Good Neighbors!

One of our neighbors has been maintaining their stray habits.

We all should love animals. And we do love them. But the profound question is should we love them at the cost of us human beings.

There are lots of problems caused by stray dogs and cats to residents, passersby and all including bites. Authorities always plan many things but fail always at the implementation level due to, of course, the animal lovers. And problems always remain.

Our neighbor is trying to take care of all stray animals of the locality by feeding them at the staircase landing space and inside the house. If you are unfortunate enough to pass by just at the time of their main door opening up it’s all cats and dogs raining out on you! At many times dogs regally lounge on the landing space just outside the door and if you are ascending or descending the stairs you have to cross within biting distance. Good neighbors that we are we never make scenes except asking the watchmen sometimes to scare away the strays.

The lady of the house if often seen talking intently to the strays and is hardly seen talking to human beings. Well, should animal lovers become mental cases? Animals themselves would not like this idea as it smacks of future unpredictable dangers!

The profound question thus remains.

Many Many Many, Don’t be Funny!

Just how many is too many? Well, a thought only.

About ten years back, more relevantly for India, it was very difficult to get a credit card. The banks did not come to you then, you had to go to them—beg beg and convince. Getting one finally was considered an achievement.

Now one is not enough. With banks calling you, emailing you, messaging you all the time and with most cards coming as lifetime free ones you just go merrily multiplying irrespective of your needs. Specially designed wallets are coming your way to accommodate your cardy crowd. It’s altogether a different matter how many of you are hooked into a never ending debt trap and how many are showing off without having the means to even come close to that kind of lifestyle.

Just five years back, again more relevantly for India, many of us didn’t even know what a blog was. Forget how to create it.

Now having one blog is not enough. You can go on creating just at the click of the mouse irrespective of whether you need it or not and whether you have the content for that or not. Like credit cards many blogs have to be owned because like credit cards they come free too. It’s altogether a different matter how many of you get trapped in it and how many get into a position of perfect inactivity. Amitabh Bachchan, the superstar of the millennium, got trapped by commenting on the film Slumdog Millionnaire directed by Danny Boyle. Mr Bachchan restarted the archaic debate of ‘selling Indian poverty or ugly reality’ to the West. You cannot hide the ‘reality’ of a blog.

Someone has to design a special e-wallet for accommodating your blogy crowd.

Pandit Shivkumar Sharma Questions the Time Theory in Indian Classical Music

‘Our ragas are based on time periods like the morning, afternoon, evening and late night hours. But the time slot now-a-days for concerts is 6pm to 10pm due to security reasons or whatever. If we exceed police will come and arrest the artists and the organizers. This means performances can be done only on a few limited ragas again and again. Morning and afternoon concerts are rare and late night concerts whether indoor or outdoor are impossible.’ Said santoor legend Pandit Shivkumar Sharma on 10th January, 2009 at a two-day seminar on ‘Reconsidering Fundamental Issues in Indian Art Music’ organized by ITC Sangeet Research Academy at NCPA, Mumbai. Panditji was speaking at the session on ‘Time Theory’.

While making it clear that he was speaking neither for or against the time theory Pandit Shivkumar Sharma elaborated further, ‘In old days we were closer to nature and most concerts were organized outdoor with nature manifested in full glory. Now in air conditioned auditoriums time becomes timeless. Of course, the biological clocks still works, but what happens when we go to US or Europe. At 9.30pm somewhere in Europe when the sun still blazes what ragas we are supposed to select?’

The eager discussion took up some other points too like while light classical songs based on particular ragas can be presented any time why time theory should apply only to pure classical form; and the double standards of the audiences—they listen to recordings of khayals in different ragas at home at any point of time without considering the time theory while they object to artistes at concerts singing a raga at the ‘wrong’ time. It was also pointed out that sometimes when lyrics become the dominant factor and ragas secondary in some compositions, such compositions should be freed from time theory.

Pandit Shivkumar Sharma summed up the healthy debate saying while no solutions could yet be found discussions could carry on.