It is usually thought in the world of classical arts, especially in the Carnatic circles in India that a prodigy is born in a family which is rich with a music tradition, and in most cases, belonging to the lineage of one of the stalwarts. It is rather rare to find a genius being born in an unconnected atmosphere. When the eight-holed bamboo flute was still trying to figure out its place in main stream Carnatic music as a solo and an accompanying instrument and when the playing techniques developed by Mali (TR Mahalingam) were awaiting to be housed in a creative musician, Bangalore N.
Author:arjun
किं वाससा चीकरिबाकिरेण
किं दारुणा वङ्कर-टिङ्करेण ।
सर्वज्ञभूपालविलोकनार्थं
वैदुष्यमेको विदुषां सहायः ॥
Of late, echoes of a certain something called "Art Therapy" has been resonating throughout our land. More specifically, there has been an increase in the number of self-proclaimed "Art Therapists" strutting around with claims that they can cure a wide variety of diseases using music, dance, painting and poetry. They occupy the line already populated by that class of people who've anointed themselves as Sanyasis-Babas and Gurujis.
Rare footage of Pandit Kumar Gandharva (1924-92) singing as a ten year old. He was born Shivaputra Siddharamayya Komkalimath and in his early years was given the title of 'Kumar Gandharva' in recognition of his genius.
There was a certain amount of misrule and evil during the reign of the Nandas. A powerful force awoke that would destroy all that evil from the past. That was Chandragupta Maurya. What we know from our written history – and commonly agreed upon – is that Chandragupta was a great example for the brilliance of kshaatra. There are many accounts of this in Jaina, Bauddha, and Hindu – Sanatana Dharmic – literature.
Bhaja Govindam is a popular poem attributed to the scholar-saint Adi Shankara, one of the foremost advocates of the Advaita Vedanta School of philosophy. A short work, of 31 verses, it urges us to pray to Govinda (‘the herder of cows,’ another name for Krishna).
From a young age, Krishnacharya apparently suffered from ill-health. He had several digestion-related ailments for which he tried a variety of treatments, all of which failed. Finally, he decided to create a specific diet and remold his eating habits, and as a result attained good health. He had named that diet ‘ಹವ್ಯಪಾಕ ಪದ್ಧತಿ’ [Anything offered to the fire of yajna is traditionally called ‘havya’ or ‘havis,’ ‘paaka’ refers to cooking, and ‘paddhati’ is custom or practice.
In 1972, Satyajit Ray made a documentary film on Benode Behari Mukherjee, a painter who became blind in his fifties. The documentary features the life and works of the great painter, traversing the journey from his childhood till his affliction and life after his handicap.
Mukherjee famously said, "Blindness is a new feeling, a new experience, a new state of being."
Through the ages, in the writings of great thinkers and social commentators, we find a certain weakness for nostalgia. We often find passages that bemoan the fall in moral values in the present generation (as it applied to them) and how the days of the past were so much better.