30/11/2005

There's a new restaurant that has come up in front of my workplace. Yes, it serves food and charges you for that, but its claim to fame is something else. Most restaurants allow you to choose the food you want to consume, but here you're allowed to choose the ingredients too. To simplify, there's an aquarium thats teeming with wildlife - fish, crabs, prawns. You simply have to walk to that aquarium, pick an animal of your choice and an attendant would help you out by fishing that 'animal' out of the aquarium and transporting it to the kitchen. That very animal would be cooked and served to you. Live cooking, eh?

But the misfortune lies in the fact that I practice the highly sacred and known-only-to-a-few religion called vegetarianism.

29/11/2005

Today, while listening to an old Ilaiyaraja classic 'Poongathave Tazh Tiravai' (Nizhalgal) I couldn't help but wonder at the smoothness that was inherent in the song. The phrases seemed so interconnected. The transition from phrase to phrase (am talking of the tune, not the lyrics) is frictionless. Each phrase complements its predecessor.

In stark contrast, is the modern Harris Jayaraj's 'Aiyangaru veettu azhage' (Anniyan) . Here, it is more like individual phrases woven together. Each phrase runs at a different pace, and the output is an agglomeration of musical phrases, each of which is of a different variety.

Just for the time being, let us ignore the composer, and concentrate on the song itself.

Now, both songs are classical-inspired. The former from the ragam Mayamalavagoulai and the latter from Nattai. True, Mayamalavagoulai being a melakartha ragam with all 7 swarams, any song based on it will have a flowing touch, whereas, Nattai has jumping notes. But, the actual difference here is not the ragam, but the layam (rhythm). Poongathave proceeds in the usual 16 beat cycle - each phrase has a fixed rhythmic count. Aiyangaru proceeds unevenly - Its first phrase has more than 16 beats (ateeta eduppu), while its second phrase (beginning 'Un poal azhagi" has in fact less than 16 beats (anahata eduppu)! This lends a lot to each phrase being distinct. In fact, the whole song has a cosmopolitan touch to it.

If you want variety, look to music!

21/11/2005

Painful day... especially after what happened yesterday.. The dreams are fading away.. It seems the almighty hasn't chosen for me the path which I want to choose... But I guess its time for some serious retrospection... What I want in life and where I wish to be..

All said and done, it was a marvellous experience.... The challenges it posed and the frustration and agony it caused... Whew.. 'Just like that'! :-)

Anyway, as I said, its time to move on.. at the same time look back and learn from the stupid mistakes.... Will keep working hard for a couple of months, and then review the situation.. whether I need to keep moving towards Jeddah or move left towards Madagascar.