Muttuswami Dikshitar Jayanti, March 30, 2009

My guru Smt. Kalpakam Swaminathan led this effort to render some lesser known compositions of Muttuswami Dikshitar at a program arranged by Nada Inbam in Chennai.




The compositions that grew on me in the course of preparing for this concert were the meditative shrI nIlOtpala nAyikE (rAga nArI-rItigauLa), sprightly gOvindarAjam upasmahE nityam (mukhArI), and brooding gaurI girirAjakumArI (gaurI).

One of Kalpakam teacher's new students, Dr. Sivashree Gopalakrishnan, who has done her Sanskrit dissertation on Dikshitar, provides the narrative for the concert.

Kalpakam Swaminathan and L Ramakrishnan - Veena
Vasumathi Desikan and Sivashree Gopalakrishnan - Vocal
Amritha Murali - Violin
Tanjore Kumar - Mrudangam

amhas

Searching for the roots of (my) anger-anguish-angst, I learn that these words, along with angina, have their source in the proto Indo-European angh, which means tight or painfully constricted.

Sharing this root is the sanskrRt amhas, which has been variously interpreted as distress, narrowness, oppression, and evil; and is considered one of the Vedic sins, along with pApa, Enas and agha.

Lacking recourse to a mitra or a varuNa to assuage my amhas, I take up the veena for a midnight session of varalakShmIm bhaja rE rE and kShitijAramaNam chintayE, in hopes that nikhilAghabhanjanI and aghaharaNa will intercede.

Font conference

I've wanted to blog the Mexico AIDS2008 conference, but this will have to wait till I clear up mental, desk and iPhoto space. Until then, here's a not-to-be-missed Font Conference link Vidya sent me from the CollegeHumor.com site.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

attn: Delhi High Court

your warmth against mine
moonstruck waves kiss our feet
unnatural acts?

The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

JK Rowling's Harvard Commencement speech - inspiring!

http://harvardmagazine.com/go/jkrowling.html

Collins on semicolons

Jaipur, June 21 2008: Originally intending to blog about the training we did for ING Vysya insurance teams on HIV/AIDS here this evening, I got sidetracked by this piece by Paul Collins writing in the Slate...

; (
Has modern life killed the semicolon?
By Paul Collins
Posted Friday, June 20, 2008, at 4:51 PM ET

Read here

Christy Jayanthi Malar (38) and Rukmani (40): R.I.P.

tanktops at pride
fundraiser dinner pendants
subaru bumper stickers
massachusetts weddings
buttons worn to
poetry readings

i look at these
interlocking symbols
now

and only see
two bodies interlocked
in embrace
charred by despair
knowing no other way
for togetherness
to endure

---

Reference
Publication: The Times Of India - Chennai;
Date: May 19, 2008;
Section: Times City;
Page: 5

---

Abhi Arumbakkam's Paati

Moving reminiscences by this UK-based documentary film-maker on her grandmother, based on a photo she discovers.

Click here to view:
http://www.channel4.com/fourdocs/film/film-detail.jsp?id=67305



Podfeeds of my blog led her to the kIravANI excerpt, and I'm honored that she chose to use it for the soundtrack.

WHO cares for HIV/AIDS

Returning to blogger after over six busy months, with a link to this month's Indian Express Health Care Management feature by Nancy Singh. The piece profiles work we at SAATHII are doing in partnership with the World Health Organization's India office, the Tamil Nadu AIDS Control Society and the Karur District Collectorate. Kudos to Program Manager S. Swaminathan and his dynamic team at Karur for all that they have been able to achieve in a year's time!

http://www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com/200804/strategy03.shtml

hastivadanAya namastubhyam

Ever since I read Dr. V. Raghavan's rapturous account of this kriti in the NCPA red book I had nurtured a wish to learn it. It wasn't until 1987 that I had the opportunity to learn it from Kalpakam mAmi. I still remember the thrill of taking the book - a new year gift from Appa and Amma - to veena class, going through the index of kritis in that book with her, and checking the ones she knew. Pretty soon every page was plastered with check-marks...

This kriti has been with mAmi for the past seventy years or more, and with me for a mere twenty. It's one of my favorites, and has been a staple inclusion in most concerts we've played together.

The impromptu recording above was made during my most recent class, a month after mAmi turned 85.
Lyrics of this and other gaNESha kritis of MD are available here in dEvanAgari from carnatica.net thanks to Dr. PPN. Also check out Dr. PPN and Vidya Jayaraman's English translation of Subburama Dikshitar's sangIta sampradAya pradarshinI, available on the ibiblio site. The correspondence between the notation (see page 321 of volume 2) and mAmi's version is uncannily close...

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