Originally Posted by
irir123
Plum - i think if am not careful with the language i use, someone might put me as an entry in the 'kisu kisu' thread !
on a lighter note - beyond/besides Chang (in that public well-lit hall, shoulder mattum thaanunga rub panna mudiyum-)),
!
aanaa, avanga ellaam total confees when it comes to my passion for meesic, esp IR's music!
an interesting titbit - in january, 2010 - i had given a talk at a conference in an island off texas coast - one of our collaborators who has been travelling to india a few times recently, was chatting with me one evening - casual relaxing evening in the lounge / bar, with 20 other delegates - when he mentioned to me abt indian music! all my senses went on high alert - he kept on talking abt Ravi Shankar and so on! i patiently silently let him speak - and once he was done took him to the piano (one of those big/grand pianos) in that hall - around that time i had learnt to play the 'punnagai mannan' theme (minus the duet part - PM theme needs two ppl to perform properly - i knew to play the main theme thats all) and played it out to him (after some fumbling initially) - and i told him once done "thats from india's most creative composer - Ilaiyaraaja" - he was intrigued and by the time he left the conference 2 days later, he had the HTNI (my last personal copy!)CD with him!
i forgot abt it in a few days - but after a month's time, he emailed me thanking me for the CD and gave a few lines of review!
the gentleman is a senior faculty/professor at the univ of washington, a key man in policy-making for NASA, and a connoisseur of the arts!
way back in 2003, another colleague of mine had invited a few of us over to his place to introduce to his family - key west, florida - penthouse apartment on the top-most floor (25th floor) - dad is a retd ENT specialist and a connoisseur of western classical music! after almost 2 hrs of chatting, listening to baroque (mostly vivaldi) music, he asked me abt indian music - i resisted the temptation to talk abt IR - and gave them an intro to what little i knew abt traditional indian music how it has evolved etc etc and then came to film music, carefully demarcating trashy bollywood music (that most americans are familiar with) and genuine artsy filmy music - waited for things to soak in - allowing them all to indulge in another round of wine/cognac/bourbon (i stuck to a redbull to keep my energy level going since i was abt to speak abt IR) - and then after that buildup, spoke abt the uniqueness of IR !
I had them ! under a spell ! then played out 'mozart, i love you' - the 75 year old ENT father loved it - immensely!
I do what I can! after all I grew up with this man's music!
