Chien de la Casse: a review

Alliance Française de Trivandrum recently screened the French arthouse production Chien de la Casse by Jean-Baptiste Durand. Short (1hr 33m) as it is, the movie is pure artistry, packed with philosophy and meaning. I've never brought myself to watch French movies before, and this was a good experience and an outstanding introduction to the world's oldest cinema industry for me. 

The movie is set in a village in the French Riviera whose name is mentioned only once ever. The main characters, Dog and Mirales, have been thick friends since the age of twelve. Their life is confined to their small village and their gaming and drinking parties, other than playing with Mirales' dog, Beefcake. Dog is aloof and disconnected from the world: he isn't very outgoing, doesn't talk until prompted and doesn't know where Quebec is. Mirales constantly taunts him for his lack of general knowledge, calling him un imbecile heureux (a happy idiot). Mirales himself is a low-key drug dealer with a surprising intellect, picking up knowledge from books and the French philosopher Montaigne. 

The plot begins to unfold as Dog gives a ride to a girl in their village, returning from university in Nantes. They start seeing each other often, to the distaste of the jealous Mirales. He is shocked by Dog's lack of care about him and his never-before excitement about spending time with his new girlfriend. The all too common trope of a straight man torn between his love interest and his male friends.

The movie has a lot of messages. The characters are trapped in the small world of their village. No one is trying to escape, and no one wants to. Mirales, downtrodden as he is, is one of the few who have any sense of life outside their area. His world has been expanded by his habit of reading books and his love for philosophy. However, Mirales struggles to keep a good friendship with Dog and seems to secretly envy his life. Dog is the mirror image, the negative print, of Mirales. He does not know much about anything except the village, but is more successful with people.  Like the villages of Kerala, this part of the French outback is also home to an aging population. There are few people there under 40 and almost of them are wasting their lives away to vice. The few who are staying afloat are struggling. 

All in all, Chien de la Casse is a great watch for those who like art films. The institute is set to screen more movies in the days to come, and I can't wait for more.

RIP Ustad Rashid Khan

Yesterday, the Indian music community lost one of the greatest Hindustani vocalists of the era. I think it is impossible to talk about Hindustani music today without talking about Rashid Khan; to borrow an expression, it would be like going on and on about the Ramayanam without ever saying the word 'Rama'. He entertained and inspired two generations of singers, instrumentalists and rasikas and his death at a tender 55 has come as a shocker.

 
There was a phase in my life (2017-20) when I listened almost exclusively to North Indian and Pakistani classical and semi-classical music. On those journeys, I came across many great musicians, and Rashid Khan was perhaps the greatest khayal singer on that list.

Yaman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSEuCJSnu94

A khayal piece. An amazing Tarana (thillana, as its rough equivalent is known in the Carnatic system) begins at 16:30.

Puriya Dhanasree: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VB7jujlb5o

Half an hour of great khayal.

Another Puriya Dhanasree: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r07elWu_ksA

This is a composition, a bandish, called Payaliya Jhankaar.

Ahir Bhairav: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k_QRPlk3w0

This is the composition Albela Saajan Aayo Re.

Bhairavi: https://youtu.be/ypptEgFcT88?si=cIKB5JMaBz1L0ycM

This is a very popular thumari in Bhairavi, Bajuband Khul Khul Jaye.

This last composition here, Bajuband Khul Khul Jaye, has quite some depth to it. I've been told that it means 'bracelet': from baju. Here, khul jaana means to fall off. Apparently, she or he is so madly in love that she is not eating and their arms have grown frail. Another interpretation is that their bracelets have been taken off by their beloved. The rest of the poem goes: Sawariyan ne kaisa jaadu dala re. What kind of magic has my sawariyan, 'dark-skinned one', brought unto me? This is referring to Krishna, and perhaps the poet or (more likely) poetess is imagining themselves to be a gopika. Jaadu ki pudiyaan pal pal maare, kya karein baid bechara re? The arrows of magic are striking me each moment; what can the helpless doctor do?

Redesign

 I imagine that many posts here will be about Carnatic music and technology in the days to come, and so a redesign from my old "public diary" style felt necessary.

The title, Ennamo Vagaiyay Varuguthu Maane, is from a Ghanam Krishna Iyer composition beautifully rendered by Sanjay Subrahmanyan, music by T S Sabesha Iyer. It roughly means ''O deer (deer-like girl), some strange feelings have conquered me." This is my exact mental state when it comes to making any decision, writing any article or just sitting somewhere on a fine sunny day. Although for me, those feelings are far less romantic than what Ghanam intended when he wrote the song.

The layout is also a lot simpler, reminiscent of the good old days of the Internet in the early 2010s and late 2000s.

Sanjay Subrahamanyan at the Navaratri Mandapam, 2023

One fine September afternoon in Trivandrum. Own picture.

As I wrote earlier on this blog, Carnatic stalwart Sangīta Kalānidhi Sanjay Subrahmanyan performed in Thiruvananthapuram at the Padmanabhaswamy Temple's annual Navaratri concert last week. These concerts, one for each of the nine evenings, are held in the Navaratri Mandapam in the Kuthiramalika Palace, near the temple's eastern gate. He was performing on the sixth, for which Maharaja Swati Tirunal has composed the Kamavardhani kriti 'Saroruhasana Jaye'. Only the compositions of Swati Tirunal are performed here.

I was slightly late to the show. The city's traffic held up the bus I had boarded, and I could only reach the temple by 18:05. I felt embarrassed: concerts like those at the Navaratri Mandapam are not meant for people without a sense of punctuality. In fact, Prince Rama Varma had written on his blog that no one would be allowed to come late. There is also the rule that patrons cannot leave before the concert ends: this concert is not for those in a hurry, either! Fortunately, I could still enter. I quickly changed into the temple's dress code and left my luggage at the cloak room (I had two large bags with me because I was catching a night train after the concert). As I was late, the Mandapam was already full and I had to take a seat on the walkway outside with many other rasikas, including a friend from college who lived near the temple.

Sanjay started his concert with a Sanskrit song in Kedaram, 'Paramānanda Naṭana Mām Pāhi'. This was a meditative piece that correctly set the mood for the rest of the evening. It was slightly surprising that Sanjay started a concert at a Vishnu temple with a song on Shiva. Up second was a more popular kriti, 'Sarōjanābha Dayārṇava Mām Ava' in Chakravakam. This song has been immortalised in the Keraliya consciousness by Dr K J Yesudas.

That song was followed by an ālapanam that seemed (to me) very Huseni-esque. My friend reassured me that the ragam was Bhairavi, and it was easy to see then why that was the case. I am terrible at distinguishing the serious sounding ragams. The violin solo ensued, confirming Bhairavi to me. The song was 'Pālaya Dēvadēva', a relatively lesser-known composition. There was outstanding swarakalpana with the piece, and Sanjay and his regular violinist Varadarajan got to bring out their typical chemistry.

The next ālāpanam was in Chalanatta (identified by the friend's sister). Once I heard it was Chalanatta, I knew what song it was going to be: the version of 'Jaladhisutā Ramaṇēṇa hi Sō'ham' popularised by Sanjay in that ragam. I have not been able to find who composed the Chalanatta rendition of this song, and so I will desist from saying anything more than that Swati Tirunal originally composed it in Behag. The Chalanatta version has also been adopted by Sanjay's students; Vivek Sadashivam sang it in May this year at his Edappally Sangeetha Sadas concert on the occasion of Swati Tirunal day.

Two short bridge pieces connected Chalanatta to the day's main kriti. The first was the familiar 'Vihara Manasa Rame' in Kapi and then 'Ānandavallī' in Neelambari. Then came a long ālāpanam in Panthuvarali/Kamavardhani, and the violin solo. Then an elaborate tānam. The night's main kriti, 'Saroruhasana Jaye' was then sung. There was a fantastic swarakalpana afterwards. The Kamavardhani episode went on for nearly an hour, including the thaniavarthanam by Neyveli Venkatesh and kañjira vidvān Alathur Rajaganesh. It was only then that I realised there was no ghaṭam in the concert!

After the thani, Sanjay sang 'Japath Japath Hari Nām', a kriti originally in Todi but put to music in a chaturrāgamālika by Prince Rama Varma: Mand, Sushama, Behag and Sindhubhairavi.

The entire concert is available online on All India Radio's (Trivandrum Studio) YouTube channel.

Intercity Diaries, Pt 1

 He took out his grey earpods and stuck them in, deep. He was now seated in the train, in a car that by its looks seems to have been coupled onto the others ages ago and repeatedly dragged from each end, back and forth, for hundreds of miles, every day. The unreserved cars on the Intercity were packed with people as usual, but fortunately, no one could be seen standing anywhere and a few of the three-seater chairs had only two occupants. He could eventually find a seat, and retired to his favourite music.

Indian classical. Not many people are into that. Especially not people his age.    

The train hesitated to leave Trivandrum Central. It was already two minutes past five-thirty and the crowd was not in the mood for a languid, laidback journey. Youths, probably here because one of their friends' sister got married, stood in the vestibule after realising how late they had arrived to secure a seat. The crowd clears after Kollam, someone consoled them. Proud government officers with their glistening blue ID cards asserted their punctual arrival, leg-on-leg, sitting comfortably on the edges of the old seats, hoping their importance would drive the train faster. Somewhere, a police officer was offered a seat by a young girl who wished instead to stand in the doorway with her boyfriend.

By the time the boy had taken in all of what was happening around him, the train had left and was slithering out of the city, waiting for the opportunity to pick up speed. He glanced at his phone. 17:37. Another four hours until his destination.

He recalled his journey that morning for some reason. He had hurried out of the house, his stomach mostly empty, and bought himself a sleeper to Varkala on the Trivandrum Mail. Near the seat he found sat an elderly Brahmin. He did not look a day younger than eighty. He noticed what the boy was playing on Spotify, and struck up a conversation about Carnatic music. He told the boy, like a proud grandfather who had fought a war, how he listened to G N Balasubramaniam in the flesh, how he shook M S Subbulakshmi's hand, and how he had procured the autograph of Madurai Mani Iyer. The 19-year-old had never been so piqued by a man ever before.

Before he knew it, the train had brought him back to Varkala, where he was earlier that day. He checked the app on his phone, learning that the train was running 12 minutes late; actually a handsome kind of punctuality for this shaky contraption. As some got up and alighted the Intercity, a few got on. A noticeable figure among them was this other boy in a white shirt. He looked out of place in that coach, surrounded by travellers bored out of their wits. He almost looked happy and content.

Seeing him fumble for a seat with his bags still on his body, our original character led him to the seat right next to his. He smiled and sat down. He realised how good he looked for someone doomed to take the Intercity. As soon as he sat down, he took out a pair of earphones and stuck them in, proceeding to connect the other end to his phone. Our hero, now with his ears free, slid his phone back into his pocket and attempted to strike up a conversation.

    "Where are you getting down?"

The rattling bogey assured him that his charisma would fail. His new friend did not hear him. A while later, he lifted his eyes from his phone and looked around, and saw his neighbour trying to communicate. He promptly pulled his earphones out, stopped what he was doing and started to talk.

---

This story was interrupted as the mental peace of its author was disturbed at Kollam Junction railway station by an influx of loud women. To be continued.

Sanjay Subrahmanyan at Thureeyam 2023

Source: MD Madhusudan, Wikimedia Commons.

My parents and I visited North Kerala last weekend merely to listen to Sanjay Subrahmanyan, undoubtedly my favourite artist, who was performing at Thureeyam. For those unaware, this is an annual music festival organised by the Sampujya Krishnananda Bharati Swamigal of the Anandabhavana Ashramam of Pothamkandam, Kannur. Many great musicians have performed here, and this year's iteration Involved TMK, Jayanthi Kumaresh and Hariprasad Chaurasia, to name a few.

The evening of the 15th of July, Sanjay was joined by his regular team of S Varadarajan on the violin and Neyveli Venkatesh on the mridangam, and on the ghatam by the illustrious Tripunithura N. Radhakrishnan. He began with a medium-paced padam in Gambheera Natta, 'Hara Hara Shiva Shankara', which rasikas may know from his Tamizhum Naanum concert in 2019. The piece soon escalated into the next speed. The percussionists got to show their mettle as he stepped it up yet another kaalam, each letter of the lyrics being distinct nevertheless. The night's next piece was 'Janani Ninnu Vina' in the serious Reetigowla. As in most of his concerts, he followed up a Tamizh introduction with a Telugu starter.

Up next came the first piece that night that kept ringing in my head for days after the concept. Begada is one of Sanjay's favourite ragams. He does not like calling it his favourite, and as he said in one of his YouTube videos, it is just one that his guru parampara treasures in their unique style. It was the Telugu kriti 'Anudinamunu Kavum Ayya Adi Venkateshwara' by Ramnad 'Poochi' Sreenivasa Iyengar. His treatment of the ragam was extremely memorable. 

Then came a long alapanam and violin solo in Ranjani, and the kriti 'Bhooloka Kumari',  based off a poem of Bharatiyar and set to music by Sanjay's gurunathar, Calcutta Krishnamurthy swami. My lack of familiarity with this ragam prevented me from appreciating it fully, but I can say without exaggeration that the piece did not bore me—even a cough from Sanjay could not possibly bore anyone! He followed this up with a 'bridge' piece, Swati Tirunal's 'Maamava Jagadeeswara', in the ragam Saraswati Manohari (think 'Enthavedu Kondu Raghava').

Crossing that aristocratic bridge, we came to the evening's main piece, and the one that we most thoroughly enjoyed. Muthuswami Dikshitar's 'Sri Subrahmanyo Maam Rakshatu' sent the audience into thrills after an alapanam and violin solo in Todi. Sanjay's garlands of swaras reminded me of his various Todi recordings I've listened to over the past two years. 'GA-RI-SA-ni-dha' seemed to be a pattern that he comes back to a lot during the swara rain and the preceding neraval. All of a sudden, his stunning bombs of swaras were gracefully interrupted by Neyveli Venkatesh, who began an elaborate thani with Tripunithura. The two battled ecstatically for close to fifteen minutes. The sad end of 'Sri Subrahmanyo Maam Rakshatu' was then marked.

The beginning of the end of the concert was 'Payum Oli Nee Enakku' in Khamas, a romantic Bharatiyar kriti. The music is by Sanjay himself. This was an enjoyable kriti that all in the audience savoured irrespective of listening experience or their liking for Raga music. The rare Salaka Bhairavi ragam followed in the Purandara Dasar composition 'Enu Madirenu'—also strong and likeable, though I was left scratching my head for the identity of the ragam.

He then sang, as he does a lot of mangalams, the Thiruppugazh 'Amudham Ooru' in Sindhu Bhairavi and bid the audience goodbye with the Sowrashtram mangalam. It was an unforgettable 2.5 hours of music with him and most in the audience were brought to their feet.

Meanwhile, I learnt that another concert by the Trichur Brothers was scheduled in Trivandrum the next day. While I would have gone had Monday been a working day, we decided instead to hang out in Malabar for another day: it was my first time in that part of Kerala. The next day we did a little sightseeing, went to the beach near Bekal Fort and stepped in the ocean for the first time in my life. What a weekend it's been—I listened to Sanjay for the first time and got my feet wet by the ocean for the first time.

Here's to many more kutcheries! Sanjay will probably be back in Kerala for concerts at the Kuthiramalika Palace and the Navaratri Mandapam, and I will hopefully be in Trivandrum to attend them both.

An untitled story

The old man took his umbrella, turned around and walked away. The boy looked on at the figure hurrying somewhere in the rain and thought a hundred things. They were light years away from one another when they met and now they were moving yet many tens of meters away, the boy thought. Their lights, propagating through the ocean of lives, met for a brief instant, likely never to meet again. But what is separation? Many tens, hundreds of meters, light years the man must now have walked. He felt he himself had walked that walk once, in another life, another time, another pocket of reality. The rain fell on their earth incessantly, washing away the last starlight of a conversation.

The boy then recalled how their meeting had begun. The man wanted to board a bus and he had to tell him that there was no stop anywhere nearby. A taxi, too, was impossible to come across. He told him as well as he could the way to the nearest stop. The man then sat and undid his satin black umbrella, coercing the boy into a chat. His school, how well he studied, his parents, friends. Then he looked out into the rain one last time.

The boy now stood in his position. Looking at the white sky and the unending rain. Another river of thoughts flowed by. A current of water washed down the dust from an ancient gutter. Leaves laughed in the wind. Time passed slowly and languidly, ferrying the boy's thoughts through the valley of life.

Then the old man took his umbrella, turned around and walked away.

I was forced to write a story in 'Professional Communication' class, where engineering students learn and forget the intricacies of language and good communication. I was told that it had to end 'and then the old man took his umbrella, turned around and walked away.' —AST