(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)L Suresh guides the uninitiated through the intricacies of the Chennai music season.
December – that wonderful month in Chennai when the heavens open up and flood the city with rains, music concerts and NRIs. That amazing time of the year when the streets have no name (because the name boards are all submerged under water), the concert halls have no empty seats and those with NRI relatives have no respite.
If you’ve never been through a music season before, here’s your chance to find out what it’s all about. It may not be of much help, but at least you’ll know that I told you so.
December is when Chennai is divided into two - the haves (those who have passes for the music season) and the have-nots (no such luck). It is also normal to come across have-beens (those who have been to concerts before) and has-beens (has been to concerts before, but sigh, they are no longer as good as they used to be in the good old days).
One of the most important things to do when you gear up for the music season is to brush up on your driving skills. Practice driving in the rain during peak evening traffic because the more you are looking forward to a concert, the greater are the chances of it raining that evening (Murphy’s Law of Musical Dissonance). Have frequent trial runs driving at insane hours of the night to the airport and back - all those NRI cousins, uncles and aunts who refused to acknowledge your presence thus far will stage a grand home-coming (to your home, that is) with a box of Ferrer Rocher chocolates just picked up from duty free. Most importantly, be adept at beating the crowds to the sabha (concert hall) and finding a parking slot.
The next thing you need to prepare for is living in different time zones where you can work by day, attend concerts by evening and then take your newly acquired NRI family out in the night for their capers until they come to terms with their jetlag - a masala dosa at two in the night, a shopping spree in T Nagar for silk saris, dhotis and kurtas, or a drive to the beach after dinner that stretches to ‘let's watch sunrise’ and ends in 'let's go to Woodlands for filter coffee'.
Done? It's now time to figure out which concerts you want to attend. Newspaper supplements and pullouts offer simple, easy-to-follow schedules – so stay away from them. Since you are most likely to be surrounded by people with varied opinions, the thumb rule is – if you can’t convince, confuse. So create a complicated spreadsheet with various rows and columns on who's performing, where, when and what's on the canteen menu. Of these, the first and the last mentioned occupy prime importance, so start by choosing the artists carefully. The next thumb rule for such occasions is - don’t let them know that you don’t know. Just recall all the names that you have heard before in a Harris Jayaraj or an A R Rahman album - Unni Krishnan, Bombay Jayashree, Prasanna, Kadri Gopalnath and others. Whether you understand the music or not, you are sure to see stars.
By the time you have chosen the artistes and have planned your itinerary, you would have realized that most of them clash, what with the heavyweights performing at the same time in different sabhas. That’s where the canteen menus can be of great help. Putting an ear to the canteen table helps in catching the buzz around. It may also give you a worm’s eye view of all the grime that has escaped the waiter’s rag, but on the positive side, you might catch a whiff of what’s on the menu the coming day or week - if you’re lucky, it could be Andhra pesarattu, keeravadai, rava dosa and molaga bajji. Remember, finding a parking place, fighting the traffic, braving the rains, handling the crowds and wet-nursing the NRI family is always a battle and as the cliché goes, battles were never won on an empty stomach.
Just as you think you are getting the hang of things, the unexpected will happen as the weekend swings by. That is when the NRI family will decide to take you sabha hopping. Since concerts typically begin at around 9.00 on a Sunday morning, you will probably have to factor in an hour for the ladies to match their silk saris perfectly with their jewelry and other accessories, another hour for breakfast at Saravana Bhavan and half an hour for some manic driving – that means you’re out by 6.30 in the morning. (Working backwards further will help you figure out when you need to get out of bed.)
The Mylapore Fine Arts Club at 9, Krishna Gana Sabha at 10.45, Narada Gana Sabha at 12.30, Brahma Gana Sabha at 2.30, Bharat Kalachar at 4, Vani Mahal at 6 and the day culminates grandly at The Music Academy at 7.30 pm. By then, life’s a blur and the mind resorts to playing word-building games - making little words like ‘bed’, ‘save’ and ‘pity’ out of complex ones like Begada, Sarvashree and Prataapadhanyaasi. You’ve covered so many concerts, listened to so many artists and crisscrossed the city so many times that you don’t even realize that the car’s stereo is playing “Fear of music” by the Talking Heads. The head spins, the wheat halwa is having a jugalbandi with the Mysore bonda and you are at a loss as to which to hit first, the sack or the loo.
The weekdays are slightly better because you have only the 7 pm concert to catch. But weekdays bring with them a completely different set of issues, like the seating problem. It’s not so much about getting a vantage view of the action on stage as it is about getting away from the vintage crowd that’s there for the networking. The taalams, aksharams and druthams are drowned in a sales pitch of MLMs (multi level marketing). So when you hear conversation punctuated with “I have this exciting business opportunity for you” or “Let me give you my business card” or “Why don’t I call you next week”, make sure you sneeze loudly or get your mobile to beep non-stop. A few glares in your direction will hopefully put an end to the conversation.
Another thing you need to watch out for would be the horoscopes flying around. There are the universal donors, the ones who are trying to get all the unmarried ones in the family hitched. Then there are the universal recipients who liaison on behalf of friends, neighbours, colleagues and sundry. The contest between the two typically goes on and if you’re trying to figure out when it would end, look towards the stage for the answer because it has been said that it is never over until the fat lady sings.
Happy listening.
December – that wonderful month in Chennai when the heavens open up and flood the city with rains, music concerts and NRIs. That amazing time of the year when the streets have no name (because the name boards are all submerged under water), the concert halls have no empty seats and those with NRI relatives have no respite.
If you’ve never been through a music season before, here’s your chance to find out what it’s all about. It may not be of much help, but at least you’ll know that I told you so.
December is when Chennai is divided into two - the haves (those who have passes for the music season) and the have-nots (no such luck). It is also normal to come across have-beens (those who have been to concerts before) and has-beens (has been to concerts before, but sigh, they are no longer as good as they used to be in the good old days).
One of the most important things to do when you gear up for the music season is to brush up on your driving skills. Practice driving in the rain during peak evening traffic because the more you are looking forward to a concert, the greater are the chances of it raining that evening (Murphy’s Law of Musical Dissonance). Have frequent trial runs driving at insane hours of the night to the airport and back - all those NRI cousins, uncles and aunts who refused to acknowledge your presence thus far will stage a grand home-coming (to your home, that is) with a box of Ferrer Rocher chocolates just picked up from duty free. Most importantly, be adept at beating the crowds to the sabha (concert hall) and finding a parking slot.
The next thing you need to prepare for is living in different time zones where you can work by day, attend concerts by evening and then take your newly acquired NRI family out in the night for their capers until they come to terms with their jetlag - a masala dosa at two in the night, a shopping spree in T Nagar for silk saris, dhotis and kurtas, or a drive to the beach after dinner that stretches to ‘let's watch sunrise’ and ends in 'let's go to Woodlands for filter coffee'.
Done? It's now time to figure out which concerts you want to attend. Newspaper supplements and pullouts offer simple, easy-to-follow schedules – so stay away from them. Since you are most likely to be surrounded by people with varied opinions, the thumb rule is – if you can’t convince, confuse. So create a complicated spreadsheet with various rows and columns on who's performing, where, when and what's on the canteen menu. Of these, the first and the last mentioned occupy prime importance, so start by choosing the artists carefully. The next thumb rule for such occasions is - don’t let them know that you don’t know. Just recall all the names that you have heard before in a Harris Jayaraj or an A R Rahman album - Unni Krishnan, Bombay Jayashree, Prasanna, Kadri Gopalnath and others. Whether you understand the music or not, you are sure to see stars.
By the time you have chosen the artistes and have planned your itinerary, you would have realized that most of them clash, what with the heavyweights performing at the same time in different sabhas. That’s where the canteen menus can be of great help. Putting an ear to the canteen table helps in catching the buzz around. It may also give you a worm’s eye view of all the grime that has escaped the waiter’s rag, but on the positive side, you might catch a whiff of what’s on the menu the coming day or week - if you’re lucky, it could be Andhra pesarattu, keeravadai, rava dosa and molaga bajji. Remember, finding a parking place, fighting the traffic, braving the rains, handling the crowds and wet-nursing the NRI family is always a battle and as the cliché goes, battles were never won on an empty stomach.
Just as you think you are getting the hang of things, the unexpected will happen as the weekend swings by. That is when the NRI family will decide to take you sabha hopping. Since concerts typically begin at around 9.00 on a Sunday morning, you will probably have to factor in an hour for the ladies to match their silk saris perfectly with their jewelry and other accessories, another hour for breakfast at Saravana Bhavan and half an hour for some manic driving – that means you’re out by 6.30 in the morning. (Working backwards further will help you figure out when you need to get out of bed.)
The Mylapore Fine Arts Club at 9, Krishna Gana Sabha at 10.45, Narada Gana Sabha at 12.30, Brahma Gana Sabha at 2.30, Bharat Kalachar at 4, Vani Mahal at 6 and the day culminates grandly at The Music Academy at 7.30 pm. By then, life’s a blur and the mind resorts to playing word-building games - making little words like ‘bed’, ‘save’ and ‘pity’ out of complex ones like Begada, Sarvashree and Prataapadhanyaasi. You’ve covered so many concerts, listened to so many artists and crisscrossed the city so many times that you don’t even realize that the car’s stereo is playing “Fear of music” by the Talking Heads. The head spins, the wheat halwa is having a jugalbandi with the Mysore bonda and you are at a loss as to which to hit first, the sack or the loo.
The weekdays are slightly better because you have only the 7 pm concert to catch. But weekdays bring with them a completely different set of issues, like the seating problem. It’s not so much about getting a vantage view of the action on stage as it is about getting away from the vintage crowd that’s there for the networking. The taalams, aksharams and druthams are drowned in a sales pitch of MLMs (multi level marketing). So when you hear conversation punctuated with “I have this exciting business opportunity for you” or “Let me give you my business card” or “Why don’t I call you next week”, make sure you sneeze loudly or get your mobile to beep non-stop. A few glares in your direction will hopefully put an end to the conversation.
Another thing you need to watch out for would be the horoscopes flying around. There are the universal donors, the ones who are trying to get all the unmarried ones in the family hitched. Then there are the universal recipients who liaison on behalf of friends, neighbours, colleagues and sundry. The contest between the two typically goes on and if you’re trying to figure out when it would end, look towards the stage for the answer because it has been said that it is never over until the fat lady sings.
Happy listening.
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 26 November, 2006)
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