this now with different pictures to show if it brings up same results

 Not even one match and yet it is the same me.

 At last one person in common and some no-name celebrity – never heard of this Gael Bernal before

 Another common hit. yaaay — and it shows Elle McPherson too often as a lookalike. I’d rather do her not look like her

I’d really like to understand how you do five different matches and each time, it comes up with a different celebrity look-alike at the top of the list

It looks like a kinda Sally-Jesse-Raphael meets dysfunctional Full-House in a wierd ‘breaking-the-fourth-wall’ self-referential style. Maybe the self-referential part is only in the one episode I saw where Charlie (played by Charlie Sheen, whose scowl belongs to the Joey-from-Friends-smelling-fart-to-act-all-intense school of acting) talks about the woman he dated that later had a sex-change operation and is currently dating his mother saying in a made-for-neons statement “My mother and I slept with the same dude”. The funniest part however is when housekeeper plonks herself at the breakfast table telling Charlie, “I will clean your house free for a week, Charlie” to which the scowlie says, “What?” and housekeeper says for letting her tell Charlie’s mom that the guy she is sleeping with used to be a woman.

 This is yet another show I will track – to see if it lives up to the promise of this one that I watched or otherwise.

To go back to the beginning, my initiation into the musico-cultural cult of tambrams, who claim near total monopolistic domination of Carnatic music; both supply and demand sides did not start by my accidental birth into a twice born tambram lineage. It started when Vyjayanthimala danced to the tunes of “Krishna nee Begane”. Me, an apple-cheeked kid of two or three attending my first ever concert/recital felt I was the Krishna she was beckoning to – gently, teasingly, “come soon, come show your face” drawing me in, enveloping me in the folds of Carnatic music (though if you were to believe my mother, I was indoctrinated Abhimanyu style by the Veena player who played at her Seemantham ceremony when she was carrying me)

… and … after decades traversing received music – from Emani to Eminem, from Brindamma to YoYo Ma, from GNB to Gillespie and years of transmitting music from my Western violin, my Carnatic violin, my own larynx … the black sheep is gradually being welcomed back into it’s fold … and yet again, by the very same danseuse beckoning the very same infant. (Now I realize how my earlier review of a review of how music affects neuronal connections was totally wrong. In that I had debunked neuroscientist Lewitin claiming that the music of our teens is burned on our souls.)

At last, I’m in the land of my ancestors during the holy month of Margazhi to join the ranks of the snuff-snorting, vigorous-thigh-tapping, veshti-angavasthram-sporting herd doing the sabha hopping. In getting here, I have denied my heritage and refused my cultural anchor – knowingly and not-so knowingly shedding all the clinging vestiges of my tambram collective unconscious. 

So here I am, a Sabha virgin in Madras and the only place I know that would have a Carnatic concert is the Music
Academy.  Without local arm-candy to gently guide me through my first paces, I do not want to get into the deep end of the Sabha pool – the Music Academy on day one and I do not know any alternate locations; I do not want to google for it and the hotel concierge is of no help either. A sliver of thought asserts itself through the debris of discarded collective unconscious into my conscious. What is the Tambram social registry in Madras? Why, it is Mount Road Mahavishnu –  The Hindu.  That is how I find myself at Narada Gana Sabha to start my foray into the last bastion of cultural imperialism this side of the Sahyadris. At the foot of the steps to Sathguru Gnananda Hall, I do not dismiss the cab – for I half feel I will be refused entry – oh, for various reasons – that it is open only to Sabha members and patrons to far worse, that I would be asked to illustrate the differences between Sunada Vinodini and Karna Ranjani or asked to show my poonal – which of course, I had long discarded. I feel slightly apprehensive as I get out of the cab and go up the steep steps – I feel out of place, I feel people looking at me like they would an alien – and I don’t blame them – my body language must radiate dispossession, a sense of un-belonging, of being unsure of my surroundings. I am partly reassured when I find Madisaar Mamis gorging on samosas at Sree Krishna Sweets and even more so when I actually find a ticket counter.  I ask Mami manning counter for a ticket, still expecting to be rebuked or denied; and will wonders ever cease, she actually made small talk after handing me the ticket.

I tread steps to the hall lightly and gingerly, prepared to be underwhelmed – for on today’s playbill are U.Srinivas, who though a gifted player, is somebody I dismiss as Carnatic Lite (but then, for me, anything not from the DKP baani is Carnatic Lite)  and Vyjayathimala, who though immensely beautiful in her youth (my dad whose parental house neighbored Vyjayanthimala’s would reminisce about the lines of young men queuing up for a glance of the star – and that is decidedly pre-historic) is looking ghastly these days with her weird hairdo and namam that stretches from bridge of nose to the nape of her neck. 

U Srinivas and his brother U. Rajesh play to the gallery, as usual – with ragas that even I, the renegade can recognize in the first strum of the mandolin. Despite playing to the gallery, despite announcing (in English) the ragas, the compositions and talams, I am involuntarily electrified … and it is not difficult to understand why.  My first exposure to Carnatic music was in Bangalore where the concerts I was taken to were the Ramanavami season ones (a poor cousin of the Madras Margazhi season). At these free-for-all concerts held largely at outdoor venues in the warm (for Bangalore) summers  -  the atmosphere is more carnival than chamber  – what with two hundred kids and assorted minders, balloon sellers, traffic outside; all jostling for equal aural attention with the performers. Later at college, I heard again live Carnatic music; this time performed in shielded-from-external-noises chambers, among prim-and-propah rasikas and wannabes and I vowed to never return to the ‘Proms in the Park’ carnival atmosphere of what I mistakenly thought was how Carnatic music was performed all over India.

Today at Narada Gana Sabha, all my notions of listening to live Carnatic music in India stand demolished … I’m in an atmosphere, largely shorn of external acoustic interferences and the major impact on my tympanum is only from the music I came to listen. So what if all I hear are Saveri swara-sancharas on steroids – designed to show off the artistes’ virtuosity rather than bring out raga bhava, what if the majestic ‘Meru Samana’ fails to tower over other pieces in delineating  sowkhya bhava, what if the Ritigowla composition ‘Janani Ninuvina’ does not plaintively tug at the heart strings – this is still Carnatic music as it was meant to be heard – intimate, chamber music directed to an audience of one – not accompanied by the clatter of metal chairs being harshly scraped over rough concrete floor, not harmoniously decoupled from the noisy sounds of traffic forcefully making their way in from outside. No wonder my body is decorated with goose pimples and, for once, the air-conditioning in the hall has nothing to do with it. 

After the initial jolts of I’m-here-and-I-can’t-believe-it electricity, I have slowly slipped back into cynical mode of dismissing this as Carnatic Lite – a lack-lustre RTP in Keervani, a playful Mohanam elaborated – no Ghana ragas played at all, let alone elaborated, a populist bhajan (prema mudita manase kaho – is that a Sai bhajan?)  as tukkada to which an audience enthusiastically clapped along – is this what Carnatic music is reduced to at it’s Vienna? Should I stay on for the next concert, should I consult the oracle – Mount Road Mahavishnu for other sabha schedules, or worse, go back to my portable, ersatz concert hall courtesy my ever-present accomplices – iPod and Sennheiser?

I decide to stick to the real McCoy concert hall, and I’m still stuck between a rock and a hard place … for the only reasonable choices for the 6:30 concert are an aged Vyjayanthimala dancing at Narada Gana Sabha and a Sudha Raghunathan at the Music Academy. I’m not the biggest fan of the MLV baani (note I didn’t say GNB baani deliberately) and to me, Sudha Raghunathan’s renditions are insipid and character-less. So, Vyjayanthimala recital it is indeed; and therein hangs a tale of redemption, a tale of clawing back the patina to reclaim my heritage, a tale of the twice-born. 

In a departure from the pattern of a regular Bharatanatyam recital, Vyjayanthimala had set the entire thematic presentation in Carnatic concert Ragam-Thanam-Pallavi style. The Ragam and Thanam portions do little to throw off my earlier cynical mode-thinking. It is the Pallavi, to the refrain of Krishna Karnamritham’s ‘Godhuli Dhu Saritha Komala Kuntalagram’ that brings me back into the world again – for Vyjayanthimala is ably depicting the antics of a juvenile Krishna and a pleading Yashoda; effortlessly transporting me back in time to when I thought I was the Krishna she called out to decades ago. My mind transcends the linear dictates of Cartesian time and space co-ordinates and all the years of acquired tastes in music and social culture drop off to take me back into the musico-cultural heritage that my gene pool has a stranglehold upon.

To what do I owe this transformation – from somebody who felt a wee maudlin a week ago at missing a white Xmas and played christmassy mall-music all day on Worldspace’s channel ‘Holly’ to this? Is it the allure of the aged dancer or the rarified Mylai air – carrying the imprint of the music of generations? Is it the plethora of choices available this season– pick any artiste, pick any date, pick any time, pick any location; that sets the ozonated air blowing from the sea at harmonic resonance to the seven notes? Is it the knowledgeable rasikas?  Is it my own mawkish age regression that re-opens my eyes to my tambram heritage? I can’t tell.

What I can tell is that, this is the music that has been etched into my soul and tattooed on my brain. What I can definitely tell is that I have resolved to clear the cobwebs between my fingers and pick up the violin again after a 10-year hiatus. What I can tell is that I have resolved to be in Madras every December for the concert season. What I can definitely tell is that, this is the music that sears my subconscious, the music that has remained essential to my life. And since this music is moored in the ethno-cultural context of the tambram sect, I necessarily have to reclaim my collective unconscious – the one I have voluntarily discarded, thus necessitating being born again. Only this time, the symbolic rite of passage to mark my twice-born status is voluntary from within, not imposed from without and instead of a symbolic quest towards acquiring learning, is a literal quest towards it.

… as a postscript, I have gone over-the-top in reclaiming my imagined cultural heritage. The day after my new found resolution, I bravely go towards the caterer’s tent at Music Academy to break bread with my brethren. I venture towards uncharted territory – the land of filter kaapi and swift running rasam that breaches it’s embankment on a banana leaf on it’s rapid descent towards my lap.  As a prelude to degustation of  this nouvelle cuisine, I go to wash my hands. Darn, no liquid soap, neither am I carrying Purell; and on this trifle, I slink back – to find the nearest coffee shop that can fix me a sandwich and a decaf.

What if a Gutenberg style revolution were to take over the art world & reproductions of Van Gogh’s works were to be available as easily as works of Shakespeare? What if, horror of horrors, there were a public arts library where people who cannot afford to buy even the cheap prints can borrow them for a while, savor the beauty of a Sunflower or Irises in the cozy environs of their home and return them after 3 weeks? Would it then become l’art pour l’art?

My cell phone has run out of juice and is refusing to power up, It can mean only one thing,  I can’t call hotel to check whereabouts of promised cab. It also means, I don’t have a pen-and-paper number for the hotel outside de-juiced cell phone. I get into a cab that takes a while to sputter into life. Soon, and by which I mean a good 10 minutes later, we are on our way and cabbie turns to ask for my destination.  I say, “Park Sheraton”. Immediately, he asks “saar, marriage-aa saar?” “Wow,” I think, “the fabled Tamil entrepreneurial spirit is alive and kicking. Cabbie probably wants to earn some extra money on the side by hitching me and some random woman together”. More out of curiosity than out of an inclination to finish the 7 steps around the fire in the 7 days I am going to be in Chennai, I ask in halting Tamil, “So, you want to show me prospective brides?”

Inwardly laughing at the me-centricity of this outsider and outwardly chuffed at this same outsider speaking his language, cabbie goes, “ille saar, Surya saar Jyothika madam kalyaanam”. As if on cue, I see a giant billboard (don’t know what it is with these gargantuan billboards in Chennai, they are not allowed in Bangalore) of Jyothika in a silk saree. I ask driver Selva, “oh, that is why Jyothika is on the billboards welcoming people to her wedding” imagining a grand Jayalalitha foster-son style wedding somewhere by the sea. Patient Selva then explains, “sir, that is the advertisement for a saree shop”. Some rapid inductions/deductions on my side are called-for. I ask cabbie, “is the marriage at Park Sheraton?” and he says “yes sir it is tomorrow. Since you are going there, I thought you are attending wedding.”

Finding nothing  more to ask or say, I press a pair of earphone buds into my aural canal. Many billboards later, we are at said hotel. I enter lobby to find a water feature in rough textured sandstone (??) sitting incongruously on a glossy, super-smooth textured marble floor (that is a separate rant about design aesthetics). Near the check-in desks, next to the water feature is a red felt board that announces in brass letters, “Mrs. Seema and Mr. Chandar Sadanah invite you to mehendi/sangeet celebrations at Mowbrays Hall”. As I am being checked-in, I think,  “entertainment for evening taken care of. All I have to do is reprise Owen Wilson’s role in the desi style ‘Mehendi crashers.’ 

I finish check-in. As I make my way to my allocated room, the radiance of a hundred thousand suns that burst at once into the elevator bank puts my retinal rods & cones into  a tizzy.  As I approach elevator bank, I say to myself, “Relax, Avi, it is only a plump set of Punjabi matrons in resplendent oranges and pinks with diamonds and glitter and gloss and not a nuclear explosion that is giving out light energy sufficient to brighten Chennai’s skyline for an entire night”  Shielding my eyes in the time-honored Tamil Nadu tradition of wearing dark glasses 24×7, I notice none of the elevator buttons are lit, neither are the doors open. In what is to be my Holmesian moment of the day, I quickly surmise it must have been matrons’ aa-ha moment of  revelation – “tactile pressure on elevator buttons by raw green henna paste on digitalis extendis is directly proportional to smudge factor of intricate designs”. I am not propositioning these women. I might as well be for I get no response to the  standard elevator bank question, “up or down?” Maybe they are not to blame. I guess it is the whole patriarchical Punjabi culture that brooks none of the Sensitive New Age Guy (SNAG) credo of ‘sensitive courteousness to cosmetically challenged women.’  Before I ask again to further embarrass these women who were probably never asked their opinion by the other sex, elevator doors open with a ching and matrons pile dutifully inside elevator followed by yours truly. Once inside, I ask Punjabi matrons which floor they wish to go to. It is ‘chivalry-is-dead’ redux, for I get no response yet again.  They persist in standing shell-shocked like witnessing  their sohna-munda’s de-glamorized Tamil wedding ceremony sans liquour-shiquour, without dance-wance. I have to think quick on my feet. I look at elevator buttons and Floor I is marked “banquet halls”.  Since I’d seen announcements of a mehendi ceremony at a banquet hall, it does not require Einstein to figure out where these women were headed. I ask, “I floor?” and one Punjabi matron weighed down by about half of Tiffany’s V Avenue store above the neck alone slowly tilts her head downwards maybe indicating an yes.  Elevator dutifully stops at Floor I and matrons pile out, either to get away from this vicious ET who actually holds door open for women or because it was where they were headed.  

I get off elevator at my floor and walk into my room. I am immediately assaulted by a cacophony of Bhangra music that penetrates through the double or triple glazing that hotel has ever so thoughtfully provided.  I draw drapes open to check the source of this music. Almost at level to the window-sill is a violently loud, broad-striped white and red tent covering over three quarters of a courtyard that leads indoors to a largish hall – must be one of the banquet halls. I unpack and head downstairs to the coffee shop, only to face my elevator karma yet again. Darned elevator stops at every single floor on way down, yet no corporeal, human presence gets in. When it stops at I floor, I rant loudly at elevator door, confident there is nobody waiting to get in, not unlike the earlier elevator stops … and Murphy’s Law has to assert it’s presence and put a pretty girl inside elevator at which I am loudly ranting. I stop ranting and without missing a beat, say, “I normally don’t talk to myself; but this friggin elevator has been stopping at every floor”. Without  losing momentum, I say, “Hi, I’m Avi” and put my hand out for a shake. I’m either extremely easy on the eye or pretty girl desperately wants some human contact, so she responds with a “Hi, I’m Ruchi”.  I say, “hey listen, I was just going down to get some coffee, would you like to join me?”  She says, “yeah, sure”.  Would I let my not-yet-born daughter  go out with a lunatic who speaks to elevator doors and wears a tee-shirt that reads “FCUKADDICT”? I think not.

Thanking the Gods of Random dates, I head down to coffee shop with Ruchi. We are idly shooting the breeze. I say I’m from Bangalore and she says she is from Mumbai. I say I’m here for a series of meetings and she says she is here for the wedding. I told her, “There it goes again, the W word and everybody seems to drop that word assuming I have to know whose  W it is”  then I proceeded to tell her about  my conversation with cab driver. Well, smack me hard for not guessing. Yet again, it comes down to the  Surya-Jyothika wedding. Ruchi is supposedly Jyothika’s cousin and she is here for the wedding.  She says mehendi ceremony announced on the felt boards is Jyothika’s. I ask Ruchi, “if I promise not to mooch any food, would you take me in to the hall to witness the ceremony?”. She said yes and so we walked up the stairs to go into the hall and so it was that I had my first sighting of chirpy, cherubic Jyothika. She waved to Ruchi. Not wanting to come off like a star-struck fan, I don’t ask Ruchi to take me up to Jyothika.  I do not mooch any food either and have a thoroughly enjoyable time with Ruchi and friends. It is close to the evening witching hour. I had promised to meet my temporary colleagues, a literal United Nations of nationalities for dinner. So, reluctantly, I tear myself away from the pre-wedding song & dance celebrations.

Following an excellent dinner at Dakshin, the superlative restaurant at hotel, our United Nations summit of temporary colleagues comprising one Swede, one Greek, one Finn, one Brit and one desi make our way to Dublin, the night-club next door to Dakshin.  Resident DJ is spinning some neat transitions from house to hip-hop and bhangra to, I assume the current Tamil blockbuster number seamlessly. All of us are engrossed in the music. There are hardly any women in the club and dance floor has a few male-male couples dirty dancing.  Afraid we were infringing on a homosexual party, our motley group is the only one to not even attempt to get onto dance floor.  As we are sitting stiffly at edge of dance floor Finn notices a  guy nuzzling another guy closely for a while and then  pull him on to dance floor.  Finn points out puller to us and mentions his prior observation. Puller is an extremely good dancer and we are all captivated by his dance moves, so much so that Brit goes to dancer when he takes a breather to compliment him.  Eventually, it is closing time and dancer comes up to Brit to say good-bye.  He says he is a lead actor in Kollywood movies and his name is Arun Kumar. He says his engagement ceremony is tomorrow and he invites all of us to the engagement, which is surprising.  There is another guy in this group who asks, “are you staying at the hotel?” we say, “yes” and he says, “please come to my cousin’s wedding at the hotel tomorrow”. We don’t know what to say, so mutter thanks and slip away.  

As we walk towards the stairwell, Brit goes up to lobby manager and asks, “is there a wedding in the hotel tomorrow?” Lobby manager says “yes”. Brit says, “I was invited to the wedding by a cousin of the groom. Can you tell me who the groom is?”  Manager says, “a popular film actor in Chennai.” Brit turns to me, the token desi and asks, “do you know who this is?” With a wide grin I say, “yes, but I can’t recognize him in a police line-up, if that’s what you are asking” Lobby manager produces a picture of this actor from pages of some magazine.  Brit says, “he is a handsome guy” We leave him behind talking to lobby manager after saying “let’s meet for breakfast at 7:00 in the morning tomorrow” splitting up to go back to our respective rooms.

Next morning at breakfast, Brit says, “Avi, let’s drop in to the wedding. I have never been to an Indian wedding before and you can explain some of the rituals to me.”  “Wouldn’t we be gate-crashing?” I ask. Brit produces a huge maroon and gold invite from his laptop bag. He had tracked  groom’s cousin last night and got an invite to the wedding which said Siva Kumar family and this is a classic, under Siva Kumar it said (TV and Film Actor) invite you to the wedding of their son, ‘Suriya’. I must be dyslexic without knowing it for I read Suriya as Suraiya; but the name Jyothika below it clarifies that he who we know as Surya is actually Suriya. 

I agree to go and walk in to wedding hallwith Brit. Wedding hall has about two hundred-thousand sun-guns  emitting phosphorescent white lights and has about 500 people or more. Amongst this multitude, I barely see the bride and groom.  The who’s-who of Chennai are at wedding and I use the collective, hushed intake of breath by the plebs to recognize celebs sweeping past.In no particular order, I see Dr. M. Karunanidhi, Kamal Hassan, Asin, Ajith & Shalini, Padmini, Radhika, Abbas, Madhavan et al.  Some of them I could recognize at first sight, others I did not and had to corrall a nearby waiter into asking who they were. My other colleagues start calling us as cab to drop us to office is at hotel porch and heightened security for W-day does not allow car to be parked at porch for long.  I reluctantly drag a screaming and kicking Brit away from the festivities.  

Two long uneventful days  morphed into the evening after ‘W’ day,  when our local UN team decides to hold yet another plenary session at the Dublin at 10 PM. Around 10:00 as I am in the lobby on my way to Dublin,  my phone rings. It is my parents who are scheduled to travel from the land of the milk-and-honey in 2 days calling to ask for my frequent flyer number. I give them the number and continue walking towards Dublin.  I am telling them to use the skycap instead of hefting their bags themselves. Dad then mentions they have to use skycap since their bags exceed the allowed baggage allowance by a measly 120 pounds.  To get the complete import of what he is saying, I stop walking. I am at double doors of hotel lobby opening on to a long hallway of about 100 odd feet. I am talking about weight reduction programs for bags with my dad. My peripheral vision notices a youngish guy in a transparent shirt hug a big guy with a shiny black mop of hair to my right. I also hear shiny mop say in Tamil, “I thought I would come and bless you”. By which time, my faculty of walking and talking has been restored.

I start walking towards Dublin on the long hallway. The bouncer at Dublin says, “you are a guest in the hotel, sir” as a statement of fact.  I say “yes.” Bouncer says, “I’m terribly sorry, sir, we have a private party tonight and are closed to public” in a very apologetic tone. I say, “not a problem, is the Westminster (the other pub in the hotel) also closed for the party?” Bouncer says, “no, sir.” I begin my long reverse trek up the hallway towards lobby.  As I am midway through hallway, transparent shirt and shiny mop are coming out of lobby and heading towards Dublin. My innate sense of courtesy J  prompts me to say, “guys if you are headed towards Dublin, it is closed for a private party”.  Transparent shirt smiles and says, “Thanks, I know”. Belatedly, my neurons fire the dormant pattern recognition process in my sloshed brain cells. I realize that transparent shirt is Suriya, the groom from W-day. I hastily put a hand out and say, “Congratulations on the wedding mate”. Big guy with shiny mop is again in my peripheral vision, so I can’t tell who he is yet. I start walking towards coffee shop after Suriya says, ‘thank you”  As I step into the coffee shop, I  look at big guy with shiny mop – it is Sivaji Prabhu and I confirm that to be the truth and nothing but the truth from one of the waiters.  Same waiter says private party at Dublin is being hosted  by couple from W-day.  As I am sipping my latte,  my ringing phone displays Brit’s number. I scrupulously avoid his call, in case he has plans to crash this party too; for any more gawking at the Kollywood show of the year will put my neck in a brace.

I use my observation of Tambrams (Tamil Brahmins) to support my insight, but, the obligatory disclosure before-hand. I am a card-carrying member of the Tambram sub-sub-species, sub-species South Indian Brahmin, genus Brahmin. Yup, the same Tambram club where bare minimum entry criteria mandates a monomaniacal tendency to channel entire personalities and lifestyles towards the singular goal of attaining a clerical job – be it for the British Raj of yesteryears or their new, improved shinier cousins today, the IT /ITES sweatshops. That out of the way, I am also a Tambram whose family has claimed Bangalore as home for over 3 generations; giving me what I mistakenly believe to be the objective distance to evaluate personality attributes of my clansmen through the cultural-linguistic filter of a different sub-culture.

And this is my insight: that language clearly has an influence on thought. Now, there is a whole recursive line of thinking there – that coming across SWH in verbal/written form has influenced my subsequent thought process which leads to my insight, but that is so frigging complicated, it has my entire neural synapses going on strike refusing to fire.

Moving on to the observation, then. What kind of observation leads to this entirely ersatz insight? The credit goes to one, single, isolated, solitary word in the tambram lexicon – nacchu. Well, actually, make that two – the other word being vambu.

But, nacchu first. If there ever were one single word that could, concisely, define the entire corpus of attributes of a Tambram male, the honors would go to nacchu – that je-ne-sais-quoi attitude generally used to describe all the persnickety, finicky, fussy, hypercritical, nit-picking, overbearing grandfathers, uncles, fathers and random assorted elderly men for whom no thaiyir saadham (curd rice – the Tambram’s chicken soup for the soul, aka Tambram’s ambrosia) is perfect, for whom traveling means you have to be at the airport a full 48 hours prior to the earliest mentioned check-in time, for whom the filter kaapi from Narasu’s or Cothas has to be poured from exactly the same height into the davara (a flat-bottomed cup holder), ad nauseam – I will let your imagination draw the personality attributes of these slightly neurotic, over obsessive-compulsive characters who, in the face of the outside world are meek foot-soldiers, unmatched in a unique ability to transform themselves into blood-hungry imperious autocrats at home, the types of which the troika of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin learnt advanced lessons in dictatorship from.

Do I have a point beyond the vicious character assassination of roughly one half of my own clan – a sub-species that I and probably rest of the other Tambram youth can envision metamorphosing into in the future? Yes, I do and the point is this. An equivalent word for nacchu does not exist in Kannada, my co-shared mother tongue. Not so surprisingly, the nacchu personality attribute is also not prevalent among Kannada Brahmin males (again based on a really small sample size, but hey, I am no linguistic-cultural anthropologist, just another Tambram with intellectual pretensions). The point then is, does the word create the personality attribute or does the attribute create the word?

That is when my thought process took me away from the holy cows of Tambram youth with intellectual pretensions and an IT job and a company sponsored trip abroad : the Chomsky-Pinker school of thought.
From my limited sample-set of observations, I have seen all Tambram males to be nacchus (some hiding it very well compared to the rest) and very few, if any Kannada Brahmin males to be nacchus. Do you grudge me my thinking that language possibly determines thought, or at least influence it? Should I not question the Chomsky-Pinker school of thought that language and thought are independent of each other, or worse, gasp, thought influences language?
Granted, you could argue the case that nacchu evolved in its concise form in response to the defining characteristic of an entire genepool. However, I believe the word itself to give rise to that thought and it will take a lot of thaiyir saadhams to convince me otherwise. Do I have any rationale for this thought? Zip, zilch, nada. It is just my lazy brain thinking so I can fit my observations into my pre-defined stereotypes.

Vambu is the other word with the collective weight of the entire collective Tambram unconscious behind it; which to me, confirms my already specious reasoning for an insight to which I have sought to lend gravitas by hiding behind some impressive names and theories.
Do you need another set of anecdotal folk observations as proof to ameliorate the burden of my insight? Even before you say, “Thanks, but no thanks”, here they are.
Consider this: when my sister or me, who don’t look like Tambrams make the occasional twice-in-a-lifetime trip to Madras (still haven’t gotten around to call it Chennai), we are normally left alone by the inquisitive, busybody kibitzer Tambramale in the 2 AC compartment of Brindavan Express (substitute Lalbagh Express or Shatabdhi Expressor Madras Mail here).
Put sister and mother together, mother dressed to evoke a Mylai Mami with the trademark diamond nose stud on the right nostril and a Rangachari/Nalli saree in aforementioned bread box express and shake contents while moving on rails. Or, put me and my grandmother, even more Tambram looking with diamond nose studs on both nostrils and the sarees from the same house of Tambram worship on same train. “A tambram from Bangalore? How preposterous”, snorts the average, next-seat Tambramale as a prelude to the whole process of Vambu extraction in order to trace our entire genealogy going back to Australopithecus africanus.
That apart, the next-seat Vambu-er is a past master at creating sociological rule-induction algorithms, i.e., he has already generalized a possible line of questioning based on a limited set of contexts he has been exposed to in the past (much like what I’m doing now, hehe). Thus, single, young girl travelling with mother to Chennai automatically leads to first-line of greeting, “oh, you are going to meet a prospective bridegroom” for the ‘ponnu-paarkal (girl-viewing)’ – one of the Holy Grails of the Tambramales which leads to the case-based reasoning line of questioning of Gotra (lineage) and kind of bridegroom the girl is looking out for and on and on – when all she is going to Madras for, is a job interview.
Single, young guy travelling with grandmother from Madras means the other holy grail, “H1-aa illa F1B aa (questioning if I went to get an American visa even before the Hello, how are you greeting)” leading on to are you going to Kalifornia or New Jersey, to have you packed your woollens when all I went to Madras for is to chaperone grand-mother back to Bangalore.
And I have traveled numerous times between Bangalore and Mysore with and without (grand) parental units and have never been subject to a vambu-meister, unless of course, my co-passenger also happens to be a tambramale.
So, this is a call to all those linguists there, deny thy Chomsky and refuse thy Pinker – well. not that, but at the very least critically examine that there might be some merit to the SWH. And who better to tell you that than me, with my infinitesimally small, nanoscopic sample size and acknowledged bias against the tambram nacchus :)

What got me thinking about our reptilian brains was this. Levitin has utilized what the reviewer calls an advanced technique to garner evidence that music activates the cerebellum, a.k.a reptilian brain. I get that. What I do not get, however, is a wild flight of fancy that states without any evidence to back it up; that, since the cerebellum is the body’s time-keeper, it picks up rhythm in music. Not content with this one clever piece of grand folk wisdom masquerading as science, there is another wild leap of faith in linking the cerebellum to emotions by a flimsy set of extrapolations.

This extrapolation is based on the finding that the cerebellum is activated only when you listen to music you like. The finding makes sense. What does not is the resultant claim that music we like is an indicator of emotional involvement. In my mind, it is decidedly reductionist to claim that. It seems to me that either Levintin or Majnoo is passing off folk wisdom as a scientifically verifiable assertion. Asking me to agree with an empirical observation that people only like the music they emotionally can relate to is bad science.

It could be that there is music that is liked because there is an intellectual component, for instance, an intricate rhythm pattern to which one has an intellectual fascination, yet absolutely no emotional involvement. That this thought has occurred to either the researcher or the reviewer is also shown, and I quote verbatim, “Part of the pleasure we find in music is the result of something like a guessing game that the brain then plays with itself …” To me, it seems like the guessing game situation is more of an intellectual activity; not an emotional one. Agreed, the driver for this intellectual activity might be a deep emotional need (if you were to believe the psychotherapists); but that still does not conclusively link music we like to our emotions.

What is known to-date about the cerebellum’s function of being our bodies time-keeper and the consequent association with rhythm in music is clever. It seems incomplete to me, however to place the cerebellum in center-stage of our brain’s responses to music only on the basis of studying polyrhythmic music. How about monorhythmic or arrhythmic music that evokes a sense of timelessness and eternity – examples of which could be found in Gregorian Chants or some works of abstract jazz that are arrhythmic; both of which have been associated with evoking an emotion of peacefulness. This is yet another example of the author or reviewer’s reductionism in a different context – based on the small sample size of studying only rhythmic music, a case has been built to link emotions to the cerebellum.
Without having conclusively made an all-inclusive case for linking emotions to the music we like, demolishing a long-held assumption that the cerebellum plays a role in emotions is a major leap of faith. To give the benefit of doubt, that is probably something the researchers have addressed in a scientific paper in the trade journals. It might also be that the book is for the general public and not for either the neuroscientist or the musician; but that’s another point with the review, it does not explicitly or implicitly mention the target audience for the book.

Having talked about Levitin or Manjoo’s fanciful association, it is now turn to talk about my own fanciful association. On reading that the Zen saying, ‘if a tree fell in the forest and nobody was there to hear it, did it really fall?’ could have a scientific explanation behind it – an explanation that sound is a psychological phenomenon, I immediately thought how it mirrored the famous thought experiment — Schrodinger’s cat. Levitin constructs a theory for perception of sound that seems right, to my biased mind, influenced by quantum thinking. Levitin’s hypothesis has him say that our individual brains build a subjective representation out of objective audio frequencies.
I think Levintin has done well to ratify the validity of quantum mechanistic principles in cognitive theory, intentionally or inadvertently for he has validated that much of what we think as sounds occur inside our heads and not outside. So, the Zen saying is not all that empirical after all.

Without having read the book, I can only make a broad guess that Levintin did not conclusively state that only the music of our teens is imprinted permanently in our consciousness – which makes me wonder why the reviewer chose to highlight only that aspect prominently in his synopsis and even start the review through that filtered view.
I still listen to the music I listened to in my teens; but I cannot claim that it is permanently stuck in my mind. I never listened to opera or jazz when I was in my teens and today that is my predominant choice of music to listen to at all times today a decade and odd after my teen years bypassed me. I still listen to the music and musicians of my teens, if only to act as a baseline to measure how my musical sensibilities have evolved since. The music of my teens has definitely not burned my soul nor remained essential for the rest of my time (to paraphrase the reviewer).
Unfortunate though the reviewer’s singular emphasis might be, the bigger issue to me is that perhaps our brains are much more plastic than what we might give it credit for. I think that the conventional wisdom that Levintin has sought to reiterate – that neuronal connections are being pruned, not formed after the teens – might need further critical examination.

Finally, the review closes on a high note – it claims the most important part of music to be it’s connection to love, or, more specifically, to arousal and mating. Looking back at my failed marriage, I can’t but think if there is more than a grain of truth to that assertion. My ex-wife and I did not share similar, let alone same tastes in music. While I run wild with this new hypothesis for another justification for why my ex-wife and I were never meant to be together, I wonder if it more than my justification – that music really is the language of mating and that my next speed date should be at Lincoln Center or Covent Garden.

My physical pain ruled out all somatic activity.  I tossed and turned that night trying to decipher and analyze the reasons why people are driven to violent crimes. I rationalized and justified my way through to an oversimplified mattress-couch hypothesis.

My thoughts took me back in time to an age of social ferment, an age in which Fabian socialism created the Labor movement that fathered a welfare state. The welfare state, with probably noble intentions created free housing for its working class. As her working class grew and grew, the state created tower blocks that morphed into the gigantic council estates of today. As her working class become either unemployed or unemployable, the state gave them a living allowance, again probably with the most altruistic of intentions. In doing so, the welfare state thus seeded the grounds for creating and sustaining a class of the ‘idle poor.’ These are now fertile breeding grounds for a section of its populace that feel they should get their dues instead of earning it. 

Somewhere along the way while it was doing all this, the benevolent, omnipotent state also chucked private enterprise into the cauldron.  Private enterprise has seduced consumers into a glitzy ‘bigger is better’ lifestyle. ‘Bigger is better’ requires private enterprise to aggressively extend leibensraum for her acolytes. When private enterprise runs out of green-field territory to expand into, it spreads its expansionist tentacles into brown-field land. 
New Providence Wharf where I lived in London is once such incursion of private enterprise into a state-created enclave of idle poor. This flashy consumerist cathedral hopes to act as a lodestone to create the flashy lifestyles of  working poor around it; gradually gentrifying the character of the district and uproot its original inhabitants.  

What is the average council estate youth to do in this context? He has neither incentive nor punishment to work and has the burden of leisure and unstructured time. He begins to covet the prosperity of the working poor around them, at the root of which is envy.

It is strange this politics of envy, for it is pervasive across all social classes. Us chattering classes envy the upper classes. Upper classes envy under classes. Under classes envy working classes. It is a cycle of envy, each class envying the one above or below it.

Maybe basis for class differentiation should be how members of each class react to this envy, rather than a material construct of assets and liabilities.  Under classes and upper classes are similar, if in one way. They act on this envy.  Upper classes spend more and more money to gain time.  Under classes spend more and more time to gain money. 

We, in the bourgeoisie cannot or do not try to equalize wealth disparity through physical action.  We allow our envy to corrode our insides with feelings of inadequacy  that expresses itself in many forms.The gentrified chattering classes in academia and media classify the spending of both the under and upper classes either within or without the pale of criminal or ethical law.Us, lay chattering classes intellectualize about it – that Bill Gates became mega-rich because he monopolized the market by flooding it with a below standard product.  

As I over simplified my way into acceptance of my encounter, I made peace with the bouncers at Hypnos . Soon, sleep knit her raveled sleeve of care, refreshing my mind for yet another pop socio-political psychological theory.

I check-in at Mumbai International airport. I collect my Terraces invitation card. My connecting flight from Bangalore brought me to Mumbai ten minutes after 11. It must be either the Indian propensity to check-in way-too-early or a universal inclination to wallow in the sybaritic comforts of the Terraces lounge. Any which way, three hours before boarding, almost everybody has checked in. I do not get my preferred upper-deck seating from Mumbai to Heathrow.  Bloody Awful is not flying a Boeing 747 Jumbo to Newark onwards from Heathrow. I am deprived of an upper deck for the entire journey.

I repress a weary sign of resignation. I collect my embarkation form. I walk to the immigration counters. A long, snaking line has queued up. This makes me happy and weary. Happy, for I can play my favorite ‘people-watching’ game. Weary, for I have to wait for ever. An eternity and half a light-year later, the surliest immigration officer this side of the Suez stamps my passport. I am officially outside India’s borders yet again.

I walk into Terraces. It has the predictable crowd of boring old farts. I do not want to be corralled into conversation by an ultra-rich Jat from Jallandhar who is into exporting or importing. There must be some pretty ABCD co-eds in departure lounge downstairs. With renewed Hope sprung in breast, I escalate downwards. Nothing eventful there to report.

In due course, I board the plane. I settle into my aisle seat at rear of the cabin. The plane takes-off. Seat belt signs are off. A passenger at front of cabin approaches me. He asks if I would mind switching seats. Sitting ahead will give me a ten-person head start in the mad stampede to get out of the plane. I gladly trade places for this miniscule diminishment of handicap.

Some 8 hours later, we are hovering over Heathrow. Air traffic control gives us permission to land. We make our slow progress from runway to assigned gate. Jetway docks with mother ship.

Wow, I will be among the first few to exit. Double wow, who is that I see in First some ten feet ahead of me in line to get off the plane? Is that a bird? Is that a plane – no can’t be – I’m inside one. Besides, birds and planes don’t wear gray silk suits probably cut by Armani. Nor do they wear sunglasses inside a plane. Do birds and planes have silky brown hair-pieces? Mebbe not. Then maybe, only birds and planes soar high enough for people to look-up at.

“It can’t be, can it?” “It is not him, is it?” “Of course, it is him.” “Noooooooooo way – why would he fly on a commercial airline?” It must be him if he is studiously avoiding eye contact with everybody. It is him as the stewardesses are so deferential. It is the BBC star of the millennium voted in by smart-alec software programmers from India rigging multiple votes. It is the Big B himself.

Amitabh Bachchan has 3 to 4 people ahead of him in First. There is another guy ahead of me in Club. That is my closest brush with one of India’s tallest icons. I am in unseemly haste to get off the plane. I want to take a picture of myself with the B. The passenger ahead of me takes a while to get off.

I am finally on the jetway. Big B has evaporated into the London pea souper. He is nowhere to be seen. All I have for seeing the B are my memories. I can’t display my memories to the outside world.

Another flight later I’m in New York. A month and another flight later, I’m back in Heathrow. I didn’t get an upper deck when I checked-in at Newark. Gate agent at Heathrow puts me on upper deck. I enjoy Vineet Bhatia’s superlative, Michelin starred cuisine on board. I pilfer some Molton Brown toiletries from the toilet. I make small talk with a co-passenger. I flirt with an aged stewardess. I go to the galley to pick a snack. I’m surprised they have only the lay-Lay chips and not Kettle chips as would befit Club. I come back empty handed and select a movie to watch. I have drifted off into the Land of the Nod. I am gently awakened by the stewardess prior to landing at Mumbai. I descend the stairs from Upper Deck just as the door is opening.

In front of the door, with his back towards me is a whippet thin figure. Whippet is wearing a flashy, shiny rhinestone belt. This can’t be an Elvis impersonator. His hair is not swept backwards in a bouffant, it sweeps forward. His clothes are not white, they are black. It is definitely a jhatak-mhatak Bollywood type. Who can it be? I can’t tell.

I am just behind whippet as he makes his way to passport control. I stand in line behind whippet at passport control. I can’t see whippet’s facial profile either. He moves ahead of me and goes up to passport control.

I see whippet at last as he faces immigration officer. It is that character actor who was caught propositioning a nubile actress on tape. Immigration officer asks, “where are you traveling from?” Whippet says, “London, but originally
New York”. Immigration officer asks, “why were you in New York?” Whippet says, “I was doing some shows.” Penny finally drops.

I remember flyers and posters for these shows at Pongal or Hotel Saravana Bhavan. Whippet is King Khan, Shahrukh. I expect acolytes fawning on Whippet, picking up his bags and escorting him out. Whippet waits at baggage claim like us hoi polloi. He is furiously smoking.

I walkup to whippet, camcorder in hand. He is facing away from me. I pat him on his arm and say, “Mr. Khan, would you mind if I take a picture. My wife is a big fan.” Whippet hands my camcorder to a hanger-on who has materialized at last. Hanger-on is pointing the lens towards himself and the view-finder towards us. Whippet whips camcorder out of hanger-on’s hands. He twists the view finder around and takes a picture of the two of us (that is me next to Shahrukh in picture at top of post – I couldn’t place it in this position. Aren’t I the looker, in comparison ). Viewfinder of my camcorder is smudged with Shahrukh’s finger prints. Takes a laptop screen wipe to remove those prints.

I tell everybody about my encounter with Whippet Khan. Most people who know me say, “that is so unlike you.”
Bloody Awful (BA) now connects Bangalore to London direct. I still travel to London via Mumbai for I’m star-struck. One day, and that day is not far – I will meet Ethereal Beauty herself. I will go up to her and ask for her hand in marriage. When Ash Rai consents and I have wedding pictures, people who know me will say, “that is so unlike you.”

I took an escalator down from arrivals into Schiphol’s train station to jump into an Intercity to Den Haag for a meeting with some partners. In a while, the train pulled into Leiden. I got a call from an international number (yeah, in those dark days, caller line identification would not work for international calls, more so when I was roaming out of home territory of Orange UK). It was Brian, VP Sales Americas at Acme a technology company I was consulting for. Brian was calling to check if I could help selling into a key set of prospects on the East Coast.
I had an opening in my diary for either the next two days or none for another three months. Like all pushy salesmen, Brian opted for the next two days. I got off the train at Leiden and crossed tracks to get back to Schiphol. I cancelled my meeting at The Hague so I could take the 1:30 flight into New York. Moss, Acme’s VP Sales for EMEA was to join me at Amsterdam to fly into New York so he could brief me on both opportunities en-route.
Moss was traveling coach, probably in deference to the two of us flying together, though I’m not sure that is how he travels often. I downgraded myself to coach, so I could be seen leading from the top

Moss had requested the airline to seat us together from Amsterdam when he checked in at Heathrow. When I checked in at Amsterdam, I found that we were not seated together. I must have spent about a harrowing half-hour trying to persuade the check-in agents to change seat assignments. The check-in agents and their supervisor could not get us seated together. I asked the check-in supervisor to put a message on the system alerting gate agents to re-assign seat assignments, if possible. I cleared security and met Moss.
Moss and I were hovering around the gate, much before departure hoping to snag adjacent seats. Gate agents could not manage to seat us together either. We boarded the plane, another DC-10 dating back to the immediate post Wright-brothers era. Moss was going around looking for empty seats, asking people if they could move, charming stewardesses – utilizing all tricks in his salesman’s bag. We finally managed to get 2 adjacent seats in the middle row of a 2-4-2 seating plan plane.
Moss is a big guy, standing 6 feet 2 inches tall in his socks and probably about 240 pounds. I gave him the aisle. Shortly, the stewardess started handing out newspapers. The guy next to me reached out and took the FT I asked for. I merely said, “Hey, that was uncalled for. No big deal, I’ll get another one.” Moss got ballistic because he thought the other guy was being racist, not merely rude as I assumed. Moss kept up the argument for a while – neither side conclusively winning it.
A half hour later, the meal trolley was wheeled in. I was surprised I had not got my special meal before the trolley was brought out. I had recently recovered from a bout of hyper-acidity and requested a bland meal. Goes without saying I was not served one. What got my goat was that I have a Platinum frequent flyer card on this airline’s alliance and I bring in at least 300,000 miles a year to this airline. I have my seat and meal preferences stored on my frequent flyer card. It does speak volumes about airline actually implementing all the hot-air talk of retaining premium paying passengers.
By now, the fight had gone out of both Moss and me. We had successively taken on majority of the minnows of the flying establishment in an hour and didn’t want to add the stewardesses to the list of people we argued with that day. We also had some work ahead of us.
Moss dug out some jerkies from his carry-on case. I was starting to chew at these jerkies when a stewardess recognized me from the frequent flights I make in club. She was nice enough to get me one of the flight attendants meals from club class and a nice round of desserts to make up for this goof-up. She must have also complained to the chief purser, for he came around and apologized and handed out some $150 worth vouchers for sundry crap I never used later. That is beside the point however. The key thing is that frontline people in the hospitality industry take all the crap and none of the glory. If today, I continue to use this airline, it is not because of its connections or comfort – it is this single redeeming feature of good front-line staff.
Moss and I started working. Ever tried even lifting your laptop lid on the flimsy tray table in coach? Which is probably why books sell so well at airports for that is about the only thing that can be held between your seat and the one in front. We continued to work on a presentation well into pre-landing announcements. For the very first time ever, I even used the in-flight phone to make an air-to-ground call to Brian to clarify some points in the presentation.
When we landed at JFK, I had clocked well over 18 hours of flying time, 27 odd hours without sleep and having missed out on 2 or 3 solid meals not to mention all the adrenaline coursing through my body from all those arguments and later on from creating the presentation.