+ Life Is A Long Wait; or, Dharam or Dh-aaraam

Ever been in a situation where a dozen people are accessing two board lines from their extensions? I was. You keep pressing ‘0’ for the ring tone and keep getting an engaged tone. But you can’t afford to let up. So you disconnect and then repeat the procedure. You keep doing it – dozens of times in quick succession, till your pressing the ‘0’ coincides with one of the guys hanging up. It’s nirvana of sorts when you get the ring tone. But while you are still at it, mind-numbingly and finger-numbingly repeating the set procedure in your effort to break through, you realise that sometimes life is a long wait.

Standing at traffic lights waiting for green is another experience – immensely frustrating or wonderfully blissful, depending on your state of mind. Wonderfully blissful?? Well, imagine being totally in the hands of a disinterested system and being led on by something that almost reaches the level of cosmic law. A mile of vehicles in three or four columns, waiting simply because they must. In spite of the smoke and the grime, it is beautifully serene.

(That was a nice train of thought that I can’t even aspire to right now; I am into swearing mode precisely two minutes after I get on the road.)

But all these are understandable waits. And unavoidable. But why should somebody have to wait for a person? Every time? But people do – for Dharam Singh, who is for some strange reason the chief minister of Karnataka. It was a long time ago, just a month or so after he became the CM, that I saw a red carpet awaiting him on Brigade Road. I stopped for a mere moment to take in the waiting scene, and heard a comment: "Oh, they will have to wait. Dharam Singh is always late." And, so it must have been – I didn’t wait to find out.

But, with time, I have learnt that the comment I heard was no bitch. Dharam Singh DOES arrive late for every function. And, looking at what is happening – or rather, not happening – across the state, I can’t think of one reason why he has to be late. Anyway, if he has agreed to an appointment, he had better keep it – being the CM is no excuse. Last week, for the inauguration of the Ramaseva Mandali's Sri Ramanavami Music Festival, Dharam arrived at his own sweet time, while the artistes scheduled to perform afterwards (including mandolin wizard U Srinivas) warmed the sofas in the green room. The most recent instance of Dharam Singh’s tardiness has had the most unfortunate result.

Gangubai Hangal, one of the seniormost classical musicians in the country, turned 93 a month ago – at a squeeze, old enough to be Dharam Singh’s grandmother. For a function at Hubli-Dharwar to honour Smt Hangal, the chief minister arrived two whole hours late while the aged and slightly unwell musician waited. To top that, he left in the middle of Smt Hangal’s programme that followed. The people who have loved Smt Hangal’s music for more years than A-Dharam has walked the earth were understandably livid at this lack of basic courtesy, and have urged Smt Hangal to return the shawl that she had been presented with.

The extreme situation prompted Singh to come out with a feckless statement – to the effect that he himself was very upset about it all but what could he do, he had no time. What about the hundreds of people who would have waited for him for two hours – does he think they were all loafers with nothing to do? What about the Hubli corporator/mayor, who too would have been in the waiting party? Jobless, as well? Is the CM the only guy in the entire state with no time?

Smt Hangal returned the shawl with a statement that she was very upset at all that happened, both as an aged person and as a nationally renowned classical musician. I know my grandmother would have given Dharam of the Deadly Delays a thorough earful. I would of course like to box his ears red and a bit more.

Bangalore is already known for its slowness. Things were always slow; after Dharam, they have more or less ground to a halt. We can do without a guy at the helm who behaves like a mascot for sloth.

+ F1 At Its Best

Last weekend’s Bahrain F1 race was, well, certainly different. Unlike the Australian and Malaysian Grand Prix, where Narain Karthikeyan got quite a bit of screen time on the live relay, this time round, he went out pretty early with a car failure. And that was some prime interest taken out of watching (not that he had a chance to win, but monitoring his race and the position will certainly hold interest through the first season at least). And then, the second point interest of dropped off – Michael Schumacher going out along with the ‘new’ Ferrari for the season. That meant, no more praying Mikey shouldn’t get up on the podium.

The automatic point of interest left in the race should have been how Raikkonen would fare. It did always look like he would get in the points, and it was great to see him on the podium after a horrendous 2004 season when nothing seemed to go right with the McLaren; Kimi didn’t even manage to finish half the races!

However, after a point, Kimi settled down in third position and it was plain that he wasn’t going to move up... or, equally importantly, down. By then, I am sure not many people were interested in anything other than the other McLaren and Pedro de la Rosa’s frenetic on-track activity. This guy was racing after more than two years, but it certainly didn’t look it. And it certainly didn’t look like an accident that he qualified ahead of Kimi. His relentlessness was amazing but more than that was the way in which he managed to make it work. First, he was on the back of Jensen Button, and maintaining his half-second lag through almost 10 laps. Button was having to go easy on his brakes, and it wasn’t long before de la Rosa, who had been trying it for a couple of laps, managed the necessary burst across the long straight and squeezed ahead on the turn.

By now, it wasn’t race leader Alonso anymore who was setting the fastest lap; it was de la Rosa, clipping up to a second off the fastest lap. The next intended victim was Barrichello, and it took the best driving from him to keep the rampaging McLaren off. However, it couldn’t be for long. This was de la Rosa’s day, and his overtaking of Barrichello was quite spectacular, squeezing ahead on the inside on the turn.

If it seemed like this was an act of desperation and couldn’t last, the next lap settled everything. De la Rosa wasn’t going to overtake anyone else, but he wasn’t going to be overtaken either – Barrichello was more than a couple of seconds behind. And in the next – and last – three laps to the finish, de la Rosa managed to surge more than 10 seconds ahead of the driver behind him, with Barrichello having dropped far back with a car that needed to be herded to the finish line. Another few laps, and would he have challenged Ralf Schumacher?
And to think de la Rosa was the stand-in for Montoya!

I really haven’t seen anything more exciting on F1 in the last three years than the last third of the 2005 Bahrain Grand Prix.

+ Beyond the Confines of Raga

Carnatic Music is essentially raga music. But I have come across two instances where raga steps aside for a few moments as the sheer flow of sound takes over. One would not be mistaken in thinking that this would be a period of chaos. But the natural progression ensures that the music remains organic. The other point is that both instances are instrumental. The voice would have had much more of a chance of giving the impression of disharmony.

L Shankar – Ananda Nadamadum (Who’s To Know): This kriti is in Raga Savitri, and what I am talking about happens near the end of it. After a few rounds of kalpana swaras, Shankar moves on to a ragamalika swara section, which contains eight ragas. In the repeat phase, the avartanas become shorter till each raga gets the space of only six notes without break. Then it goes down further to three and then the tempo doubles to the third kaala. At this stage, it is nothing more than a blur of notes before they get clarified and end in a flurry in Hamsadhwani. But by then, the music has become so intense and the progression is so well managed that you don't think that you are getting only three rapid notes of a scale, which is as good as nothing in that raga.

U Srinivas – Magudi: It starts off innocent enough as a traditional magudi in Punnagavarali, but soon foreign notes start creeping in, one by one, unobtrusively, till what we have resembles the chromatic scale more than any raga. But the way Srinivas manages the introduction of foreign notes and maintains the mood is admirable. The cascade of notes adds to the awe and mystique of the netherworld atmosphere created by the original Punnagavarali till it becomes almost eerie. Then, in a quick but effective denouement, Srinivas gets back to the finale in Punnagavarali. Quite magical.

I don’t know if there are other instances of such a gentle assault of foreign notes. I have heard a Kapi by T R Mahalingam, where Mali stretches the limits of Kapi by introducing foreign notes and at one point plays the chromatic scale right up and back down again. However, I didn’t get the feeling of the alien notes blending seamlessly into the spirit of the raga. In fact, the buffoonery that Mali indulges in this casual recording of a live concert takes away the edge of seriousness. It’s all good fun with the thrill that the unexpected provides in a live concert (especially with someone as eccentric as Mali), but that is more or less all it is.