Friendzone – A R Rahman Friendzone is a simple song, a song to impress a woman, with enough corn and cheese to help you safely tread the pandemic. ARR has been impressing us with his singing across genres and moods– From Arabic Kadaloram (Bombay) to New York nagaram (Sillendru oru Kadhal), from Tere Bina (Guru) to Ye jo des (Swades), from Aise na dekho(Ranjhna) to Theera …
Category: English
Joy = Sanjay Subrahmanyan’s Music
By now I am a Sanjay fanatic. I go to his concerts expecting to be moved, floored and stunned. Yes, people keep shifting, the aunty behind me wouldn’t stop humming, the uncle next to me would pick an international call, the young man would yell the words of a keerthanai after an exposition of ragam and taanam — I mean, hello? It is …
Objet d’art
Places are people to me. I vehemently assured a friend of my knowledge of Mumbai, because I had listened to 'Piya Haji Ali' (Fiza, A.R.Rahman) and Marine drive can just wait. Don’t mistake me for claiming prior knowledge of Mysuru for I have read R.K.Narayan. It is amusing that my mind didn’t associate the Kannada …
Tanjoring
I made a quasi-official visit to Thanjavur (not Tanjore) last week. Being an obsessive compulsive never-return-home-unless-you-really-have-to-when-you-are-already-out kind of a person I ventured to visit the famed Sarasvati Mahal library. I decided to skip Brahadeeswara temple for two reasons - one, I have visited it multiple times over the years and two, I’d recently been bamboozled …
Caste in my living room – 5
Margazhi Special - Caste and Carnatic Music. As a part of the “caste in my living room” series, an acquaintance suggested I wrote on the issue of identity. The first word that came to my mind as I heard that word was, not pride or privilege, but, “art.” Art, some say, is an excess, a …
Caste in my living room – 4
This post is in response to I AM~~ME’s comment to the last post:I AM~~ME’s comment: This series provokes serious thoughts on the very many beliefs held by the majority. I guess there is no single answer. Just like how you had your moment of realization on meeting a first gen grad, everyone at some point in …
Caste in my living room – 3
In my last post, I had raised a few questions for the readers' consideration. In their attempt to answer the questions, a reader had posed a volley of counter questions - "Don't they do it? The other castes? Don't Dalits ask for reservation in the name of caste? Don't they seek protection in the name of …
Caste in my living room – 2
When I began with the series on casteism, I expected it to go unnoticed, like many other posts in the blog. A handful have read through the post, which is fantastic, and they'd taken the effort to convey their views to me personally, which is even better. I have been speaking on this issue for …
Caste in my living room – 1
As someone born into the “upper caste”, I have been gluttonously oblivious about the travesty of caste hierarchy in India in the first few years of my life. There is guilt and shame for the ignorance, but that is now, after being introduced to the reality. Being young and a female probably added to the …
Tribhanga
Artist: Jamini Roy, 1943 Twelve years, does it count for anything? Anything at all? The polished mirror with its intricate wooden carvings had stood the ruthlessness of time. Kannagi ran her fingers over the chiseled wood, tracing the sturdy wooden roses, wooden jasmines, wooden climbers and their wooden leaves. She carefully avoided stumbling upon her …
Skylit 