Indian music icons Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia, M Balamurali Krishna and L Subramanian will come together to perform on a single platform on March eight in the city.

It was supposed to be the first-ever jugalbandi of its kind, a conglomeration of giants, a meeting of the icons… and it was just that: a meeting.

First off, I’m against any “timed” concert. By its very nature, Indian classical music concerts, until pretty recently, were not bound by time. While that no longer is real, concerts that still adhere to tradition have a marked difference in terms of quality of performance. You might disagree, but this is a point that merits a separate discussion.

The concert was titled Resonance, but what resonated right through was sadness, right from a certain Balakrishna Hegde’s introductory speech, which seemed longer than the concert itself. He repeatedly got the artistes’ name wrong, and focussed more on his organization’s achievements than anything else. I personally felt jarred listening to the artistes indulge in mutual back-slapping more often than not–right in the middle of the performance.

Clubbing L. Subramaniam with Balamuralikrishna and Hariprasad Chaurasia also assaulted my sensibilities. I had almost decided to skip the concert for just this one reason. Yet the allure of the other two masters convinced me otherwise.

Hariprasad Chaurasia went first, greeting the audience with some naughty lines on gopikas, both of Krishna’s time and the uncountable pretty dames in the audience. He opened the concert by welcoming the Chandrama, the moon with one of my favourites, Marwa, the distant cousin of the Carnatic Gamanashrama (Purvi Kalyani). It was characteristic of Chaurasia, and showcased his command over both the raga and the instrument. His incessant sojourn of Marwa across D r N G m instantly evoked blissful pathos. The dominance of Bhava (feeling, emotion) in Hindustani classical music is the main reason it is so close to my heart. From a master like Chaurasia wielding a bhava-heavy Marwa is like going on the journey to bliss. However, thanks to time constraints, he cut the journey short, leaving me fuming. Quality-wise, I’ve heard better from this artiste but I guess I needed to be better prepared to expect nothing beyond this from these khichdi kinda concerts.

Balamuralikrishna’s piece was a self-composed rendition, Omkara Karini in Lavangi, a raga he has himself “created.” At 77, he proved again that he is still the undisputed monarch of Carnatic classical music. His voice has lost none of its depth and sway. Methinks Balamurali is the only living musician who has shown that it is possible to infuse bhava in rendering Carnatic compositions on par with the Hindustani stream. In many ways, he deserves credit for rescuing Carnatic music from the stranglehold of tala, the likes of which once dominated concerts rendered mostly by the Madras Greats, without naming anybody here.

Speaking of which, L. Subramaniam next shared the dias with his teenaged son, Ambi. Funny, the compere included Ambi when he read out the “list of living legends.” The duo began an alapana of Gauri Manohari. I’m not sure which violin he used but it sounded jarring. Surprisingly, the aalpana was above average because my expectations from this artiste ranged from low to average. The composition (forgot the name now) was pretty ok but the kalpana swara prasthanams just went on and on and on, father and son taking turns. This is truly in the tradition of the Madras Greats who overdo the swara prasthanams till it turns into meaningless acrobatics in arithmetic. In a word: miserable. And yeah, I’m inherently biased against L. Subramaniam’s music but that’s a reason I’ll explore another day. In a line, his stature and fame are grossly disproportionate to his abilities.

The real jugalbandi began next with Hamsadhwani, a raga common to both streams and a personal favourite. The Balamurali-Chaurasia combination worked amazingly well here. The two alternated, one picking up where the other left, and one expanding what the other just hinted at. Balamurali surprised everyone when he suddenly lapsed into a aa-nam-tat-tat-tanananam but tapered off as suddenly. I expected him to complete the ragam tanam pallavi…no such luck. Equally, he abandoned the aalapana midway and began Jayadeva’s Vanamali. The concert closed with the mandatory display of the talents of the accompanists. Again, even this was an overkill.

You cannot really blame the artistes: they have (unfortunately) mastered the art of playing to the kind of audience that attends these concerts. You organize a corporatish concert with well-decked ignoramuses making up 90% of the audience, and you get a let-down performance. These selfsame artistes wouldn’t dare perform this way in the concerts held in the sabhas and temples in the bylanes of Bangalore.

Now let me get back to Balamurali’s Seetamma Mayamma or his fantastic ragam tanam pallavi in Revathi…Chaurasia’s Keeravani and Malkauns are equally alluring…

Crossposted on Desicritics.

Long Leave is highly ppropriate. Now you know why no grievances are addressed.

Crossposted on INI Signal.

Cross-posted on Desicritics.

This facilitator discriminates against none: today I see the same experiences but through the antics, behaviour of others. Believe me when I say the place has its own silent method of enforcing a quaint sort of discipline on its visitors. The said antics and behaviour in all my hallowed years is almost consistent: it never gets out of hand, the younger visitors never cross the line of public decency and older visitors who look at this nod their heads with the typical tut tut tilt while guys my age mentally delight in these and want to join, but cannot. So, carry on boys!

This entry will be incomplete if I omit mentioning Ramanna’s idly shop. I’ll not dwell on the great taste of the food he serves there but on how his shop has become intertwined with the Malleswaram Railway Station Experience itself. His menu is severely limited: idlis, vadas, khara bath, and shavige bath (vermicelli for the uninitiated). Friendships were made and broken, conspiracies to murder villainous politicians hatched, strategies to help each other during examinations carefully worked out, plots to ensnare nubile young things discussed… Ramanna’s eatery fuelled all of these.

Last weekend saw me visit the Northside hospital right opposite the railway station. I’d some spare time on hand that I initially spent cursing the April sun assaulting me. I entered the railway station more to find relief from the heat than with any poetic yearning for nostalgia. To my surprise, it brought forth this entry.

Cross-posted in Desicritics.

For everyone except Bangalore’s Sherlock Holmeseque police.

This singular incident made them suddenly discover their latent chivalry. Their conclusion, after spending nights of post-mortemming the crime is worthy of emulation by police forces across the country.

No more tinted glasses to hide

The rapist-driver molested the unfortunate lady inside a Tata Sumo after parking it in a desolate area, then slit her throat and killed her. The Sumo’s glasses were tinted. THIS, my dear Watson is the point we need to latch on, cried the police triumphantly. Un-tinting the glasses of all cars in Bangalore is the foolproof way to prevent similar future crimes, they declared.

With a rare display of prompt action, they unleashed a notification to this effect in all newspapers. Then again with an uncharacteristic elan, they assured the citizens that they’d depute officers to courteously help the public with the untinting process. They set January 15 as the deadline. Hundreds of law-abiding (read: fearing) citizens showed up to get their tint-percentage checked and hundreds more completely untinted their car glasses spending in the range of 900-5000 rupees.

Meanwhile, law-breaking citizens stirred a protest, curse their collective souls, that this was unreasonable, that using tinted glasses helped protect privacy, etc. Few others asked for charity to begin at home: let the cops and the politicians untint their car glasses first, and so on.

Suddenly the police realized that their tinted brainwave to prevent Pratibha-like incidents had after all been a no-brainer. And so:

Drive against tinted glass off

Doesn’t this remind us of a famous lunatic-king who physically shifted his capital from Delhi to Daulatabad?

And now this.

Terror struck an international conference at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) campus on Wednesday night killing a retired Mathematics professor from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, M.C. Puri, and seriously injuring four others including one of the inventors of the Simputer, Prof Vijay Chandru from IISc.

Our Protectors the Police and politicians have begun the blame-game before even twenty four hours have passed. As Nitin says

If Bangalore was unprepared, it is perhaps less due to lack of intelligence reports, but because of a lack of intelligence.

I partly agree. There’s another factor that you can add to lack of intelligence: it is called deliriction of duty. Kannada tabloids week after week continue to dig out dirt on the appalling corruption in the police department: a senior officer reportedly paid upto a crore to get posted to a “lucrative” area in Bangalore, another was suspended for deliriction of duty, yet another was an accomplice in a string of pickpocket cases, still another was rumoured to run a brothel… in short our cops seem to do everything other than what they’re paid for.

Nitin asks in the same blog post:

Were there any intelligence reports suggesting that an attack in Bangalore was imminent? If so, what did the political leadership do about it?

Here you go.

The terrorist attract at IISc was waiting to happen. At least, that’s what investigative agencies were told as they interrogated several terrorists arrested recently.

Sources said these agencies had informed the Home Ministry that the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had been planning to attack Bangalore, India’s software capital.

While J-K police have suggested that the attack could be the work of an LeT cell that evaded capture recently, a suspected terrorist arrested in Hyderabad had told interrogators in Delhi that Bangalore was on the hitlist of certain Bangladesh outfits. Ministry sources, however, said the IISc was never mentioned as specific target and the LeT’s involvement, if any, remains unconfirmed.

More alarming is the thoroughness with which they had scrutinized the target before the attack:

Says IGP (Kashmir Range) K Rajendra: ‘‘If this is a terrorist attack, it is not surprising. Last year, we unearthed a Lashkar network in Srinagar which had done elaborate reconnaissance at IISc and various IITs. We captured almost everyone except one cell that was missing.”

And another damning report from Deccan Herald which says:

The city police have continued to ignore frequent intelligence warnings to provide adequate security to the IISc. The attack on Wednesday night is the second security lapse at the institute in 10 months.

As noted above, the city police have other pressing tasks on hand than providing security to an elite, bloated and self-important institute like the IISc. The current state, attitude and behaviour of the police mirrors that of the political class which dubs economic development as the concern of the rich and therefore irrelevant. The people need to take this political class to task for deliberately allowing Bangalore to rot.

Just three days ago, on Dec 26, three militants apprehended in Delhi spilled dangerous beans.

In a joint operation with Bengal police, a special cell of Delhi police has arrested three militants planning to strike IT parks in Bangalore and Hyderabad and plott- ing the deaths of Andhra Pradesh politicians. [...] “They have been planning to target the special task force office in Hyderabad, politicians in Hyderabad, Bangalore Software Park and Hyderabad Hitec City, markets and busy places and railway stations in north India,” he said. “They planned to hit these companies in an effort to hinder economic development of the country.” … The Lashkar trio had also visited Bangalore and surveyed the location of several software companies in December 2004.

Wasn’t this intelligence sufficient for the Bangalore police to wake up? What’s more, the morons in uniform instead of calling a spade a spade are busy trying to invent explanations; in Nitin’s words:

They’ll probably blame it on a disgruntled student next.

Deve Gowda will come up with another statement to appease his rural votebase. “This is a high tech killing. This is the price for allowing companies like Infosys to flourish. Will this happen in villages?” Enough incentive for the cops to relapse into their slumber.

Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Victoria Hotel.


Or what now stands on the site of Victoria Hotel: Bangalore Central. The 1.25 Lakh Sq Ft shopping mall is one of the “happening places.” A symbol of “aping the West” or simply, another place to have a good time, depending on your definition in these matters. It houses all the trappings related to food, clothing, and shelter.

But parking is a different monster here.

With billboards soooo alluring, it is hard not to step in and get yourself ripped off shop. I was talking about parking. Let me rephrase that. Parking is available. It however, is comes at a steep price: 20 rupees for two wheelers. But there’s a rider: your parking fee is reimbursed if you buy something. And that achieves two things. First, it discourages two categories of people:

1. those who are scared/unwilling to park at the roadside parking lots
2. visitors who simply want to hang out at the mall

Secondly, it (insidiously) forces the visitor–who finds it ridiculous to pay 20 bucks to park his bike–to shop. This second factor acts hugely in favour of the mall. I’ll explain. Bangalore Central is located right opposite this decrepit building called Mayo Hall, which houses a variety of small-time lower courts. And shares the same fate as its cousins elsewhere in India: poorly maintained, decaying, stinking, moss-adorned….

A person who–like those desperadoes who watch a movie even by buying “black” tickets–is hell-bent on having the out-of-the-world experience which Bangalore Central promises, will certainly be jolted by the outrageous parking fee. However, the mall is so cleverly (?) located that all roads that lead to it are one-ways (there’s an imposing road divider on M.G. Road) and you need to really walk if you prefer not to park your vehicle in the mall premises.

You anyway go ahead and pay 20 Rupees and get inside to pamper yourself. But the hole in your pocket incessantly competes for your attention: if I don’t buy anything, I’ve actually burnt 20 Rupees. On something as stupid as parking. These #$** daylight robbers! And there’s nothing I can do. Maybe I should write to some paper against this unfair parking fee… As these thoughts subside, you begin to reason to yourself, after all, I don’t come here everyday… when was the last time I bought a Nike…. ho! it’s only 7th today… and there’s a 45% discount on Levis… And then, when you come away from the counter, you realize that 20 Rupees have been deducted from your bill. That certainly made the trip to Bangalore Central worthwhile.

Like I mentioned in the post on Big Bazaar, Bangalore Central has made life hell for road-users in and around Residency Road and M.G.Road. Try to cover 25 metres in your car/bike in less than 15 minutes and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

As a closing note, Mayo Hall stands out as an aberration amid the numerous clusters of high rises that have dotted this part of Bangalore. Its architectural beauty however, remains unchanged to this day. Victoria Hotel used to complement that beauty just a few years ago.

Bangalore Central is the aberration.

BUT…. like most localities in Bangalore, Banashankari III Stage also suffers from congestion, slow traffic movement, pollution… Now there’s a new entrant to make matters even worse. Big Bazaar, which continues to rake in tons of money at its Koramangala outlet has opened another branch here.

We’d been there on Sunday: to get inside the mall entailed a wait of 20-30 minutes. The crowd.

This outlet is far bigger than the one at Koramangala. The Big Bazaar guys have their mouth where the money is: the building here is not even fully constructed: metal spikes jutting out, loose wires floating around, bits of concrete hanging on the roof, along the ramp, and elsewhere. The crowd on Sunday was several thousands strong, anything (the cynic that I am) could happen. Moving on to pleasanter things, the mall is impeccably organized.

Couldn’t get a lot of photos as I was getting constantly jostled, elbowed and generally pushed around.

We managed to get out after about three hours and highly minimal shopping. Thought of eating some “Chinese” out here.

Impressively titled Beijing Bites, the taste was slightly better than the roadside “Chinese” stalls you can find all over the city. Expert comments from a certain chef I know are welcome.

A friendly warning to all reading this: don’t visit Big Bazaar on a Saturday or Sunday. If you must, please allocate an entire day for the ordeal.

I also hope to serve the other noble cause of preserving these chronicles for posterity. Corner House which serves delicious desserts has a nice collection of photographs of Antiquity Bangalore, plastered all over its walls. Some of these pictorial gems date as far back as 1860. That in part is my inspiration for this new adventure.

The fact that I also plan to maraud your eyes with not-so-clear pics from my camera phone shouldn’t I hope, deter you from reading the chronicles. For starters, here’s a photo of the city at sunset.