LEARNING BY EXPERIENCE

Two days after the Thattekad tragedy, at 2.30, I sit in the staff room and write down an old nursery song in Malayalam. I taught it in the first standard just before lunch. One of the little girls insisted that I write it in a tiny piece of paper she tore so well. I write in a Falcon Pad.
Ommanam Kunnunmel, Oradi Manninmel….. On the first hill/ On a foot tall mound of soil/ lived a thousand birds. The youngest of the nest/ Lotus-like, my little bird/ swinging on a coconut leaf…
The swaying leaf is its end point. It was made so for the govt. text book. What I learned is another line. The last line is ‘koodum vedinjengun pokalle…’
Apart from its d-drums and /ng/ nasals, it meant much more. It had a very powerful emotional aspect. Don’t my little bird, the youngest of the nest, do not leave the nest. Do not go over to the nest-less skies, it meant. And the throbbing hearts of a few teachers accompanying their little ones to a bird sanctuary did not only mean it, but experienced it. Yes, emotionally.
This emotional aspect alone gives the real meaning to education – meaning the purpose, the force to make changes in the character, the habits, the outlook and so on.
I refrained teaching what I learned and preferred the govt. version which questions the word ‘raki’ the essence of the famous song ‘rakipparakkunna chemparunthe..’ because that word is not found in the dictionary. That is the fault. Going to the dictionaries and rule books for everything. The forest officials say the river does not belong to them. River officials say it is the forest people who collected the entrance fees from, My God, those little ones of ten and twelve, 15 of them who drowned in front of them. Their bodies were displayed in front of the whole world. Channels vied with each other in telecasting it all live. Thank God, they do not make the drowning live, except in rare cases like a person dipping another in a temple tank, an act of insanity. Live shots from an asylum can be serialised. Yes, I am skirting the point. I cannot think of it casual terms. My son too drowned at twelve and I know it by experience. That is it. Experience is powerful. I still remember my literature classes just because my teachers like Dr. U. R. Ananthamurthy, Prof. S. K. Vasanthan, K. V. Ramakrishnan and Dr. S. L. Byrappa had made the lessons into lasting experiences. Here in Std.1, I acted the lotus like and youngest line of the poem, as if holding the little bird. And the little ones [certainly not kids] started clinging to me. The lunch bell rang and they would not leave me. You eat our lunch, they said. They won’t allow me to enter the staff room. At last they made me promise in their name, my name and gods name that I will get back as soon as finish lunch and wash my plate.
Of course I don’t wash the plate and I had not to go. It is just being clever. So I keep my promise and interrupt the Maths class. I say I shall teach ‘1,2,3,4,5; / Once I caught a fish alive’ on Monday and they, like very matured ones, agree and I come out and sit relaxed in my corner and write about the little birds which flew into the nest-less sky. Or, say, the spread of seas, the water, the cycles of rains and drains, the waves and the tides and even the floods of , Oh My God, the life giving waters into which my little ones have gone – never to return.

USTAD ZAKIR HUSSAIN

Ustad Zakir Hussain played in Cochin, on the lawns of the Bolgatty palace. The Dutch had built it. The English inherited and bequeathed it to the Cochin Raja. People got its rights with Independence and the Tourism Department of Kerala gave it over to the Dutch and the British and all other nationalities who now come as visitors. Hundreds of them took part in the mega show of music as announced by the promoter who ran a dancing school. She was the disciple of a well known dancing couple and an excellent organizer with a few foreign tours. This one is mega beyond her scale. So an event management group was approached and they did all arrangements. Two of their men climbed the ladders on stage at 6.45, sharp; fifteen minutes after the show had to start. They tied the last pieces, two white muslin, pieces of cloth above the platform which was draped like a divan with gold edged Kerala cream coloured cloth. One of them meant this flag is now colourless and meant no nationality. The second one meant peace be with you. And with you also, said the crowd when the compere wished a happy time. She highlighted the Ustad and actually the par lights focussed him and the cameras flashed and the rest on the stage were almost forgotten. So the ustad himself corrected her saying he was only accompanying the flutist, young Shashank who was really great. Also he remarked that the organisers must have sold standing room tickets to the mosquitoes. The most famous of all insects in connection with music certainly paused a challenge, a physical threat. And a couple of koels, the most famous of all singing birds of Kerala sat on a high branch of an ancient tree fearing the current and light and the many times amplified sound. It was a dark evening of early Magh, the month of festivals. Sound and rhythm played an enormous role in all festivals. The Chenda, that superb war drum beaten by a hundred strong men making excellent music made celebrations. And here in the lawns of a palace by the back waters the Ustad and his calm faced co player made a festival of percussion.
After it rained Amrithavarshini, the Ustad said no more flashes and the crowding with cameras. Enough I gave, now you go. Enough for the photographers. Now for the music lovers. Then the music turned serious. The long shapely fingers were magnified and projected on large screens both sides. Their movements made the rhythm. Some say the rhythm made movements. Hearts beat the rhythm. Breathing grew fast and slowed down to the rhythm. Walking and running and even sitting and sleeping were tuned to the rhythm. Rhythm made the planets revolve and stars pulsate. Universes formed and reformed to the rhythm. Rhythm is an expression of the divine, the unknowable that controlled all or as some say is controlled by all events and processes. Rhythm or rthm as in Upanishads meant much more than the thalam, the beats of specific rhythms, the spacing of explosive sounds emanated on the tight skins of hollow tubes and vessels stylised into beautiful instruments. The humans and animals and all inanimate things are said to be such instruments. ‘Lord, play me like a lyre and let the music of joy flow from me’ – was a prayer. Music is the expression of the rthm in sounds like painting is its expression in lines and forms and colours. The rhythm of thought affected humanity through the movements and revolutions. The rhythm of creation growth and destruction made the sciences and philosophies. Knowledge is the waving rhythm of minds, The rhythm, the beats the movements of these lovely fingers, shown so large and clear on these white screens and heard so loud and clear in these huge loudspeakers. The programme ended abruptly at the end of two hours and the crowd melted into the night

GUNDECHA Bros.

By the evening, I wait for the Gundecha Brothers, the famous drupad singers. The hall is almost a quarter filled. The programme is jointly arranged by the Fine Arts Society of the city and a bank employees organization which has organized over 200 such events. By ten minutes past the starting time, the crowds entered and filled a half of the hall and the tanpura started sounding the start, OK, the beginning for a longer word.
Suddenly the curtain opens and an introduction about the chandha- prabandha style of drupad singing is read out in impeccable pronunciation. Then the long tuning process. Tuning the instruments and the vocal chords of the singers and the auditory perception of the audience and even the air around. Then they sang Bimpalasi and interpolated the time. Matras and tanmatras, nanoseconds and molecules mixed up in a mood, this elated one of their raga, so methodically explored, keeping the time standing by and watching the way the sounds and movements being created and dissolved on stage. From behind the large flakes of graying shades emerged the music. Waves after waves the notes and tones and ragas filled the stage. Centuries of singing intermingled, keeping the same beats, the same tones, the same swaras into an elaborate harmony of nanoseconds and molecules, all emerging and disappearing to the beats of the same rhythm, the one played on Shiva’s thudi, the damaru, the ultimate drum.
One of the Gundechas played the drum, the pakwaj, the mrudangam of the north. Later Great Amir Khusro cut it into two making the dakkan and the bayan of the tabala. Drupad being a form of the pre-Khusro period, still used the pakwaj. Abheri of the south was Bimpalasi for them. Next they sang Bhairav. The dawn with its brightening grays and the morning notes of all birds and bees reverberated in meaningless sounds rhythmically produced to the strictest of regimens and yet flowing into melodies of old. As time whirl pooled and at times stopped itself in shades, one behind the other into the future [or say the past] and lost the directions, the collective voice of all people and other beings and all things and even non-things made the music, so melodious, so full of feelings that they spilled all the rasas and bhavas – the moods and melodies of old, continuing into the future.
It had started with samagana. Rathantharam is a famous piece. Even Gayatrisamam is great. RK Mission’s Mylapore Kendra has brought it out in cassettes. Even the tone is reflected in drupad because it inherited the samam singing. The tans were so elegant and harmonized in such an excellent way that the resonance stayed even after the programme got over and the brothers were honored and the girl who compeered got a special prize. Music lasts over events and centuries. May the fame of these brothers too last for ever.

Leave Today

Whah! Whah!, I’m on leave. I managed it by noon. Morning I went to school and got a half day- that is till noon and left at 10 to 10. Then I went there by eleven, made it a full day and escaped by lunch time. Problem was that My Boss, The Principal’s Boss, The Local Correspondent was on a visit and he caught me. He is a trade union leader. Leave register will close on 30th April and all the balance left for all employees will be converted to those many days of extra pay. I said en-cashing the leave is not of my nature. I don’t have to sell my leave and get some money, I told him. So I exhaust my leave. After all I have only a half hour of exam supervision today. That is arranged with another teacher. So I go to drop my wife in her bank. Then I have to pay the phone bill, get a recharge coupon for another, buy a notebook, get bananas for mother and so on. What to do? Saturday was the trip to relatives, nearly 100 kilos of motor-cycling which ended at home by ten at night. Sunday to Fort Cochin, 25 kilos up at noon and back soon in the sun and back soon to the city for Mass and a meeting and prize distribution which I had to cover partially. About 30 snaps. Dinner there and reached home by ten at night. Repetition Eh? Yes dear, in between these repetitions, the days went by and I took two days leave from my blogging schedules. Sorry. I shall try to be punctual. This diary form seems good. There are novels, poems essays and umpteen such forms. But this one seems charming for its immediacy, the nearness, the sort of a belongingness which otherwise is fast vanishing from the hurly burly world.
My son said it is great to know that someone remembers him when I greeted Happy B’Day in the morning. Today he turns 21. Working in the back offices of British Telecoms. Old ladies and retired gentlemen find time to call them with little little complaints. They want to feel some belonging to good old BT and find the complaint cell an easy entrance to a hearty communication. Like in some other BPOs, Infosys does not encourage impersonisation [CPR some number]. He is coming this week. Have to do some assignments for a college which he intends to join. 4 things – one in event management, another advertisement, then the study of an NGO and 4 references from ad or PR people whose firms this boy is to be familiar with. All for 1:5 chance of getting a seat! I buy a few publications and a notepad and talk to an old student’s husband about it. The fellow is with an event manager. Then I clean. I took leave to do a project on housekeeping. So I do this keeping things and dusting and all and the rain comes. The first serious rain of the year. Let me cover the compost and cow-dung and firewood and keep the vehicle in the shed.

Celebration of Love 2

Plastic hearts. Made for mney. Who buys, pays. And we enjoy going to the hotels and parks and part at the bells of our doms and hostels. OK, times have changed. The concept of love underwent great developments. Naturally the methods too changed. The www united lovers. And they clamoured to be heared. So this day of the poor celebate saint was borrowed to celebrate because it is the nly ne pssible during the flourish, the movements on stage before the grand entry of the prime character or, say in other gender, prima characterina, the long skirted beauty, the spring. That is Holi. The full moon of early sprin, the most beautiful night of Indians of the plateaus and plains. The mahua flowered and the hearts fluttered and the pitchkaris filled the space with dots of colour.

Colours n valentines days were sold in cards and sent as few attachments. You select and we reach it, says those who trade in love. And at the click of a mouse it happens - what? Yes. Love. In the next click it grows, flourishes in chat rooms and nds up in emails. Sometimes some turn to sob stories. But generally ga ga it goes on. Love never dies.

Lovers may. That is what our romantics said. The famous pastural elegy, the only 'Ramanan' ran dozens of reprints. I bought the 50th a special one with Karunettan's cover. Ettan is brother. Yes C.N, the Respected Chairman of Kerala Lalitakala Akademi. Yes the spelling is ntended to demarcate from the English spelled academics. We hitched ourselves withthe Greek, the greatest of all periods in terms of art. Well, I called him so when I met him with the Late Jayanarayanan, about whose short stories some symposiwere held. Mostly post-upanishads. We had been to Ravi, the young bald of reading who lived in 'Stay Hell'. They had changed a parting W with a ladder step H. Steps to the down reached the humid and warm interiors of love. Generations painted it in different colours. And some very clever ones stuck real currency notes on the walls. Lovers collected them and ate ice-creams in exquisite parlours, discussing next days work. It is half past six. My wife comes from the bank. I pluck a bunch of her favourite jasmins and greet her at the gate. Snacks and tea are ready. [My daughter made it!] Yes. Love matures in family.

Celebration of Love

Those were the days of old, sort of some romantic period. Keats was the hot favourite. His letters to Fanny Brawne were in secreat circulation.Love was not so commercialised like today, 14th Feb, Valentines Day. OK, I switch to love.
What is love? The definitions goes, darshane, sparshane, vapi smarane. etc..It means if ones heart melts in watching, touching, rememberng andtalking to someone special, it is said to be love. Those days there were the vasanthotsavams, the sping festivals to celebrate love. All that is described in the definitions and more happened real in the festivals, which later became drunk and obscene. There were regional variations too. In Kerala, we had the thiruvathira, the celebrated ardra star with the full moon of winter, so cool, so humid that one craved for a kiss. Vilasini the male novelist of great fame had in thousands of pages described it from the angle of a bachelor for life. It was a kind of love developed in Keraladuring those half-remembered days without current and light. Marriageable girls danced with elders and all eligible men sat watching and all. Then it all underwent changes, mostly like in MT's novels. A few had even gone over to Mukundan-Kakkanadan style. But alas! I grieve and shed a bucket of tears that it all got gone with the present, the market celebration of pre-coital love, which melts hearts at sights, touches and more than that. Only that is plasic heart. Made for money.

P4. Mon.12-2-07.

I left school at 4.00 p.m, exactly. Most of the teachers do. We stand in queue at the Principal's office to sign out. The register will be brought out after the last bell and at its sight the queue breaks and the rush follows. The reverse occures in the mornng. Between the signings the happens in one hour periods. Six in all. The fourth one is shorter by a quarter hour. Then there is a lunch and a break. it is tea time around eleven. In between them the bells announced the periods and teachers walked past each other ascending and descending steps, sixteen at a time. Over a hundred in all. Mostly the teachers were middle aged. A good lot were sick. Climbing up and down was the task. So the minimum time for each change over was about five minutes. To settle down took another five, and the process of learning was trimmed. Noone made any study of these issues because much more serious ones like the falling standards of education and constant failures in Mathematics. The first one was for experts and the second was simply inevitable. Everywhere students failed in Maths and Msc(Maths), both working and non working were drawn into tuition business, quite steady and lucrative. Failure in school examinations ensured admissions in tuition centres. And it became so wide spread that everyone believed it is inevitable to fail in Maths. But in board exams, most of them passed. Why? Because of tuitions. Convincing. Of course it takes a long time to make a lie universally convincing. Think of all the Maths teachers! Years after years to fail the little ones at exams to console and encourage them in tuition classes which ultimately led to the bettr organised entrance coaching institutes. Doyans like P.C. thomas, retired with a famed tag of sincirety and efficiency could attract a few thousands which he dealt in batches and prepared them to get descent marks. Many of them were repeaters. They toiled night and day breaking their adolscent brains to seek, to find, to win and not to yield. And they did it.
Must be their persistence. Motivated or compelled to the core. Success became a life and no-life struggle. Life meant the salary, the perks and the price in the marriage market. and all those many training firms like the petty tuition homes did manage in securing marks and seats and huge money. And the few who still followed the past, clinging on to those outdated values like "money is not above the knowledge" and "truth triumphs" etc. stayed contented though not successful. Poor things. I too happened to be one and quite proudly too.

p3. Sun 11.2.07.

With all excitement I reached the venue by seven. Sorry. That is only what is possible. A whole night programme is like that. Kerala has many. Kathakali for one. That too days on end. Every night it continued for over a week. Then there is the ayyappan pattu which repeats the same performance in different villages. Theyyam, Thira and the thousands of temple festivals in which it is mandatory to have certain forms of all night events. Of course those days, there was no conveyance, especially after the evenings. Many of them are reshaped for the stage. 3 hours at the most. OK for the just enthused. The matured lot still nurtured the 'whole-night' habit. Those who had properties and reltives in the villages went there during the festival weeks and redid the habit. It was an experience for them. Also for those who, though not initiated, had a passion to know and appreciate the music. I had mainly gone there for Darbari. I was sure it will be there by midnight and it was. Middle aged Shri Vinayak Chittar, an illustrious pupil of Grand Ustad Vilayat Khan played Darbari Kanada. The Grand Ustad is said to be greater than the Venerable Pt. Ravi Shankar himself. While the later, like muggle Hermione, learned it all so well enough to break traditions and globalise Hindustani Music and even Great Ustad Ali Akbar Khan did lend a hand, it was the Grand Ustad who stood for traditions.Now in the evening next day, Sunday, I sit listening the great Khan Saheb of Sitar playing Rag Darbari.

P.2.Sat.10-2-07

Being a second saturday, I drop my wife in her bank and do some planting for Amma, my mother and continue cleaning and arranging and washing and eating and sitting in sit out with Dolly, my dog [actually a bitch], sleeping so secularly.Rurality has this secure yes, secular too kind of effect on people and animals and birds and even fish.The guppies in my pond are so securely hatching in hoards. It is a dirty little village pool in which dry leaves decay with fallen flowers of the grown up lebernum tree. And there is also a new little shoot which we think is a water lily, rising up and and greeting the sun. By four I go to buy tea dust and milk and make tea. Then I bathe and play Marva. Pt. Jasraj, The Sangit Marthand. Current fails and turn off. Back to my place. Facing coconuts. Young and tender. Sky is like it in Deccan. Cloudlss expanse, greying at ends. There the rag echoed and music extended its rythmic folds and expanded to take in the local forms and ethoes. The grand expanse of wavy lands and curling skies were filled with music which spilled from the decorated pots of folk dancers. Classical and folk traditions got assimilated each other, dissolving in a union which gave birth to the many styles and practices.
I dress up in kurtha, matching pants and slip ons. I will be there while they are long at tuning. Actually the musicians are tuning themselves and it gives a chance to the audience too. Let me reach.

Morning 10-2-07

After I post the last B-log, the night. I sleep and get up. As usual. And I am back in the same place. It is dawn. The sky brightens up. I mount my 2000 Yashica 7*300, adjust the shutter speed, focus this majestic coconut palmand shoot atintervals. Yesterday evening, in between the writing, I am sorry, I was doing the same thing with the new D 40, a Nikon which I had shunned for a large branding 'Y'. Then it left the market of Digital SLRs, crowded with seven giant producers. but the way it works! Wonderful. All Wonderful. It is morning. Tonight is whole night music, Raag...Rangi...Raat, the first of its kind in Kerala. Ramesh does it. He is a Malayalee, the only one of that sort who can claim a credible Guru. Pt. Jasraj himself introduced him as his worhty disciple. The Great Guru came down to Kerala, that too, to its distant south, the great pitha of Kerala's Music, Trivandrum. An avt of charity. That is the difference. You will tell it is business acumen. Ramesh Narayanan is introduced by the Doyan of Music in front of a choice audience who had sat there many years ago. When the venerated His Highness Swathi Thirunal, the Musician King of Travncore, sang bhajans to them. Ramesh, really a Guru on his own merits now, is collecting them. Lent a ear and pay some money. That is business. But sir, Music is not that. Oh! God how can I think that Krishna's sweet Meera sang from village to village for money? Oh! no. I do not write like that. though it is true that Krishna Sweets conducted the first of a few mega programmes of music in this bubbling city. Jesudas sang Carnatic Music and of course a few film songs as well. That was also the first major programme of the new, renovated TDM Hall. Our own sweet, ever young singer jesudas who had, like a dream, like a love, a whiff of melting nostalgia, who had shaped our sensibilities, was indeed the apt person to do it. And the series of mega programmes culminated in Zakir Hussain playing in the lawns of a palace built by the Dutch and used by the British. then Gundecha brothers, as a family sang without any gimmick lighting or sounding and noe\w Rameshji is organising a whole night music. I am waiting impatiently. But a whole day is there before that. Second Saturday. It is seven in the morning now. I am going gardening. Lat weekend was the MAX thing. Both Saturday and Sunday full. My Lord Manage my time, for all times are thine. Amen.

This Evening

I sit watching an unlimited sky in the east. With a couple of vacant compounds for neighbours, the view is rustic. Wild caladiums, thick perennials and abundant grass cover the ground. Plantain trees, coconut palms and a shy young badam cover the mid view. Greying little wiffs of relaxing clouds reveal the receding blue behind.
A slow flying crow appears, flutters up, turns to the south and disappears. Far in front the bamboos shoot up downing an aging coconut tree. There is an enormous kandal, mangrove of this region. And above them all the sky, deep and saturated. The thin veils of clouds have vanished revealing its vastness which conceals all knowledge. A magpie couple and a moorhen talk among themselves on coconut bosoms. The magpies ar upto something which others do not like. I can hear the drongos shouting something ill of them. They are always bossy.
It is a quarter past six. Sunset is at 6.32.p m. It happens in the east. I am facing east. The sky, slowly, brightens up. All the greeneries have turned darker. A large cow pheasant crosses my view. It is calm. It is again an evening.

Blogging : By-lane communication!

'digit' this month has blogging in Fast Track. Blogging has turned out to an accepted form of by-lane communication. Behind the main street, the galis had a life throughout history. In that Grand Republic of Rome, where the senetors themselves sacrificed their revered and glorified leader to save the republic, had the by-lanes, the galis where plots were hatched and people were excited. Excited about the power the gali talks, the by-lane communications, which made conspiracies hatch new governments and dynasties. Gali gali ka shor hei, Departed Leader amar hei kind of shor (means mere sound) reverberated the capitals after each death or murder. And Ceaser amar raha. Means Ceaser remained deathless. His name began to mean an emperor or another like the Tsars and Keisers. Those were the days of absolute monarchy. Then there came the democracies - one party two party and multiparty. Each had its backing in the by-lanes and the polity shaped there. That is the power of by-lane communication. So bloggers of all worlds unite. Sorry. I do not know for what. However Hail By-lane Communication.
[ Sorry if it is bad, this is my first post]