Aatramai--Three Plays from Koothu-P-Pattarai Contd..

Aatramai by Ku. Pa. Raa is a tight play describing the inconsolable grief of a middle aged married woman deprived of sexual gratification. Her emotions when beholding the love games of the young girl next door with her husband were portrayed graphically in the facial expressions and voice of the actor.

The final play was a story of conflict between innocent villagers who cut down a tree allegedly in public land (Poromboke). Till the very end no one knows to whom it belongs. The petty rivalries and power games played by the village maniam and the karnam are brought out humorously and with a lot of vivacity. The innocence of the villagers and a carefree life where brushing one’s teeth, bathing and washing are all performed in the open is beautifully portrayed in mime.

This is how theatre should be enjoyed. In open air with lights focusing on the actors but not blinding the audience, deep resonance of the voices in the silence of the evening and a cool breeze from the south gently fanning us. For an hour anda half, we were transported to the deep south of Tamilnadu and allowed to share the lives, travails and joys of these people with their mundane yet existential problems.

KPP staged this play at Coimbatore on 24^th June 2010 as part of the Tamil Chemmozhi Manaadu.

Aatramai--Three Plays from Koothu-P-Pattarai

22.06.2010

Today, I had the opportunity of witnessing three great plays at Koothu-P-Pattarai (KPP).

They were staged on the terrace of Mr. Na. Muthusawmy’s house in Virugambakkam.

They three plays were essentially glimpses into human foibles and the peculiar motives that prompt homo sapiens to behave the way they do.

The setting was stark and minimalistic. It consisted of a dark cloth as backdrop with doors on either side. This acted as a cover for the actors as they walked in and out of the stage through these doors. On stage were three square platforms and two door frames which were used to create the various scenes. The doors acted as points of discontinuity, helping the audience to make the mental transition from one space to another: from inside to outside; from the open fields into a small room; from one room of a house to another and so on. The absence of walls and windows also provided a cross sectional feel and the audience could get a voyeuristic titillation that is essentially due to the involvement without participation. This was especially so in Aatramai by Ku. Pa. Raa the play which was used to announce the Trio.After all, human beings are deeply curious about the personal affairs of other people. While some accept and articulate this need, most suppress and conceal it while gratifying it in other legitimate ways!

The first play was Prasadam by Na Muthuswami. A policeman needs five rupees to celebrate his baby daughter’s first birthday. His wife has made the arrangements for everything but, he needs five rupees for the incidental expenses. Normally, he would have collected this from any casual offender of the rules. Unfortunately, the citizens refuse to disobey the law! He curses them for their extraordinary compliance. Finally, he pounces on the Archakar of the Krishnan Temple on the River Bank. The poor Brahmin, while posting a card, has pulled out a letter sticking out of the over-stuffed post box. The letter is adressed to the DSP.Thinking that he would put it in the main post box, he reaches it, when our policeman catches him in the act and, for want of a better victim, threatens to drag him to the police station in public for “enquiry” unless he gives him five rupees.

The gradual transformation of the priest through various emotions is a treat to watch. He moves from abject terror and fear of shame to crying, pleading, determination to face any consequences and finally indignation and belligerence when he learns the true motives behind the Constable’s duty consciousness. The protagonists keep staring into each others face, their faces screwed up in rage when both of them simultaneously burst into laughter at the essential humour in their behavior. The audience too joins them in the uncontrollable laughter. The play reaches its finale when the priest learns the reason why the policeman need five rupees and voluntarily “lends” him the amount with a friendly command to bring the baby girl to the Krishnan Temple on the River Bank for special pooja! This is human nature transcending nationality, color and creed. These are tales of

“normal” human beings living out lives of quiet desperation, corrupted by the society around them and corrupting it in turn. But, they are also capable of great insight and acts of friendship and love having their source in the well-springs of compassion and empathy. The essential goodness of human nature triumphs in the end. This is the rough hewed wood of human motivation, raw and unvarnished where the grain is still clear and visible.

Continued in next Blog

Quotables

Our task is not to fix the blame for the past, but to help fix the course for the future.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

The Nine Gold Coins

The Nine Gold Coins given by Shridi Sai Baba to his devotee Lakshmi Bai were displayed at the Mylapore Baba Temple recently. My wife who is a regular visitor could see this sign of Baba's presence. I had the good fortune of viewing them during my last visit to Shirdi in 2009. They are kept in the house of Lakshmi Bai which is preserved as a temple. The house of Lakskmi Bai is very near Dwaraka Mayee just behind the Samadhi Mandir.

When we see the bright silver coins, with the head of the British Emperor on them we are trasported for a moment to that Shirdi where Baba walked and lived among the fortunate few who had the good fortune to serve him in his sthoola sharir. But Baba lives on as a part of the universe ready to succor and support his true devotees even from beyond his grave...

Being Misled

Another query that came up at the MSOP programme was about being misled by someone and how to get out of it. Here are the suggestions I gave:

· Intellectual Approach

Examine the Pros and Cons of the circumstance and the possible advantages of associating with the person misleading us as against the detriment. If there is temporary benefit, it is better to continue and withdraw when the need is no longer present. This is pure Kutilya or Arthsastra! Very difficult to follow and sometimes seen as being worse than being misled!

· Emotional Detachment

Most of the time, we know that we are being misled. But we are emotionally attached to the person, so we accept the situation rather than walk away or address it suitably.

· Consulting a Mentor

A Mentor can help us analyze the pros and cons and also bring the detachment required for the intellectual approach.

Ravan again...

18.06.2010

Today I conducted the Management Skills Orientation Program for Company Secretaries. I was speaking about leadership traits and made the point about Ravan being a great warrior and intellectual. His Ten Heads were not actual physical heads but, symbolic of ten approaches or ways to solve a problem. The Twenty arms were twenty different skills. The audience was in agreement with this. One of the participants said that Hanuman is the Symbol of the Mind which is akin to a monkey. The depiction of Hanuman at the feet of Ram symbolizes that success is possible only if we bring the Mind under our control. Great explanation!

Digital Consumers and Cloud Computing

I think the following words of Shri N R Narayana Murthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies are very significant and merit attention:

“Digital Consumers are increasingly relying on Technology to make buying decisions…By 2012, 80 per cent of Fortune 1000 enterprises will be using some form of cloud computing services.”

The Dot Com companies crashed in 2000-01 because of poor bandwidth and inadequate security. Today with a quantum leap in bandwidth and a lot of awareness about risk and risk mitigation, online business is at the brink of a boom!

Positive Expansions

Nice Expansions of words that we frequently consider to be negative:

NO = Next Opportunity

END = Efforts Never Die

The Dice Game

It must be reiterated a thousand thousand times that Hinduism is a monotheistic religion! There is only One creator/Supporter/Destroyer! Hinduism does not prescribe worship of idols! A true Hindu can easily repeat the first half of the first Kalima—There is no God except God. In fact this monotheistic base so clearly brought out in the vedic mantra “Ekam Eva Advatiyam” (There is only One..No Two!) The vedic hymns are essentially in praise of a formless One. This formless one is praised in its manifold manifestations. It is here that the problem starts.

Even Visistadvita or Vaishnavism contemplates the following five secret stages of Sripathy Sriman Narayana: Paramapatha, Vyuha, Vibhava, Antharyamithva and Archroopa in the order of ease of access. In this sense the Archa Roopa or idol form is very simple and easy to reach for the devotee. But later he will slowly (depending on his ability and willingness and more importantly his vasanas from previous births) transcend each stage till he is always with the One in thought, speech and action. In this sense he will finally become immersed in the lord. But before reching this stage, it is necessary to have an object for focus and that is the idol. Around this idol worship both in Temples and at home a whole mountain of ritual and misconceptions have arisen, obliterating the true meaning and symbolism behind the actions and words. Be that as it may, here is Swami Chinmayananda on the Vibhootis of the Supreme Lord (The Divine Glories by which He exists, pervading all these worlds) as described in the tenth chapter of the Bhagavad Gita:

“Verses 21 to 38 of the tenth chapter enumerate 75 vibhootis of the Lord. Herein, Lord Krsna provides 75 thoughts to help seekers who are on the path of knowledge to meditate upon and intensify their integration and sharpen their single-pointedness. These are 75 independent exercises in meditation. (The first person pronoun “I” herein refers to the Lord).”

The tenth chapter is a favorite of G Ramachandran who frequently quotes from the 75 Vibhootis. In his letter he refers to the line Sleight of hand I am in the Dice Game! (In all fairness this is a liberal transliteration of the actual line which is “I am the gambling of the fraudulent”(10:36). But the point is well made. The Lord is that which masks our rational thinking in the dice-game. This colossal fraud keeps us constantly “in the game”. The solution is to open our eyes with His help and see the game for what it is…a zero-sum Win/Lose game! Then the Lord will fulfill his final promise: “The Knowledge of the Knowers am I”. (10:38)

Pakistan Bina Hindusthan Adhora Hai

I received a letter from Mr. G Ramachandran today. He is a relative in the sense he is the father-in-law of my wife’s elder sister. But, my friendship with him has been more on an intellectual plane, that transcends the gross ties of relationship. Formerly of the Indian Archeological Service, he is a highly learned person and a veritable encyclopedia of Sanskrit aphorisms. Casual references in a conversation will start him off on a discourse on a line from the Gita or Valmiki! He is going to celebrate his eightieth birthday in August. Even at this age he keeps reading voraciously. I share books that I am reading with him. Recently I was gifted the book “The Difficulty of Being Good” by my good friend B Ramakrishnan. I had lent it to G Ramachandran. Here is his outpouring on paper of his reactions after reading the book:

My dear Sreedharan Sreekanth (Many people spell my name this way!)

You are burdening (me?) with your deep love towards me. The book “The Difficulty of Being Good” is an epitome of Mahabharatha. Mahabharatha is only a two-dimensional tome (Book) of our country which is Mahabharatha with dimensions to infinity. Its vastness extended beyond the present truncated one.

GR quotes Ex-Prime Minister Mr. Vajpai here. When the Pak Prime Minister remarked that “Kashmir Bina Pakistan Adhora Hai.” (Without Kashmir Pakistan is incomplete ), the rebuttal which was quite witty was ‘Pakisthan Bina Hinusthan Adhora Hai. ( Hindusthan is incomplete without Pakistan).

GR links the present conflicts in the north and south with the puranic conflicts. The conflict is not of a present nature but continuing from Mahabharatha of yore! The Southern most part of our Mahabharat is divided where the Rama-Ravana conflict existed in itihas period. It nothing but continuation of ancient itihasa period to modern itihasa period!

G Ramachandran makes his lightning changes in topic and moves on to the transition from Ramavatar to Krishnavatar. In the Mahabharat Krishna is the sole hero playing his dice game most efficiently. What is this dice game? In the next blog.

Purity of Thought

Speech Sullies thought.

The purest thoughts are made unclean as they are stated in words spoken or written.

Conceptualization loses in verbalization.

Communication, then, is the process of improving the efficiency in conversion pf pure thoughts human sensible words.

Sreesri

No one is Normal

No one is normal.

There are only degrees of abnormality.

A majority of us operate at acceptable degrees of abnormality.

Sreesri

The Fountainhead of Creativity

I keep hearing that the movie “Ravan” Starring Vikram and Aishwarya Rai is based on Ramayan where Vikram is Ravan and the First Lady of India is Sita. Attempts to reinterpret Ramayan and project Ravan as a hero are rife in India, especially in Tamilnadu.

We have great thinkers like E V R Periyar painting Ravan as a representative of the downtrodden Dravidians, and more particularly, the Tamil races and Ram as the embodiment of the Aryan invasion of Dravidian lands south of the Vindhyas.

Many of our Dravidian brethren proudly display the name plate Ravanan outside their government cabins little realizing that Ravan was a pure Brahmin and son of a Maharishi. He took great pride in his assiduity in performing the Vedic rituals and was himself the greatest exponent of Sam Ved in his time!

Mahakavi Bharathiyar has also attempted a spoof of the Ramayan all be it in humorous vein.

In recent times we have the great Drama Actor and Director R S Manohar reinventing the role of Ravan as a benign and valiant hero who slipped and met his downfall due to his own arrogance. In this version, Sita is portrayed as Ravan’s daughter!

Many social dramas and movies have used metaphors from the Ramayan to depict love for children, love for wife, devotion to master, love for brother and so on.

The point is, with so much already done, how will merely moving the basic story of the Ramayan into a twenty first century context be new or different. Wait and hope…I suppose!

The broader question is when did the fountainhead of creativity of our artists and intellectuals dry up and our collective genius become so impoverished that we are unable to think of better and more modern themes and are forced to ransack old and bygone themes or make feeble attempts to reenact old success stories?

When will Tamil Cinema produce an Ameer Khan or, for that matter, another Kamal Hasan or a K Balachnder or a Bharathi Raja again? While KB changed the themes, BR changed the locale and the construct. At least, they did their best to remain honest unto themselves.

The Five Elements

09.06.2010

Rituals are acts that are performed repeatedly. They derive their meanings from their association with past events. When we are aware of why we we do something, what we are doing becomes enhanced and leads to the mental attitudes of humility, reverence and prayerful expectation which are the foundations of success in any activity.

I attended the Ganapathi Homam at Mahalinga Puram Ayyappan Temple. The Ganapathi Homam is performed at this temple between 4:30 AM and 5:30 AM. This is the Brahma Muhurtham. The Tantric Ritual is performed by the Tantri with the appropriate gesture or Mudra.

The sacrificial fire grew high and the tongues of flame came out of the mouth of Agni (God of Fire) to accept the sacrificial offerings.

When I left the temple, there was no sign of rain. But on my way back, there was heavy wind movement. The wind blew with a circular movement. The trees and other tall structures not firmly attaached to the ground were swaying as Vayu (The God of Wind) blew hither and thither.

Thereafter it rained heavily for about two hours. The blessed Varuna (God of Rain) made the earth wet, preparing it for growth and prosperity.

Later I visited the Rathna Girishwarar temple at Besant Nagar. As I prostrated myself before the Linga Rup of Shiv, my foreheat touched the Earth (Bhoomi) reminding me of the ultimate destination of the body.

Finally, as I stood before the Shrine of the Devi with her benign smiling face, bedecked with golden ornaments and adorned in all her splendor I glimpsed, for a nano second, the infinite Aakash within me and for that minuscule moment in time became at one and aligned with the Life Principle from which we emerge, with which we fail to converge and into which we shall ultimately merge. .

Female Drivers

I do agree that this image is highly Gender Biased. The image reminded me of the time when my wife was learning how to drive. We owned a small Maruti 800 at that time--my first car! She had learnt how to drive from a Driving Institute and had just obtained her licence.

After successfully obtaining her licence, she took the car out for a drive. My driver was riding shot gun as a safety measure. About half an hour later, my mother called me on the mobile and she asked me to calmly listen to what she had to say1 I knew it...!

My immediate query was...."What happened to the car...!"

My wife still uses this as an example for my insensitivity and general pigheadedness....

Well...the lady was undamaged...The car had suffered heavy frontal damage after she swerved to avoid a motorized cart (they were called Meen Body Vandi in those days).

The emotional scarring continues and she doesn't drive at all...even though one of our cars is regularly registered in her name.

My subsequent attempts to teach her how to drive have taken us so near the verge of divorce that I've stopped trying.

The Centre for Asian Studies is conducting an Industry Round Table on

The goods and Services Tax Implementation: Concepts and Issues

In case you handle VAt, Service Tax or Indirect Taxation in your organization, you might want check this out. For enquiries do be in touch with FOXMANDAL LITTLE who are presenting the programme.

The Inaugural Addrss is being delivered by Mr. Venu Srinivasan , Chairman, TVS Motors.

Two o f my good friends and experts in the field, Mr. S Ramachandran and Ms. Madhri Guruswamy are presenting papers.

Donate Blood...Today

Do contact the Madras Voluntary Blood Bureau if you wish to donate blood....I do!

Tiger - Water Color on Thick Sheet

The strength of Irrelevance

We take so much effort to plant a seed in fertile soil; water it; manure it; and put it in the right environment. Yet, we are unable to guarantee its growth.

But, look at old buildings where in small crack in the masonry, a seed lands from the excrement of a bird, takes root and grows luxuriantly.

Is this is metaphor for thoughts and learning? Think about it. Relevant learning takes so much effort to develop and cultivate. Irrelevant learning like jokes, tunes and useless statistics just flow into our mind and take root and become ineffaceable.

The power of Listening in Counseling

Listening is the first of the three crucial skills of a Manager. I discovered that it tops the list of skills required by a good counselor too!

Vasanthi gave this expansion of the word Listening that I liked:

L ook Light travels faster than sound. Catch what he says and what he does.

I nterest Should be in the person and in the content.

S incerity

T otality Listen to the whole message. Listen till the person finishes.

E mpty There should be no filters, barriers or other external thoughts

N eed-oriented

I also liked Dr. Verma’s comment on the issue whether poor listening skills are an issue to be addressed by counseling. He suggested that where the person does not know how to listen he needs training. But if he does not want to listen he needs counseling.

The strength of Irrelevance

Random Thoughts

Parenting

There is no such thing as quality time or quantity time. You should be available when you are needed.

Gender Bias

I am a person; not a gender. We should all be proud to be sentient human beings.

Death and Dying

An elegy is a recognition of the vacuum left by the departed person, accepting it and going forward.

“Why then? Why There? Why thus? We cry…The Heavens are Silent.”

W H Auden’s Elegy on the death of JFK.

Counseling Skills in the Work Place

Today I attended a one-day workshop organized by Madras Management Association on Counseling Skills. The facilitator was Ms. Vasanthi Ranganathan, a senior trainer with a formal degree in Counseling from the USA. While there were a lot of inputs on what counselors do from her, my learning also came from experienced participants like Dr. Sanjay Verma of L&T who sat at my table and gave valuable insights into the topic

Nevertheless, applying the first habit (Be Proactive), coupled with the seventh (Sharpen the Saw) I decided to document whatever I could learn about counseling today. Most of it came from co-participants. Some of it from the materials the facilitator had provided and her sessions which I give below:

What is Counseling?

“Counseling is a process where we enable the counselee to identify and deal with his or her own problems, perceived or real.”

Counseling should achieve the following results:

Counseling should help the counselee accept that they have a problem and enable them to understand the root cause of the problem that needs to be addressed.

Counseling is about creating ownership about the situation. She made a point about India and other Asian countries belonging to collectivistic cultures that shift blame for events outside of the person concerned. She compared it with her favorite country, the USA where Individualistic cultures have enabled people to take ownership of all their actions.

Counseling should create an awareness that options do exist. It should facilitate the identification of various options and help the counselee to choose the most appropriate option.

Vasanthi was very specific about allowing other people to think for themselves. We should not choose for them. She agreed Dr. Verma that using our persuasive skills to influence someone is not counseling.

I liked this comment that she made: Your job is to create people who are interdependent.

Let your people come up with various options. You will add your own, if any. Finally, we enable them to discover the most appropriate solution.

Counseling is a behavior modification therapy. It should not be seen as influencing. The intervention should happen over a longer period possibly, twice a week for 4 to 8 weeks.

Counseling is not about fact, it is about feeling. (Then, why was she so distant and aloof.)

In counseling, we help the person to understand his problem, his perception of the problem and possibly appreciate how other people would look at it. The person is helped to address the issue and understand his feelings about it.

She spoke about “traditional” counseling such as astrologers and crying to Gods in temples.

While, I do agree with her about astrologers (as an amateur palmist, I have counseled many people during a palm reading session!), I doubt if crying to Gods in Temples will qualify as “counseling.” At best, it may promote introspection and bring about catharsis. But to call it counseling would be inaccurate as counseling is essentially external.

The truly traditional counselors were the elders at home, provided they had the necessary sensitivity.

When touching upon counseling after a sexual harassment or emotional torture, she said that “counseling can prepare the victim to handle the situation.

Similarly in marital conflicts and alcoholism, the victim is co-dependent on the problem. Most of us like to be seen as the victim.

Who can be a good counselor

Anyone who possesses the skill can be a counselor. While the immediate supervisor would be a good choice, any bias due to nearness should be monitored.

An experienced peer or anyone who is acceptable within the organization can also be a good counselor.

Even younger persons can counsel. Vasanthi gave the example of Muruga the son of Lord Shiva who taught his own father the meaning of Pranava. But it’s going to take a long time before persons lower in the hierarchy can counsel seniors.

She told us that she would teach us three counseling skills which were restatement, linking and summarizing. But as we had already spent almost the whole of the day, she rushed through it with mock counseling sessions where participants truly had no clue as to what to do and the facilitator kept pointing out mistakes and finally demonstrated her version of counseling which simply allowing the person to talk, repeating what he said and turning away from him to another person and so on.

A Brief History of the Indian Middle Class

In the United States of America, we have numerous rags to riches stories. Most of them are instances of extreme perseverance coupled with business acumen. In India, we rarely have rags to riches stories. This is because India, like most of South East Asia is riddled with corruption and bureaucracy. The bureaucratic mechanism coupled with corrupt politicians and administrators ensures that the rich can always get their way. The poor can never do this. So in countries like India, the Rich become richer and the poor stay poor.

A second generation rich Indian has to be extremely foolish, naïve or downright stupid to become poor. Squandering the ancestral/Parental wealth on habits and lifestyle related expenditure comes under the heading of stupid. Even an average intelligence can retain most of the wealth and lead a life of luxury by playing it safe with the inherited corpus.

The poor, on the other hand, have to become extremely violent or indulge in criminal activities before they can enter the ranks of the truly rich.

India also has a huge middle-class population. The middle class comes between the upper class or rich and the lower class or poor. Being India, the middle class itself is further stratified into Lower Middle Class (LMC) and Upper Middle Class (UMC). There must be Middle Middle Class but I wouldn’t be able to recognize one on sight.

The Middle Classes have always been a contented lot expecting no more than job security, a regular pay check and controlled inflation. They treasure a owned house and the usual wish list of the UMC is a owned house in the suburbs, a decent marriage for their daughter and a peaceful retired life. The value systems they have developed over the last 100 years are the basic value systems of the Indian Sub-Continent.

A few of the tenets of this Value System are

• Study hard, pass the right exams and the Government or Employer will thereafter take care of you.
• Work hard and stick on to your job.
• Use less of everything. Save whatever you can.
• Don’t take risk.
• Don’t express emotions openly.

These are the result of the Indian attitude of fatalism coupled with British education. The letters to the editor sent to many English Dailies are the voices of the middle class protesting against any disturbance of the status quo.

The first generation of this middle class was born before Independence. They grew older in Independent India; struggled hard; gave their children the only thing they thought had any value—college education. Their children flooded the IITs and RECs or became Chartered Accountants and Doctors.

This second generation Middle Class quickly realized the potential in working abroad. The Middle East was their first target followed by Australia and Africa. These when they returned had slowly created a new tier among the rich. The newly returned Indians (NRI?) had a deep longing to do something for India but lacked the ability to make a lasting impact.

The third generation eschewed Middle East and made USA their land of hopes and dreams. In this they resembled many other races that saw America as the land of life and liberty. This generation is the truly lost generation—Indians by birth and in their hearts but Americans by domicile and conditioning.

The middle class value systems imbibed in their youth has made this group an ideal work force—intelligent, honest, unquestioning and flexible. Since they still retain their Middle Class Mentality they save a lot and hence are always a bit away from the mainstream American ethos and culture that says earn, spend and move on.

India’s ability to grow with sustainability and provide a quality life to its people is essentially in the hands of the fourth generation of this middle class who are currently in schools and colleges. Will they too leave for working in foreign countries? Or will theyt stay. Will they dream of becoming Americans or will they strive to make India better than America?

Inspirational Leadership

Extraordinary human beings live their message. They walk their talk. Above all else, they are Inspirational. Be one.