Dyson's Heresy

Science is an industry. It is a teeming and dynamic ecosystem with memes flying all over the place. One of the strongest undercurrents in the scientific ethos of the last decade has been the idea of global warming and catastrophic climate change. From a hypothetical future it has been transformed into a dogma, something taken for granted. Terms like ice cap meltdown, greenhouse effect, carbon footprint etc are being casually thrown about in even liberal art circles.
I too, had until a few months back, accepted the arguments at face value. If so many scientists are repeating something so vociferously, then it has to be true. Or so I thought, till I read this thought provoking article in the New York Times in March this year ( also this follow up article ). Freeman Dyson raised a small but powerful dissenting voice. He did not negate the claims that temperatures, in an absolute sense, are increasing or that the sea levels are rising. But what he did was ask for a pause to recollect our thoughts in this mad scramble to save the earth's climate. He questions the inherent reliability of the prediction methods, which stands independent of the outcomes of those predictors. Also, Dyson blasts the separation of the biome modeling form the atmospheric climate models and claims that we are losing the bigger picture. More damningly, he doubts the effect of human actions since 1950 on the ensuing climate change. When the choice is put starkly in front of me, wholescale human emancipation in India and China versus massive efforts to prolong the sinking of the climate ship, I balk at taking hasty and extreme measures. Perhaps, we should burn coal now and raise a billion people out of poverty than ban coal and significantly set back global development by decades. Food for thought?

La Chaim!

Whither Auteurs?

On the eve of the Oscars this Sunday, The New York Times has a thought provoking lead on the relevance of this whole annual rigmarole ( interestingly, it shares column space with another article singing paeans to Rahman's magic ). It makes the claim that Oscar's have become a side-event, an irrelevancy. Look at the factoid that leaving aside Slumdog and Benjamin Button, the next three biggest Oscar nominees have a combined gross less than that of Paul Blart : The Mall Cop. Why should the public opt for a movie so singularly devoid of any shred of artistic merit? Why should Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino garner more revenues than any of his noteworthy previous roles?

This disconnect between the expectations of the auteurs and the cinema audience has resonances for Indian cinema too. It acts as a raison-de-etre of sorts for the dumbed down mish-mash that Bollywood serves us. Give the public hounds baying for spam their due. And leave the finer points of cinematic appreciation to the denizens of the film festival circuit. As I hail from Pune, which is a culturally awakened town, I never had a shortage finding compatriots to accompany me to shows of the Citizen Kanes of cinema. But, it is easy to imagine the sufferings of a poor person who has to endure hours of watching the antics of Karan Johar, Ajay Devgan, the comic hero films and thier ilk for the sake of his peers.

But, I can see signs of a change coming along. In the United States, in Europe and even in Pune, there is a growing awakened class which actively seeks out the sort of cinema which doesn't demand that you remove your brain and keep it on the seat besides you. When I had gone to see Slumdog Millionaire in Minneapolis, it was being shown only in one distant small theater in an affluent suburb. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the audience for what was then a fringe movie almost fully consisted of Americans, with a sprinkling of Indians. And the crowd showed a frank appreciation of this exotic fare being dished up to them, even to the extent that hardly anyone stood up to leave at the end because they waited till the credits and the Bollywood dance number ended. The audience looked pleasantly baffled by the cinematic style and content, but they had an open-mind approach. It is this readiness to sample new things which led to Slumdog being given a nation wide release a few months later.

As long as there is this vibrant and growing core audience willing to support brave new cinema, I hope the Junos, Little Miss Sunshines, Sideways, No Countrys and the Slumdogs will keep coming.

Poem

On Roaming the Deserted Corridors of EECS, some Late Friday Evening

Or

Fond Memories of those Serendipitous Nights

Solitary steps echo off glazed walls

Men of the night-watch are afoot

Unreal city!

Thoughts swirl, turbulence. What spouts

Unbidden, unbeseeched

Ideation in action, tangential arcs

of logic stretching away

ad infinitum

The hazy mist, that master obscurer

Lifts

And, In one clean swoop, reveals

Pristine valleys of convex minimae

Lost worlds, now Unlost

Beckon to the weary traveler

And murmur

Let go, Let go

Let go and sink in this new found light

Of a thousand shining suns.

And Then There Is Apocalyptica

I have listened to rock. I have listened to classical. But, I never really knew either one, till I listened to Apocalyptica. My flatmate, who is a fan, bought tickets for their show when they toured Minneapolis last week, and I went along out of pure curiosity. Till the day of the concert, I was just too lazy to check out their music, which was perfect in hindsight, as what I experienced was well nigh a revelatory experience. Apocalyptica is a Finnish band, and consists of three cellists and a drummer. The cellists are the alumni of the Sibelius conservatory in Helsinki. They know their Bach and Beethoven alright. But, the staple of the band is instrumental renditions of covers of rock songs, like those of Metallica and a few of their own. The performances are chock full of inspired bravado and instrumental finesse. In a blink, Cellos are transmogrified into electric guitars and then into pianos and flutes. Like Deff Lepard threw about their guitars, Apocalyptica play the cellos raised high over their head, held aloft in a single hand. Then, there is the surreal feel of trademark let-your-hair-down routine where the two lead cellists swirl their long locks in symmetric circles in tandem, while their fingers gyrate on the cellos. This is a terrific show these guys put on, don’t miss out if they tour your city.

Can't Quite Lay My Finger On It

I have a funny feeling. A few years ago, I had read a book, a twelve volume book. And in the middle of one of those volumes, I had stumbled upon a phrase, a metaphor, which lingered at the back of my mind for months. Now, something happened which brought back that idea, ingrained in a long paragraph in a book long since forgotten. And I want to reread that, desperately. I want to read over that paragraph, savor the feel of the tongue rolling over each word and chew out the crux of that message. The book is A Dance To The Music of Time. And the quote is about the commonest topic of them all, vicissitudes of life.

A Musical Triptych: Panel Two

Circa Mid 2000s

On the very edge of the same Deccan Plateau is the city lovingly called the Queen of The Dakkhan, Pune. It’s a dainty place swarming with schools of Indian music, and thousands of savants of Hindustani music. In late December, the population of music lovers quadruples. It is the time that Sawai Gandharva is held. If anything deserves to be called the Woodstock of Indian Music, this is it. The festival was started and is carried on with the blessings of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, the greatest of them all.

Once it starts in the late afternoon, the festival goes on through the night, ending only with the mellow light of dawn. There is a never ending line of magicians marching onto the stage, and the crowd is the most music literate one you will find. Thousands of aficionados cheering on the greats is a sight I will not forget soon. The venue is the grounds of New English School Ramanbaug and giant tents are erected under which a swarm of people sprawls in relaxed poses. At the last festival I had attended, Pandit Bhimsen’s performance was in doubt, he is old, frail and has a fragile constitution. But, at the end of the third day, he tottered onto the stage and proclaimed, I will never not perform at this festival in honor of my Guru. And then he tested his voice, and before long, I was lost in a mystic journey into an otherworldly musical nirvana. A world populated with soaring pinnacles and grand canyons, with rolling valleys and gurgling mountain streams, with the clash of lightning and the lashing of waves. Only the thunderous applause of an inspired throng alight on their feet made me come crashing down onto the earth.

A Musical Triptych: Panel One

Circa Early 1990s

In the fort city of Bijapur atop the arid Deccan Plateau, there was once a noble sultan of the Bahmani Dynasty. His name was Sultan Ibrahim, the Adil Shah. Unlike his barbaric ancestors, Ibrahim was a lover of the Arts and a budding musician. During his reign, he transformed into reality his dream of establishing a city devoted to music. His creation was christened NavRasPur, the city of the Nine Rasas of Indian Music. If you happen to wander into the prickly bush covered outskirts of Bijapur, you might stumble upon the mammoth ruins of desolate palaces of fine art, of bramble covered fountains and porticoed courtyards. (See Photo of Sangit Mahal). If you listen hard, you can almost hear the lilting melancholy tunes of the court musicians. But, I recommend that you go there during that one special week, when the Navraspur festival is in progress. I have been there twice, many many years ago..

In that brief annual flowering of Navraspur, the thorny scrubs of the chaparral are burnt to the ground, and replaced by clean mattresses. The wizened stones which were once the pedestal of the Adilshahi durbar are now the stage. And on that stage underneath the glare of bright lights perform some of the most promising Hindustani musicians in India. It is a dreamscape, the milky moonlight, the soothing cold desert winds, the murmured wah-wahs of the crowd and the trance like vocals of the maestros on stage. All this transported me back into the darbars of those kings of yore.

A Musical Triptych: Prologue

Indian Classical Music is one of those things which make life worth living, a few CDs can keep me contended on my desert island. But there is a very pronounced social stigma associated with it, your appreciation of Raagas is not something to brag about in a posse of teenagers gabbing about Rock , Roll and Metal. So what attracted me to it? Here are three vignettes of the changing appeal and the morphing settings of music, especially of the Indian Classical kind.

Places I Have Been To

The last three weeks have been full of hectic traveling and unparalleled adventure. Here is a list of all the places I have been to in the past few days.

New York, NY
Poughkeepsie, NY
Mystic Bay, MA
Boston, MA
Lehigh Valley, PA
Annapolis, MD
Baltimore, MD
Las Vegas, NV
Hoover Dam and Black Canyon, NV,AZ
Red Rock Canyon State Park, NV

Travel is fun. But only if you do it with an open mind. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When I travel, I enjoy going local. It is as much about the people and the culture as the places. I like unplanned forays, minimal itineraries, unexpected meetings, and happenstance experiences. Those are the brightest spots you will treasure forever. Here is a sampling

• Getting off at the wrong station at 2 AM on the way to Poughkeepsie. And from the last train.
  
• Drifting into the shadiest area in Baltimore, and being accosted by a stranger who demands you help in buying him a cigarette. Locking all the doors and windows after that.
• Wandering the streets of Little Italy, listening to lilting Italianate accented English.
• Trying to ask directions from Chinese fishmongers in a China Town. And in sign language, English is a alien language there.
• Stumbling into many jovial Greek women at an European Cafe in Times Square and hearing praises about Indians and their 'culture'.
• Going into a Neon-tube covered Diner, in the heartland of Americana, and eating pancakes and fish and chips, while waitresses croon melodiously in the background.
  
• Stopping at the MIT dome after midnight. To go to the restrooms.
• Turning into a oneway, inadvertently, and dodging some angry taxi drivers, coming at you headlong.
• Marveling at the Bellagio musical fountains swaying toPavarotti's Con Te Partiro, and then doing the same thing from atop the Eiffel tower, and realizing that they are designed in 3 D.
• Stumbling upon a whole patch of brilliantly purple, red and yellow wild desert flowers in the middle of the godforsaken Cactus scrubland of the Mojave desert.
• Scrambling for seats in the notoriously busy New York subways, and fondly reminiscing about Bombay, every few hours.
• Chatting with the colorful guide at Hoover dam, who kept cracking jokes about the "Damned" River and "Damn" Tourists, and who took us to see the Stairway to Heaven.
• And many many more......