Chapter chat - "Innum Pirakadha thalaimuraikaaga"

Interlinking of rivers - few rivers and many crores.

I'll be sharing about the books or interesting topics that I come across in books [ க‌டைசிப்ப‌க்க‌ம் ?! இது ஒண்ணு தான் குறை.].

I had this relation with the rivers at a level of a school kid running to buy 2 India river maps [ we linked them by making too many mistakes in the paper .. [காவிரிக்கு கீழே எங்க‌டா கோதாவ‌ரி ஓடுது..ஸார்.. காதை விடுங்க‌ ஸார்..வ‌லிக்குது] and 'checked' graph sheets for sheets. The inter-linking of rivers comes in the media limelight on and off. What do we actually know about this issue [ any subject in that case :) ] ?

S.Thedore Bhaskaran [ பாதிரியாரா?! ] - I knew this personality as a film historian with his books on cinema [ Chithiram Pesudhadi, Sivaji Ganesan and Em Thamizhar seidha padam ]. Of late, I came to know that he is an ecologist [ ய‌க்கா ?!] too.

Some points to ponder [ taken majorly from the book ]

* Is it easy to join rivers just like that ? Has it been done anywhere else in the globe ? Was it successful or a failure as introducing new alien water creatures in Andaman islands.

* The Indian rivers flow at different heights, in the first place. The power needed to elevate the water level is more than the power expected to be produced by the inter-linking.

* The cost estimated for this project is.. have some ice water..Rs.560000 crores [ to be precise 559999 and the 1 c from Rajini ].

* Have they joined 2 water resources anywhere else in the world ? Have you come across the effect of South and north Aral sea [ lakes ] in Russia ? One lake is completely drained .

* It's wrong to think that the river water is wasted by ending up in the sea. It's the cycle of biodiversity [ ப‌ல்லுயிரிய‌ல்].

* We do have water treaty with Bangladesh and that will be affected if we really get into this project. Also, we know the status of the treaty between TN and KA on the existing water distribution [ without any alteration in the path ].

* We failed in water channelising methods and the native methods of storing waters. Lakes have turned as Lake view apartments and villas.

* The existed polluted rivers will spoil other river by combining them.

* What happened in Alwar district - Rajasthan ? Few effective NGOs constructed Jathos [ mud check dams for rain harvesting ] and it benefited the most dry district of Rajasthan. Remember the forceful condition of rain water harvesting yielded some good results in TN [ rain ille enga harvest panna ? ].

This is just a drop in the ocean from the book written by Theodre Bhaskaran [ இன்னும் பிற‌க்காத‌ த‌லைமுறைக்காக‌- what a beautiful title ?! ]. In fact he is inspiration for drawing [ அப்ப‌டியும் சொல்லிக்க‌லாம் :) ]about the house sparrows in the competition. He clarified that planting enormous number of trees can't compensate or create a forest because a forest is not just a group of trees and cannot be man-made. You can feel the same when you think about the days you spent in any of those hill stations. Can it be recreated ?

I am not favouring him blindly - at least, he shows the other side of the coin. It's better for us to read more about these topics and know the real things instead of following the speech of Rahul Gandhi or Gnani.

So next time, when a politician or a celebrity talks about interlinking rivers, think before spending time in their speech. Media cherishes as long as the public is kept in the dark - better make our people follow the Vijay TV program "Rajini's pilgrimage to Babaji caves". [ It's like Veerappan is to Nakkeeran and Rajini is to Vikatan group ]

I recommend this book - "Innum pirakkaatha thalaimuraikkaaga" by S. Theodre Baskaran from Uyirmmai padippakam [ Rs.120/- ].

:)

Toto.

Anandham... Sangeetham

Every time I listen to this song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCmsZbarARE), I always wonder what would have been the reaction of the musicians in the recording studio. Probably, a moment of silence followed by a thundering applause -such is the majestic rendition of Yesudas. This song is from the Malayalam movie ‘His Highness Abdulla’. In fact, every song is a classic in this movie, "Gopika Vasantham" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRuSz-_K4hs) is such a beautiful love song, you can feel this mood in Chitra’s voice; it is mesmerizing. She has kept pace with the great Yesudas in this song and probably (I could be a bit prejudiced here) outshines her master too.

The movie itself is a masterpiece; a very mainstream story of a hired assassin plotting to kill a Thampuran (powerful leader), he gets into the Bhraminical house and captures everyone’s heart thru his golden voice as he plans for the kill. Does he accomplish his mission is the rest of the story. Pretty mainstream indeed, but Ravindran’s music along with Yesudas’ finest performance, pushes this movie beyond the ordinary. Mohanlal as the assassin is as good as ever and Gauthami does a decent job (Only Mallus and Kamal used her properly – Venkat used to say!)

This song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a7PI6jXD74 watch from 1:10) is the musical highlight of the movie. In this music duel, between Yesudas and Ravindran Master, you have to listen to the crescendo that Yesudas builds from 8.34, beyond words…will move you to tears. Ironically, the National award for best male singer went to Srinivas for the song 'Naadaroopini', also from this movie

The other movie’s songs I listen very often is from Manichitra Thazhu (the original and the better version of chandramukki and Bhool Bhullaiya – see it, to believe it). It’s a Mohanlal, Yesudas and Chitra combination again.

This great song by Chitra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIegcBCnWAw) really reflects the eagerness of someone waiting to see a loved one (that is what the song is about)…you can feel the desperation, the loneliness in her voice – Magic. Yesudas has his share too (of course!); his version (a shorter one) of the above song is equally good, you can hear years of pure carnatic training in this small piece (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXWZJs4uuc - Till 1.06).

This is another soul wrenching (I am running out of superlatives) song by Yesudas (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0dVtMZNE1k). This is the song that leads to the climax of the movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZA_90S7q5w); watch Shobhana’s dance performance and you will agree that her national award was well deserved.

Interestingly, over the last 13 years, Manichitrathazu has been screened more than a dozen times in Kerala and every time the TRP keeps increasing! Not sure if this can happen to any other movie in any other language.

I have to say this here; my mother tongue is not Malayalam and I can barely understand Malayalam (at least in the form that is used in these songs), but that does not stop me from enjoying these songs. If you love music, I urge you to hear these songs even if you don’t understand a word of what is being said.

Anandham, Anandanandham, JhagathAnandham Sangeetham – His Highness Abdulla.

In A Hurry

Things are getting shorter by the day… when did you last see a serial story in a magazine? I haven’t seen any for years now. Tamil magazines used to tout many serial stories written by writers, who were nothing short of superstars. Many housewives would remove (tear) those pages and collect them week after week and at the end of the story (which sometimes ran for years together), would bind those pages and add to their library of such collections. Today there is not one such story. The max you will get is a story of one page (oru pakka kathai – one page story, they are called).

Long letters are replaced by shorter emails, which are in turn replaced by the shorter SMSes, which are made shorter still by a vocabulary of its own (C U @ 4). Blogs are losing out to twitters and scraps. Even magazines like India Today have become slimmer (they have become weeklies, to be fair) - have you compared the Reader’s Digest of yesteryears to the recent ones? Marriages, these days, are short lived -I am told. Movies are getting shorter and what used to be a 3+ hr affair are usually around 2hrs today and a few under 2hrs too (which is not such a bad thing). The increasing popularity of Twenty20 cricket and the empty stands of a test match stand testimony to my words. Hair, dress – you name it and you got it – only shorter.

The only thing that seems to be getting longer and longer is my daily office telecon (short for telephone conference!) and yes; the other thing that never seems to end is the serial that my mother watches on TV.

Sometimes it looks like we have developed a societal attention deficiency disorder. We are all in a hurry and everything is in a state of blurr. We are pummeled by so many deviations today that we can hardy focus on one single thing long enough without our thoughts getting deflected by something else – mostly electronic. We are so impatient today that I routinely see people punching the lift close button >< again and again, not wanting to even wait for a few seconds, before the door auto closes. For once, you continue your halt at the traffic signal for a couple of seconds more after the light turns green, and you will know what I mean.

“Slowdown” I want to say; but I have to rush to attend a call and have to keep this blog short :-)

The Human Abstract - William Blake

William Blake's 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience' is a collection of contrasting poems. Songs of Innocence is about childhood and the early stages of innocence and Songs of Experience is the counter to the Songs of Innocence and is about the loss of that innocence in the process of growing up with exposure to the adult world.

A wonder is "The Human Extract" from Songs of Experience:

Pity would be no more
If we did not make somebody Poor;
And Mercy no more could be
If all were as happy as we.

And mutual fear brings peace,
Till the selfish loves increase:
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.

He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the grounds with tears;
Then Humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.

Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head;
And the Caterpillar and Fly
Feed on the Mystery.

And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat;
And the Raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.

The Gods of the earth and sea
Sought thro' Nature to find this Tree;
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain.

The Human Abstract - William Blake
From - Songs of Experience -1794

Personality - Agreeableness

Around 50% of your personality is heredity- this is the genotype influence *. So, who you are and how you react to different situations are predetermined up to 50%, the other 50% is shaped through the many early life experiences – these are the environmental influences. The famed debate of Nature Vs Nurture (heredity Vs grooming), is split right at the middle. The most disturbing or striking outcome of research is: upbringing has no effect on the personality of a person. Parents do not play a role through their parenting skills (or the lack of it!) – their contribution ends with the donation of genes.

Among the 5 personality traits, people who score high on Agreeableness (Daniel Nettle calls them Empathizers) focus on harmonious interpersonal relationships and will spend considerable amount of time caring for others, to my mind this is probably the most important personality trait (esp., in today’s world) and interestingly it is the least acquired trait through genotype (42%). Agreeableness is explained through the Theory of Mind. Theory of Mind (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind) is divided into two related capacities; mentalizing (understanding the mental state of others – e.g., understanding that someone is in a state of hunger) and empathizing (relating/caring to others mental state- sympathizing and providing food for someone who is hungry. Only humans are capable of these two mental states. People who score high on agreeableness are highly capable of this mentalizing and empathizing; especially with empathizing.

The Big 5 questionnaire (available here: http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/) will shed some light in rating the 5 personalities based on the responses to some standard questions. The realization of ‘Self’ is critical to the process of growing up (wonder if someone is really aware of this Self, generally we either underestimate or are over confident about ourselves and our abilities). Being aware of the strengths and weakness in our personality and will help us enrich our professional and personal life.

If you take the Big 5 test and happen to score high on Agreeableness, drop me a line.

*Effect of Genes on personality:
-wiki
Openness: 57%
Extraversion: 54%
Conscientiousness: 49%
Neuroticism: 48%
Agreeableness: 42%
/wiki-