Entertainment: On or Off stage?

Who says people go to kutcheris only to listen to music? Such ridiculous thoughts should be erased at once. There are so many other things of high importance that should be discussed only when the artist sings. I suddenly realized this revelation when I went to a prominent artists’ kutcheri recently.

Certainly I did expect two definite categories of audience; One- a music critic and two- a common man who has come to enjoy the sheer beauty of carnatic music. That apart, there was one that I ought to have expected- the gossip queens! Clad in beautiful Conjeevaram saris and elegant glittery gold, they were two middle-aged women sitting right behind me. They turned into unbearable pests when they started jabbering a mile a minute.

I must say, the artist had mustered a beautiful set of songs for the evening and I couldn’t listen to even one with peace. On one side when raga ‘Amruthavarshini’ was flawlessly delivered, on the other side the gruesome twosome tortured me to death by critically analyzing the weather department’s forecast for the day! What followed for the rest of the session were miserable set of exchanges with either a highly flattery or slur remarks about their family members. “Oh my God, she is singing Ananda Bhairavi so well. This reminds me, this lady sings like my son-in-law’s sister’s mother-in-law.”

One can’t call this eavesdropping because there were loud enough to the extent that they had couple of heads giving them dirty looks occasionally. So it wasn’t just me. But to maintain the dignity and poise, we chose not to bring about a brawl in the concert.

‘Please switch off your mobile phones’. This standard phrase is purposely ignored. Looks like putting it in silent mode is a grave mistake. If urgency is what you usually expect, then walk out of the hall than allowing it to sing a ‘kuthu’ song. Only the colleges seem to have adopted the best method as far this rule goes. Pay your fine or lose your phone.

Artists have often complained about this. “It often irritates me when people keep chattering or their mobile phones ring constantly. They fail to realize that the artists lose their concentration.”, says Sandhya, a budding artist.

When the artists are being ruthlessly bashed if they don’t perform up to the expectations, the audiences are often spared for the so called haughty and not-so-good behaviour even when the musicians are at their best. Talk about double standards.

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“Virtual life - a gilt-edged sword?”

Virtual life has become a fashion statement and an enduring part of life these days. The number keeps swelling day by day like the advancement of technology. But where are we all heading? Well, Diplomacy might bring out a huge set of answers for a single question in this case.

To begin with a positive note, it provides a great platform and grounding not only for expanding your circle of friends but also helps a lot of youth to share their minds imbued with a sense of purpose to get themselves exposed in various fields. Leave alone the youth, many of the business decision makers are using two way dialogs that resemble social networking sites to advertise their products because of their effectiveness. LinkedIn has helped people connect with their ex- colleagues. Moving to the field of medicine, these sites are used even by healthcare professionals as a means to manage institutional knowledge, disseminate peer to peer knowledge and to highlight individual physicians and institutions. While PatientsLikeMe is a site that enables its members to share their symptoms and treatment leading to the understanding of the real life outcomes, Sobercircle hastens the rehabilitation of addicts and alcoholics through compassionate communication between its members. But all these positive aspects cannot possibly shelter its negative ones.

The word ‘privacy’ loses its identity invariably. People give too much of personal information and there has also been a growing concern about the mushrooming of sexual predators here. Also in medical and scientific research, asking subjects for information about their behaviour is normally strictly scrutinized by institutional review boards, for example, to ensure that adolescents and their parents have informed consent. It is not clear whether the same rules apply to researchers who collect data from social networking sites. These sites often contain a great deal of data that is hard to obtain via traditional means. Even though the data is public, republishing it in a research paper might be considered invasion of privacy. Sometimes companies can also hire a person just by looking at their profile which is absolutely unsafe. Many of the teenagers post photographs having skin show which would get them into trouble and they might even lose morale.

The pros can always bring out the best and can help the youth in nation building if they are focused in the right direction. Hence awareness is more than a necessity at this juncture as it would enlighten everyone about the pros and cons of virtual living.

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Matrimonial troubles!

Free matrimony service? Feel free to contact me. After months of battle with my dearest sibling who was hell bent on staying single, my parents finally managed to get a nod from her. Convincing her seemed like a task in itself. Sadly, we didn’t realize what was coming.

Belonging to the typical Kerala Iyer clan – ‘Molagootal’, ‘Erisseri’, ‘Palakkad’, ‘Koundhai’, ‘Uchchikku’- you might hear this Malayalam version of Tamil if you get to pass by my house. Thankfully, though not orthodox to the extent of being a nuisance, they are understandably conservative. Having said that, it is quite obvious that horoscope hogs all the time in the world with its weird synergy of Science and Mathematics. No wonder I hated Science!

So why I am bothered about my sister’s horoscope? My middle-aged-paranoid mother, who is not even remotely close to being computer savvy, is panic stricken by the delay of my sister’s wedding. Taking this as an advantage, she pressurizes me to sit with her to register promptly in all leading matrimonial websites. Unfortunately having seen me facebooking twice, she is under an impression that I am perennially jobless. She does not spare me even when I have to do my assignments.

The treasure hunt to find ‘Mr.Right’ is on. The star seldom matches. If it does then the looks are not satisfactory. If both of them settle peacefully, then the financial expectation fails. Doing this ground work of short listing for my sister is painstaking as she would reject most of it citing lame reasons. What is worse? It so happens that I invariably end up attending calls pertaining to this, with random people leaving their phone numbers wanting my parents to get back to them if we are interested.

Putting up with all this would have been bearable if things had taken shape by now. But no! We seem no where near the shore! Had my sister done this job herself by finding her ‘Mr.Right’, it would be a better place to live.

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