The idea of POWER

At this point of time, when I say violence, we visualize a women being tortured at some place in this world, and who holds the figure of the 23 year old girl who died in Delhi recently because she was raped. I have seen a lot of posts in facebook and twiter where people ask for different solutions.

I see this as a problem of thought, a problem of how power is perceived. Especially by men, power is perceived in a physical sense. The power is defined as the authority or control over someone else. But power is the ability to resolve, that most of the Indian women of my generation and my mother's generation live as an example of.

Women today don't need a strange men to come and abuse them, things start very locally. I know guys who have hit their girlfriends because he doesn't want her to have any male friend. Sorry, I would perceive possessiveness differently. I have heard of men, who have left their wives for other women and the society blames it on the lady.

This is a problem in the genes, in the society. The idea that male is more powerful of the two sexes comes from the thought that "if I hold her hand very strongly, she won't be able to move". Though a lot of us are protesting, call ourselves educated, live in a city, and think we are advanced in the way we think. I am afraid we are wrong. The ability to park the car in the first attempt, the ability to hold on to the cricket bat, the ability to stay at office without thinking about home, the ability to come back home late night without anyone's company, the ability to get married late, and a lots more is very wrongly perceived as power by men.

During school, my exam would finish at 12:30, I would be home by 1:15 and by then my home phone would have already received 2 calls from my mother, who is at work, asking how I did the exam (even though she knows how I would have) and still sticking to the work schedule at office, that is power. Recently she got her right hand fractured, but still she runs the home single handedly (quite literally), that is power. I know lady friends of mine, who have got married a little early in their life, have a career, manage family awesomely, unlike men who wait for a stable income and all random trips with friends. That is power.

Oh yes they do break down a lot (even at movies where an elephant named Ramu dies). If shouting FUUUU*K and banging something on the floor is to men, crying is to women, to vent their anger, pressure and frustration.

By the way things are going, the vision of the great Tamil Poet Bharathiyaar's for women is definitely blurred, but what he perceived about power is real.

The ability to stand up against what one feels wrong is power, the ability to balance and bring harmony is power, the ability to grow another human being inside one is power, the ability to see what their sons have become is power, the ability to raise a true man is POWER.  That is why in Sanskrit, Shakti is rightly named as 'to be able'.

FAKE YOU!

Your life is a beautiful gift, unique to yourself, that is why you will have to fake it to the world. Because the world expects you to be like somebody, somebody normal. The people in life compare yourself with someone else. No, I don't mean u r being compared to Kalams and Narayanamurthys, u are being compared to Mahesh and Suresh next door. With all due respect to Mahesh and Suresh, u might want to ask what is the whole point, but come on let's be practical, when u are running a rat race u don't expect yourself to be compared with Lions.

I have very rarely heard of a teacher, who comes to your desk, points at your answer paper and says "wow, that is a brilliant way of looking at the problem, it's ok that u have got a few concepts wrong but your approach gives a new dimension. Let's work on that after school hours, keep it going", I have more heard them saying "what have u written, it is totally not in sync with what is given in the text book, I am not surprised you failed". With big aims and aspirations and with less people who have the time to understand, U FAKE.

U FAKE school life hoping that people grow with age. U start working, the new place promises to be a little better, but yes, it's just a matter of time. Appraisal, money and promotions fakes you. I completely understand, you have to give it in to the fact that when result is not produced, the whole purpose of why someone hired u is gone. So u lend your ear  to all the meeting room gyans, where people say "look at that team, look at this chart, look at him, when we were like u... (where ur heart would plead to say "like me?? go take a walk, I am unique")" u align to the what they say, instead of "how can I stick to my way of doing things and produce their results". Sadly your definition of growing up doesn't match theirs.

U FAKE, with the hope that personal life is going to rock. U fall for someone, propose, they accept or reject,  either way u r FAKED. If accepted, U are expected to change ur shirt, the way u talk, the things u do, be like your 'someone's' friend's someone and after doing all that u hear "u are no more the same". U cross this barrier, go talk to your 'someone's' parents to asking for your someone's hand and they compare u with their aunt's in-law's cousin's someone. By this time u r totally faked. If rejected, that is an entirely different story.

U FAKE every phase with the hope that once u have cross that phase, the world will welcome you with open arms, hug u, kiss u and embarrass you, but all it does is FAKE YOU, right royally.

U FAKE yourself all the way to impress lot of people, important people, and end up being disappointed with yourself, FAKED UP.

Change is good, correction is good, improving is good, but if the world calls faking as changing, improving and correcting. FAKE YOU man, my life is a beautiful gift, unique, I define my life.

Svaramed at Auroville

Svaram is a place in the midst of a bamboo forest, created to discover music instruments out of everything that would bring out the feel of music in everybody independent of knowledge and training. Located inside Auroville makes it even more special.

The first time I heard about Svaram was when I took a random trip to Auroville explored the shop at the Auroville visitors centre, but then I dint know they had a musical research place. 2 years later, during my second marathon at Auroville, me and my friends took a casual bike ride inside Auroville and heard some drum beats. Moving towards the music, led us to svaram. The feel of Svaram is fantastic, the place is truly spiritual.

The place manifests independence and encourages talent and ideas.  Being a person who can play the percussions and having owned some of the small drums of svaram, I started playing the djembe, the best djembe I have ever played was still half painted. After playing for around 15mins, I realized I was only in the showroom opposite to the research place, where the real research music happens out of everything possible.

The first thing that caught my eyes was a LPG cylinders modified and hung around the place, the first one I played was set to mohanam ragam. Admiring that for some time, I fell for a huge African styled base drum. Looking from a distance, art work on the drum was fascinating, the size was by itself a beauty. The heavenly feel when you play the drum in confluence to the sound coming from the bamboo forest, make you feel like "I AM GOD". After a few of minutes of playing the drum, Prakash from the Svaram team joined me and we had an absolutely brilliant jamming session.

The marathon was the next day and it was shut down time for Svaram. I had a quick walk inside the place and when I was about to leave, "THAMBE" it was Karthik, he asked me where I am staying and for how long, and asked me to play with them at the marathon tomorrow. People of Svaram team up at different places along the trail of the marathon, with the instruments to encourage runners, believe me it works awesome on your run, and when you are going to join the team playing with them,it works even better. I joined the Svaram team near the finish line, after I finished my run. Initially we performed as a group and the group welcomed a stranger drummer in me. Myself and Prakash continued our jamming sessions, joined by kids and lady dancers.

I would personally recommend everybody interested in music to visit Svaram, and when  you are going call me, 2hours was not enough . People can also work hand-in-hand with Svaram and help them in their research. Svaram also helps to research on one's music ideas.

One could see every musical instrument that Sivamani uses with his drum kits or probably even more at Svaram, but the feeling of playing them cannot be comprehended by just reading this. If you really are acumen about this idea, you need to be there.

Music must release oneself from the mundane thought and Svaram does it perfectly well.

written for http://www.deccanchronicle.com/tabloid/potpouri/music-and-innovation-swaram-028

when i speak at a graduation

After watching the famous Jobs graduation day speech at Stanford, I imagined myself going in front of my school's 12th pass outs  some day and say 'what follows' (assuming that the trend continuous that majority are still getting into a engineering college).

When u get to college, there are three things you are going to experience. New people, New ideologies and New you.

NEWPEOPLE:

The first day you go to college, things will be very different, different language, different style, different mentalities, different size, so different in size that you would probably end up getting ragged by your own class mate, and most importantly different outlook, so different that the girl whom you know for the past 4 years turns her face away 'heart break on the first day of college' get used to it, u will encounter more of this.

To girls: u ll be looked at as if u r a European tourist entering the rural India, with a WOW. Enjoy the respect, don't do too much, who knows u might not even be worth it and the realization might not be far away.

Dai boys: the lab, the mess hall, lab coat, daily color dress, bikes, girls, everything will look equally attractive, BEWARE. Labs, there are lots u ll have to learn outside these four walls and a few machines get out as early as possible. Mess hall, the pouch - the more you eat, the merrier, sleepier and bigger u get. Color dress, the maximum u can buy is 10 pairs of trousers and shirts and u definitely know the rest. Bikes, with all due respect, petrolku daily unga appa-na kaasu kuduppan. The girls, its scientifically proven that girls get prettier at college and the guys get stupid, they are still working on the relativity (for the first part of the research, it was a no girl team. A girl came in as an intern, and they are still working on the research).

Guys and girls getting into gender biased colleges, I have nothing to say them except "SMART MOVE", if u know what I mean.

NEW IDEOLOGIES:

 Everyday might seem like 'nothing big has happened', but the day before the exam believe me, IT IS GOING TO BE REALLY BIG. Even and odd semesters which will be synonyms for cultural semester and symposium semester. U ll have a lot of things to do but most importantly, do something new, do what u want.

It's ok if u don't focus, it's ok if u don't have clarity, it's ok if u are not going to get better grades, its ok if to hate somebody, it's ok to love more than 1, it's ok to raise a finger at your professor and say "can I go to toilet". Participate in competitions and department clashes, get face to face with a professor, talk to HOD and explain why u are better than him, get on your knees for a girl, get into a fight for your friend even when u know that he is wrong, celebrate that with a drink together, buy a phone for 15000 and get confused about whether to recharge it for 20 or 30, Go to new places, meet new people, treat them with arrogance, disagree with them with respect. Stand on top of the world and say to yourself " i have a lots left to experience in the bledy world and I am loving it".

NEW U:

GET OUT AND ENJOY. DON'T BOTHER ABOUT THE NEW YOU, HE CAN TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF.

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who'll decide where to go. What follows you is always YOU".

P.S.: if any Teacher, Principal and Head of institutions is reading this, we can customize this, no problem at all. :-)