Dr. L. Subramanian in concert

If The first ever Indian and American Achievement Awards program disappointed, the same cannot be said about the Fairfax (VA) Symphony program honoring India's 60th anniversary of independence that featured Dr. L. Subramanian, his wife Kavita Krishnamurthy, and two of his three children.


Dr. L.Subramanian and son "Ambi" with supporting musicians

The program opened with traditional Carnatic music, featuring Dr. Subramanian and his teenage son "Ambi" on violins. Additional musicians performed on Mridangam (drum), Ghatam (clay pot), Kanjeera (tambourine), and Morsing (jews harp) [the links are to audio clips from Swar Systems that demonstrate the sounds of these instruments - ed.]


Kavita Krishnamurthy and stepdaughter Seetaa Subramaniam performing Freedom Symphony

The rest of the program featured three of Dr. Subramanian's compositions that fuse western and Indian music styles: Global Symphony, Freedom Symphony, and Turbulence Concerto. Freedom Symphony, which was billed as a world premiere, featured poems of Rabindranath Tagore (Jodi Tor, a favorite of Gandhi, in Bengali), Subramanya Bharati (Acham Illai, in Tamil), and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (Vande Mataram, in Sanskrit) set to music. We were seated near the stage, where we were thrilled to see and hear Kavita Krishnamurthy at such close range.

The entire program was awe-inspiring. I don't think that I'll hear or see such a program again.

NOTE: I am indebted to Cathy Smith, Director of Marketing, Fairfax Symphony, for the photos and supporting information.

The first ever Indian and American Achievement Awards program – a qualified success

On Thursday, September 13, my husband and I went to the first ever Indian and American Achievement Awards program held at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. The organizer, Cinemaya Media Group, will have to rethink this event if they hope to host a second Indian and American Achievement Awards program. The fault was not the performers – heavy hitters such as dancer Birju Maharaj, santoor maestro Shiv Kumar Sharma, singers Ajoy Chakraborty and M. Balamuralikrishna, and – as a late addition to the program – A.R. Rahman, with his hair cut short. You may see a Flash presentation of pictures from the event at Cinemaya Media Group's web site - a better view than what we had, since we had balcony seats!

Ambassador Ronen Sen introduced the program, but as he went through the list of performers on the program, his speech became increasingly halted. Awards presentations were alternated with performances lasting 30-40 minutes apiece. When it was announced that A.R. Rahman was one of the nominees for an award in media, arts, and entertainment, it was a foregone conclusion whom the awardee would be. He was one of the few awardees to receive his award in person.

A large venue such as the Kennedy Center Concert Hall is not amenable to Indian music, which had been traditionally performed in courts and music rooms. We would have liked to see Birju Maharaj and his female partner perform an extended dance. My husband said that the sound system was not properly adjusted during the segment featuring Ajoy Chakraborty and M. Balamuralikrishna: indeed, I heard the rhythm-perfect interplay between M. Balamuralikrishna’s south Indian mridangam player and Ajoy Chakraborty’s tabla player very clearly, but not the vocal interplay between the two singers.

Most of the audience (the hall was only half full) left after Ajoy Chakraborty and M. Balamuralikrishna’s performance and did not stay for the last award presentation. At best, the first ever Indian and American Achievement Awards program was a qualified success. If the organizers hope to host a second Indian and American Achievement Awards program, I recommend that they choose a smaller, more intimate venue (I like Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University) and present the awards at the beginning of the program so that all the audience can be on hand. Then the audience and awardees can relax and enjoy the performance.

Did India invade?

One of the truisms about India (spread by Swami Vivekananda, among others) is that it never invaded another country. Yet this commentary Ancient Indian Logic, from The Telegraph (Kolkata) via Sarve Samachar, ostensibly about Communist opposition to U.S.-indian joint naval exercises in southeast Asia (Malabar 07), suggests that India did spread its culture through Southeast Asia not only through commerce but also through invasion.

Poor Calcutta - A commentary on Mother Theresa in the New York Times

Mother Teresa

During the same discussion in which one of the participants opined that had Gandhi lived during Jesus's time, he would have been regarded with the same reverence as Jesus, my husband voiced his criticism of Mother Theresa and the shame that she brought on Calcutta, where he grew up. One person said that all great people are criticized, while another person didn't see anything wrong with Mother Teresa's promoting Roman Catholic orthodoxy. This commentary from the New York Times echoes my husband's criticisms.

Poor Calcutta - New York Times
By CHITRITA BANERJI
Ten years and one beatification later, the tunnel vision of the news media continues to equate Calcutta with the destitution and succor publicized by Mother Teresa.

The author rightly notes the massive influx of refugees into Calcutta after Partition and after the Bangladesh war of independence. Many of my friends are surprised to learn that Calcutta has also provided a home for Jewish and Armenian refugees, among others.

Some explanations why India has frequent terror attacks

Last Saturday's twin bomb blasts that killed 43 in Hyderabad scarcely received any notice in western media. Perhaps it's because such incidents are all too familiar in India.

I was particularly haunted by the three bomb blasts that happened in Delhi in October 2005, given that the Sarojini Nagar market is within 15 minutes walking distance of my brother-in-law's home and that his family often shops there. This article Hyderabad blasts timed for Vinayaka festival from TOI notes that as with last week's bomb blasts in Hyderabad, the October 2005 Delhi blasts were timed before a festival, namely Diwali.

As with every terrorist strike, there is the usual debate on how to prevent another terror attack. Tavleen Singh, in her column A Violent History (found via Naxal Terror Watch), notes, "...we are losing the war against the jehadis who target India with increasing frequency is because successive governments, both in Delhi and our state capitals, have done nothing to fight back." She cites Ajai Sahni, Editor, South Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR), who notes in his article Hyderabad Déjà, Déjà, Déjà Vu that India has too few police and "deficiencies of capacity" in intelligence. Tavleen Singh notes that more police would not be enough and then places blame on those in her profession who hamstring investigations: "If [police] enter Muslim neighbourhoods in search of clues they are charged with racial profiling and for this we in the media are more to blame than the politicians. We make the loudest protests without realising that the result is that the jehadis are winning the war against India."

The unfortunately titled We're our own worst terrorists, again from TOI, intimates that additional police would not be enough by putting the blame on bribery and corruption endemic at all levels of government in India:

It is often said that India is a 'soft', insteadof a 'hard', state. This means that we, collectively and individually, arewilling or unwilling accomplices to a flagrant flouting of the laws of the land. From the street constable who can be bought for Rs 50 to let an errant trucker or motorist go free, to a chief minister who, indicted in a scam, can openly defy the legal system by saying that he is answerable only to the 'court of the people’, the Indian state — as exemplified by its representatives at various levels — is commonly seen to be up for sale or otherwise open to subversion from within.

Time and again, our top law enforcement agencies have been reprimanded by the judiciary for hopelessly bungling or inexcusably delaying investigations with regard to crucial criminal cases, be they terror related or otherwise.

The inevitable suspicion arises as to whether the perpetrators of such acts enjoy political or other patronage which puts them out of reach of the truncated arm of our law: they are above or beyond the law...

A 'hard' state has to learn to be tough on itself first, in upholding its own rule of law and being seen to do so, before it can be tough against terror. Do we — should we —build the political and ethical sinews to do this? It’s a question for our collective conscience. And till we decide, we’ll have to learn to live with terror from outside, and our complicity with it within.

I have updated my map of terrorist attacks in India to include the most recent bomb blasts in Hyderabad.