The term satsang  just means good company. Often tagged with a religious connotation, satsang is much more than that. In fact, sat-sanga does not necessarily have anything to do with religion.

Every so often in life we get inspired and move on to another plane of existence. And when we are in this inspired state of being, anything becomes possible. We tend to function with extra efficiency. A lot of things that were unclear before seem to clear up. A good many of those even cease to matter for they just vanish as the ‘unreal’.

Suddenly we are complete with everything in life and our operating efficiency goes up. Cleared of filters, we envison our future, and even take steps towards realizing our vision.

Hold on. There is a catch. Dealing with the day to day happenings in life can easily disturb this state of existence and take us back to where we were before.

Worse, some of the routine conversations that we encounter in day to day life can do the same.

There can be a good degree of disempowerment when we engage in certain conversations. Worse still,  we dont even know that sucn conversations are disempowering. We just engage in them, and then are back to our ordinary but secure existence.

Something beautiful can vanish in just an instant.

How do we stay in the extraordinary zone?

The answer is satsang.

Keeping in regular contact with empowering conversations and with empowering personalities is all that it takes to be in the zone. These conversations anchor us within the zone of possibility.

They say that excellence has always met opposition.

The world may not want to listen to possibility.

Therefore seek out and be with conversations that inspire and empower.

Go for satsang.

Again, beware. Satsang is not necessarily a  religious discourse. Satsangh is about empowering and being empowered.

I am blogging after a while.

A long  long distance trip kept me away from the internet.

The long drives through Quebec and North Eastern United States were very interesting. More  on that in another blog.

What I really want to write  about here is naada vinodangal, from the Tamil film Salangai Oli from 1983 (or was it 82? I am not very sure).

The song naada vinodangal is a work of art. There is a lot packed into the song. More than meets the eye.

The song starts with a sloka. More on the sloka at the end of this piece.

Then, the strings introduce Sriranjani (the raga) along with the tablas and the mridangams.

‘Naada vinodangal’ — booms SPB.

SP Shailaja chimes in.

Then comes the first interlude. Shailaja  chimes in on the svara ‘ni’ several times, as the bgm works its way through the raga sri ranjani.

Then there is an abrupt change to the raga hamsanandi.

What?

Yes. Why hamsanandi? The answer becomes clear as we proceed with the song.

’sari, ni, sa, dh, ni, …’ etc.

The bgm comes to an end, and the song  continues.

‘kailai naathan nadanam aadum sivarupam’.

The word ‘pournami’ strikes a jarring note as it uses the shuddha ma as opposed to the tivra ma.

It is then that you realize that the song has  switched to the raga vasanta.

Oho.

Then comes ‘bharatam ennum natanam’ — the ‘nam’ on the natanam switches ‘dha’ to the komala dhaivatam.

Aha. Here is  lalita.

Then the song returns to the pallavi in sriranjani again.

So there are sri ranjani, hamsanandi, vasanta and lalita - whose “scales” are derived  by dropping the panchamam from kharaharapriya, gamanasramam, suryakantam and mayamalavagowla respectively.

Interesting. A decent amount of thought must have gone into its creation.

Now let us look at the sloka.

By and large it is a pentatonic, Sa ga ma dha(komal) ni (komal) sa. But there is an additional tivra rishabham in ‘vande’ in the last line. With these 6 notes, it fits  into the scale of  ragavardhini (minus the pa of course).

Thus the song itself - a salutation to Shiva uses five ragas all devoid of the panchamam - pa - hence the title panchama varja panchamam.

So, as I had said earlier, there is more than meets the eye in this song. Much more!

Note: The above discussion completely overlooks the tail end of the song ‘kaaviri mangai’, which appears unrelated to the rest of the song.

I noticed this year that it has been a nice long spring.

Spring has been like what it ‘normally’ is.

Sporadic rain. Green landscapes. Colorful flowers. Slightly wet and nippy mornings. Occasional blue skies with puffy clouds. Freshness. The wonder is that this has lasted a long while. Almost two months.

As the old adage goes (does there exist one like this?), a long winter leads to a healthy spring.

Yes indeed. The tulips stayed alive longer. Even the lilacs are still in bloom and their perfume wafts in the chill air and delights the senses. Our magnolia bush was in bloom for several weeks.

It is almost  the end of May. Yes, it is Memorial day weekend and there is still a chill in the air.

Compare this to last year when we were dealing with hot days and nights and the beginnings of a drought even in May.   Last season, we had had a shorter than usual winter.

A good spring is worth a long winter. After all, the ground has to get its share of sleep before it begins its tireless work again in spring.

The ragas basant, vasanta and bahaar take on a new significance when you actually experience nature’s celebration.

I was at Bethlehem PA last weekend.I was not prepared for what spring would behold there.

I had to pull the window shutters down at night, as it seemed a little chill, and as I did so, I saw a large flowering pear tree in front of the house, in a mixture of white and green.

I was woken up at about 5AM by the loud chirping of birds. It was a deep spiritual experience, just lying down and listening to the birds. What was their conversation about?

The morning dawned gray and slightly wet. A perfect spring morning. Just the right chill.

I had a breakfast of tea and dosas with hot chilli powder.

(I was reminded of my friend’s mother’s comment once. “Be generous in roasting chillies when you make chilly powder for dosas. Keep in mind that this is not a sambar mix”).

I then stepped out into the porch to enjoy the spring morning.

What I saw was out of the world.

It was really raining flowers! Like in a Bharatiraja tamil film dream sequence. White petals everywhere, against a green background of grass and the distant pink background of cherry blossoms and dogwoods, with the skeletal structure of the trees still visible, reminding us of the dark winter that had preceded this celebration.

Where did this flower rain come from?

The wind was knocking the white petals off of the large pear tree and the petals were just being blown by the wind.

My god, it was beautiful.

There was a layer of white flower petals on the road, like a dusting of snow flurries.

When a car drove past, the wind caused these to blow around, just like a snow dusting.

I had never seen anything like this before.

Street after street, tree after tree, the same scene everywhere.

Clearly this is the best time of the year, wherever you go!

To celebrate or not to celebrate?

Happy Vishu! i.e. Happy Malayala new year!!

It was Yugadi - the Indian new year per the lunar calendar last week.

The Bengali and the Punjabi new year are also around this time of the year.

I am excluding Tamil New year from this list because, it has been officially moved to January - i.e. the day of  Pongal or Makara Sankranti - by the current government in Tamilnadu.

This movement is a historic event.

It parallels what was done by the Romans many years ago.

Have you ever wondered about the prefixes of the month names from September until December?

Septa, Octa, Nava and Dece?

Dont they sound familiar?

Yes, they mean seven, eight, nine and ten.

But they represent the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th months of the year.

Why?

Let us look at the history of human calendars.

Human beings have always attempted to organzie time based on the seasons.

The commencement of spring is the most logical point in time to commence a new year. Once can see this reflected in almost all of the New Year celebrations in various parts of India. When I say spring, I am referring to the spring equinox - i.e. around March 22 when the day and the night are of equal length.

The Romans were no exception either.

When the Roman Empire grew, they attempted to establish their stamp on the regions that they ruled over and they imposed their calendar - for political reasons. The Romans moved the new year from March to January in the year 153 BCE. Julius Ceasar is associated with major calendar reforms in the year 45 BCE.

With the first two months of the year now being January and February, December was forced to become the 12th month of the year. Later on two of the months got named after the powerful monarchs Julius Ceasar and Augustus Ceasar.

In the case of Tamilnadu, Margazhi now becomes the 12th month of the year. Will our months get renamed? Only time will tell.

It is that time of the year when things come back to life.

The snow and ice storms of winter now seem to be relics from the past.

What a relief it is, to not have to look for your heavy jacket every time you leave home! And what a treat it is to be able to walk out in sandals, or in shorts.

And how nice it is when it is bright and sunny early in the morning, when you open the backdoor and hear birds chirping away.

To me the best part of spring is a mildly wet morning with promise of sunlight later.

The grass is mildly wet with the rain of the previous day. When you walk out, you get sprinkled upon, just mildly like the traditional Indian greeting where you are sprinkled with rose water, not drenched.

The grass is green.

Flowers are coming alive on trees. You look around and there is a bright yellow of the flowers on a bush, or the budding white of the crabapple trees or the purple of the magnolia trees.

The official looking Cardinals are busy tweeting away, saying as much as possible in an attempt to be heard. I often wonder if the birds were named Cardinals first or if the Vatican’s Cardinals were.
The mean ubiquitous geese flying from one housetop to another.

In the distance there is a freight train in no particular hurry to get anywhere, the sound of its horn blowing as it crosses a road crossing slowly - iwafting through the morning air.

It is nippy outside. Neither warm, nor cold. It is slightly on the cooler side and is just about right. Totally perfect.

There is promise of brighter, longer and warmer days to come.

Spring is the best time of the year.

This post is not about music. It is about people and memories.

Granted, there was a lot of good singing.  The hall swelled with people. People who had come to sing. People who had come to listen. The amount of awareness in music has grown over the years and there were entries needed to secure a place in the singing line. A hearty development indeed.

I am not going to write about who sang what or how they sang.

What struck me in particular was the spirit of rendition by a friend of ours.

I saw Asha auntie sitting quietly, enjoying the music. I greeted her during a break.

‘Hello Kannikeswaran, how are you’? , she asked.

‘Fine Asha’, I said with a smile.

I then paused for a second and said, ‘We miss Saranath’.

Saranath was her husband who had passed away over a year ago.

‘Yes’, she said. ‘I am here for his memory. He always used to insist that I sing. I am not a professionally trained person and am also out of practice, but I enjoy the spirit’.

My mind raced back to the past.

Without an exception, mama and mami used to attend all of the Tyagaraja/Purandaradasa Aradhanas in Cincinnati. They were not the organizers, they were not the key vocalists. But they have stood for the festival as silent supporters ever since the 1980s.

Mama had even presented a few sessions on air, on the then fledgeling Svaranjali Indian community program.

Well, they had even given me a ride to Columbus (2 hours away) to attend the Tyagaraja Aradhana there in the 80s.

‘You know Kannikeswaran, we used to drive to Columbus every year to attend the Aradhana there. He always loved it. And he wanted this to happen in Cincinnati’.

Mami sang two Purandaradasa Devarnamas that day.

My mother tongue is Tamil.

I could however follow most of what she sang in Kannada although I am not conversant in the language.

When you sing with expression, the purport of the lyrics somehow gets conveyed regardless of the language.

I silently greeted the late Saranath as I left the hall.

The midwest witnessed extraordinary amounts of snow two weeks back.

There are two sides to inclement weather.

There is the inconvenience that is caused, when the ground gets coated with slippery slush from nowhere and all these four wheeler bodies (cars) and the multi-wheeler trucks drive through the interstate - ridden all of a sudden of their ability to cover ground at sixty miles an hour.

In brutal weather like what we had two weeks back, traffic speed of five miles per hour in some places was all that was possible. Even less in others. It is a feeling of something rising up in your stomach, when the car turns left when you try to steer it to the right. There is no control. A feeling that is accentuated when you see another car in a ditch.

Fortunately sanity prevails for the most part. The primary goal on people’s minds is just to get home. Not to get there right away. And when you finally get home it is such a feeling of relief. I can personally vouch for it after having spent 4 and a half hours driving from work during one of the snow/ice storms this season.

The other side is the sheer beauty of it all.

The entire landscape turns white. Snowflakes falling, flying, piling high on the ground, in a white powdery coating that grows by the inch.

In all we had about 18 inches last weekend, over a one and a half day period. It takes quite a bit of effort to just walk over the snow. Your feet sink in. When you are finally done trudging a 25 foot distance to the mailbox to pick up the mail, you look back and see a trail of deep footsteps.

The contrast between the white of the snow and the dark green of the evergreens is striking. Add to it, the snow piling up on the short bushes and completely burying them. Oh, the poor bushes and grass. It is their blanket in winter, that deepens their hibernation and rest and causes them to come back to life in spring in all liveliness.

Now all of a sudden, barely half an hour after the wild snowstorm, the sun comes out shining bright and the snow just glistens. It is an unforgettable sight, spoiled too soon by the snow ploughs that come and clean the streets, with a coat of salt making the roads safe for driving.

There are two weeks until the spring equinox. Days are beginning to get longer. We have had enough of the snow. Time for life again.

 India is a such an amalgam of the ancient and the modern. It is not unusual for historical monuments to even go unnoticed in 21st century India. Here is an example in the form of the well known Kalilkambal temple in North Chennai.

I was raised in George Town, Chennai (formerly North Madras).

Just a couple of doors away from my grandmother’s house was a temple that was part of my childhood.

The Kalikambal temple.

As children growing up there, it was just a temple.

It was only much later that I realized that it was one of Chennai’s historic landmarks.

Yes. It was actually visited by the Maratha Emperor Chhatrapati Shivaji in the year 1677, almost 300 years before I was even born.

So, this place where I was raised, in the hustle and bustle of Madras was actually visited by one of the towering figures in Indian history now more than 300 years ago?

Yes. Fort St. George dates  back to the 1st part of the 17th century. The Kalikambal temple was relocated to its current location in 1640 and then there was this historic visit in 1677, to be precise on Oct 3, 1677. This must have been after Chhatrapati Shivaji’s expedition to Gingee (Senji) and to Vellore.

I vaguely remember an occasion when a portrait of the Emperor was prominently displayed. I am guessing it must have been in 1977, celeberating the 300th anniversary of the Emperor’s worship at this temple.

It is said that the emperor camped in the adjoining Armenian Street, which was also part of our childhood.

Historical tidbits  such as these make you wonder what these places must have been like 300 years ago. Today, these are bustling centers of activity, one way traffic, lorries (trucks), hardware, business and more. The entire Parrys Corner, George Town area is a center of commerce.

Buried in this hustle and bustle are historic places such as the Kalikambal temple. For more information visit www.templenet.com

 I do not know of the origin of the word thokku. But I like the delicacy for sure.

My daugther asked me to write about  thokku.

 Why?

She had particularly liked the post on tairsadam, so she wanted me to complement it with one on thokku.

Fine.

Fine is the  word. The green mangos that go into the thokku have to be finely shredded before they qualify for  entering the thokku.

Of course, the peel should be carefully removed.

I have observed my grandmother making thokku in the 60s.

First the mangos would be peeled and shredded. Then the oil would be heated and flavored using the finest of ingredients (the methi (fenugreek) plays a big role).

The mangos would be sauted in oil; the amount of oil would  cause a dietician to cringe. Then would come a liberal dose of red chilly powder and the cooking mixture would soon begin to look evil.

Grandmother would know exactly when to take it off the stove. She would know exactly how much salt to add.

The whole house would smell of thokku and the tairsadam consumption on that day would be at an all time high.

I drool as I think of it.

And as I drool, I am reminded of one of the best commercials on Sun TV. Ruchi!

Aha! What imagination! Bringing a music teacher in, having her drool at the sight of the pickle bottle on the dining table, and having every note in the scale of sankarabharanam transform into a drool ridden note!

Although the ad caused many a nose to wrinkle in disgust, it had a great impact.  It has been about 5 years since that ad has gone off I think.

PS: Although the articles details the making of manga thokku, the genre of thokku embraces a wide variety of vegetables such as tomatos, chillies and even fruits such as cranberries.