Another (Boring) Haiku

Clouds collide in anger;
Tears of Rain fall -
Drenched grass smiles.

The Bhagavathar from Wesleyan

Excerpted from the section on Jon Higgins at http://www.indiangyan.com/clinton/arts_festivals.htm :

A party of musicians, Jon among them, went to Udipi to see the Krishna temple. The American wore a dhoti and a kurta as was his custom in Madras . . . but he was much too fair complexioned to be an Indian, and the priests would not let him enter the temple…. So Jon stood where Kanakadasa the untouchable had stood centuries ago, to catch a glimpse of the idol from a distance as best he could. His musician friends stood with him, refusing to go inside the temple if Jon was not allowed. Then it occurred to one of them to ask Jon to sing the famous song, “Krishna, nee begane baro,” a composition in Kannada…. When the air was filled with the vibrant melody of his splendid voice there was no keeping away the crowds that gathered around to hear him. The priests, astonished, begged the singer to come in, and what Kanakadasa could not achieve, the foreigner did.

Semmangudi

Even as a child, I was never a great fan of Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer. I found his singing extremely dry and insipid, and somehow came to have the mistaken notion that this was what most of Carnatic music sounded like. Unfortunately for me, this put me off Carnatic music for a good part of my life. Maybe I should say “Fortunately”, for it was during this period of my life that I tasted many different kinds of music, and came to love them all.

Kapi

Metal tumbler scalds,
Scalding liquid soothes -
Memories of home, bitter and sweet

- Haiku written on reflection after tasting the ditch water that goes under the guise of Coffee in Pune, the “IT Hub” in the most Moral state of Maharashtra.

Irrelevant Afterthought:

I was reading a collection of Subbudu’s reviews from an era gone by. I forget who the singer was, probably KVN – Subbudu was reviewing his rendition of Tyagaraja’s “Sarasa Sama Dana” in Kapi Narayani. Subbudu wrote (more or less): ” … after listening to his melodious exposition, I wouldn’t have cared if he wanted to sing in Bournvita Narayani and not Kapi Narayani, I would have run to listen to him.” Of course, this poor translation cannot capture the wit of the original Tamil, but I could not help trying. Subbudu was known for his merciless criticism of bad music, and very few escaped the wrath of his pen. Even the great Semmangudi was not spared, and Subbudu received several threats of bodily harm. Such praise from Subbudu was rare indeed! I wonder who the fortunate singer was, who had his Kapi Narayani compared with Coffee and Bournvita.

A Wanderer’s Lament

I took the road not taken,
through woods dark, deep and unlovely;
Many miles I travelled thus,
and often did I fall asleep;
I met defeat and victory,
but did not treat these two impostors the same;
I strove, I sought, but I did not find much -
and what I found, I soon had to yield;
My head was bloody and unbowed under the
bludgeonings of chance – for stiff was my neck;
“Home Next Year”, I tell my soul,
as a good captain should;
But master of my fate I am not,
who knows what the coming year brings

Preciousss…….. :-(

Imagine the scene from LOTR: Return of the King where Gollum and Frodo are slugging it out for the ring and Gollum falls into the lava pit screaming Preciousssssssss – the scene did not manage to convey the irony of the situation, Gollum finally has his Precious, but it isn’t of any use to him now.Ah well – I have my precious now too :-).

The situation I am in is not unlike the situation that poor Smeagol found himself in, as well.

My box runs Winbloze. I *hate* Fedora, but had to end up installing it in the end – the Slackware install just crashes, thanks to my motherboard being fairly new and not very linux friendly. I didn’t do my homework well, and ended up buying an ASUS K8S-MX because I thought it was good value for money… which it is, except that it is not too linux friendly. Let us see how NetBSD fares on the box, it would be some comfort if I can get a clean NetBSD install.

What’s worse, my broadband service provider only supports WinBloze. (Okay, he *does* support linux – but needs me to pay up extra cash for that. What’s more, my onboard ethernet card isn’t supported, and I don’t want to buy a new one. It’s a long story, and I won’t get into it now. Suffice it to say that I can get a broadband connection for a little less dough if I’m running Winbloze. Till I find a workaround, that’s how it lies.)

Gollum lives, but only just. My inner voice tells me that it won’t be long before Gollum is up and running, though. (I trust that the Mahatma did not turn in RajGhat).

We Shall Overcome … Some Day

Weapons cannot cut It,
Nor can It be burned by Fire;
Water cannot wet It,
Nor can It be withered by the Wind;
…
It is Unbreakable, and Insoluble,
and can neither be Burned nor Dried;
It is Everlasting, and All-Pervading,
Unchangeable, Immovable, and Eternally the Same;
It is Invisible, Inconceivable,
Immutable and Unchangeable;
…
Knowing this, you should grieve not

Apologies to the Amanuensis, Apologies to the One with the Trunk who dictated;
Apologies to the Butter Thief, The One who is dark and shines bright as a gem;
He who wears the Feathers of the Peacock, for His words I have stolen.
But Blame me not, Dear Reader – Is it any fault of mine, that what was spoken
about the Soul within the Body, should describe equally well
The Corruption that is the Soul of our Country?

Metamorphosis: Caterpillar

Rats. It looks as though the only way to make your text look good is to compose on the blogs own editor, and forget all about composing offline. That sucks. I need to figure out a way to be able to compose offline and then dump the damn file into the blog’s editor so that it can do its own formatting. Argh, I think I know what the problem is, the problem is a four letter word called html. Rats again.