No Animals were Harmed in the Making of this Movie

When you're jobless on weekday afternoons, and you decide to channel-flip, you'll come across Telugu movies dubbed into Hindi with rather strange titles. Indra - The Tiger. Narasimha - the Powerful Man. Meri Jung - One Man Army.

The below-mentioned, Cheetah - the Leopard is in a league of its own.


The movie, needless to say, isn't some wildlife thriller like Jungle (or one of those 80s movies that features a dog, an elephant and a pigeon). Venkatesh is a singer, Venu, whose father wants him to be an IPS officer. By the end of the movie, he becomes both. Like a cheetah who is also a leopard.

Now that you've finished guffawing, I have a question - what is the difference between a cheetah and a leopard?

(Tougher than you think, no?)

Yodhakaa

Last night, in one of Madras' dingier underground pubs, Star Rock, I was nursing a stiff one when a pretty Sri raagam in a vibrant female voice enveloped me (the sentence could also be "vibrant Sri raagam in a pretty female voice", but I like the adjectives the other way around). It felt like sacrilege to be lounging on spongy sofas and nibbling on peanuts. A slide guitar launched into a drawling solo, accompanied by a punchy bass, bright guitars and groovy percussion. This wasn't the everyday devout Sri raagam, this was something else. Without realising it, I was counting fours with my feet, dissecting the song into swara-s and raga patterns and exclaiming "Sabhaash!" at a cute phrase.



Soon, I realised that I would be doing a disservice to the richness of the band's sound if I approached their music as raga-based fusion. Chennai's hot new act, Yodhakaa, throws a curious mixed-bag of music at its audience - it pits a strong Carnatic aesthetic amidst a folksy rock and samba-jazz-like environment. There are portions in their repertoire that stick to known (and unknown) ragas, but unlike most Indian fusion bands, the band doesn't seem constrained by them. They borrow Carnatic music's style, its sounding system, its way of embellishing notes and enunciating lyrics, but not its rigidity. (As is evident from this paragraph, the music isn't easy to compartmentalise.)

The easy route would be to call it "Carnatic Fusion", but that has become a bad word these days; it conjures soundscapes of jarring Hamsadhwani accompanied by keyboards and rhythm pads. The drummer, Siva, who did most of the (unnecessary) talking, said, "Hey! We're Yodhakaa, and we play Indian music... contemporary Indian music!" This term sounds like the evil twin sister of "fusion", I know, but Yodhakaa have earned the right to use it. For all their mixed-bag of influences, their music is distinctly Indian. Good music doesn't live and grow in isolation, it is a product of the music around it, and Yodhakaa is a testament to that - it doesn't sound like a "fusion" of styles, but like a new aesthetic in itself.

Its other strength is the high quality of its musicians. Subhiksha and Pradeep combine beautifully on vocals, and Pradeep plays a most interesting slide guitar (built from scratch, he says) that produces every nuance of Indian music with depth and clarity. The drums and bass give the band a groovy grounding that sets them apart from most Indian acts, and Akshay on the guitars plays with sensitivity and innovation.

For all this inventiveness, the use of "ancient Sanskrit slokas" seems like a gimmick. That is the only pretentious part of their music. And this leads to my questioning of the term "contemporary" - I can't think of a contemporary Indian connecting with these lyrics. The slokas are religious in content, but the music does not seem to revel in the religiousness - they might as well be replaced by nonsense syllables (the band's name itself, some internet research tells me, was chosen only for its phonetic value), and it would take nothing away from the music. Many of these old slokas are in the anushtup-chhandas, a metre of four lines of eight syllables with a specified arrangement of long and short syllables. Yodhakaa's music, as a result, becomes very similar in its underlying rhythm. In many songs, the verses are all sung in the same tune, and are placed almost as an interlude to the solos. Even if the band wants to stick to Sanskrit slokas, there are devilish little ones brimming with humour and philosophy that might work better than the Hanuman Ashtakam or a series of slokas on the Dasaavataaram (which the clueless drummer described as being "about destruction").

Listening to Yodhakaa gave me the feeling that they would be better in a recording than live (I'm still kicking myself for not picking up their CD that night - it would be nice for the extended drives from work to home). They were extremely tight, don't get me wrong, but they lacked spontaneous energy that lifts live performances. Maybe they were too tight? (The energy high point of the concert was what they described as their "crazy stuff" - "Even we don't know what we're doing!") Their energy is subtler, and their strength is their total understanding of each other's music, but, an improvisational conversation would have been nice amidst numerous monologues. Especially live.

Ultimately, these are only minor irritants in a performance that was truly top-class. Highly recommended.

Showing us Heroes: Aditya Sudarshan on his Second Novel

Aditya Sudarshan's second novel is out, as I have already mentioned to the (approximately six) readers of this blog. The novel is centred around Prashant Padmanabhan, an engineer graduate (like half this country) making an amateur film on his cricketing idol, Ali Khan (who seemed, to me, like a strange mix of Azhar and Tendulkar). In a style that evokes Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, the novel is told through the eyes of Vaibhav, a friend of Prashant's, also involved in the movie and in the story, but not its central character in the traditional sense. The title itself comes from a Fitzgerald quote, "Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy."

I interviewed him via a few broken emails.

Congratulations on your second novel. Must be satisfying...

Thanks! Yeah it felt great to write it. Also good to get it published, although that was more of an ordeal. This book wasn't such an easy sell, so it took some perseverance to publish. Which is eventually satisfying, although as an author you also feel that's the least you deserve!

Do you find it surprising that a book that involves a cricketing hero and movie-making would be difficult to sell to a publisher in India?

Well it does sound surprising, but I didn't feel that way myself, because I know that those aspects of the story aren't treated in the obvious ways. So on a cold reading of the bare manuscript I don't think a publisher would sense immediate saleability on those counts. Maybe the reason it was tough to sell is that it is not easily categorized, in terms of genre. The story has many elements, and by the standards of conventional crime fiction, it moves slowly.

Last time I interviewed you, you said, "I think, almost more than any other story-telling device, the device of a detective story forces the author to have something to say." Is that why you choose a mystery again? Actually, would you classify this as a mystery?

I'd classify it as a mystery, a tragedy, and a coming-of-tale, the way it's mentioned in the back cover blurb. Because this novel does have distinct layers- the over-arching story is the narrator's self-discovery, so to speak. Then a major part of that process is the murder and the mystery he becomes involved in. And in the backdrop is the story of the forgotten cricketer. But if I had to mention just one genre, I would say 'coming of age', not 'mystery', because the coming of age is the 'overall' story- what everything else flows into or leads up to.

Why I chose a mystery again, well it maybe wasn't that volitional. But after my first book (which followed a fairly conventional crime fiction structure) I wanted to write another piece of crime fiction that altered that structure. Something where the victim was a central character, and where the crime and the reasons for it were not just a puzzle in themselves, but part of a bigger story. So that was one of the ambitions in my head while I was thinking up this novel.

How difficult is a second novel? Are there expectations to live up to? Suggestions you might have got from people that lodge themselves uncomfortably in the back of your mind?

In my case, I had written the draft of this novel before the first one got published. So factoring in other people's opinions or expectations wasn't so much of an issue. But even so, I think writing a second novel is definitely very different from the first. With a first novel, you tend to 'ride a wave'- you don't analyse so much and you just do things more instinctively. But the second time around you feel a lot more in control of your work. Therefore also a greater sense of responsibility. So it is more difficult and maybe less pure fun, but it's also more rewarding, because you can legitimately take credit for more things. (And feel like a professional)

Basically, if you divide fiction writing into 'creative' and 'editorial' dimensions, then starting from the second novel I think the editorial side of things is much more at work. (Not that it can ever, ever dominate, because then you wouldn't be able to write at all.)

What has been your experience with publishers' reactions to the manuscript of a second novel? Any different from their reaction to the first?

Hmm not really. I mean, a rejection is a rejection! I know it sounds like it should be an advantage to show that you've written one already, but I think unless the first one made a big sensation, it could even be a disadvantage. My sense is that publishers like debut authors, who are eager and 'unspoiled,' much more than the veteran journeyman type.

One novel hardly qualifies you as a 'veteran journeyman', Sud!

Hehe, no. But I didn't mean me - was just describing two ends of a scale.

Your novel is being billed as a cricket novel - the cricket-centric cover... I think the novel could have been about cockfighting in rural Tamilnadu, or rivalry amongst rock bands - you just happened to choose cricket. Your thoughts on that? Any reason why you chose cricket specifically?

Here I partly agree with you, partly disagree. The reason I arrived at cricket was because one of the themes of this novel is hero-worship. So I wanted to write about a larger than life public figure whom a young man could idolize. Of course it could have been a musician or someone more niche like that, but I also wanted the figure to be 'national'- someone whom all the diversity of Indian society might have an opinion about. And someone whom I myself could feel close to and interested in. So all of that kind of led to cricket, and a cricketer. But it definitely isn't just a 'cricket' novel, because that's not it's central focus.

Hmmm. That is a fair point, yes. Were you ever tempted to use fictionalised versions of real life cricketers as characters? What led you to creating a parallel cricketing world?

Initially I had made some references to actual cricketers, but I changed that later. I felt it would pull people too far out of the story because a real life cricketer is so larger than life, and provokes strong opinions on his own account. I didn't want that distraction. The character of my cricketer Ali Khan wasn't based on anybody either. Although one of the things I had thought while writing him was: what if a guy had the cricketing ability of a Tendulkar minus the saintly public persona?


Your first book, A Nice Quiet Holiday, was published by Westland, and your second book by Rupa - are the publishing cultures in the two houses very different?

I think they are. Although I'll be able to answer this better in another six months, once I know more. When I published with Westland I think they were keen on experimental fiction, new genres, niche genres etc. Rupa is a huge publisher, and they publish many kinds of books, so it's tough to assess them that way. But they are of course very strong on mainstream books and cultivating a wide (as opposed to niche) readership.

Last time, I asked you how personal your novel was. And whether you could update us on your love life. Can you answer those questions again?

This novel is probably more consistently personal than my first. It's a more emotional novel, the first one was more intellectual (and therefore more distanced from me personally). And my love life is a lot of self-love. Let's check back again after the next bookl!


You are right. Anything even remotely intellectual is necessarily distanced from you.
:-P

I've been asked to ask you this question - any reason why your first protagonist was called Anant and the second Padmanabhan?

Well Anant is my brother's first name. Padmanabhan is my friend's sur-name. So I took the names from them. But the characters aren't drawn from either my brother or Pappan (as you will be able to vouch for!)


You are moving to Bombay soon to work in films. Tell us something about this shift. Were you always planning to work in cinema at some point? Can we expect more novels from you?

Yes, I'm shifting to Bombay! There are many reasons for that, but purely professionally I think I do need to do more script-writing (I already do some for television), and Bombay obviously has more opportunities for that. I wasn't always planning to do this, but I figured about a year ago that to sustain my writing over the long-term I need to diversify into areas other than novels and stories. The way I look at it, an English language fiction writer in India who wants to make ends meet, has three options. He or she can either try to break into the foreign market, or do a lot of journalistic work- or write scripts. I think of those three options script-writing is the one I would find the most enjoyable and interesting.

But I certainly hope you can expect more novels from me (relax, you can :-)). In fact I want to write a novel that is set against the backdrop of the film industry- I think that's a powerful setting. Let's see, but hopefully things will fall into place.

Thank you, Sud. It was lovely interviewing you. Hope we can catch up soon. On Juhu Beach perhaps!

You're welcome Mami, it was my pleasure. Yes, I'll introduce you to my new film star friends!

Off two Eggs and dog biscuits

Since this novel is paralysing my daily activities, I thought it would be fit to share two passages from it:

Gatsby walked over and stood beside her.

“Daisy, that’s all over now,” he said earnestly. “It doesn’t matter any more. Just tell him the truth — that you never loved him — and it’s all wiped out forever.”

She looked at him blindly. “Why — how could I love him — possibly?”

“You never loved him.”

She hesitated. Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort of appeal, as though she realized at last what she was doing — and as though she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all. But it was done now. It was too late.

“I never loved him,” she said, with perceptible reluctance.

“Not at Kapiolani?” demanded Tom suddenly.

“No.”

From the ballroom beneath, muffled and suffocating chords were drifting up on hot waves of air.

“Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry?” There was a husky tenderness in his tone. . . . “Daisy?”

“Please don’t.” Her voice was cold, but the rancor was gone from it. She looked at Gatsby. “There, Jay,” she said — but her hand as she tried to light a cigarette was trembling. Suddenly she threw the cigarette and the burning match on the carpet.

“Oh, you want too much!” she cried to Gatsby. “I love you now — isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past.” She began to sob helplessly. “I did love him once — but I loved you too.”

Gatsby’s eyes opened and closed.

“You loved me too?” he repeated.

And the second one, a sort of quote that one mugs, creates convoluted situations for, and uses on unsuspecting souls:

“Oh, and do you remember.”— she added —” a conversation we had once about driving a car?”

“Why — not exactly.”

“You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn’t I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride.”

“I’m thirty,” I said. “I’m five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor.”

She didn’t answer. Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.

Show me a Hero

Aditya Sudarshan, a great friend, comedian, metaphysicist, and a ball of slime, has written his second novel, Show me a Hero. Don't get fooled by the cricket-centred cover, the novel is about a lot more. I will share his thoughts on the book here soon. Until then, one paragraph I loved:

"The next morning, which is always the best judge of the night before, was confusing. Many times in the small hours I'd written foolish, sentimental emails to people I barely knew, only to wake up kicking myself. On more than a few drunken midnights I had told myself I was going to change the world, and then decided at 11 a.m. in the streaming sun that it was doing all right as it was. I was used to having my eye-openers in the dead of night and looking away in the morning light. That was normal. But waking up today, with a strange sense of clam and a strange sense of mission, was not. I wasn't in my comfort zone. I wasn't sure how I ought to feel."

Watch this space. Full length interview coming up.

You pray his soul may rest in peace,
I want it to haunt me.

Remembering Tyagaraja

It is funny that the average modern Indian isn't big on aesthetics, given our artistic history. But again, I might be ascribing the ornamental indulgences of the monarchs of yore, the architectural show-offiness of a few, to the entire population. Who knows, the average Indian might have always been of the jugaad variety - functionality over art.

The Tyagaraja Aradhana is on television as I blog (just heard TM Krishna's Kedaragowla) and the physical feature that dominates the scenery is the microphones. Four to an artiste - one screams 'Sekaran' in white lettering on a harsh, blue background, two have AIR written on them (why does the radio need two?) and one is nameless, but presumably not orphaned (I wonder if it will sing in Jingala. Please excuse, it is my Tyagaraja joke for the day). And from behind these microphones, bits of artistes peek out - it is like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle, or one of those game-shows where you guess the celebrity from the pieces on the grid revealed. This is a fallout of the jugaad - the different people who need the feed don't bother with the co-ordination in advance, and so they bombard the stage with their equipment. All this happens under a shamiana dominated by plastic chairs.

The background isn't easy on the eye. It is a mesh of raucous lettering in English and Tamil, a gaudy Tyagaraja portrait and a Vodafone banner incongruously meshed in on the right. As usual, the sabha takes it upon itself to make it clear to the world that they are registered. Really, I don't think anyone doubted that. City Union Bank hollers at you from below the stage, complete with region and branch details along with pin code. (Then again, sponsors are unavoidable - Tyagaraja himself practiced uncha vritti!)

The concerts happen on the banks of the Cauvery, in a town that comes to life only once a year, and you can't help but wonder: so much more can be done with that setting.

Still, it is Tyagaraja's melodic, rhythmic, lyrical and devotional genius - handed down to us through two centuries of interpretation by artistes of all varieties, from art musicians to bhakti musicians, from ace reproducers to ace innovators, from laya exponents to raga past masters, from the oral tradition to obscure manuscripts - that occupies centre-stage, making us forget, for as long as the songs last, the jarring environment in which it is sung.