blown away! I spent months trying to convince directors here to make an Abhimanyu movie on that scale and cast me in it. And I would spend days imagining myself in those movies, acting, singing, fighting, romancing... And giving interviews! I read these film magazines that came from Bombay with interviews from the stars. I must've been in my twenties by then, but the interviews really fascinated me. And because no one ever wanted to interview a Carnatic musician then, I imagined interviews, answers, reactions.
"But then, you know, the world is a noisy place. You can't hear what is inside you when the world chatters all around you. An artist needs to spend enough time in that world inside his head. If someone says he has no such world, he's no artist at all. He's just a xerox machine. A musician's music should be his own. Not someone else's.
"This Shankar, for instance," Mani said, pointing at Shankar entering again with the usual tea and Marie biscuits, "Sings brilliantly. Lovely voice. But sings only my sangatis. I sometimes think he writes down my raga alapanas in a notebook and reproduces them." Shankar attempted some form of protest, but Mani cut him off and continued, "He has a band of followers now - a cult of old men and women who liked my music. They hear me in his voice, in his style... Not good at all. I don't teach him anything these days. Just let him sing on his own. I don't even correct him if he makes a mistake. He needs to live in his head for a while."
"Sir exaggerates," Shankar said, nibbling on his biscuit.
It was a confused monologue from Mani. Was he senile, Ajith pondered. He sipped his tea, and found it tasting like dissolved mud. It was the sort of tea his grandmother made - boil cheap tea powder in milk, strain, add milk, sugar, boil everything together and serve hot. The same procedure could result in excellent chai, like the tea kadai at the end of Boag Road proved, but his grandmother and Shankar had got something wrong. Perhaps, they did use mud.

Just then, a Maruti 800 pulled up by the main gate. An old man got out, opened the gate and drove straight in. Mani called out joyously, "Sivan!" and said to Ajith, "My brother, Sadasivam."
Sadasivam waved from the car, parked it, got out and hollered, "Anna! Not bad! You're sitting in the verandah!" and looking at Shankar and Ajith asked, "Shishyaalaa?"
"That one with the glasses, he is Shankar, my student. Lives with me now."
"Of course I know Shankar..." Sadasivam said, suddenly recognising him.

"And this one here, Ajith," he paused, "Am I right? Ajith?" Ajith nodded. "Yes. He is Ajith. A reporter from the Indian Express. Interviewing me."
"My Anna is a big fraud," Sadasivam said, "Always telling people that he's an ordinary fellow and all that. Even he doesn't know the extent of his genius."
Ajith laughed, "Don't worry. We're not fooled by him!"
Mani said, "Ajith, I need to take my brother inside the house - I'm just getting rid of some furniture. Wait here." He turned to Shankar, "Keep him entertained."
Shankar helped Mani on to his feet, but Mani brushed him aside after that, "Siva will take me from here!"
Sadasivam gleefully put his hand on Mani's shoulder and guided him through the door. He turned to Ajith and said, "Come with us. You can continue the interview while we look at the furniture."

Ajith walked with them into the bare drawing room and through the dining room to the landing where the stairs led to the first floor. Lurking at the far end of the landing, partly hidden by the stairs and partly by the dim light, was a door that Ajith wouldn't have noticed if Shankar hadn't opened it. It led to a room that was a grand bedroom in its heyday, where the owners of the house slept. Now, it was a storeroom for old furniture and books. Sadasivam said, "I need a bookshelf. And a study table. I'm converting the sit-out into a study of sorts."
"Oh, the one on the first floor?"
"Yeah."
Mani stood with his walker at the head of the room and said, "Leave that one there on the right for me. It has my cassettes. Take anything else."
Sadasivam scanned the room, moving furniture around to make space for himself. He spotted a large bookshelf at the near corner filled with Tamil books and said, "That bookshelf looks good."
Ajith, meanwhile, walked straight to the shelf with Mani's cassettes. It was a fascinating collection of Mani's music - concerts from the 1950s to the 1990s, all arranged in chronological order, labelled in crisp English lettering, with the year, sabha, accompanists and main raagam on the sleeve. Ajith saw TNK, TKM, UKS, VR and other familiar abbreviations on many covers. There was one that caught his fancy - "SC (nadaswaram)", it said. Ajith asked, across the room, "You've sung with Sheik Chinnamoulana-saheb?"
Mani said, "Oh yes! Three concerts. All of them were bad! When I sang with Rajarathnam Anna, it was so beautiful. I was trying to recreate that effect... There's one next to this cassette with T. Viswanathan on flute, right?"
"Yes."
"That is a great concert - Saaveri, Shuddha Saaveri, Asaveri were the first three ragas..."
"Yes!" Ajith said in amazement, "How do you remember such things?"
Shankar said from near the other bookshelf, "Once, I told him that I had a recording of his concert at Bangalore, 1980 with Thodi raagam-taanam-pallavi in it. MSG on violin. And he said..."
"There's Sahana, Kaanada, Hindolam in the ragamalika. Yes, I remember that concert very well!"
Ajith suddenly noticed something out-of-place. There was a set of Pink Floyd CDs! "Sir, what are these Pink Floyd CDs?"
Sadasivam laughed, and Mani joined him. Mani said, "You won't believe me if I told you. I sang a concert in London, after which Roger Waters gave them to me."
"You know what is special about Anna's music? It is universal, every damn fellow loves it. Anna hates to admit it, but he's a genius. That word is used easily these days, but I mean it. He is a true genius." Sadasivam said, now looking for a study table.
Mani said, "I wish I could be like my brothers."
"What rubbish!"
"Siva, you don't know. You have such an advantage in that you understand people around you. I'm always a little lost, always the oddball. Eccentric. Genius. People like me from a distance - it is an admiration for what I am and what I've achieved..."
"Don't get fooled by this self-pity, Ajith. Anna has admirers who'll do anything for him. Ask Shankar, isn't my Anna most caring?"
Shankar agreed.
"Admirers?" Mani asked, "I don't see a single one at home today. Except for Shankar... You don't know, Siva. I can't walk today, there are things eating me up from the inside. Doctors are trying to prolong my existence; god knows why. And my children are in the US. Too busy to spend time with me. You fractured your leg and your son came to India for a month... It's my fault. I wasted my life being a genius. I should've been with them more when they were younger." Mani addressed Ajith now, "When we were kids, my brothers had all sorts of stories to tell, about their friends, their school, their adventures. I had nothing to tell anyone about. Look at Sadasivam, I'm sure you like him already, with his easy charm and sense of humour. I would've preferred being like him."
"The whole world wants to be you, Anna. Now shut up." After a moment, Sadasivam sighed and said, "I guess I'll have to buy a new study table. Nothing here."
Mani turned around, his walker clanking against the red-oxide floor as he walked into the landing, into the dining room.

Suddenly, he asked Sadasivam, "Dai Siva! Take me to the beach?"

Soon, Ajith found himself in the old Maruti car with Mani, Sadasivam and Shankar, hurtling away towards Marina Beach.
Sadasivam asked, "Ajith, you've been with the Indian Express for long?"
"Six months."
"Oh. Where were you before that?"
"I was with a market research firm in Bombay..."
"Didn't like Bombay?"
"Umm, sort of. I was always looking to come back South."
"Your parents live here?"
Shankar interjected, "You live with your grandmother, don't you?"
Ajith said, "Yeah. My mother's no more. She died when I was barely two."
"I'm so sorry..." Sadasivam said. "What about your father?"
"He married again and left me with his parents. They brought me up."
There was an uncomfortable silence. Mani decided to break it with, "So, Ajith what does your grandfather do?"
"He was in the I.R.S. He's also no more... I moved back to Madras because my grandmother was alone."
Again, it was uncomfortable. Everyone muttered a sorry, but said little more. Ajith said, "He was old..."
Finally, Mani said to Sadasivam, "Hey, I.R.S! You might know him!" and said to Ajith, "Siva's an I.A.S. retired."
Sadasivam said, "What was his name?"
"S. Ramachandran."
That revelation produced the most awkward of the three silences.
Sadasivam said, with a fake enthusiasm, "Ram Anna is an old friend! Great man, he was! Great man."
Mani went unnaturally quiet until they reached the beach. Ajith realised he shouldn't have given away his grandfather's identity. His cover of being an innocent young fellow trying to understand Mani was exposed. Mani would soon suspect that Ajith was only interested in one story. The story of his grand-aunt. Ajith guessed that Mani would be guarded about all his stories now. The openness, the twinkling eyes, the rants, the vague stories would all go.

"In the 50s," Mani told Shankar, "When I was around your age, I used to come here and practice on the beach! There was nobody here early in the morning. Or late at night. In that corner, around the lighthouse, sometimes I would hear a piercing flute - especially at night. That was Flute Ramani, sometimes accompanied by Mali. The beach was otherwise empty."
Ajith imagined the young, handsome Mani, his striking voice, the drone of the tambura and lashing of the night-waves. And he looked at the Mani today, his walker clanking ahead of him as he navigated the pavement towards a cement bench. His brain suddenly conjured another image, of a middle-aged Mani, still handsome, and Ajith's Taapi, a most beautiful woman, sitting together on this very beach, oblivious to the scandal they were creating in their homes.
***

To Continue.

Saturday, the Thirteenth

Partying on Saturday nights has never been a routine for me. In my childhood, I found myself at my neighbour's house by seven-thirty pm waiting for our music teacher to come. Classes took up rest of the night, often stretching to ten o clock or beyond. In Bangalore, I went to my aunt's place on Saturday evenings and spent most of the weekend lying down on the sofa or the bed, and dragging myself to the dining table for meals. On such Saturday nights, I would wait for my uncle and aunt to finish their nightly-TV-watching, and settle down into one of the English movie channels.

On this particular Saturday night - it was the thirteenth of either April or May, I can't recollect - I watched this particularly nondescript movie called Big Bully. (I would have forgotten this movie completely if I hadn't watched the Blessy's brilliant Bhramaram that dealt with a similar theme in a much more nuanced manner.) After the movie, I groggily made my way to the loo, and then to the bed.

It was a double-bed parallel to the wall. I slept on the edge and there was enough space for someone to sleep behind me. I was just about asleep when I felt someone climb over me and sleep on the other side. My cousin was still staying with her parents then, and I presumed it might be her. I wanted to check anyway. I opened my eyes, I was definitely awake, but I felt like my body was bound to the bed. I couldn't move. When this temporary paralysis lifted, I got up and found the room empty. Out of curiosity, I walked into the hall, a long room with a wide window at the other end, moonlight peering through the translucent glass.

There she was, a short woman silhouetted against the window, walking ever so slowly and disappearing into the kitchen. I went back to my room, turned the light on, lay staring at the ceiling for a while until I dozed off.

Next morning, at the breakfast table, my aunt asked me why the light was on all night. I told her this story. She looked at me, surprised, and said, "You know, many years ago, your Mama also had the same experience - he said someone was in the room, and he couldn't get up!" My uncle wondered whether I saw his deceased sister, who was of similar physique as the woman I described.
***

Today, five years later, I get a mail from my cousin with a link to this article. Two extracts:

"7. Sleepy hallucinations
We're all used to seeing strange things in our dreams, but what about when we're not dreaming? So-called hypnagogic hallucinations occur during the transition from wakefulness to sleep (just after our head hits the pillow). And hypnopompic hallucinations hit during the waking-up process. People report hearing voices, feeling phantom sensations and seeing people or strange objects in their rooms. Bugs or animals crawling on the walls are a common vision, said Neil Kline, a sleep physician and representative of the ASA."

About sleep paralysis:

"Sleep paralysis

During REM sleep, dream activity ramps up and the voluntary muscles of the body become immobile. This temporary paralysis keeps us from acting out our dreams and hurting ourselves. Sometimes, though, the paralysis persists even after the person wakes up. "You know you're awake and you want to move," Kline said. "But you just can't."Even worse, sleep paralysis often coincides with number 7 on our list: hallucinations. In one 1999 study published in the Journal of Sleep Research, 75 percent of college students who'd experienced sleep paralysis reported simultaneous hallucinations. And these hallucinations, when they occur with sleep paralysis, are no picnic; people commonly report sensing an evil presence, along with a feeling of being crushed or choked. That sensation has given sleep paralysis a place in folklore worldwide. Newfoundlanders know it as the "Old Hag." In China, it's the "ghost pressing down on you." And in Mexico, it's known by the idiom "subirse el muerto," or "the dead climb on top of you.""

Spooky.

Helpful Tips to Kacheri Listening

Also, N.V. Mani requires some serious attention. Lets all hope this weekend will be better than my last few.

This is written for single, twenty-something males with little or no knowledge of Carnatic music. But others can apply these fundae wherever it is applicable.
***

There are many reasons why the classical-musically-disinclined amongst you might find yourselves at a Carnatic Music concert. Your friend is an enthusiast, and he (hopefully, she) believes that three hours of T.N. Seshagopalan might change your life. Your good friend plays the violin and you're obliged to listen. You find that the girl you find interesting finds Carnatic Music more interesting. You think, for some strange reason, that T.V.Sankaranarayanan could be the front-man for a heavy metal band playing screeching guitar solos, and end up in a more demure atmosphere instead. You might be under the common misconception that pretty Iyengar girls come to kacheris. You might just wander into Music Academy for the air-conditioning on a hot December afternoon.

In such situations, life can be awkward. You could find yourself out of place, like a fish out of water, like Alastair Cook in a T20 game, like Bobby Deol in a movie, like a Bombay-ite in a Madras auto, like a Delhi-ite trying to eat rasam saadam off a banana leaf... (you get the general idea).

Here is a simple guide to looking the part (even if you don't feel the part).

1. The Dress: If you've lived in South India for long enough, you'll know that if someone notices your clothes, you're overdressed. And really, that's the way the world should be. (Btw, Koramangala is not South India anymore). So, if you think wearing a fabindia kurta is proper attire for a kacheri, then you're wrong. That is the first mistake newbies make. Because when a mama sees you in a fabindia kurta, he knows you're a pretender. He'll scoff at you and tell you an in-those-days-we-all-sang-raagam-taanam-pallavi-sitting-in-our-verandas-while-doing-maths-homework-type story.

Wear a checked shirt. Preferably vague brands such as SVK, VBR, Discent purchased at small shops around Mylapore tank or non-AC shops in Pondy bazaar (And, no. Don't wear the white shirt from Ramraj Cottons. People will presume you're one of the artistes.). Then, we come to the bottom-half of the dress. You can either wear a pair of trousers, again, belonging to one of these vague brands. Or you could wear a veshti. Remember, the veshti cannot have a jari border or be too white and too ironed. Else, again, people will think you're the artiste.

Carry a yellow cloth pye, preferably with the little Ready Raga Reckoner in it. You can fill the pye with random pink and yellow sheets of paper with Tamil writing, a copy of the panchangam, Reynolds pen, Odomos tube, random small notebook with name of respectable south Indian company (Shree Lakshmi Cotton Mills, Sundaram Finance) written on it.
2. What to do during the kacheri:
(a) The first challenge is managing to stay awake. There are things you can try. Like counting the hairs on head of the bald-mama sitting in front of you. Making snide remarks (to yourself) about someone's garish silk podavai with ugly golden border could also be considered. It is really interesting to watch the mridangam and ghatam/kanjira/morsing player make eyes at each other. They do it unnaturally often. If it is an open air place, you could spend time taking an Odomos tube out of your yellow pye (see above), applying it carefully over each part of your body exposed to winged-threats and offering it to your neighbour.

(b) Taalam. Many inexperienced listeners try keeping taalam. That is a common mistake. Let me elaborate.

There are many kinds of taalam keepers. The first kind does not know the taalam, but thinks it essential that he must wave his hands enthusiastically to the beat. The second is the excited new listener, who has just learnt to keep taalam - falls apart when the neraval or swarams set in. The third sort is the more experienced second sort - who can keep taalam correctly for most of the kacheri. The fourth sort knows the taalam quite well, but doesn't feel the need to show off his skills - he's beyond all that. The taalam just runs in his head. Once in a while, he'll slap his thigh in appreciation on the concluding beat of a long calculation. The fifth sort is the official taalam keeper for the kacheri - look out for him/her in the first row or behind the main artiste with a tambura. There is an elusive sixth sort - one who knows the taalam well enough to keep it in his sleep. He is sleepy, but doesn't want people to know that he's sleeping during a kacheri. So, he'll close his eyes, keep taalam and doze off. The taalam continues monotonously without any sign of a mistake. People think he's engrossed in the music. Actually, he's catching up on sleep after last night's party.

Now, if you don't know the taalam too well, you might be tempted to slot yourself in the first category and execute dance moves with your hands. Don't. Exercise restraint. The best tactic is to seem like the fourth category. That takes some acting. Let out a "Sabhaash!" at a random spot in the song, and nod knowingly at the mridangist. (Warning: don't do this too often, or they'll call your bluff. Twice in the concert, maximum.) During raga alapanas, a 'mtch-mtch' is much appreciated by your neighbours.

(c) Other activities. You could have your phone in your shirt pocket, let it ring and spend three excruciating minutes fumbling to turn it off. If you have the Ready Raga Reckoner, you could put it in a plastic cover in your yellow pye, and take it out at the start of each song and put it back into the plastic cover after referring to it. Make noise and attract attention to yourself each time with the plastic cover. Doing things noiselessly is unbecoming of an experienced kacheri listener.

3. Useful lines to say to the mama sitting next to you:

Say this in a lamenting tone: "Nobody sings padams anymore... Brinda-Mukta... They were the last great musicians. And Tiger before them..." (If you're really curious about 'Tiger', check this out.)

"Dikshitar kritis are a true test of one's musical prowess..." This can work in both circumstances - when the singer is actually singing Dikshitar kritis, the mama will assume you're making a comment on the Dikshitar kriti; and if he's not, then the mama will think you're suggesting that the singer must sing Dikshitar kritis instead of whatever he's singing. This will set you amongst the intellectual listeners.

If you're at a young artiste's performance, "Youngsters these days are in a hurry to get on stage and perform. In those days..."

At an old artiste's performance, "Oh. I heard this old recording of when was young, that was something else..."

Dangers of this approach are many.

(a) The mama sitting next to you might seek to clarify raagam doubts from you.

Suggested response: "Mama! Of course you know this raagam!" Or, "Let me give you a hint. There is a tillana by T.K. Rangachari in this raagam. Very famous!" T.K. Rangachari was a great enough musician to have composed a tillana in his time, and he is obscure enough for the mama to think that the tillana might have escaped his attention somehow.

Second suggested response: "Mama, I've actually learnt only Hindustani music." Pronounce Hindustani as in-dus-ta-ni (the 't' and 'd' being pronounced as in 'turgid' and the 'n' as in 'ponnu'). This gives you the opportunity to tell the mama that the corresponding raagam in in-dus-ta-ni is 'Meend' or 'Jeeral' (neither raga exists, to my knowledge, but they're sufficiently North Indian sounding and sufficiently vague).

(b) The mama sitting next to you might ask you for your educational qualification, employment particulars, marital status and horoscope details.

Here, you make an assessment. Do you really want this mama to be your father-in-law? But you have to make another assessment first - is the mama 'looking' for his daughter? Or granddaughter? Or is it his neice/grandneice/similarly situated relative? Friend's daughter? Enemy's daughter? Or is he really liberal and is 'looking' for his son/ grandson/ grandnephew/ nephew? If you think the counter-party that this mama offers could be interesting, you could respond with relevant details. (You can look around him to see if any interesting-looking personalities are sitting around him.)

Otherwise, you can repel the mama with, "Mama, I am a divorcee." (Pronounce it as dye-voar-see)
Also try, "I am working at Satyam."

4. Things to tell the Artistes if you bump into them: Compliment the artistes on their 'laya' (rhythm) or 'shruti shuddham' (pitch perfectness.)(Actually, after a rock concert, go backstage and tell the lead singer, "Sir, you have such srutisuddham!" That might be fun.). Don't tell them they have 'beautiful voices' or that they are 'energetic' - that's just low-level complimentation.

Other cool things to try:
If it is a female singer, "M.S. would have been proud of this concert!"
If it is a male singer, "Oh, it felt like I was listening to Ariyakkudi again!"
If it is an instrumentalist, "You sound just like your guru!"

You can freak them out with this:
"In 1947, I heard GNB at RR Sabha... This concert was just like that!"
The artiste will give you an incredulous look. And then you reply, matter of factly, "In my last life," and walk away into the crowd.