Warrier's COLLAGE July 19, 2021

Welcome to Warrier's COLLAGE On Monday July 19, 2021 Adi Shankaracharya on pain and suffering https://youtu.be/FRUrTb1hikc (Link Courtesy : Mohan Krishnan Thiruvananthapuram) Sadhana Panchakam https://youtu.be/q9M2upqbPA8 (Talk 7 by Tejomayananda) Good Morning Recipe for Marina Bajjis at E2. Nice Day M G Warrier Flash : Mumbai Rains https://wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/pti-stories/mumbai-rains-water-complex-hit-boil-drinking-water-bmc-tells-citizens-121071800398_1.html "Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation on Sunday asked citizens to boil water before drinking as heavy rains over the last two days had led to flooding in the water purification complex at Bhandup." A Caring partner https://youtu.be/up_Ov-Leu5g (Link Courtesy : Prem Anand Kannur) B Select Responses 1) Vathsala Jayaraman Chennai On reading the great article by Shri V N Kelkar on Pandharpur in his own lucrative style, about the grand ptocession in multiple palanquins towards Pandharpur for Aashada Ekadasi, I can't help thinking about Ganapathy. He was born Ganapathy Moorthi, but few know him by that name. In the music circles in Chennai and elsewhere, he is familiar as Tukaram Ganapathy, a title bestowed on him by his Guru Krishna Premi. And he lives up to the name, having become the flag-bearer for Tukaram's Warkari tradition in Tamil Nadu. His concerts, where he sings abhangs, have become so popular that they are now a regular feature during the December music season in Chennai, where mainly Carnatic music in its purest form reigns.(Continued at H) 2) Reshmy Warrier Shared this link on Zen Interpretation of Perceptions : https://youtu.be/9p5Oi4wPVVo C Profile : Nikhil Chakraborty https://indianjournalismreview.com/2013/11/03/the-editor-who-declined-padma-bhushan/amp/ NC or Nikhilda, as most who knew him called him, plunged into active journalism as a special correspondent with the Communist Party organ People’s War(1944-46) and People’s Age (1946-48), and later Crossroads (1952-55) and New Age(1955-57). He then set up a feature news service, India Press Agency (IPA) in collaboration with another Communist journalist David Cohen. In 1959, IPA shot into prominence with a report of the then prime minister’s personal assistant M.O. Mathai, that rocked Parliament, forcing Mathai to resign. D Book Review : Pilgrim's Progress https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Pilgrims-Progress Legacy The book is a Puritan conversion narrative, of which there are predecessors in Bunyan’s own work (Grace Abounding, 1666), John Foxe’s The Book of Martyrs (1563), as well as other emblem books and chapbooks from the Renaissance. The Pilgrim’s Progress, written in homely yet dignified biblical prose, has some of the qualities of a folktale, and in its humour and realistic portrayals of minor characters, it anticipates the 18th-century novel. The book was immediately popular and went through several editions within a few years of initial publication. It was translated into some 200 languages and remained a favourite for the following two centuries. Notable adaptations included a 1951 opera composed by Ralph Vaughan Williams. E Readers write 1) R Jayakumar Mumbai Today's (July 18) Satsang, Lesson from the Cockroach and the State Secret all have one thing in common that of how to use our emotions to handle situations in life. Like the waiter in the restaurant I too react slowly without any haste to any situation in life. My mother used to brand me as an insensitive person for this. My better half also share the same opinion. But I strongly believe that by not reacting instantly to a situation one can take time to understand who is wrong and who is right before taking a decision. The story of the General (fiction ), shows how the son is able to handle the situation and take a decision, even for an euthanasia because he understood that his father's living with mental torture was now meaningless. Regarding the advice in the Satsang that we must ensure that our actions done with our emotional intelligence should become a lesson for our future generation, my opinion is that the present day youth do not like to learn anything from our lecturing or by the examples shown by us. Rather they like to learn everything firsthand from books, media and direct interaction with outside world. Only thing we can do is to point out where they err and leave it to them to use their own emotional intelligence to correct themselves. R Jayakumar 2) Bajji in Marina : Vathsala Jayaraman While thinking of Marina I am reminded of an interesting experience I had. Whenever we go to Marina my children love to buy fresh fried very long big hot bajjis.Once my mother-in-law expressed her desire to taste those bajjis, subject to 2 conditions : 1) It should be prepared by brahmins. 2) It should be the first set of bajjis prepared on the day not eaten by anybody earlier. ( She had her own convictions. Whether they were justified or not, is an entirely different issue) My husband agreed. We went to Marina at 3 p m in the hot sun. I think that nobody would visit the beach at that hour. The beach was totally barren. After waiting for 15 mts near the Kannagi Statue we saw a Mami pushing a small cart proceeding towards beach. We silently followed her. It took nearly 35 mts for her to arrange- spread a plastic sheet, keep the 2 stoves in an unshakeable position, and keep the tin sheets around the stoves to avoid being putdown by sea breeze. Then we told her that she should give the entire first set of bajjis to us only. She was very happy to have an order for 25 bajjis. Yet she could not start preparations as her brother, normally assisting her was a little bit late. So I offered to help her by cutting the plantain into slices, mixing the batter, pouring oil into the pan etc. It was a novel experience to sit in the open and do things in between closing the eyes to avoid sand entering into our eyes. Normally I used to wonder how they prepare such fat bajjis with a thin layer of vegetable. I found out the secret on the day. As the bajjis were half fried, she took the bajjis out of the hot oil and placed them into the sieve. For the second time, she dipped the half fried bajjis into the thick batter and fried them again. We bought the entire first set,25-30 and we were very happy to have fulfilled our mother-in-law's desire without contradicting the conditions. Then and there my son used to tease her saying that he would inform all the relatives that she had taken bajjis in Marina. Very often this funny fight would take place between the grand mother and grandson. While I was helping the poor lady she told me that her husband was jobless and was not prepared to help her too. Her two sons were in the college and would help her in receiving the customers,collecting money and pack home after 7.30p.m. This was her daily routine for more than 25 years. She looked very pitiable in her old nine yards saree with unkempt hair, with only a mangala sutra and glass bangles to adorn her. It was so nice of her to give University education to her children. How much of responsibility! What a great tension! Daily walking a km from her small one room portion in Triplicane to Marina. More than preparing the items, packing, unpacking and arranging the venue in scorching heat unmindful of the weather- really a great job. Sometimes we feel tired to do some extra preparations at home with a decent kitchen with gas stoves and exhaust fans and 24 hrs water supply. We have to feel ashamed of ourselves. We need not have any regrets or complaints since we have a princely life in an airconditioned office. This experience revealed a lot of things and it touched our hearts.Normally we go to Marina, enjoy sea breeze, take some sundal and come away. But the lives of those who depend on Marina for their livelihood are really pitiable. I salute many such mothers who sacrifice their entire life inhaling the oily odour with the sole aim of giving good education to their children. They burn themselves to see their children in green. Vathsala Jayaraman F Mainstream Magazine* https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/?debut_articles=10 *Has discontinued print edition. No subscription being accepted. Email edition available. G Quotes about pilgrimage https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/pilgrimage.html Like : "The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out an inner journey. The inner journey is the interpolation of the meanings and signs of the outer pilgrimage. One can have one without the other. It is best to have both. Thomas Merton (Thomas Morton was an early colonist in North America from Devon, England. A lawyer, writer, and social reformer known for studying Native American culture, he founded the colony of Merrymount, located in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts) H A1 continued... He first heard abhangs when he was 12 from members of the Dakshina Warkari Sampradaya (Warkari tradition of the south) who had visited his village. His parents, Vaidhyanatha Iyer and Meenakshi Ammal, were followers of the sampradaya. Thereafter, Ganapathy took the pilgrimage to Pandharpur, the sacred town of the Vithoba, in Maharashtra, where he met Baba Mara Satharkar. He purchased over a hundred cassettes of abhangs and returned. “I purchased a English-Marathi dictionary to learn more about the language. Vijay Venkatachalam, who had stayed in Maharashtra for over two decades and knew Marathi, translated the abhangs sung in the cassettes for me," he says. As advised by his Guru Krishna Premi, Ganapathy was trained under bhajan singers Vithoba Naik and Venkateshwara Naik for two years in Cochin. When he began to sing in public in his hometown in the 90's, few people would turn up since the language of abhangs was unfamiliar to them. As he started comparing abhangs with familiar Tamil poems, he started pulling crowds. In 2002, he was called by the Maharashtra Students Union of University of Pennsylvania for a concert. That was his first tour and he sang at 48 venues, in Florida, Los Angeles, Miami, New Jersey, etc. . Ganapathy, who has never lived in Maharashtra, learned Marathi through abhangs. He had a translator with him who would sit beside him during the concerts and explain the abhang to the audience as he sang. Now Ganapathy creates a serene atmosphere where listeners can immerse in the depths of literature created by Jnaneswar, Tukaram, Namdev and others. Many used to wonder whether this will work in Chennai especially when the carnatic concerts are going on in a feverish pace in December. Contrary to their expectation, it is an overwhelming experience to listen to a two hours programme of Abhangs. There are 19 persons on stage. A divine atmosphere and vibration fill the hall as "Jai Jai Ramakrishna Hari, Panduranga Hari' echo on the stage. The chaste Marathi, Bhakthi laden verses, shrill sound of cymbals, the rhythm of Tabla, the translations ,explanations and interpretations of the abhangs in Tamil add lustre. This is the procedure, not only in Tamilnadu but also in Maharashtra where the bhajans drew their origin, as told by a Maharashtrian friend. The varkari tradition is set in several varieties of beats controlled by Talakaris in white turban like head gear surround the musician in semi circle. They have light dance movements. The main singer is also accompanied by a Hindustani classical veteran for improvising raga at stipulated areas. Though Carnatic singers sing an abhang or two at the end of the concert as tukkadas, Warkari Tradition aims at safeguarding its roots,explaining the philosophy behind the powerful expressions. Even Gandhiji moved by Tukaram's abhangs translated some of them when he was in Yerwada prison. It is said that the Bhakthi cult which was started by Azhwars in Tamilnadu around 8th Century or so,settled down as Warkari Sampradaya in Maharashtra some 300 years later. Shri Ganapathy has established Vishwa Warkari Parivar having branches in many places in Tamilnadu and Mumbai imparting training to nearly 2000 students in bhajan singing,the best stress reliever for the present day generation. Bhagavatha Melam in opera style is popular in Tamil nadu. Even today Melattur bhagavatha mela utsav is celebrated in which many people who have settled in US participate with great zeal. Vathsala Jayaraman