Made 120 on the counter today. Excluding the ten or so which resulted when I wanted to check if the thing was working, it still means over a hundred people (friends, family, poisonous reptiles included) have seen, maybe read and perhaps thought of commenting on this blog. Also nice to note that math boy reimann is alive and kicking albeit on the internet, same with zen and hypolink. The torps are back with innovative ways of ending the mosquito menace with little loss of human life. It's raining in bangalore and finally people are beginning to wake up to the hell-hole that this place will soon be unless the mad influx of money hungry choms stops soon.
All that apart between work and a treasure trove of indian classical that I unearthed both off the net and on it I'm still at peace with it all. The incessant buzzing of the bloodsuckers does jar with the music but I think I now know the solution to that.
There's Bhimsen Joshi doing brindavan sarang in the background now. He's been at it for the past half an hour and if winamp is to be believed (professional version, mind you) there's another twenty minutes left. Sublime. Somehow believe Hindustani (vocal or instrumental) is more ear friendly, especially if the ear is as untrained as yours truly's is. It also helps to understand what the person is singing. In stark contrast carnatic has reached a level of attention to detail that is, beyond a point, irritating. The technical competence of the artist(e) overshadows any chance at perhaps even a nice voice. When I say this out loud in the presence of say, my grandmother, she does a nose-in-the-air-you're-a-philistine routine. And it's not just her. Realised that to sit down and listen to carnatic and appreciate it one needs to know what is happening... An easy analogy is to Dream Theater. Unless one has a little idea of what it takes to play what DT does, it is hard to really listen to the music over and above what may initially sound like a bunch of discordant notes. Bottom line? Need to learn carnatic before I'm banished from gramps for asking for a change in what's playing there... and Hindustani is a nicer form to start with if (like me) you're a philistine.
Did some pronunciation checks on the net and discovered ennui is pronounced \on=WEE\ so I thought we'd simplify things by saying "it's pronounced on-"ewe" " then I found that ewe was pronounced 'yu'. Gave up and handed the torch of language to an acquaintance who once said, and I quote, "I liked the aam-be-aan-s of the place... sorry the am-be-en-s." Haven't stopped laughing.
Will stop the flight of thoughts, steal some of dad's whiskey and get back to work.
