Karna Shapatham....

The powerful rendition of “Karna Shapatham” (or Karna's Vow), as a part of the Kathakali art form brings to life the illustrious story of Karna and his great vow to his mother Kunti. V and I listened to Kalanilayam Unnikrishnan's recital on this over the weekend and I felt that I must write about it here. The story in this scene explains the “famous” conversation between Kunti and Karna before the Kurukshetra battle.

In the story of Mahabharata, one cannot fail to notice that every single character is a story in itself. Each individual’s characterization is perfectly sketched in this great saga and that of Karna’s stands out as one of the most fascinating one of them all. V and I even discussed on how someone should make a justifiable and well researched movie on this character. Born as a Kshatriya to virgin Kunti and the Sun God, he was abandoned by her, only to have been raised by a charioteer, taught by the proficient archer, sage Parasurama, befriended and knighted by the powerful Duryodhan and found his place in the Kurukshetra war against his own brothers, the Pandavas. He was slain in the end not because he was weaker than his opponent Arjun, but only because of the single mis-doing of his mother Kunti and the 3 separate curses that befell him decides to act on him at the same crucial moment in the war!

The sequence here explains how Kunti discloses his birth and lineage to him and tries to lure him into the Pandavas side to defeat the Kauravas, while Duryodhan and Dusshasan stand overhearing this conversation. Karna, shocked at his revelation, accuses her of all the humiliation that he has faced in his life due to his non-kshatriya status, his unconditional love and respect towards Duryodhan and his ever famous vow to her, that forms the crux of this Kathakali’s existence. He promises her that a) Out of all the 5 Pandavas, he will only kill Arjun while the others will be spared. It could only be either he or Arjun that will remain alive at the end of the war; thereby she will at any time have only 5 Pandavas alive and b) that he will use the famous "divine" weapon only once against Arjun and c) he will die before Duryodhan can die(stressing on the fact that Duryodhan's safety is ensured as long as Karna is alive).

The “Karna Shapatham” Kathakali is a lovely adaptation of the story with rich literature and detailed research on the scene. The emotions that the characters of Karna, Kunti and Duryodhan undergo are vividly displayed through the lyrics & clearly catch the mind’s eye. Though I did not follow all the Sanskrit verses in it, V translated some of them for me. I have watched live Kathakali performance earlier of “Keechaka Vadham”, but hope to watch this one too someday.

Precognition almost?

Michael Jackson, the undisputed “King of Pop”, died early this morning in LA, after suffering a cardiac arrest. This flash headline that I read on Times of India as soon as I came into work this morning turned out to be kind of eerie.

On my way to work, the taxis usually always play Chinese songs or the local radio relays some Chinese comedy talk-shows. But today before I got off, I listened to “Beat it”!!!. For those of you who know all about living in China will agree with me that its not every day that one gets to listen to an English song in a public transport and the chances of that song being one of MJ’s is a rarity in its own way!

This is not the only reason why I am calling this news as eerie. Late yesterday evening I was reading about Marlon Brando on Wikipedia (I actually read an article about Mohanlal and Priyan planning to start an IPL team – a question from V on whether Priyan had won any great awards got me to Wikipedia him out – that led me to read about Mohanlal – then about Mani Ratnam -then about Al Pacino and then about Marlon – all of whose work I am an ardent fan of!). Under the section “Final years and death”, I read this entire bit – “The actor was a longtime close friend of the entertainer Michael Jackson and paid regular visits to his Neverland Ranch, resting there for weeks. Brando also participated in the singer's solo career thirtieth-anniversary celebration concerts in 2001, and starred in his 15-minute-long music video, "You Rock My World", in the same year. The actor's son, Miko, was Jackson's bodyguard and assistant for several years, and is a friend of the singer. He stated "The last time my father left his house to go anywhere; to spend any kind of time... was with Michael Jackson.”!!

Now what are the chances of someone reading about Marlon Brando yesterday and that too his complete profile, life, death and chance upon reading about Michael Jackson on it, a day before his death!

..The In“sensitive index”?

For the last one month, like every other harrowed stock market investor waiting to “re-enter” the market, I have been waiting too – impatiently.

We were invested in the share market for long term but the sudden surge in the market immediately after the Election Result (The sensex witnessed its biggest rise in long time of over 2100 points, when it hit its upper circuit levels and trading had to be halted.) this year saw us liquidate our stocks for a handsome profit. We thought we were intelligent and made the most out of that moment, knowing that we would re-enter once the “Election Result Frenzy” died down and the markets go back to its earlier lows. The sensex however has mocked our intelligence. It has refused to show any kind of slowing down since then!

It has now been more than a month since the surge and everyday I study the market in hope of it getting “corrected”! Conversely, the number of points its shedding is way too less than its surge each day! Like any other average investor, I understand that the stock market’s rise during the last few weeks is no evidence of an economic recovery in the country but questions such as what must be preventing this bubble from exploding?, is the market going over-board in its feel-good euphoria?, is it making the stocks values go higher than their real worth?, are making me curious of its behaviour.

The market analysts and business writers have not been very insightful either. When we have a section of them predicting an imminent correction in the stock market, another section has proudly declared that there is no stopping back the sensex now.. its on its way to the 20K mark! I wish I was on the other side of the market now. I would have been preparing myself to laugh all the way to the bank if I was already invested in this. The waiting-for-the market-to-fall side is not a very exciting side to be in, especially when the wait seems to be “indefinite”!

As I write this, the sensex has gone up by 162 points from its previous close last Friday to hit 14667!...

Nihao Macau!

The 10th IIFA award ceremony at the Venetian in Macau was held last Saturday. I had never been to a movie awards ceremony and this seemed to be an ideal opportunity to grab a peek. 3 VIP passes for the event (the boss of our friend from Hong Kong got these passes for us) ensured our (me with both the Vinods) attendance at the event.

The 1 hour turbojet ferry ride from Hong Kong to Macau was interesting and eventful. The ferry area, on disembarking, has shuttle buses to all the casinos. We reached the Venetian by about 3:30 in the afternoon, collected our passes for the event and decided to try our luck at the casinos.

The 10,500,000 sq ft Venetian is a sight to behold! This place doesn’t fail to amaze me every time we visit it. The Venetian, with its 3000 suites, claims to be large enough to hold “ninety Boeing 747 jumbo jets” and houses the largest casino in the world! Now, that’s something. It feels like Venice, with its canals, gondoliers on their gondolas, food and the ambience has been created again for the Asians here! We walked around the place for a while, clicked a few pictures and grabbed a quick meal at one of their many restaurants. Lady luck did not accompany us this time and we were not successful in making any big fast-bucks at the casino, although I will remember Venetian as the casino where I made my first ever win last year!

Around 7pm we reached the Cotai Arena, the IIFA awards venue. The event “promptly” commenced at 9pm, almost 2 hours later than the scheduled event time. Come on.. its an Indian Awards event…what else did you expect! The event however was a huge success, thanks to the scale of the set-up and meticulous execution, which undoubtedly is one of China’s forte!

Barring the absence of the King Khan and his “friends”, there was a good “star” attendance which included the Big B and his clan, the Roshans, the Chopras, the Kapoors (Anil Kapoor this time) etc. The hosts Boman Irani, Ritesh Deshmukh and Lara Datta managed their tasks well and brought the house down on splits with their humour. Abhishek and Ash’s public proclamation of their love for each other, and Hrithik’s act to credit his “style icon” award to his wife Suzanne appeared to be desperate efforts to swing the media in the “right” direction away from the controversies of Ms.Ciesla and Ms.Mori respectively. However, Boman’s imitation of Anil Kapoor, Antakshari by the stars, spoof of the movies that were nominated under the “best film” category and good stage performances by a lot of the actors and actresses ensured a lively and eventful program.

.... A Red Salute!

Today is Fourth June and also the sensitive twentieth anniversary of “The Tiananmen Incident” in China. For all those who do not know what this incident is, I suggest you Google or Wikipedia it out to learn more! One is not supposed to write (or read or talk) about this “taboo subject” here lest fall under the watchful eagle eye of the “big brother”.

Leading up to this day, a lot of websites (and a lot of popular proxy sites such as kproxy.com) including youtube, hotmail, twitter, flickr, blogspot, wordpress and bing are blocked in China, to ensure there is limited searches and online protests demonstrated by the local nationals in commemoration of this day. I have observed that, particularly in China, internet is a very important platform used to discuss or criticize issues and blogging is a la mode. A lot of people take into blogging and chat forums passionately. The sentiments will definitely be high around the date of the incident and hence this move by the concerned to curb that “right”. It appears that the News channels such as CNN and BBC are blocked for most part of the day due to the frequency of words such as “In China today..”, or “In Beijing today…” or “Twenty years ago in Beijing…” etc used in their news relays. Of course, RTI and FoS can be controlled here!

I read that the capital city of Beijing will be heavily guarded with a lot of people being asked (read forced) to stay indoors today and foreign journalists & newspaper teams are not allowed to go to “the Tiananmen square”, to ensure the day passes by “peacefully”. I read further that, every year the last Sunday prior to the fourth day of this month will see the people of Hong Kong demonstrate publicly calling for justice. Being a former British colony, Hong Kong is probably the only place in China where matters such as these can be venerated openly. A local group there called the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movement in China (Yes, their website is also blocked), supports this demonstration by designing standard t-shirts for the event. However, this year they saw a lot of people design their own t-shirts with “protest slogans” and the “incident-related images” on it and share with others online. During the day, a lot of protests and candle-vigils will also be held in various parts of the city, in their attempt to force the Mainland government to acknowledge and apologize for that day. Although I am tempted to include images of the t-shirts here on this post, I refrain for the same reason I mentioned earlier.

I for one do not quite believe that these protesters dare wear these t-shirts anywhere in Hong Kong (or China) after the protests are over!......Lal Salaam!

Candlelight vigils in Hong Kong

From Picture Courtesy: BBC ....

From Picture Courtesy: BBC....