The Love Theme in Ritigowla - Part V

Fr the other parts, click here. I didn't find the password, but I had this part written down elsewhere.
***

I didn't sleep at all that night. I don't know if it was the excitement, the randomness or the sheer stupidity of it all that didn't make the atmosphere conducive for sleep. Actually, it might just have been a freaky dream I had, coupled with the constant banter between the driver and the conductor. They needed it to stay awake. Most times, it was inane talk about their wives cooking, childrens' future plans, family weddings and the like. They were cousins, I surmised. They lived beyond RT Nagar in Bangalore - some ghetto whose name I couldn't place. They also engaged in some shop talk on how the gaadi was running, its screwed-up suspension, what latest movie they could play, or about the other bus owner who had bought new Volvos.

Amidst all this, I stared out of the open window, an icy wind blustered against the sides of my face. Occasionally we'd overtake another lorry, and I'd wave at them. Sometimes, the lorry drivers waved back, most times, they were just too stunned to see someone waving at them at night. Occasionally, there was enough light for me to look at the milestones. Bangalore approached slowly. The driver declared that he'd make it Bangalore before the sun rose and the rest of the ride proceeded like a race. The conductor teased the driver with his updates on the increasing light, and the driver responded with a violent push of the accelerator and noisy change of gears.

So, dawn dawned, as dawn tends to do. The number next to "Bangalore" on the milestone was in double-digits. I still had no idea of what I was going to do once I reached Bangalore. I had this vague plan of staying with this friend of mine who worked in one of those large, glass buildings in Electronics City and lived in one of those many one-bedroom apartments in Koramangala, but I didn't have his phone number.
***

"How'd you find my number finally?"
"Asked a long chain of people. I'm not in the mood for that story now!"

When I rang the bell outside DG's house, I had no idea what to expect. DG, Devarajan Gangadharan, alternately expanded as Dirty Guy, had always been the volatile sorts, and him settling down into a software job was a relief to his parents, and an anti-climax to his friends. We always thought he'd end up in jail for piracy, theft, consumption and sale of narcotics or all of the above. He'd introduced us to every one of our vices, his house was the designated place for teenage porn-watching, he always got the chicks, and had the reputation of being a wasted genius. He was an amateur magician - legend had it that he'd learnt from the celebrated P. James himself, he read extensively, wrote brilliantly when he bothered to sit down and write, was a famous debater in college - known for his humour, and tried unsuccessfully to play a guitar and yet featured in three bands for sheer coolness value. I hadn't heard much about him in a while, except for excerpts of his exploits with exotic women - a red-haired Turkish woman, a Bangalorean ballerina, a Chinese girl with a Ph.D in economics, a half-Bihari-quarter-Tamilian-and-quarter-Irish who was an assistant director in Bollywood. I had a weird dream in the twenty minutes that I did sleep where I turned up at his house, and Ni was there. I didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

When he did open the door for me, he looked just like I had imagined him - in an old T-shirt and boxers, bright orange Adidas chappals, a large mug of hot chocolate in one hand, newspaper in the other, and a cigarette tucked behind his ear.

"Motherfucker!" he exclaimed when he saw me at the door. I smiled. "What the fuck are you doing here at five-thirty in the morning?"
"You're fuckin' awake, motherfucker," I said, "At five-fuckin'-thirty in the fuckin' morning. That's more shocking."
"But, dude, why the fuck are you here?" and then suddenly realising it, "Oh, dude. Come in!"

A long explanation ensued over a large mug of Milo. I told him the tale of my romance with Ni - about the first concert, then meeting her at the concert when she was with Watermelon, following her around during the season, our meeting at coffee day, and those cryptic messages.

He declared at the end of it all, "You've met her like six times in your life. Fuck, dude. You're crazy!"
I laughed, "Dude, if you've seen her, you wouldn't think so."
"She's from Bangalore?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Violinist, right?"
"Yeah."
"Really hot."
"Yeah."
"Looks like one of those Godesses in those Murugan-type calendars."
"Murugan-type calendars?"
"Those ones where you tear the page off each day."
"Yeah. She looks like one of those Goddesses."
"You said her name was Nikhila?"
"Yeah."
There was an eerie silence, at the end of which I said, "Dude, you know her?"
"Yeah. I've met her a couple of times."
I was suddenly mortified. "Dude, have you, um," I didn't know how to ask him, "Have you, um, you know, um..."
"No, dude. I haven't, um."
"Thank god!"
"But I must say, I tried."
"And?"
"She seemed very happy with this large guy..."
"... who looked like a watermelon. Tell me about it!"
Both of us sighed. I said, "Dude, she's got a really bad taste in men."
"You have a chance, then."
"Fuck, I walked into that one."
"I know."
***

Anna came back from the US after a triumphant visit. Mamas and Mamis who had either settled down in the US or had gone to take care of their grandchildren spoke in hushed tones of this boy who would one day become a towering legend. Only his seriousness stood between Anna and fame now.

The next morning, Mridangam Sir landed up at home. For five years now, we started going to his house for classes because he'd grown too old to travel around the city. So, this was a fairly unexpected visit. Anna was as servile as ever, and Amma brought him his dose of filter coffee. Appa sat across him on the sofa and made pleasant conversation about the weather and newer models of the veshti.

Two sips into the coffee, Sir, having had enough of the veshti conversation, pronounced, "I think Arjun should get married."
Amma almost dropped the tray on which she brought salt biscuits, Krishna Sweets Mysurpa and mixture. Appa coughed into his coffee. Anna looked on seriously as ever.
"No, when we went to the US," Sir continued, "He was very close to this girl. She's a violinist from Bangalore."
Appa turned to Anna, as if to silently ask him if there was anything to the story. Anna determinedly looked away. Amma gazed alternately at each person in the room trying to get a grip on things, as Sir continued, "She's very good looking. Brahmin family. And she plays really well. Same level as our Arjun."

Silence was all wet - it reigned.

Sir seemed to be the only one who had it in him to speak, "I made some enquiries. She is not married. She doesn't have anyone - you know, nowadays, youngsters... Nothing like that. And her parents are looking."
There it was - the keyword - 'looking'. It didn't need to be qualified. When the parents of a twenty-something-year-old girl are 'looking' you can safely assume that they aren't looking for a lost key or a credit card. The word was music to the ears of any parent with a twenty-something boy.
Sir had this speech prepared, "See, Arjun is like my son, and when my children got married, I insisted that they marry only musicians. Some compatibility is required, no? And Arjun, he definitely needs to marry a musician. You wont find one better than this girl."

Amma needed to hear nothing more. She joyously proclaimed that all efforts would be made to seal the match. Appa asked Anna, "What is your take on the matter?"
"I'm fine with it."

Amidst all this excitement, they forgot that I hadn't returned from Trichy as scheduled.
***

I called Ni, but cut the call before it connected. I had to gather myself. I repeated this thrice when DG noticed.
"Dude, you want me to talk to her?"
I laughed, and tried once more. I failed. I was wrecked by nervousness. But I didn't know why. Maybe it was because I knew I had done something crazy, and didn't know how the object of the craziness would react to it.

I finally managed to call her.
"Hello?"
"Hey."
"What happened?"
"Um, nothing happened."
"Oh."
This was going nowhere.
"Hey, listen. I'm in Bangalore. Now what is point b?" That was my prepared speech. No beating about the bush - straight to the point. Only, I was so eager to say it that all the words seemed to come out at the same time, making me sound like an idiot. She didn't say anything for a while.
"Hello?" I tried.
"Yeah. Hi. I'm here. I, um, I don't know how to react."
"Why?" God, why was interrogating her?
"Um, I think, I didn't expect you in Bangalore."
"Well, I'm here."
"Okay. Wait. I'll call you in a while."

She called, and we set up a meeting to discuss the mysterious point b.
***

If the dabbawalas are Six Sigma, the Mami networks when it came to matchmaking at least eight or nine. They never made a mistake. Now that a girl was identified for Anna, the networks started working overtime to get messages across. Amma called her youngest sister who lived in Bangalore to find out if she knew this family. Her sister didn't. Appa then called his Bangalore cousin, who said he had a vague idea. Amma's sister meanwhile, called another relative of her husband's who also said he had a vague idea about this family.

These vague ideas became clearer as more Mamas and Mamis were contacted - more Mamis than Mamas - and in three hours, three sources told Ni's parents of a match from Madras. Ni's parents, as the girl's parents must be, were excited, yet cautious. They wanted the best for their daughter, and they had heard of Anna and his prowess, but seeming too eager was also a problem in this market.

As is custom, the girl was told nothing of the 'match' until she was required to be told. There were many hurdles to be crossed before that stage. She was Kannadiga, but both parents were okay with that. They muttered something about modernity to each other. Their Gotrams didn't clash, which came as a relief to everyone. Horoscopes had to be exchanged - each family had a family astrologer whose word was crucial for any match to proceed. Astrologers worked in soft copies and email, and the exchange process took less than half a day. Both astrologers had computer programs that analysed matches, looked for the dreaded doshams, and determined if either party had to marry a tree first.
***

I reached the Barista on MG Road early. Surprisingly, she was already there. She didn't notice me as I entered, and I walked up behind her, and tapped her on the head. For some reason, I thought it was cute. Her eyes darted in my direction, and I felt that feeling again - as if she was reading me like a book.

"What is point b?" I asked, without even bothering to sit down.
"Sit first."
I sat.
"You want some coffee?" she asked.
"Point b."
"Point b is that I am incapable of liking someone I hardly know."
I stared at her blankly. I made a detour across South India to hear this?
***

Both astrologers gave the match a green signal - it was as green as signals come, they said.
***

To Continue.

Today, amidst some mega downloading, I came across this extraordinary recording of MD Ramanathan singing Nee Madi Challaga in Anandabhairavi, a classic composed by Kavi Matrubhootayya, rarely heard in the concert cirlces these days. What makes this rendition so brilliant is not MDR's characteristic drawly, listless style, coupled with his sudden bouts of frenetic pace, but the fact that he gives the listener the time to let the Anandabhairavi seep in. He pauses after each phrase, as if to give you time to take it in, experience the swaras, the gamakas, the glides that make Anandabhairavi. Anandabhairavi, as a raga, needs that space to blossom. It rejoices as much in the silences as it does in its sound. And the most powerful Anandabhairavi renditions are those that get these silences right. They are also those that get their eccentricities right - the ambiguous suddha daivatham, the bright antara gandharam, and the slight kakali nishadam.

Something else makes this recording so endearing - the fact that he's not trying to convince anyone of his talents or putting on a show - he would have sung the same way humming to himself in the verandah of his house lazily reading a book. For instance, he takes a couple of attempts to get the tisram correctly on the chittaswara, but he jokes about it and moves on. He even has a conversation with the violinist (V.V. Subrahmanyam?) on the matter. He's almost laughing when he sings it again, and the audience laugh with him.

Most importantly, he seems to have all the time in the world. He sings the same sangati three, sometimes four, times. He sings that chittaswara a total of nine times. Yet, the music doesn't drag. Each time, he has something new to explore in the same line. Each time, the listener has something new to pick up on. It is this experience that is missing in much of the music around today - a strict two-and-a-half hour slot (when will people understand that Indian classical music shouldn't work in 'slots'?), the need to pander to different audiences within this time frame, the audience's urge to head for dinner precisely at eight o clock (the cooker will take half an hour, and "Kasthuri" is at eight-thirty), and the Sabha secretary's desire to show off his oratory talents.

Until someone wakes up and changes the way we listen to Carnatic music, I shall continue trawling sangeethamshare.com for more leisurely music!
***

Oh, The Love Theme in Ritigowla has run into all kinds of trouble. In a fit of madness, I set a password to the file I was working on, and I cant remember what this password is. Any ideas on how to open such a file? Or any ideas on what the password might be?

Subramaniapuram and the Tamil Film Song Aesthetic

Hi. Yes, delay in publishing next part of Love Theme in Ritigowla. Yes, yes, I know. But, believe it or not, I have some "administrative issues" with that. Meanwhile, chew on this. And wait. One more announcement - a series of essays on my favourite ragas will come up once I'm done with the Love Theme. So, wait. And while waiting, read this.
***

I engaged in two one-and-a-half hour drives in the first half of today. Ten minutes into the first drive, I realised that I hadn't taken any music for the drive. I wasn't in the mood for excited RJs and Telugu smash hits on FM, and silence through Tarnaka traffic was not an option. And then, I had a moment of sudden, extreme brilliance. I remembered that I had my laptop bag with me, and there would be some CD in it.

The only CD was Subramaniapuram.

There's a fascinating story of how I discovered this album. The idea of Love Theme in Ritigowla had been kicking around in my head for a while, and one night, I had this vague idea of an actual theme in Ritigowla. Nothing concrete. Just a thought. I woke up the next morning, humming some Theme in Ritigowla that I had presumably heard in my dream. I was damn excited about the whole thing, but certain other works kept me from getting down to crystallise this idea. In my TV watching break, I flipped by Vijay TV when I heard "Kangal Irundal" from Subramaniapuram, in Ritigowla! It was very very close to the theme I had in mind!

I downloaded the song off somewhere, and fell in love immediately.

I was in Madras on the next day, and I looked in three shops for the CD. All shops (in Pondy Bazaar area) told me that they were out of stock. Now, I was stunned. Finally, after romantic coffee with A.X. at Spencer's, I managed to find the CD at Landmark. (I just realised that people reading this paragraph in isolation will think that Madras must be a supremely British place - 'Pondy' Bazaar, a Spencer's and a Landmark.) I spent most of the next three weeks just listening to that one song. Only this morning, driving in Hyderabad, did I manage to check out the whole album in its entirety.

Subramaniapuram is a great album. No question about it. "Kangal Irundal" is very beautiful, and features this magical interlude after the first verse. If anything, the rest of the album is even better. The second song, "Madera Kulunga Kulunga" is a Tamil folk odyssey of the highest order. It works in movements, like a symphony, from the catchy choruses, to the haunting folksy, old lady voices, to the electric koothu drumming, and back to the choruses. Then comes Shankar Mahadevan's "Kaadal Siluvayil", and this is where this weird feeling of deja vu begins to set it. You've heard stuff like this all before, and yet, this album has something about it. The same for the first two songs, but its only with the third that this feeling strengthens. By the time you're in the Subramaniapuram Theme, you're all too familiar with the music, but that other feeling sets in even stronger - the feeling that you're listening to something special. The last song, "Theneeril Snehitam" featuring some rap (thankfully not Blaaze again!) confirms it: Subramaniapuram is one of the best Tamil albums of this decade, in the league of Virumaandi and Ayutha Ezhuthu.

But Subramaniapuram also confirms one other thing - that without the work of those music directors before him, such music wouldn't have been conceivable. Ilayaraaja set an aesthetic for Tamil film music in his heydey - he is the forefather of fusion, he is the granddaddy of using Tamil folk and Western orchestration in the same song, he is the one who defined how many people after him would approach composing music for Tamil cinema. After him, came another genius - some people say, an even bigger genius (I'd just point them to Thiruvasagam and ask them if they can still hold that opinion) - who had it in him to refine that aesthetic, and then set out to create his own. If Ilayaraaja brought a large Yamaha keyboard from the West, Rahman brought a computer. Both borrowed extensively from Western Classical, Carnatic and Folk music. Ilayaraaja used jazz, even a cappella, Rahman went a step further and used hip-hop and rap (and thus game Blaaze, who was originally a Gopalakrishna languishing in Zimbabwe, a career).

What they have done though, is set an aesthetic for Tamil music - a crude term would be a formula. This is what creates the familiarity when we listen to Harris Jeyraj or Yuvan Shankar Raja. This is the deja vu in Subramaniapuram. And it is, quite possibly, the best deja vu feeling in the world.

This, singularly, has saved Tamil music from going the way of its North Indian counterpart - newer Hindi music is either infernal or Korean or French.
***

Update: Circumstances have reminded me of "Om Namaha" from Geetanjali, one of my favourite Ilayaraaja albums. Listen to the beat closely - the lub-dubbing of the heart - in the background. Lub-dub, lub-dub. Lub-dub, lud-dub. The first lub-dub and the second one aren't symmetrical. The lub-dubs are of equal length, but gap is longer on the second. That beat is just pure genius. Its nothing new - it is 3 (lub-dub plus one gap)+4 (lub-dub plus two gaps)=7. But simplifying the seven to a heartbeat, and weaving a whole song around that heartbeat is magical. It takes an Ilayaraaja to do that!

I'd Like To Thank...

We have gotten our first award for ze blog. It is a very happy moment for us. We'd like to thank God, the Devil and Shankari. God for being there through all the tough times that the blog has seen. The Devil for inspiring most content on the blog. And Shankari for giving us the award. We also thank the chettas who own Aishwarya Bakery, Canteen Devaraja, Truffaut, George Bush and Thalaivar for varied support, including profile picture and inner mental peace.

We like to thank Tamil actor Surya for his stellar wireless internet in times of crisis - we could never have blogged from Madras if not for you.

So, we must apparently spread the cheer. To seven blogs. Here goes:

1. Our highly senti and inspirational thambi. Or chhota bhai or other Daalhiite thing that he likes to call himself these days.

2. Our highly senti and inspirational cousin-thangai. Your blog is thangam, I say.

3. The Odd Man In (who is also our cousin - yes, yes, we have manys cousins) who writes occasionally, but very well.

4. Ze incomparable Varali who writes free verse and prose about Palayamkottai amongst other things.

5. The man who runs a choultry - sheer humour and the effect he has on our style of writing.

6. Madame dust of the pixies... She's back, she claims.

7. The great, obscurantist, romantic, vague, enigmatic, nostalgic, London-rain-loving, alone-in-coffee-shop-sitting, Bengali, intellectual disktop. Its just the kind of blog I wished I had - personal, but not private.

Ah, the fine print:
Awardees must:

1. Award seven other people. (This way, there will be no unawarded blog left in the world!)
2. Write a post about this award, and link to our blog in that post. (The second half is optional.)
3. Be eternally grateful to us for the award. (This is compulsory.)
4. Tell their awardees that they've won awards. (This is just common-sense.)
5. Buy me a pitcher of beer for giving them the award.

Okay, we made the last one up. But if it is followed, we will like it a lot.

Random Update that has nothing to do with the post: We just found out that someone had reached this blog with a Google search for "wedding pictures of beautiful sun tv tamil newsreaders". Man, this guy's preferences are very particular. However, that is only a distant second to "aunty vegetable buying music"!

The Love Theme in Ritigowla - Part IV

All the parts are together here.
***

"Hi!" she said.
I'd been waiting there for nearly an hour. I was too eager to meet Ni and turned up disgustingly early. She was half an hour late. I spent most of the one hour glancing curiously at these two guys who seemed to be rating each woman at the cafe. They weren't being to discrete about it, but none of the women noticed them. They'd look at her, and then look at each other, say something and turn to make notes on the paper napkins. I was staring at them, when they froze. They suddenly seemed speechless. I turned to see what they were looking at, as Ni walked in through the door. She had that effect on people.

She wore a green top and brownish skirt, and looked a little like a tree. I had never seen her in anything but a sari before.

"Hi!"
"Been waiting for a while?"
"Nah. Five minutes or so."
"So, you've been here for about an hour."
"No!"
"I can tell when guys lie."
And there it was again - the shimmer in her eye, and those eyebrows that seemed to have a life of their own. I smiled wryly.
"You wanted to tell me some stuff," I said, not wanting to waste time.
"Oh yeah. Why I disappeared. Yeah."
And then she went silent for about ten seconds. I didn't mind. The longer she took, the longer I could legitimately stare at her. Her phone beeped just as she was about to talk. I noticed that she had the most exquisite hands in the world. I hadn't felt them yet, but I could tell that they were really soft. Yet, there was a firmness to the way she held her phone. Her fingers, furiously typing a message, moved with such artistry and finesse, that they would have put the best dancers' feet to shame.

She put her phone down on the table and said, "Yeah. Why I disappeared."
"I got that part."
She smiled, and her eyes darted mischievously in my direction. The Love Theme in Ritigowla played automatically in my head - the Hindi smash hits from the Coffee Day speakers were drowned out.
She spoke, "I had this feeling that you had romantic intentions."
I didn't fully understand what she meant. But before I said anything, she continued, "I mean, you were interested in me. Or at least, I got that feeling. And I was with Anand by then..."
I laughed my fake laugh and said, "That's ridiculous! I had no romantic intentions."
"I can tell when guys lie."
What did she have in those eyes? It felt like she could actually see through you with them. She said something more, but the Love Theme was so loud in my ear that I couldn't hear it.
"You don't believe me?" I asked.
"No, I don't."
"I asked Sharanya out that very night. I'd been interested in her for quite a while."
"So, when I disappeared, you thought you might as well do something about it?"
Those eyes were at work again. I laughed again, and this time my laugh convinced her.
"So, you were in love with her!"
"Yeah. But I think the love's sort of fading now." I wanted to smack myself on the head with a violin for saying that.
"That happens, I guess. I broke up with Anand a month ago." That image of Watermelon rolling down the hill flashed before my eye again.
"Love faded?" I asked her.
"Not really, we still like each other. But its unworkable."
I didn't ask her for more details, and she didn't seem too inclined to offer more to a guy she's meeting for the second time in her life.
***

I spent most of that music season trying to guess what concert she would be at. I got very good only towards the end. The December Season just isn't long enough for a romance - especially if I'm the guy.
***

Despite everything that was not going for us, Sharanya and I managed to last for nearly a year. When it ended, we were too jaded to even have a fight - we'd prolonged the inevitable for too long. We were on different tours when it happened - I was in the Western Ghats in Kerala, and she was in Dharamsala on the Himalayas. We had always operated in different altitudes.

She sat in a rundown internet cafe on the main temple street of Dharamsala and composed the email ending everything. She talked of how all the trekking gave her time to reconsider relationships in her life, and that it was clear that ours had to end. Ours was probably the easiest relationship to sort out for her. Her father left home when she was seven, and his whereabouts were unknown. Her brother was last known as a small-time crook in the seedier areas of Bangalore, working his way through the ganja business.

She walked through the arrival gate at the Delhi airport when she saw a cab driver standing with a board that had her father's name on it. He had a very common South Indian name, but she decided to wait anyway. His flight arrived an hour late, and Sharanya went through a range of emotions - from curiosity to nervousness to anxiety to doubt. Would they recognise each other? Would he choose to recognise her? What if there is another woman with him? What is he like?

A man in very British clothing emerged through the makeshift gate - the airport being under renovation. In a bowler hat and overcoat. It was like he was on the sets of some old movie. She took some time to recognise him, he didn't take even a second. Without warning, he took her in his arms, like when she was seven and tried lifting her. Laughing, he said, "Oh, you've grown heavier!"

She never told me where he was all those years, or why he had come back, or why he was suddenly this friendly with her. She spent a week with him in Delhi, before deciding that she needed some time to think her life through. She was walking down Janpath when she saw a bus leaving for Dharamsala. Quick enquiries told her that there were lots of seats empty on the bus. She took it.

By the time she came back to Delhi, her father disappeared. As far as I know, she never met him again.

For months, I asked myself why I'd let Sharanya go. She was almost perfect. She read a lot, watched the coolest movies and plays, and was a regular on the Madras fabindia-wearing, coffee-drinking, pontificating circle. She was really pretty, smart and had a great sense of humour. She wrote very well. She had fervent opinions on everything - she once passionately argued with me on why water was better than toilet paper. Neither of us had put enough effort into keeping the relationship going - it started on a whim on a drunken evening, and we spent the year behaving like that drunken evening never ended.

I was fifteen kilometres away from getting network on my phone - only BSNL provided network to the elephants, bisons and the tigers in the jungles of Kerala. Four friends, three guides and I sat on a fallen branch of a tree waiting for elephants to pass. The elephants ate with great care - plucking grass out of the earth, cleaning it with dextrous flicks of the trunk and depositing them in their large mouths. Something told me one of the elephants wasn't enjoying its grass too much. I don't know why I got that feeling - maybe it was the little shake of the head each time it digested one lot of grass, or maybe it was the fact that it tried cleaning the grass for too long. Clearly, It was only eating here because it was lazy to find better grass.

They seemed to eat forever while my thoughts wandered.
***

"God, you're incompetent!" Sharanya said.
"This guy's bowling really well, di. I cant read the spin from his fingers," I replied.
The bowler, a twelve-year-old kid, who could bowl seven different underarm spin variations with almost no change in action, laughed. She snatched the bat from my hand.
"Seven runs in four balls!" the boy announced. Tension mounted as close-in catchers waited for the one-tup catch. She took her stance - its languorousness matched Laxman's. The first ball was tossed up. It hit the cement floor. She moved towards it spryly and hit off the front foot. The ball spat off the pitch and beat her outside edge.

"Seven runs in three balls!" the boy laughed.

She took her stance again - I could watch her move all my life, it was so gracefully unhurried. The ball was tossed up again. This time she moved back, waited for the ball to jump off the track, adjusted her shot late and punched it between two cover fielders who fetched the ball as it rebounded off the far wall the marked the boundary.

"Three runs in two balls," the boy said and added, "Akka, if you hit it outside the wall, you're out!"
"I know."

The next ball was the deadliest - the boy maintained that even he was never sure of what it would do off the pitch. She countered it in the most obvious manner - she took it on the full and guided it through mid-wicket. The ball reached the boundary in a hurry. Ravi Shastri would have spoken of tracer bullets. She handed the bat to the kid standing at cover and walked away triumphantly. I remember being bowled over by her sheer coolness.
***

Pluck, flick, chomp.
***

"When you go away, it feels like someone's reduced the colour setting in the world with a remote control."
"Yuck. But I can do worse. When you go away, a thousand needles pierce my heart, rendering me lifeless..."
"...and you come back to life with my magical kiss..."
"The kiss that causes whirling winds, lightning, rain..."
"The romantic sort of rain."
"The sort that comes in just when the hero and the heroine feel deep love for each other."
"Like we're feeling now."
We laughed until we drowned out the radio playing in her car.
"I love you."
"I love you more."
"Impossible. Nobody can love someone as much as I love you."
"You don't know me."
"Always a step ahead of me, eh?"
"Please tell me we aren't going to fight about this."
Without warning, or saying a word, she kissed me.
***

Pluck, flick, chomp. Now, a group of wild boar sauntered along purposelessly.
***

"Ah, you seem to have settled down with this girl."
I smiled.
"So, I can leave?"
"Why do you have to leave? And, where does your sort leave to anyway?"
"We don't leave. We're always around. But I might not talk to you as much."
"Kaishiki, no!"
"Don't worry, you'll manage fine."

Amma walked into the room, "Who were you talking to?"
"Phone."
"Oh."
***

Pluck, flick, chomp. The elephant that didn't like the grass settled himself in a corner next to a rock. I couldn't tell the grey of the rock from that of the elephant. The boars walked around as aimlessly as ever.
"Dude, it'd be awesome if Obelix jumped at the boars from behind that rock!"
***

"Why are you lying to me?"
"What?!"
"You have no composing assignment. You're just hiding, that's all."
"You were there when I met that guy the other day. He said..."
"He said that if the two guys he has in mind don't take it up, he'll give it to you."
"But I have to be ready. And, in any case, its good to keep a couple of pieces ready."
"You're just using this music excuse because you know that when you're with your music, I cant be around."
***

She was right. That's where the screw up came. Pluck. She had everything going for her. Flick. Except the fact that she was musically uninclined. Flick again - man, this piece of grass is dirty. I think she wasn't too badly off musically - I mean, she danced well, and had a decent sense of rhythm. Chomp. She just came under too much pressure from me.

The elephants walked away after their hearty meal. The one that thought the grass wasn't good enough, gave the grass some thought. It wasn't too bad. It was quite good, actually. Just that, he'd closed his mind - he'd always thought it was greener on the other side. The Love Theme in Darbar wasn't bad at all, but Ritigowla just seemed better.
***

It was mid-June and I was in Trichy playing at a concert when my phone beeped on stage, leading to some hasty movements and turning off. Anna had travelled to the US with my teacher, and was supposed to come back around that time. I wondered if it was him.

When I opened the message after the concert, I read, "I heard you tackled point a!" The sender was Ni. I didn't realise what she meant for a while. When I did, I replied, "Yeah. Two months ago... Who told you?" "Your brother - I went to the US to play in the same set of concerts." "Now tell me - what is b?" "In person. Come to Bangalore if you really want to know."

I didn't even pause to reply to the last message. I packed my bags hastily and headed to the bus stand. The next bus to Bangalore left in ten minutes, but there were no seats on it. I bribed the conductor who let me sit with him and the driver in the front. This wasn't going to be a pleasant overnight journey.
***

To continue.

Joanna Mary John

(This is to celebrate Godawful Poetry Week Fortnight)

I dream of you, Mary John;
Night, evening, noon and morn:
Since the dreaded day I was born
In the yellow field of corn.

Joanna Mary John!
Mary piari piari John!
Where have you gone
On this very lousy, interminable, undesirable, loathsome, yellow August evening?

Mary John, you're like ice-cream,
You come each day in my dream,
Light up my day like sun's beam;
I write poetry filling paper-ream.

Joanna Mary John!
Mary meet-hi meet-hi John!
Where have you gone
On this lonely, drowsy, diabolical, amphibian, blue Thursday evening?

Like the chord to the song,
Like the rosogulla to the Bong,
Like the right to the wrong,
You're as beautiful as the day is long.

Joanna Mary John!
Mary misplaced simile John!
Where have you gone
On this ugly, sad, bad, mad, fad, cad twenty-first evening?

Update: To further celebrate, I thought I'd remind people of my earlier posts on poetry - here (an interpretation of Frei De Fisch's incomparable "Freedom from Early Morning Phlegm") and here (extraordinary concepts in recent Tamil film song lyrics).

The Love Theme in Ritigowla - Part III

"You mustn't shake your head while singing," my teacher told the my nine-year-old self as whiff of paan wafted in my general direction, "You can do that when you're a great singer."
"But, sir, I'm not able to sing this Ni without tilting my head to one side."
He held my head with his two hands, and commanded, "Sing!"
I started the avarohana of Kambhoji, "Sa-ni..."
"Wrong. Again."
"Sa," and my head titled despite the strength in my teacher's hands, "ni,". I grinned mischievously. I was right.
"Don't tilt your head. Sing again."
"Sa-n-ni..."
"Again. Why are you bleating like a goat?"
"Sa Ri..."
"What are you singing?! Arjun, you sing it for him."
Anna sang, his head as stiff as a flagstaff. He sang it right. And, as always, he seemed over-earnest and serious about the whole affair. The teacher beamed at him.
I repeated soon after, tilting my head alternately to either side impishly, inviting the teacher to hold my head again in anger. "Don't play with me! Sing properly!"
Over the next one hour, I tried in vain to sing the Ni without tilting my head. Instead of getting better, I only got worse. My teacher's grip over my head tightened with each mistake, but my grip over the note didn't. A coffee arrived for the teacher. He instructed Anna to hold my head, and made him sing, as the teacher cooled the coffee by pouring it back and forth from his tumbler to his davara. I began to get worse. Tears stood at the brink of my eyes. When the tumbler was drained of the last dregs of the coffee, and I still hadn't sung it right, the teacher announced, "Okay, enough for today. Keep practising this same thing. Arjun, hold his head when he practises. I'll see you on Thursday."

I woke up the next morning, with my neck feeling unusually stiff. To my surprise, my teacher was sitting in the drawing room with Appa, the noxious mixture of paan and coffee making its way down his system. I wondered if I had slept for three days, and it was Thursday already.

"I think Anil should learn an instrument."
"But he sings well," Appa tried.
"The boy couldn't sing Mandaradhaare, how will he handle Evarimaata?"

Appa, who had great faith in my musical abilities, strangely, gave in. It must have been the Kambhoji dialogue. Appa was obsessed with the raagam. The same teacher was a mridangist, and so, mridangam classes started soon. Anna joined too, as Amma felt that it was good for even a vocalist to have a good grip on taalam. This meant that, again, for two days a week, I was subject to the same cocktail - of the stench of paan, the foam of the filter coffee as it fell from the tumbler into the davara, the rudeness, and Anna's sincerity.

But on the day that I was branded a non-singer, something else happened. I was telling you about my stiff neck. It turned out that I'd sprained it. My neck was strapped up. While settling disputes with Anna over an intense game of Mortal Kombat 2, I sang Kambhoji in despair. To my amazement, I sang it right. And, my strapped up neck meant that I hadn't tilted it at all! It took a sprained neck and Liu Kang losing to Sonja for me to get a taste of the beauty of the Kaishiki Nishaadam.

Vocal lessons continued, although not as strictly as earlier, for a percussionist must know the music he plays percussion for. I dreaded them. Anna's voice broke first, when he was just thirteen, and he gave up signing during this transformation period. Around the same time, his mridangam-playing was noticed by some Sabha secretaries who gave him his first chances. Soon, he played for people far senior to him, and the "little boy who never smiled" became a regular fixture at music festivals, always escorted by his father and his mischievous younger brother.

The mischievous brother, on the other hand, was falling in love. Not with a movie actress or a cricket player, as eleven-year-olds do, but with one of the sixteen notes - the Kaishiki nishaadam. First, I learnt its use in BIlahari. What was until then an up-and-down raagam with a fixed scale, suddenly acquired a quirk. A rare, elevating quirk that broke the monotony of its recurring phrases; at the same time, a quirk that devalued the feel of the raagam when used too often. The ni fascinated me even more when I encountered Bhairavi. There, it hardly had a fixed spot - it was an amorphous mix of the most wondrous sounds, each carefully picked to suit the mood around it. Then I learnt, in quick succession, Thodi, Ritigowla, Sriranjani, Madhyamavathi, Mukhari. It wasn't a note anymore, it could never be: it was a person, and I was in love with her.

Each day, I wrote letters to Kaishiki - some short, some long, some happy, some angsty, some admiringly, some lovingly, some like she was an unattainable goddess, and others like she was a lover nestled in my arms. I told her everything one tells a loved one, and his from her just what one hides from them. But she wasn't like any other love - she travelled with me wherever I went. She was, quite literally, the song on my lips. And so, I had this feeling that she perceived anything that I didn't tell her - celestial concepts like herself have these ways of knowing.

Amma, on the other hand, grew worried. It wasn't natural for an eleven year old boy to write a diary. The fact that I was frequently talking to myself worried her even more - snippets of my soliloquies that my mother heard, like, "Will I ever find one as beautiful as you?" and, "Why are you acting up this morning? I controlled you fine last evening," weren't encouraging words to parental ears at any age. Anna was the first to tell me about my madness. He asked me if I had a crush on Priya who lived down the road. I was spending too much time with her, he said, and reminded me that she was much too old for me. I found out many years later that Anna liked her, and had even told her at the age of sixteen that he wanted to marry her. They were boyfriend and girlfriend for a while, whatever that meant in the tenth standard.

An uncle, who was a shrink, examined me and found nothing wrong with me. It came as a huge relief for Amma, and as an eye-opener to me. I quickly learnt that to survive in a cynical, unromantic world, I had to learn the art of consciously keeping a part of my being completely private. I locked my fantasy world of a relationship with a woman who didn't exist, who wasn't actually a woman, who was so alluring that the real world unable to describe her beauty denoted her by a single note, in a dark corner of my mind where I lived and loved.

Suddenly, that evening, when I saw Ni on stage for the first time, my daydream played out in front of my eyes - there she was - Kaishiki in human form. I wondered if it was only a coincidence that her name was Nikhila, "Call me Ni".
***

I sat with Sharanya in the back row of the down-market but traditional Parthasarathy Swamy Sabha at the concert of a young singer whom Anna rated very highly when I saw Ni for the second time in my life. It had been seven months since she famously stood me up, and seven months of my flimsy relationship with Sharanya. She sat four rows ahead with this guy who resembled a large watermelon. It didn't help that he wore a billowing green and black kurta. Something made me want to take him to the top of a hill, push him and watch him roll down like a football.

Meanwhile, the singer started Teliyaledu Rama Bhakti Margamunu in Dhenuka.
"Not that we were going to do something if we knew," I whispered into Sharanya's ear.
"Huh?" I cowered.
At the same time, the Watermelon whispered excitedly in Ni's ear and she laughed. I turned to Sharanya and saw a blank expression on her face. It was unfair. Why wasn't I with someone who got the joke? Or at least cringed at its badness. Why was I with someone who wouldn't understand when I commented on a musician's learning curve when he sang Saraswathi? The pattern followed throughout the concert. I'd appreciate or make fun of something and turn to Sharanya, only to find her either dozing off or looking like a foreigner coming to terms with eating off a banana leaf. At the same time Pumpkin and Ni had many things to say to each other.

Then, it got worse. Ni rested her head on Watermelon's shoulder, and Sharanya, having noticed it, rested her head on mine. The world had turned into a cruel place. I felt like the geek in the underwear ad who screamed, "What's he got that I ain't got?"

"A nasty sense of humour," I heard Ni say as she passed us after the concert.
"Nikhila!" I gathered the courage to call out.
"Hey!" She recognised me almost immediately, which was a good sign. "I was hoping I'd bump into you!" she added.
"Yeah? Me too. I was hoping the other day also, at Murugan..."
She just laughed. There was nothing funny about it. Sharanya decided to jump into the conversation, "Hey! I'm Sharanya."
"Oh. This is Sharanya, my g-g..."
"Girlfriend."
"Yeah, girlfriend."
"Oh, hi! I'm Nikhila. I'm a violinist."
"And I'm Anand," Watermelon interjected.
"Yeah. This is Anand - he writes reviews..."
"Oh my god!" I said before I could stop myself, "Are you the one who wrote that really nasty one?"
Anand recognised me immediately, "Hard-hitter!"
He wasn't just a Watermelon anymore. He was a Slimy Watermelon. He was green on the inside. It was horrible.

"You guys know each other?"
"I reviewed one of his concerts. With the flute guy you really liked."
"Oh."
"Yeah. And he wrote a horrible review for a very good concert."
"I know - Anand hates him. I don't know why."
"Its because you think he's cute," Anand said. I couldn't tell if he was serious or joking. Nasty guys have this way of speaking that makes it hard to tell. The vision of him rolling down the hills flashed vividly before my eye.
"Oh, shut up."
"So, I'm sure you have some really nasty stuff to say about today's concert."
"No, I quite liked it."
"Even I liked some of the grooves," Sharanya added unsurely.
"Oh. No comments on the artistes' bladders?"
He laughed, "No!"
"Will you not write a review because there's nothing damaging to say?"
"Man, you were really upset about that, weren't you?"
"Have you ever tried being on the receiving end?"
"Anand sings very well..." Ni said. My blood boiled.
"Oh, you sing? Is your singing stately? Does it have 'bhakti-laden renderings'?"
Anand laughed even more. I didn't understand the guy at all. He was either stupid or supremely confident of his abilities. Often, the two are the same thing. But you could never be sure.
"Why don't you come and listen to a concert? Maybe you can write a review. I can ask my paper to let you publish the review."
"Anil writes really well. He doesn't tell people about it..."
"Yeah?" Ni asked.
"Yeah. He's also a music composer."
"Are your compositions like your mridangam playing?"
"Devoid of bhakti? Yes. I compose songs about love." I didn't know why I said something as daft as that. Everyone around me started laughing. Maybe it was the way I said it.
"Listen, we have to run to this other concert," said Ni, "Gimme your number. I'll give you a call."
I gave her my number. I hoped she would give me a call at least this time around.

"She's rather cute, isn't she?" Sharanya asked.
"Yeah. I cant believe she's with that guy!"
"He's okay."
"He's a green ball of nastiness..."
"Heh. They could just be friends. I mean, she didn't say what their relationship was."
For the first time that evening, I liked something she said. Just then, my phone beeped, and there was a message, "Sorry about the other day. I guess I owe you an explanation. Tomorrow? Tell me what concerts you're going for and we can figure."

I smiled.
***