“Western Classical music is perceived as elitist. Once that perception changes, more people will be able to study and appreciate it.” says Mira Sundara Rajan, a pianist of Indian origin and teaches Copyright Law at Queen Mary, University of London. She is in India for legal research in her chosen stream, Cultural Property Rights and Intellectual Property Rights in the Arts area. Although she has visited Chennai before, on this visit she has performed at the Madras Music Association on June 6th and at the British Council Division last evening. Why the piano? “I was always enthralled by the piano. It’s the backbone of the classical tradition. As an instrument, it is structured to provide a very versatile range of sound. That’s why composers use it while working on a piece.” Mira has been studying music for the past 25 years. She has a particular interest in the work of Johannes Brahms and plans to make a recording of all of his solo pieces. “This has not been attempted before – Brahms is a complex composer in that his solo compositions are usually short and range from vibrant pieces to those that convey unusual emotions. His work is not about playing the notes, it is intellectually very demanding. If audiences appreciated Brahms for the brilliant composer he was, having truly understood his music, there would be more musicians playing his pieces. To give an analogy, Brahms was a true craftsman of music but audiences are yet to understand the art form.” According to Mira, all of music is an attempt to reach a higher state of existence – call it intellectualism or spirituality. “But the music of Brahms can transport even a listener with no background in music to appreciate it for the emotions it conveys. Understanding his music, however, can elevate you to a different plane.” Which brings us back to Mira’s conviction that the way forward for the Western Classical music industry is in educating the audience. She says, “Did you know that Classical Music constitutes only around 5% of the entire recorded music industry?” She finds that even in performances, musicians play according to popular tastes, either famous composers or oft-heard pieces. “The interest will expand only with educating the audiences. In my concerts, I give a brief background about the piece and the composer hoping that I am leaving the audience with a little more information and interest. This concept doesn’t exist in the western countries as most people are assumed to know about western classical music. However, it’s the people who don’t understand the music that I want to reach out to. They are the people who can move the tradition forward with appreciation.” Mira is also into writing poetry and started at a very tender age like her illustrious great grand father, Mahakavi Subramania Bharati. “I also write short fiction and when I have some time in the midst of my music and teaching, I will be attempting a novel. And for sure, Brahms will find a way into it!” Pic courtesy Third Eye An edited version of this article was published in Madras Plus on June 12, 2004 .

“I am doing the role of Ramchander IPS at a time in my life where I am looking at things differently. I have mellowed down, and am also doing fewer films.” says Venkatesh Babu aka ‘Victory’ Venkatesh aka Venki, Telugu actor and son of Dr. D.Rama Naidu, one of the foremost producers of the Telugu Film Industry. In Chennai to complete the climax sequence for Gharshana (Kaakka Kaakka in Telugu), Venkatesh is all praise for the Tamil original and Gautam Menon. In his career spanning 18 years, he believes, he has not been presented in a role like the one he assays in Gharshana. “The success of the film is its fresh style. Technically, it is very slick and what you would expect of a Hollywood film.” He is paired with Asin in the role played by Jyotika in the Tamil original. Straddling philosophy and films comes easily to Venkatesh. Although he has been spiritual from childhood, films were never part of the equation until 1986. As an MBA from the US of A, who was initially reluctant to join the industry, he believes, “Some things were just meant to happen. There is a higher major framework behind it all, which designs something else for you.” Venki has carved a niche for himself by the range of roles he has portrayed – from Angry Young Man to Lover Boy to Man-Next-Door. His first Telugu Film, Kaliyuga Pandavulu won him acclaim as well as awards. “At the time I entered the industry, the style of acting was quite old-fashioned and loud. However, that was the ‘in’ thing at that time. I have also played those roles. But along the way, there were opportunities to do different types of roles and the audiences have accepted me in those as well.” says Venki. He is much appreciated for his roles in movies like Swarna Kamalam, Prema and Kshana Kshanam.   What about his foray into Hindi? “Anari was special. In Kashmir where I was shooting last week, people recognized me as Rama, the principle character. The success of that story in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Hindi, was because of Rama being a powerful character. The story touched a chord among audiences all over India.” Although he did get many roles in Hindi after the success of Anari (a remake of Chinna Thambi), he chose to stay home in the Telugu Film Industry as his Telugu films were doing extremely well. “ If I have to work in Hindi even today, it needs to have the kind of strong characterisation and story that Anari had.” Speaking of consciously cutting back on the number of films he does per year, Venki says “Sometime in life, it hits you that the whole thing is maya. When you go into it deeply, all else doesn’t matter.” “In Indian Film Industry, and in the Telugu one as well, the art of film making has undergone a transition. Production-wise, budgets have increased. And so has competition. We have many talented youngsters entering the industry, including directors, who have made their mark and are doing a wonderful job. They have tasted success very early in their careers, and I hope they have a long innings. Thanks to media, audiences are now exposed to other visual forms and performances from other parts of the world and are open to new themes and techniques.” “I never intended to get into films, so there is no one type of role I crave to do. At this stage, I would still like to do something like a Godfather, something challenging. I have been trying to design a character like the Nutty Professor or Tootsie. That’s going to take some time and work to develop. Now that I am choosing lesser films every year, I hope to get down to designing roles like those.” he says. On the cards is a period film by director K.Raghavendra Rao, 70 % of it is set in the pre-independence era. “And maybe, just maybe, you will see me in Tamil soon,” says Venki, as a parting shot. Gharshana is Venki’s 54th film and is slated for a July 2004 release. Pic courtesy Seven Shots An edited version of this article was published in Madras Plus in 2004.  

“The one underlying thread that runs through the stories in my book, is about accidents. Mistakes made inadvertly by a person in a new country, a new culture.” says Nell Freudenberger who was in Chennai recently. “It’s like going back to that part of childhood where you don’t intend making mistakes. But you make them all the same, out of ignorance.” Thoughts that are at once insightful as they are endearing, seem to be Nell’s forte. Although you wouldn’t associate an achingly pretty, twenty nine year old with such immense writing talent, you get more than a glimpse of it in her debut book, ‘Lucky Girls’, named after one of the stories in this collection of five. In the stories that make up the book, she takes us through slice-of-life renditions of Americans in cultures other than their own. “It’s like they need to go away to know where they’re from.” says Nell, sounding wise beyond her years. So, you find characters not only from the US, but also, to a large extent, from New Delhi, Bangkok, Mumbai, and Vietnam. The stories, all ‘longer than the short story and shorter than the novel’, explore the accidents that she mentions, in a backdrop of dysfunctionality. The dysfunctionality itself, is portrayed as an underlying element of realism sans the coldness that one inevitably associates with it. Nell recounts how she started writing, “I started out with a novel while at University. Although my teachers at Harvard were a major influence, authors like Peter Carey, Alice Munro and Grace Paley have greatly inspired me. While working as an Editorial Assistant at The New Yorker, I wrote the short story, Lucky Girls, which the magazine went on to publish in its 2001 Summer Fiction Issue.” Subsequently, although she had a choice of nine publishing houses that were bidding to publish the book, Nell chose Ecco Press, an imprint of Harper Collins, more for the fact that they were the right fit rather than the highest bid. While she has spent an aggregate of 6 months across the four visits she has made to India, this is Nell’s second trip to Chennai. On her last trip, she confesses to having done some ‘usual touristy things’ en route to Kerala. This time, however, she was here to spend some time at Pondicherry, writing a travel article as well as to read from her book at an event held under the auspices of The Office of Public Affairs, US Consulate General for South India and the Madras Book Club at Chennai. Her next book is set in Los Angeles, where she grew, and has ‘influences of China’ for which she travels to China soon. “I hope to test my Chinese on that trip.” she ends, on a whimsical note. The Indian edition of Nell Freudenberger’s Lucky Girls, is to hit bookstores in Chennai shortly.    Pic courtesy Third Eye An edited version of this article was published in Madras Plus in 2004.

“I suppose I have brought the Goa rain to Chennai. It happened during the Delhi launch too – there was a hailstorm!” says Maria Aurora Couto, who is in Chennai for the release of her book, ‘Goa: A daughters story’.  With the sound of unseasonal, yet welcome rain in the background, Mrs. Couto goes on to elaborate on her book. “What does it mean to be a Goan? This was the question that intrigued me for many years. This was the question I have tried to answer for myself as well as the readers of my book.” Touted as innovative in a form that’s part memoir, part study of the social and cultural history of Goa, the book according to Mrs. Couto, is an attempt to understand and unravel the complexity of the Goan identity.  “Goa is a deeply spiritual land. We have a rich inheritance of many religions that have cross-fertilized the soil– there was the Bhakti tradition, Islam, Christianity, Jainism as well as Buddhism. As for society, take the Gavkari system, for instance. Land was jointly held by all the villagers. Women and men are considered equal under law and the moment a woman is married, she has claim to half her husband’s property.”  According to Ms. Couto, “Goa is more than just about the 450 years of colonisation by the Portuguese. Most people are unaware that before the Portuguese, we were also ruled by the Kadambas, the Rashtrakutas and the Vijayanagar Kingdom.”  “The Portuguese did have a strong influence not just because of the length of time that they were here, but also because the territory was small. Hence, the influence was also intensive. Moreover, in 19th Century Portugal, under the electoral system, two Members of Parliament were elected from Goa. The Goans were Portuguese citizens and considered so even until the last century.”she revealed.  So much so, that one discovers Konkani can be written in Roman, Urdu, Devnagari, Malayalam and Kannada scripts. Mrs. Couto, in fact, writes it in the Roman script.  Ms. Couto reminisced, “While the book was written in 3 years, starting from the year 2000, the process of exploration has taken over thirty years. Right at the beginning, it was Bakibab Borkar and Pandurang Pissurlekar, who channelised my many questions and goaded me to tell the story. This book has been a product of friendships and trust.”  One further discovers that she is not a mere visitor to Chennai, having lived here for seven years from 1994 and having life-long friends who belong to this city. “In fact, I started writing the book when I lived here, in Chennai, in 2000. The city is a unique blend of the modern mind with a firm footing in tradition. If it weren’t for my friends in Chennai, who have drawn me into every ceremony and celebration in their homes, I would not have known much about the city and its people.”  Maria Aurora Couto’s book, Goa:A daughter’s story, is available in bookshops in Chennai. Pic courtesy Third Eye An edited version of this article was published in Madras Plus on May 6, 2004 .