I think I saw my first piano in a movie, if my memory is not too ossified, in a weepy Telugu/Tamil movie for which Illayaraja had scored music for, "Hrudayam". I suppose as music directors for Indian movies went, one had to have a degree of affinity to directly use Western Classical music motifs in their work, for which Illu has credentials aplenty. Also any one remembers the Bach violin solo he deploys the Telugu movie, "Swaranakamalam"?

Pianos, because of their shape, size and exoticness, were are as remote to me as the moon. I remember being suitably awed, and perhaps, mildly envious when my mother after a rare trip to the United States, brought back pictures of a house she was invited to that displayed a spankin' grand piano in the living room. This envy was somewhat assuaged by the very basic Casio synthesizer I had managed to get out of that trip taken by my mother as an offering. My father subsequently arranged a few music lessons too with that rare uncle who didn't think music was for the pansies. Not that anything came out those few lessons; practicing scales and deciphering notes in four ruled notebooks required much patience and discipline that I didn't possess then, and perhaps, don't even now. Oh well! This simply adds another thing to the torture list for the future spawn: unasked for piano lessons.

I had wait until I came to here to the United States to finally meet a grand piano, a Miss. Steinway. And was she beautiful! And because of my youthful sins of omission I had to be content with just giving her a peck on the keys, i.e., play half remembered scales. I also realize now because of the lack of musical education and application on my part, I can't deploy the musician persona, which always seems to have stronger effect on ovaries than a mere poet or writer persona!

Jokes aside, one of the first tapes I rented in the first few months here was of "The Piano", with the lovely Michael Nyman score. "The Heart Asks Pleasure First" is a stunning theme for a movie, and Flora dancing to this music on the beach is an unforgettable sequence of visuals, which stands out in the many movies I have seen. Of course this movie, somewhat justifiably I think, has been criticized for romanticizing the native in opposition to the quotidian “massa”, who asks for, and gets a piano haunted mail-in bride.

Subsequently I fell in with my old friend T here, who had played both the piano and the organ at a church for many years. And he got me started on the piano repertoire with Glenn Gould and his opus of piano performances, notably those of Bach's Goldberg Variations. He also took me along to a few piano recitals. Given this, now piano is not as strange a beast as it once was in my imagination. End of post.

This evening you may enjoy playing:

Beethoven's transcendental 'Moonlight Sonata' & Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp Minor

Photo by Joao

In a quick glance, turning away or towards, a question arises: is that the neck of a woman or the stalk of a hibiscus?

This interesting article on the Ladder that organizes labor by nationality in the London job market brought back to my mind a few interesting discussions I have had with a doctor friend who felt it was beneath his self respect to sign up to work for the British NHS.

His stories basically boiled to this: however long and hard you may work over there, if you are brown and foreign to boot, you will be stuck to doing scut work. No doubt scut work in Vilayat pays more generously than back in the Desh but essentially your circle of multicultural hell or paradise has been pre-chosen for you. Given this, he claimed that things are significantly better for FMGs (foreign medical graduates) here in USA - a claim that is qualified by Abraham Verghese in his autobiographical books as an Indian doctor making his way in America by essentially saying, "yes, provided you are willing to work in the rural outposts (and thus undesirable locations for the natives) such as Johnson City, Tennessee in his case.

In this context, I must also mention and recommend "Dirty Pretty Things"; an excellent movie starring Audrey Tautou of Amelie fame, dealing with the conditions and lives of 'illegal aliens' (to use the US terminology) caught in this modern day Dickensian London market.