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Vol. 22 No. 4 <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
www.pittsburghpatrika.com<br />
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
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ittsburgh atrika<br />
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The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
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The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
The Quarterly Magazine (Jan, Apr, Jul, and Oct) for the Indian Diaspora<br />
Vol. 22 No. 4 www.pittsburghpatrika.com <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
4006 Holiday Park Drive, Murrysville, PA 15668<br />
Phone/Fax: (724) 327 0953 e-mail: The<strong>Patrika</strong>@aol.com<br />
“Like” us on Facebook at<br />
www.facebook.com/pittsburgh.patrika<br />
Highlights in this issue... ... ...<br />
Page<br />
Unsettling Early Days of Trump’s Presidency<br />
By Kollengode S Venkataraman .................................................... 2<br />
Paintings on Cosmic Design<br />
By Premlata Venkataraman ............................................................ 8<br />
Desi Transitions: Insider Trader Rajat Gupta Comes out of Jail<br />
By Kollengode S Venkataraman................................................... 10<br />
<strong>Pittsburgh</strong> Sahana’s Successful Fundraiser<br />
By Subash Ahuja........................................................................... 14<br />
Veerashaivas — Rebels Against Orthodoxy in India<br />
By K S Venkataraman ................................................................. 17<br />
Today’s Rebellion is Tomorrow’s Orthodoxy<br />
By K S Venkataraman .................................................................. 20<br />
On Frenemies and Frenemity<br />
By K S Venkataraman ................................................................. 21<br />
Shyamaa: Tagore Portrayal of Passion Ending in Tragedy<br />
By Siba Ray ................................................................................. 25<br />
Bharatanatyam Recital Explored Race Relations<br />
By Erika Lanke .......................................................................... 27<br />
One-of-a-Kind Delectable Shehnai House Concert<br />
By Rishi Nigam .......................................................................... 28<br />
On the Cover: The annual <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> Arts Festival in spring coincides<br />
with erratic thunderstorms. So, parodying the arts festival and rains is<br />
now a <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> talking point. When I went to this year’s festival on the<br />
evening of Friday, June 2, a pleasant and dry day, I saw people enjoying<br />
under a canopy of umbrellas in rainbow colors at the Gateway Center.<br />
This idea is an import from Portugal. It was an attractive outdoor visual<br />
art. — Premlata Venkataraman •<br />
1
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
The Quarterly Magazine (Jan, Apr, Jul, and Oct) for the Indian Diaspora<br />
Vol. 22 No. 4 www.pittsburghpatrika.com <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Phone/Fax: (724) 327 0953<br />
2<br />
e-mail: The<strong>Patrika</strong>@aol.com<br />
Unsettling Early Days of Trump’s Presidency<br />
People are incapable of rationally responding to frequent, erratic<br />
changes even in their personal lives — in their careers, health,<br />
marriages … — all occurring around the same time. They become numb<br />
and focus on how to get through the day. When these changes do not immediately<br />
affect them, people ignore them even when these changes have<br />
long-term consequences for them personally. That is what is happening<br />
since Donald Trump became the president. Ordinary folks — not people<br />
in the news business, politicians, partisan types or news junkies — simply<br />
have withdrawn, as if this is happening in some other country far away.<br />
But late-night comedy shows are having a field day with grains of hard<br />
truths underneath the supposedly humorous quips in these shows.<br />
Trump’s harshest critics are not only liberal writers of the New York<br />
Times and the Washington Post, but also traditional conservatives like<br />
the Wall Street Journal’s editors, David Brooks, Bill Kristol, and many<br />
others. GOP members of Congress are adrift, thinking about their own<br />
survival in next year’s mid-term elections. Only right-wing radio and TV<br />
talk shows are singing the paeans of praise for Trump.<br />
With his erratic management style, Trump’s White House staff<br />
work under fear, insecurity, and embarrassment. These are<br />
the most loyal people willing to be the fall guys for their boss. When<br />
they try to shield their erratic boss — we understand this is in their job<br />
description — they contradict themselves often within the same day and<br />
become caricatures. Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer is one example.<br />
His Secretaries of State and Defense are in the dark on key foreign policy<br />
decisions till they see them in the media.<br />
With Trump’s obsession over not getting favorable news coverage, he<br />
runs his administration by nocturnal tweeting. His staff wake up each day<br />
wondering which bizarre comments of their boss they need to defend.<br />
Nearing his six months in office, thousands of jobs in the Trump<br />
administration are vacant, many needing Senate approval, including<br />
ambassadorships, usually given as return favors to big donors in the election.<br />
Many offices of federal prosecutors are also vacant. People have
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
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The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
withdrawn their nomination; many don’t even want to be considered for<br />
key appointments. These are normally jobs coveted by people driven by<br />
commitment, ideology, ambition and adrenalin.<br />
When in Europe in May, Trump castigated publicly his NATO allies<br />
for not paying their share of bills, something many US presidents<br />
have done, but in closed-door meetings. Savor the irony. Trump, in running<br />
his business, was not a model for financial or professional probity. His<br />
businesses centered on gambling filed for bankruptcies several times.<br />
After WW II, the victorious US formed the NATO military alliance,<br />
driven by its national self-interest, willingly footing the bill to achieve its<br />
two geostrategic objectives. The first was to contain the inevitable military<br />
power and political influence of the Soviet Union, its WW-II ally. Remember,<br />
Soviet Union too was a victor in WW-II after suffering the biggest<br />
loss * in the war. The second unstated objective<br />
was to prevent the re-emergence of Germany as<br />
a military power, and keep Germany on the its<br />
side. After all, Germany’s military growth culminated<br />
in the disastrous war * . The US achieved<br />
both with NATO. The alliance was against the<br />
Soviets; and the US kept Germany within NATO, with its largest military<br />
presence (outside the US) in Germany, nearly 50,000 troops.<br />
Trump’s disastrous public performance in Brussels — targeted to satisfy<br />
his domestic audience — might have sowed the seeds for the re-emergence<br />
of Germany as a third military power in Europe having its own geostrategic<br />
interest that may not align with US interests. Listen to what Angela<br />
Merkel said in Berlin the day after Trump’s Brussels speech:<br />
“The times in which we can fully count on others are somewhat over,<br />
as I have experienced in the past few days. And so, all I can say is that we<br />
Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands… Of course we<br />
need to have friendly relations with the US and with the UK, and with other<br />
neighbors, including Russia... We have to fight for our future ourselves,<br />
for our destiny as Europeans. Where Germany can help, Germany will<br />
help, because Germany can only do well if Europe is doing well.”<br />
The Trump presidency hastens the US decline as the sole Super<br />
Power, which was already declining slowly. The US’s dependence<br />
on its military muscle rather than on diplomacy to retain its global influence<br />
has the opposite effect. The simultaneous rise of other global power<br />
centers and alliances are already challenging the dominance of the US.<br />
*<br />
Note: 80 million deaths, totally. 26 million in Soviet Union alone, 8 million<br />
in Germany, 6 million in Poland, 2 million in India, 18 million in China, 3 million<br />
in Japan, and a minuscule 0.45 million in the UK and 0.41 in the US.<br />
— By Kollengode S Venkataraman •<br />
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The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
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The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Adding a New Feature<br />
At the suggestion of Harish Saluja,<br />
we are starting a new feature. Indian<br />
languages are a treasure trove of<br />
short poems on diverse topics. We<br />
welcome readers to submit poems<br />
to share with readers under these<br />
guidelines:<br />
1.<br />
2.<br />
3.<br />
4.<br />
5.<br />
The poem needs to be short (10 to<br />
18 lines).<br />
Give it in the original script: Malayalam,<br />
Tamil, Telugu, Kannada,<br />
Gurumukhi, Gujarati, Oriya, Bengali,<br />
Devanagari, Shahmukhi…<br />
Give an easily readable English<br />
translation in freestyle or in<br />
verses.<br />
Give the citation of the poet and<br />
his/her time.<br />
If you have written the poem your-<br />
self, that is even better, even when<br />
it is bitter. ;--))<br />
Enquiries: The<strong>Patrika</strong>@aol.com •<br />
Ego — By Juginder Luthra<br />
Kill the ego before death overtakes you,<br />
Then see the joy of living.<br />
Seek inside and see image of God;<br />
What’s the point wandering here, there?<br />
Same God who lives in me lives in you;<br />
What benefit of giving different names?<br />
Religions, rituals are created by humans.<br />
What use has Reality for different titles?<br />
Wherever you look, you see<br />
God’s manifestations...<br />
Perceive who is embedded in them.<br />
Your thinking is much smaller than His.<br />
Accept what is acceptable to Him<br />
Surrender the reins of life to<br />
the One who runs the universe;<br />
He creates, sustains, destroys and<br />
then creates new.<br />
One who is transient has no need of ego;<br />
Kill the ego before death overtakes you,<br />
Then see the joy of living.<br />
Note: For lack of better method, God is referred<br />
in gender-specific pronouns like He, His, Him.<br />
6
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The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Paintings on Cosmic Design<br />
By Premlata Venkataraman e-mail: The<strong>Patrika</strong>@aol.com<br />
Shanthi Chandrashekar (photo on the left), an Indian-<br />
American visual artist living in Maryland, had her paintings<br />
titled “Cosmic Design,” inaugurated at the Lantern<br />
Studio in Downtown on June 2, and concluded on <strong>July</strong> 2.<br />
In the inaugural reception, I talked to Chandrashekar.<br />
Explaining her art, Shanthi said, “Cosmic Design is<br />
an outcome of my fascination for the unknown, be it the<br />
journeys of the subatomic particles or the mapping of black holes. In my<br />
multimedia work, I explore the scientific concepts with ideas ranging from<br />
the microcosm to the macrocosm,<br />
from quantum mechanics to relativity<br />
and from singularity to infinity,<br />
juxtaposing of science and art.”<br />
Shanthi graduated with a master’s<br />
degree in physics from Chennai,<br />
India. She grew up near Kalpakkam,<br />
near Chennai where nuclear physicists<br />
work, who inspired her. Her paintings<br />
capture the mysteries of the universe<br />
through patterns and symmetries with<br />
repetitive figures representing the<br />
universe in Hindu and Buddhist symbolism. Her paintings are mostly pen<br />
and ink. But she also has some in acrylic and some done on handmade<br />
paper.<br />
Her paintings immediately bought to mind fractal dimensions and the<br />
brightly colored kaleidoscopic glass images under high magnifications<br />
to the person accompanying me. He<br />
is a materials scientist. A few images<br />
reminded me of the transverse sections<br />
of in plants in botany.<br />
Shanthi says, “I try to find answers<br />
to the big questions in our lives,<br />
philosophy and religion through my<br />
paintings.”<br />
Definitely an interesting exhibit in<br />
town for the Indian community and<br />
for others as well struggling with these<br />
eternal questions. •<br />
8
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
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The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Desi Transitions: Insider Trader Rajat Gupta<br />
Blames the Aggressive Prosecutor and the<br />
Jury System for His Jail Term<br />
By Kollengode S Venkataraman<br />
Rajat Gupta<br />
Rajat Gupta, alumnus of IIT-Bombay (1971) and Harvard Business<br />
School MBA (1973), was the youngest and the first foreign-born managing<br />
director at McKinsey & Co. He was barely 45<br />
when became the chief executive of McKensey. His<br />
background is the stereotypical Bengali Bhadralok<br />
— his father was a journalist and professor, and his<br />
mother taught in a Montessori school.<br />
His parents died when he was in his teens. He was<br />
brilliant in his studies.<br />
His meteoric career on Wall Street as a foreignborn<br />
Wall Street executive was a model for ambitious<br />
Indian business school graduates. He was a board<br />
member at Goldman Sachs, Proctor & Gamble and AMR (the holding<br />
company of American Airlines); and he was in many big-banner global<br />
philanthropies fighting AIDS, TB, malaria…<br />
Gupta is also a convicted felon. In 2012 Gupta was given a 2-year<br />
prison term and a one-year supervised release, plus a $5 million fine for<br />
insider trading. The jury convicted him for colluding with billionaire Raj<br />
Rajaratnam, the hedge fund manager<br />
of Galleon Group, then one of<br />
the largest hedge funds. Gupta’s net<br />
worth at that time was around $100<br />
million. Savor the irony that Gupta’s<br />
parents, as reported in the<br />
Economic Times in India, were<br />
communists.<br />
In his first interview after<br />
coming out of prison, Gupta<br />
talked, not to any US print media in<br />
New York such as the Wall Street<br />
Raj Rajaratnam of Galleon Group (L) and<br />
Rajat Gupt (R) with US Treasury Secretary<br />
Henry Paulson (Center) in his Halcyon days.<br />
Journal, New York Times, where he made his mark in his career and his<br />
millions, but to Vikas Dhoot of The Hindu. The interview was published<br />
in March <strong>2017</strong> under the title “Had a Good Time in Prison.” See here:<br />
www.tinyurl.com/RajatGupta-Good-Time-in-Prison.<br />
In the interview, Gupta blamed the “politically ambitious” prosecutor<br />
Preet Barara, “the signs of the time,” and a judicial system and a sys-<br />
10
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
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The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Gupta’s nemesis Preet Barara, the US District<br />
Attorney. Gupta blames him for his incarceration.<br />
12<br />
tem of juries that “don’t really<br />
understand necessarily sophisticated<br />
financial crimes” for<br />
his guilty verdict in the inside<br />
trading case.<br />
The case against him was for<br />
trading privileged information<br />
— he was a director at Goldman<br />
Sachs and many other big<br />
corporations — with billionaire<br />
Raj Rajaratnam, manager of<br />
the hedge fund Galleon Group.<br />
Rajaratnam is serving his 10-year jail term in the same case.<br />
Gupta conceded to Dhoot that he wouldn’t have gone to jail for sharing<br />
information if he was more careful about whom he trusted: “If I were to<br />
fault myself, I would say I trust too many people.” After all, he was sitting<br />
on many corporate boards with access to policy-level privileged information<br />
of the business world having the potential to make huge profits, if<br />
you know such privileged information ahead of others.<br />
After his prison release, he went to India, where he was accorded<br />
a homecoming welcome by his friends and associates in New<br />
Delhi, who are among the richest<br />
and most famous. See here: www.<br />
tinyurl.com/Gupta-HomeComing-<br />
AfterJail.<br />
“We welcome Rajat wholeheartedly.<br />
I don’t know of another<br />
PIO [person of Indian origin] who<br />
has done more for India. Fairly<br />
or otherwise, he has served his<br />
term. We have to move on in life.<br />
Forgive, forget and let things go,”<br />
said Mr Analjit Singh, DEO of Max<br />
Indian, to the Economic Times.<br />
Rajat Gupta with India’s Prime Minister<br />
Manmohan Singh.<br />
Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal waxed in exuberance, “He [Gupta]<br />
has served time for an offence which he continues to challenge in courts.<br />
I am sure Rajat will find a renewed purpose to use his skills. He drew<br />
strength from Bhagwad Gita through his difficult time which, I hope, will<br />
shape his future.” Mittal also said Gupta brought to bear his position as<br />
Insider Trading.. ... Continued on Page 23
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
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13
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
<strong>Pittsburgh</strong> Sahana’s Successful Fundraiser<br />
By Subash Ahuja e-mail: subash.ahuja@gmail.com<br />
It was prime time for <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> SAHANA when it presented an evening<br />
of enchanting Bollywood Music in a well-attended program on May 20,<br />
<strong>2017</strong> at the Marshall Middle School in Wexford. The fourteen-member<br />
band with its live orchestra took young and old alike down memory lane<br />
from Shankar-Jaikishan to Shankar Mahadevan. Many in the excited crowd<br />
were on their feet dancing in the aisles and wherever.<br />
The Sahana team taking the final bow. Graphics: Bala Kumar, Allison Park, PA.<br />
Girish Godbole, an entrepreneur in technology companies, and Nakul<br />
Ranade, a marketeer, emceed the program, humoring the audience with<br />
Bollywood trivia. The vocalists — Akshay Hari, a two-time Sa-Re-Ga-Ma-<br />
Pa finalist, and Vaibhav Karandikar, Asha Rajawat, Gayathri Shriram and<br />
Nakul Ranade — although referred to amateurs, were truly star quality.<br />
While pursuing their love for music, they have been giving concerts<br />
since 2009, successfully raising funds for various charities. They raised<br />
around $25,000 in this concert for the Association for India’s Development<br />
A view of the audience in the program. Graphics: Bala Kumar, Allison Park, PA.<br />
14
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
<strong>Pittsburgh</strong>/Southpointe<br />
1000 Corporate Drive<br />
Canonsburg, PA 15317<br />
724.743.5000<br />
pittsburghsouthpointe.stayhgi.com<br />
(AID and www.aidindia.org), a volunteer organization founded in 1991<br />
and with 36 chapters in U.S. cities. AID volunteers before the program<br />
talked about the various women’s empowerment projects they operate<br />
in India. Over the years, SAHANA has raised over $110,000 benefitting<br />
various charities in India and the U.S.<br />
Originally formed ten years ago as a loose group of music enthusiasts<br />
by Shriram Murthy, an engineer, and his wife Gayathri, an<br />
accountant, when they first moved to <strong>Pittsburgh</strong>, <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> SAHANA has<br />
grown into a full-fledged band with a mission. Arunkumar Sanjeevi and<br />
Niveditha Mohan, both physicians, have opened their house to the group<br />
for their meetings and music practice.<br />
Remarkably, the youth members of the group — Vikaas and Samyukta<br />
Arunkumar, and Keerthana Shriram — inspired by <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> SAHANA<br />
and their parents, have taken lessons in piano, guitar, drums, keyboard,<br />
saxophone and trumpet in their high schools. Now they are part of the<br />
group. Ganesh Narayanan, deft on keyboard and drum pads, and Chockiah<br />
Suresh, facile on his guitar, are the remaining valuable members in the<br />
ensemble. The SAHANA musicians plan to continue making a difference<br />
in people’s lives through entertainment while having fun with their passionate<br />
interest in music. •<br />
15
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
An Endemic Feature in Indian Music Programs<br />
For-profit entertainment programs based on Indian film music are<br />
popular, with tickets sold in the thousands in big cities. In these events<br />
the emcees go to great lengths to introduce the songs with details and filmi<br />
trivia — the year and films in which they appeared, the playback singers,<br />
the music directors, the actors who lip-synched for the song... even<br />
vividly describing how the song was picturized. One thing they often miss<br />
is crediting the lyricists (kavis) who penned these memorable songs.<br />
This was the case in the Sahana-<strong>2017</strong> event also for very many songs.<br />
In the review two years ago on Sahana’s 2015 fundraiser, the <strong>Patrika</strong><br />
wrote this (Full review here: www.tinyurl.com/2015-Sahana-ReVu):<br />
“Indian film songs describe different moods — joy, pathos, irreverence,<br />
sarcasm, humor, irony, paradoxes, and the dilemmas of<br />
life — often conveying great insights into life’s complexities. Some of<br />
the really good ones are as good as paid sessions with psychologists.<br />
So, lyrics are the heart, soul, spirit, and the very life of [good] film<br />
songs... ... [Hence] leaving out the names of the lyricists who penned<br />
the masterpieces ... ... while mentioning the names of the films, music<br />
directors, and the singers who simply lend their voices... is inelegant...<br />
Sahana can correct this quite easily in their future programs.”<br />
Using songs without giving credit to the lyricists is discourteous and<br />
unfair to the lesser-known poets. This topic is worthy of a stand-alone<br />
article. — By Kollengode S Venkataraman •<br />
We sent the above to Sahana’s Mr. Girish Godbole. His response<br />
is given below. Readers can make their own judgment.<br />
“Mr. Venkataraman’s opinion is right that a lyricist (“kavi”) is a key<br />
contributor to a song. However, in criticizing the Sahana-<strong>2017</strong> event for<br />
not mentioning the lyricist of every song, he seems to have missed the<br />
point that it was a live entertainment show which was “emceed,” not<br />
“announced.” An emcee’s role is to make an entertaining introduction<br />
to the next song while following the theme of the show and linking the<br />
various items like a beautiful seamless garland. This is exactly what the<br />
emcees of Sahana <strong>2017</strong> Bollywood Show did. The advertised theme of the<br />
show was “Shankar Jaikishan to Shankar Mahadevan” — clearly a theme<br />
focused on music composers. The emcee’s narrative mostly talked about<br />
the music composers, their styles, their sources of inspiration, etc. In a<br />
handful of cases, where it was particularly relevant, the emcees mentioned<br />
the lyricist’s name, and in one case even the original lyricist’s name in<br />
the original Punjabi song. The rest of the emceeing was appropriately<br />
focused on making it funny, entertaining and interesting in line with the<br />
theme and spirit of the evening.” •<br />
16
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Veerashaivas: 12 th Century Rebels Against<br />
Religious Orthodoxy in India<br />
Kollengode S Venkataraman<br />
V<br />
.S.Naipaul, the celebrated writer of Indian ancestry from the<br />
Caribbean, wrote a harshly critical book on India in 1964: India:<br />
An Area of Darkness. Then, in 1977 he muted his critique by writing<br />
another book, India: A Wounded Civilization. His understanding of India<br />
culminated finally in India: Million Mutinies Now, the book he wrote in<br />
1990 at the end of his own long, inward journey. Here he portrays ordinary<br />
Indians he interacts with struggling against great odds to change the<br />
stifling systems. The land of darkness morphed into a mutinous land.<br />
No wonder many anglicized Indians think India was static and resistant<br />
to change till Turkic, Afghani, and Mongol marauders brought Islam in the<br />
10 th century and the European colonizing occupiers brought Christianity to<br />
India in the 16 th century. For them, real reforms in India started with the<br />
europeanized, persianized Rajaram Mohan Roy (early 19 th century.)<br />
In reality, though, since Vedic times, India always had a native intellectual<br />
tradition of people campaigning for change whenever society became<br />
ossified or exploitative. The teachers of the Upanishads, Jain Teertankaras,<br />
Gautama Buddha, Sankara, and Ramanuja are great examples, if you consider<br />
the social condition of their times. Such rebellions are in line with<br />
the Hindu idea of the need for periodic reforms: “I make myself appear<br />
again and again to restore Dharma whenever Dharma decays and corruption<br />
becomes widespread.” Rebellions are built into the Hindu ethos.<br />
In this tradition of rebellion come the 12 th century Veerashaivas in<br />
Southern India, against the Vedic Brahmin orthodoxy. The movement got<br />
its impetus through the works of Basavanna, Allama Prabhu, and Mahadevi<br />
Akka. Anna (elder brother), Akka (elder sister) and Prabhu (gentleman)<br />
are respectful appendages to their names. Some scholars believe Jedara<br />
Dasimayya<br />
B<br />
(10 th century) was a forerunner in this Movement.<br />
asava, Allama and others used to meet at the Anubhava Mantapa<br />
(Pavilion of Experience) in Kudala Sangama, a temple town, now<br />
a pilgrimage place in Bagalkote district in Karnataka State. They debated<br />
on Bhakti (devotion), Jnana (Knowledge), and Vairagya (detachment) for<br />
bringing egalitarian changes in society.<br />
The Veerashaiva Movement campaigned against the ossified caste division<br />
of its time. Even though millennia ago, this division had a rationale<br />
for organizing society in terms of skills, it got stratified as “high” and<br />
“low” castes in later centuries. By the 10 th century India, the system was<br />
further fossilized, based exclusively on birth.<br />
17
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
The Veerashaivas rejected the authority of the Vedas, the need for<br />
an intermediary priest and empty rituals. It was a radical idea, like<br />
today Jews, Christians, and Muslims rejecting the need for rabbis, priests/<br />
pastors, and maulvis to get through life’s transitions. The Veerashaiva<br />
idea of Godhead is Shiva, the Supreme One, who causes the entire gamut<br />
of creation, preservation, and dissolution, going in endless cycles.<br />
Even as they rebelled against the ossified Vedic system of their time,<br />
Veerashaivas accepted its cultural bearings such as pursuit of knowledge,<br />
logical analysis, bhakti, jnana (wisdom); discipline, contemplation and<br />
liberation; karma and rebirths; and the need for Gurus in Man’s spiritual<br />
quest. The teachings of the Veerashaivas are in Vachanas, literally “Sayings,”<br />
some of which are iconoclastic. Kabir Das, Ravi Das, and Bulleh<br />
Shah, also known for their acerbic iconoclastic verses, came many centuries<br />
later, in the 15th, 16th, and 18th centuries, respectively.<br />
In one of the vachanas, Basavanna, using vivid imagery, sarcastically<br />
reproves the Vedic Brahmin priest. In this, the priest, who worships fire<br />
as divine, has no qualms cursing the fire when it suits him. Basava himself<br />
being a Brahmin only shows he was, indeed, a true rebel. Here is the<br />
vachana, first in Kannada:<br />
The contents of the Vachana in English:<br />
The pandit in his house worships fire as deity, offering cooked rice<br />
as oblations to the fire;<br />
The fire goes wild with the flames burning down the house.<br />
They dump the gutter water and dirt from the street to douse the fire,<br />
and scream for help from all around.<br />
Forgetting their worship, they curse the fire.<br />
O, Koodala Sangama Deva (The Lord of the Meeting Rivers)!<br />
Veeerasaivas are scattered throughout the Peninsular India in Maharashtra,<br />
Andhra/Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala.<br />
In today’s Karnataka, the contribution of Veerashaivas in primary, secondary<br />
and tertiary education (arts, science, engineering, law and medicine)<br />
is substantial. Their impact in Karnataka’s public life — arts, literature,<br />
politics, and administration — is important too. Their presence and impact<br />
in other parts of Southern India are also noteworthy.<br />
It is ironic that Veerashaivas, who fought so passionately against the<br />
cast system, ended up being a dominant caste in Karnataka. More on<br />
this on page 20.. •<br />
18
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
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19
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Today’s Rebellion is Tomorrow’s Orthodoxy<br />
It is one of the paradoxical twists in all reform movements all over the<br />
world — whether religious, social, political — that the rebels rising against<br />
the orthodoxy in their times eventually end up as a sect by themselves, or<br />
a subset within the system. They create their own traditions, and after a<br />
few generations, are constrained by their own orthodoxy.<br />
A few centuries after the Buddha’s death, his followers split into the<br />
Teravada and the Mahayana. They further split into the Vaibhashika,<br />
Sautrantika, Yogachara, and Madhyamika schools. The Sri Vaishnavas of<br />
Tamil Nadu, who brought about rebellious reforms in the 11th century,<br />
morphed into their own inviolable orthodoxy and broke into two groups<br />
— the Northern and the Southern sects — with doctrinal differences, with<br />
each group having its share of temple properties. They have taken their<br />
fights — they may appear trivial to outsiders, for that mater, even to many<br />
insiders — all the way to the Indian Supreme Court.<br />
The Veerashaivas, after rebelling against the caste system in the 12th<br />
century, are today a caste by themselves. The Sikhs too, who defied the<br />
caste system in 15th century to become a religion, internalized the caste<br />
system de facto. Christianity too has many breakaway groups: from the<br />
Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox sects (Russian, Syrian, and Greek), Lutherans,<br />
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Anabaptists, Calvinists,<br />
Methodists, Baptists, Fundamentalists, Charismatics, Quakers, Mennonites...<br />
I<br />
These divisions are political, social, and/or doctrinaire.<br />
n India, the atheistic Communist movement offers another fascinating<br />
model. India’s Communist Party was formed to fight feudalism, inspired<br />
by the 1917 Russian Bolshevik revolution. In response to the souring<br />
relationship between Soviet and Chinese Communists in the 1960s, they<br />
split into CPI (loyal to Russia) and CPM (Marxist), loyal to China. Soon the<br />
atheistic CPM, like a religion, splintered into countless groups — Naxalites<br />
(Charu Majumdar), Naxalites (Pulla Reddy), CPI (Marxist-Leninist), CPI<br />
(Maoists), Revolutionary CPI... ... See the long list of Communist Gotras<br />
(clans) here: www.tinyurl.com\Communist-Gotras. With their patron saints<br />
the Soviet Union dead and China becoming capitalistic, Indian communists<br />
are Rgasping today to be relevant in politics.<br />
eligious, social, political, and economic reform movements are<br />
like hurricanes, starting in nondescript spots in oceans with nobody<br />
recognizing them. Moving through warm ocean waters, they become large<br />
masses of swirling clouds with immense energy. They make landfall with<br />
great force causing enormous damage, and move inland, only to lose their<br />
strength and dissipate into smaller clouds causing only drizzles. After some<br />
time, the next hurricane arrives. — By K S Venkataraman •<br />
20
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
On Frenemies and Frenemity<br />
By Kollengode S Venkataraman<br />
Recently I came across a syrupy multiserial-forwarded e-mail from<br />
India, this time on Friends and Friendship. The oozing syrup in the e-mail<br />
was too much for me. That triggered me to explore a paradoxical relationship<br />
everybody recognizes and nobody can escape from. This unnamed<br />
complex relationship, present in all cultures, now has a portmanteau word<br />
in English for those in this relationship – frenemies. The actual definition<br />
of frenemy depends on the dictionary you go to. Here are the examples:<br />
1. Merriam Webster: one who pretends to be a friend but is actually<br />
an enemy.<br />
2. Google.com: a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental<br />
dislike or rivalry.<br />
3. Wikipedia: “Frenemy” is an oxymoron and a portmanteau of<br />
“friend” and “enemy” that can refer to either an enemy pretending to be<br />
a friend or someone who really is a friend but also a rival.<br />
4. Dictionary.com: Informal; a person or group that is friendly toward<br />
another because the relationship brings benefits, but harbors feelings of<br />
resentment or rivalry.<br />
From the nuanced differences in these definitions, it appears, the<br />
meaning of the term is still evolving. There lies the problem: no matter<br />
in what sense you use it, readers can internalize it in different ways.<br />
From frenemy we can also coin an abstract noun frenemity, like<br />
enmity. Frenemity is known only among Homo sapiens, both the<br />
male and female species. The male species have this when they are in the<br />
same competing business as among news bureau chiefs of NBC, CBS, and<br />
ABC. Frenemity exists among doctors or lawyers in the same specialty<br />
practicing in the same town, or between editors of the NYTimes, WaPo<br />
and WSJ. In sports among QBs of football teams of comparable ranking.<br />
It is common among musicians, writers, dancers, actors everywhere, and<br />
among politicians vying for the same office. When two people in the same<br />
profession are unevenly matched, the one perched on the perceived higher<br />
level often has condescension toward the other. Often, the other guy/gal<br />
perceives the condescension. Those perceiving themselves to be below<br />
reciprocate with envy that can contextually morph into hatred. This oneway<br />
relationship is not frenemity. For frenemity, these love-hate feelings<br />
have to be mutual among equals.<br />
Even though frenemity is gender-neutral, people watchers arguably<br />
believe Hfrenemity is more prevalent among women.<br />
ow do you identify your frenemies among those with whom you<br />
interact socially? You can start with the points below. You can<br />
21
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
add your own to embellish the list.<br />
• Frenemies love you sometime and hate you some other time. But it’s<br />
not always this simple — they can love and hate you at the same time. It can<br />
be more complex: when you love them, they hate you; or vice versa.<br />
• When two frenemies love each other at the same time, it is all honey.<br />
When they hate each other simultaneously, it is all vinegar. Worse still,<br />
it can be caustic lye.<br />
• If the spouses of frenemies are normal friends, this can lead to awkward<br />
moments between the spouses. If they are not careful, frenemies will drag<br />
their spouses into their orbit. If these gullible spouses take sides, eventually<br />
they too end up as frenemies.<br />
• Frenemies, whether they love or hate, are always in each other’s<br />
thoughts; they constantly try to read each other’s minds, and try to stay one<br />
step ahead of the other in the social game they play. When they misread<br />
the other, it can lead to awkward interactions between frenemies. When<br />
these interactions happen in public, they are hilarious to onlookers. This<br />
is what nourishes gossips.<br />
• Frenemies care for you, for sure; but your frenemies also can be gleeful<br />
in your misery, particularly when they are in the hate-you mode.<br />
• Your frenemies are not from your family, thank God. If they are, they<br />
Frenemies... ... Continued on Page 29<br />
22
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Insider Trading... ... contuinued from page 12<br />
With Ratan Tata (L) in a commencement<br />
ceremony of Indian School of Business<br />
Gupta founded in India.<br />
the head of a global consultancy to<br />
focus on issues like public health and<br />
education<br />
A<br />
in India.<br />
fter being released early<br />
from prison in late 2015,<br />
Gupta was sent to complete the sentence<br />
confined to his home. In a letter<br />
to his buddies on January 1, 2016,<br />
Gupta shared his prison experiences.<br />
The letter was recently made public.<br />
Here are excerpts from his letter:<br />
“[On this] New Year’s Day... I could not but reflect on my time<br />
in prison … A difficult chapter of my life [comes] to a close. The<br />
last eighteen months have taught me a lot and I will mostly remember<br />
it as a joyful time, full of camaraderie, laughter... I have forged some<br />
deep friendships that I will keep for the rest of my life. I learnt many<br />
new skills and was able to teach fellow inmates a few too.<br />
“Even though the [prison] regime tries hard to ensure that the<br />
prison does not become a community, most of us look after each other<br />
and help whenever we can… …<br />
“In the last 18 months, I lived in three different facilities, nine<br />
months in a low security prison, two months in solitary confinement<br />
and seven months at the main prison.<br />
“As a result, there was a great variety of living situations, experiences<br />
and people I encountered. Every place has its own peculiarities<br />
and culture. There were a few experiences that I will never forget,<br />
such as the first gay couple who wanted to get married despite the<br />
reticence of the regime in the prison… … It turned out that one of the<br />
men was not gay at all. It was a ruse<br />
employed in order to get transferred<br />
to some other facility.<br />
“Well, in addition to reading,<br />
meditating, and working on writing a<br />
new book, I learnt many new skills<br />
including some new card games ... I<br />
also took up chess again, after 50<br />
years… … I even learnt some new hood<br />
[Black slang] language like, ‘Let me<br />
see that’ — which means give that to<br />
me. ‘Riding together’ — which means<br />
eating and cooking together.<br />
23<br />
Mukesh Ambani, Rajat Gupta with<br />
Jeff Immelt, GE’s CEO.
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
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“Overall, I am glad to be leaving here, but I had a good time. In<br />
a very strange way, I will miss the place…<br />
“Necessity is the Mother of Invention. It’s so true in prison. The<br />
exquisite dishes that inmates can cook using only the microwave… we<br />
only had access to the microwave oven. I enjoyed a variety of cuisines,<br />
Mexican, French, Asian, Spanish, Puerto Rican, Chinese, Italian and<br />
of course, usual American foods.”<br />
“I had a world class trainer who pushed me into shape doing squats,<br />
sit-ups, push-ups and the like. I have had expensive trainers outside<br />
but no one as good as this guy who cost $5 an hour.<br />
“As they say, life is a series of experiences. None is inherently good<br />
or bad. It is what you make of it. This experience has been good for<br />
another very important reason. The love I received from each one of<br />
you (my friends) during this difficult time and you should know it means<br />
a lot to me. Let me close by wishing you a very Happy New Year.”<br />
In Rajat Gupta’s letter to his friends after leaving jail there is no remorse<br />
— because that would imply accepting guilt. The tone of the<br />
letter is as if he went to jail as a Satyagrahi like Mohandas Karamchand<br />
Gandhi or for Civil Disobedience a la Martin Luther King Jr. Gupta went to<br />
jail for nothing noble. He went to jail for greed, as an arthagrahi (pursuer<br />
of wealth) by indulging in abuse of privileged information.<br />
Fascinatingly, one sees in Gupta’s letter the ability of the human<br />
psyche to compartmentalize personal behavior into watertight chambers,<br />
even when the contents of the chambers are in blatant contradiction. This<br />
is similar to priests being caught in pedophilia when preaching public<br />
morality from their pulpits, or when our Congressmen take conservative<br />
stands displaying moral rectitude in speeches, when in their personal lives,<br />
their behavior is just the opposite. When we try to understand such inner<br />
workings of human mind, it is disconcerting. In looking at Rajat Gupta,<br />
are we looking at ourselves? That scares me. •<br />
24
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Shyamaa: Tagore Portrayal of Passion<br />
Ending in Tragedy<br />
By Siba Ray, Murrysville, PA<br />
On April 22 and April 23, the Nandini Mandal’s Nandanik Dance<br />
Troupe presented Rabidranath Tagore’s dance drama SHYAMAA. The<br />
Kelly TStrayhorn Auditorium in <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> was the venue.<br />
he story revolves around Shyamaa (Nandini Mandal), the court<br />
dancer, instantly falling in love with a handsome merchant Bajrosen<br />
(the talented dancer Hari Nair from Toronto) from a neighboring<br />
country, the moment she sees him. Many men of substance in the kingdom<br />
amorously desire the gorgeous<br />
Shyamaa. Among<br />
them is Uttiyo, a young<br />
man in the neighborhood,<br />
willing to do anything<br />
to please the dancer<br />
to draw her attention,<br />
even though he has never<br />
met her.<br />
The drama starts with<br />
Bojrosen acquiring Indramonir<br />
Haar, a priceless<br />
necklace from Suborno Dwip (literally Golden Island). Bajrosen wants<br />
to gift the necklace to the bride of his dreams.<br />
Meanwhile, there is a theft of jewels from the palace and the queen<br />
wants them back. The royal guard, Kotal (played by Kumudini Venkata<br />
on Saturday and Paushaly Sau on Sunday) and his men catch Bojrasen.<br />
They want the necklace, which Bajrosen refuses to part with. Chased by<br />
the royal guards, Bajrosen runs for his life along a river, when he comes<br />
across Shyamaa and her friends.<br />
Shyamaa’s heart sets on Bojrosen the very moment she sees him. The<br />
palace guards arrest Bojrosen. Foisting a false case against him for pos-
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
sessing the invaluable necklace, they plan to execute him.<br />
In her desperate attempt to save Bojrosen, Shyamaa lets her admirer, the<br />
young Uttiyo (played by Roosa<br />
Mandal), take the blame for the<br />
theft. Uttiyo is put to death.<br />
Shyamaa and Bojrasen leave<br />
the country, with the merchant<br />
oblivious to how he was saved<br />
from imminent death. Love<br />
blooms between the two, but<br />
Bojrosen is inquisitive about<br />
how Shyamaa managed to save<br />
him from the clutches of execution.<br />
When he keeps on asking<br />
her how she secured his release,<br />
Shyamaa finally tells Bojrosen<br />
what she did because of her love<br />
for him, and the sacrifice of Uttiyo.<br />
Bojrosen is filled with guilt<br />
for Uttiyo’s death, and is disillusioned.<br />
He rejects Shyamaa’s love.<br />
Having lost Bojrosen’s love, Shyamaa too is disenchanted with life,<br />
having been the cause of Uttiyo’s death, Rejected by Bojrosen, she too<br />
decides to leave. Bojrosen is left to live in remorse, deprived of love,<br />
happiness and peace.<br />
Behind the straight story of great tragedy, the story is a metaphor for<br />
life itself: the queen and the royal guard Kotal are unhappy not getting<br />
what they want, with Uttiyo even dying for Shyamaa. And Shyamaa and<br />
Bojrosen, the main characters in the story, also end up very unhappy after<br />
getting Swhat they want.<br />
ingers are critical for any dance drama. For Shymaa, the foremost<br />
exponent of Rabindra Sangeet, Pramita Mullick, from Calcutta,<br />
trained in Shanti Niketan, was the female singer, with Agnivo Bandopadhhay<br />
of Rabindra Bharati University as her male counterpart. Their<br />
well-modulated singing (in audio recordings) of Tagore’s Bengali verses<br />
elevated the quality of the dance drama.<br />
The main dancers all performed very well, among them Nandini Mandal,<br />
Hari Nair, Roosa Mandal as well as Kumudini Vankat and Paushaly<br />
Sau. Also, the large number of Nandini’s students — as flower girls and<br />
the sakhis, palace guards and others — showed great energy and passion<br />
in their roles. Hari Nair, as Bojrosen, nicely brought out the pangs in his<br />
heart depicting the sense of guilt for the death of Uttiyo and his inability<br />
26
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
to forgive Shyamaa<br />
for Uttiyo’s<br />
death.<br />
was an en-<br />
It joyable program.<br />
That over<br />
400-plus people,<br />
many of them<br />
from the American<br />
mainstream,<br />
bought tickets for the program is a testimony to Nandini’s reach in the<br />
larger <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> community. Not many Indian dance programs in this<br />
town can make this claim.•<br />
Bharatanatyam Recital Explored Race Relations<br />
Erika Linke, Squirrel Hill, PA<br />
On May 3, <strong>2017</strong>, Ms. Anjal Chande, founder and director of the Soham<br />
Dance Space of Chicago, gave two original dance recitals she wrote and<br />
choreographed. Chande, a renowned choreographer, composer, writer,<br />
and performer, has crisscrossed the world dancing at events from Washington,<br />
D.C. to Mumbai.<br />
The first piece was Out of the Shadows: A Colored Solidarity, a compelling<br />
work of dance, performed in McConomy Auditorium at Carnegie<br />
Mellon University. The dance piece, premiered at the Smithsonian Institution<br />
in 2016, was inspired by Colored Cosmopolitanism, a work authored<br />
by Carnegie Mellon professor Nico Slate. This book traces the transnational<br />
struggle for freedom linking India and the United States.<br />
Slate’s book recounts Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay’s experience traveling<br />
by train in the American South in the 1940s. When directed to leave the<br />
Whites-Only section of the train, Chattopadhyay stood her ground and did<br />
not change train compartments. This episode stirred Chande to develop<br />
and choreograph this story into a dance piece. This dance piece, inspired<br />
by Chattopadhyay’s experience, moved the audience.<br />
Race, the second dance – also original - is a work in progress. The choreographer<br />
used dance to explore issues around race and racial identity.<br />
Professor Slate and Ms. Chande paused between each dance and invited<br />
the audience to share their response to the performance and to pose<br />
questions on the piece.<br />
To view the recital in its entirety, CAUSE (The Center for African-<br />
American Urban Studies and the Economy) posted the taping on YouTube<br />
at www.youtube.com/watch?v=or2fI7ggohs. •<br />
27
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
One-of-a-Kind Delectable Shehnai House Concert<br />
Rishi Nigam, <strong>Pittsburgh</strong>, PA<br />
Rishi Nigam moved to <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> last year after earning his MS in engineering management<br />
from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. He is a consultant in the healthcare industry.<br />
Interested in music, he is working on his own album.<br />
Recently I got an incredible opportunity to listen to<br />
Ustad Hassan Haider Khan on the Shehnai, accompanied<br />
by Pt. Samir Chatterjee on the Tabla. I attend music<br />
concerts often, but this pure classical recital transported me<br />
to a musical realm I have never been before.<br />
Ut. Khan comes from a musical family. His great grandfather<br />
Ustad Sajjad Hussain Khan was the first Shehnai artist to take the<br />
instrument to Europe, playing it to Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace.<br />
Khan’s father, Ustad<br />
Ali Ahmad Hussain Khan<br />
is a Banga Bibhushanawarded<br />
Shehnai maestro.<br />
The young Khan<br />
has performed around the<br />
world and has recorded<br />
Shehnai for music directors<br />
like A.R.Rahman.<br />
Pt. Samir Chatterjee and Ut. Hassan Haider Khan in<br />
the recital. Photo: Nidrita Sinha<br />
28<br />
Yet, I found him so easy<br />
to talk to.<br />
Pt. Samir Chatterjee,<br />
widely known for performing with eminent artists and as a soul-capturing<br />
soloist, accompanied UT Khan on the Tabla. I have been listening to Tabla<br />
performances for many years, but Pt Chatterjee on the Tabla in the recital<br />
made me completely fall in love with the instrument. His encouraging<br />
support to the young Khan enhanced the overall<br />
ambience of the evening.<br />
The concert started with pure Indian<br />
classical ragas and ended with beautiful<br />
semi-classical and folk pieces. Towards the end,<br />
Chatterjee briefly gave a background of Indian<br />
classical music, how the shehnai is made, and<br />
how challenging it is to play the wind instrument<br />
solo for three continuous hours.<br />
The shehnai recital was special because this<br />
was a house concert in Irwin in music connois-<br />
Sohini and Ahiri Ghosh provided<br />
the critical shruti support. Photo:<br />
Nidrita Sinha.<br />
Shehnai... ... Continued on Page 30
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Fresh whole fish from all over the world<br />
delivered everyday to<br />
Wholey's Market<br />
Please visit us in the Strip<br />
where we will be happy<br />
to assist you.<br />
Or order online at your convenience.<br />
We will hand-select your order with the greatest care.<br />
Frenemies ... ... continued from Page 22<br />
29<br />
Open seven days a week<br />
1711 Penn Ave.<br />
<strong>Pittsburgh</strong>, PA 15222<br />
1-888-946-5397<br />
www.wholey.com<br />
are your relatives, your cousins, your brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law. For<br />
Indians, they are your sambhandhis, particularly when they belong to the<br />
same caste, or the same socio-cultural group in a different Indian language<br />
(as when a Tamil marries a Bengali/Gujarati/Punjabi/Kannada/Telugu,<br />
and in its varied permutations and combinations). The caste identities add<br />
another toxic dimension. Or they are your oarpadis or oar-agatti (Tamil),<br />
oori-gatti (Kannada) or jethanis (Hindi), or todi-kodalu (Telugu).<br />
• Though frenemies are not your blood relatives or relatives by marriage,<br />
they can be more lethal.<br />
• In interacting with frenemies, women appear to be more sophisticated<br />
than men in navigating the turbulent, turbid frenemity waters. You realize<br />
your frenemies have long memories, because you have a long memory.<br />
• Frenemies are ready to share your pains; they share your pains with oth-<br />
ers who know you well, more so when they are in the Hate-You mode.<br />
Whether you hate your frenemies or they hate you, you learn to<br />
live with them, because you cannot live without them either. As<br />
you read through this short piece, if the images of your own frenemies, or<br />
the images of your friends who are mutual frenemies flash through your<br />
mind, don’t blame me. — By K S Venkataraman •
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Shehnai... ... continued from Page 28<br />
seur Samar Saha’s aesthetically decorated living room. The audience got<br />
immersed in a pleasant journey in ragas and laya for three hours in the<br />
intimacy of the house-concert. The proximity of the stage gave the artistes<br />
an instant and intimate rapport with the audience.<br />
Before the recital, in a good-natured way, Pt. Chatterjee looked around<br />
and spontaneously picked two young girls, Sohini Ghosh and Ahiri Ghosh,<br />
from the audience, and “volunteered” them to provided shruti support,<br />
which they obliged for all three hours of the recital.<br />
I heard the two veteran artistes doing things I had never heard before,<br />
surprising me every time a new piece started. This gave me a rare opportunity<br />
to talk to them later. For me as a music producer, a music learner<br />
and a passionate music lover, this was God-sent. The evening ended with<br />
a delightful dinner and desserts making it a splendid event. •<br />
India Day Gala on Sunday August 13<br />
Venue: The Cathedral of Learning in Oakland<br />
Time: 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm<br />
Speeches, Songs, Dances, Arts & Crafts and Food<br />
Contact: Rashmi Koka 412 431 4948 Vandana Kekre 412 963 0589<br />
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The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Keerthana Shriram Wins Music Awards<br />
Keerthana Shriram, an eighth grader at Franklin Regional<br />
Middle School, has earned several awards for her skills<br />
on the trumpet, saxophone and piano. Her lessons on the<br />
piano started when she was 5 years old. This year she was<br />
selected by audition to perform at the Seton Hill Honors<br />
Concert and Jazz Bands, where she played the trumpet<br />
and saxophone. She was one of the select students from<br />
Franklin Regional to perform at the WCMEA County<br />
Chorus festival this year as a soloist. She also won the<br />
'Outstanding Jazz Soloist' award for the Alto Saxophone<br />
at the Music in the Parks Adjudication at Cedar Point in<br />
May this year. She also won<br />
First Place in the PMTA piano competition in<br />
April.<br />
Keerthana is also learning Sanskrit, Karnatic<br />
music, and Bharatanatyam. She is the youngest<br />
member of <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> Sahana, an ensemble<br />
of musicians focusing on Indian film and light<br />
music in their spare time. •<br />
31
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
Ha!!<br />
From The Hindustan Times, June 4, <strong>2017</strong>: Rahul Gandhi, the great<br />
grandson of Nehru, who wrote The Discovery of India, and the de facto<br />
president of the Congress Party, was in Chennai recently. On his strategy<br />
to fight the Bharatiya Janata Party, this is what he said: “Nowadays I study<br />
the Upanishads and the Gita since I am fighting the RSS and BJP.”<br />
More condescending was his comments on Tamil Nadu, its people<br />
and culture. While appreciating the people of Tamil Nadu and their language,<br />
Gandhi said, “I have decided to start watching Tamil movies, read<br />
about the culture of Tamil Nadu people.” He can start from this common<br />
Tamil proverb Vathiyar pillai makku, vaidhyan pillai sikku, meaning,“The<br />
teacher’s son is a born idiot, and the doctor’s son is chronically sick.”<br />
Was the Europeanized Rahul confessing his ignorance of India’s spiritual<br />
underpinnings, its composite history, literature and languages?<br />
Here is our Donald Trump, in his own words, some before he became<br />
president, some during the campaign and after becoming president:<br />
On his beauty: “Part of the beauty of me is I’m very rich.”<br />
On his daughter: “I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps<br />
I’d be dating her.”<br />
On the collapse of society: “Even if the world goes to hell in a handbasket,<br />
I won’t lose a penny.”<br />
On John McCain, a PoW in Vietnam: “He’s a war hero because he<br />
was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”<br />
In Jerusalem, while meeting Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin in his<br />
first foreign trip after meeting with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia: “Just<br />
got back from the middle east.” Jerusalem is in the Middle East.<br />
On his wealth: “Money was never a big motivation for me, except as<br />
a way to keep score.”<br />
“Everything in life is luck.” Yes. You are a living proof.<br />
On Vladimir Putin: “[Putin] is not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you<br />
understand. He’s not gonna go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it<br />
down. You can put it down.” Donald Trump on <strong>July</strong> 31, 2016. But Russia<br />
had already annexed Crimea in a 2014 intrusion into Ukraine that left<br />
thousands dead. •<br />
PIC-5K Walkathon<br />
Saturday, September 16. 8:30 am to 2:00 pm<br />
North Park Boat Club<br />
For details visit www.pic5k.org<br />
32
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
8 Brilliant Aveneue<br />
<strong>Pittsburgh</strong>, PA 15215<br />
(Aspinwall)<br />
412-84-SPICE (77423)<br />
Lunch Buffet - 11:00am to 2:30pm<br />
Dinner - 5:00pm to 10:00pm<br />
_______________________________________________________________<br />
$5 off any purchase<br />
of $30 or more<br />
Not valid on weekends<br />
or<br />
lunch Buffet<br />
Dine In Only<br />
______________________<br />
33<br />
$1 off any<br />
Lunch Buffet<br />
Monday<br />
thru<br />
Thursday
The <strong>Pittsburgh</strong> <strong>Patrika</strong>, Vol, 22, No. 4, <strong>July</strong> <strong>2017</strong><br />
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