While in Japan, I became so accustomed to the constant high-speed internet access; it made posting videos and pictures a mundane task. Unfortunately, in India, internet access is scarce and turtlely (I know that is not a word, but it should be). Thus, I will be unable to post many videos (as it takes over 30 minutes to upload each one); and that, I be updating my site much more infrequently.
All that being said, here is another update: yesterday, I met a rickshaw driver named V. Anthony Mani. After he took me to a delicious restaurant for a buttered chicken tikka lunch, I told him why I was in India. It turns out that he has been studying keyboards for several years, and has invited me to visit his music school. He also explained to me the details of the Margazhi Festival and the upcoming dance festival at the Music Academy in January. Immediately, he and I established a relationship through our mutual interest in music.
This morning, Anthony picked me up at 9am and drove me the Mylapore Fine Arts Club to hear some music. The venue was an open-aired auditorium. There were five musicians, one singing, and four instrumentalists, playing a violin, moharsing, pedele (like a drone instrument played with the mouth), and mridangam (a South Indian hand drum, similar to the dholak). The songs were sung in Sanskrit, which meant that they probably had some religious significance, but Anthony did not know the exact meaning. We stayed for over an hour. I was a little hesitant to leave, but Anthony promised the next venue would be better.
Next, Anthony took me the Music Academy, an extremely nice facility. The auditorium is relatively new, and even has a state-of-the-art Bose sound system. In that performance, there were three women and three men, playing the same instruments as the players the Mylapore Fine Arts Club. These songs were sung in Sanskirt, and Anthony told me they were devotional pieces about Paravati, Lord Shiva’s wife.
I opted not to attend the performance in the evening, as I was pretty exhausted by the late afternoon. The good news is that there are so many opportunities to hear music over the next few weeks that I can really do all this at my own pace. Here are some videos and photographs from today:
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