Madras was sultry and how…you don’t have to toil to sweat…they also sweat who only stand and wait (wet?)…thus it came to pass and Madras beckoned me…leaving the unexpectedly cool climes of Hyderabad…I embarked on this voyage to hot Madras to meet my brother, Mahesh, and his family…especially his pocket dynamo…Teju… popularly known as Tarle Subba…Madras and Teju…both lived up to their reputations…of making you hot under the collar…that was expected though…and we did the usual beach trip…and I took videos and photos of Shruti and Teju frolicking in the sand and sea…and there was shopping and I netted quite a few…
On the first day it was at Landmark at Spencer Plaza on Mount Road…I did not have anything specific in mind to look for…I didn’t want to go into the books section…so I was sauntering along in the music section…many CDs caught my attention, but I was not impressed…then I stumbled onto this ‘bargain section’…it was not labelled that…but when I picked up a couple of CDs and looked at the prices, I was delighted to see that they were priced at Rs.100/- each…suddenly my mood changed…I wanted all of them…for starters, I just scanned and then started picking up whatever I liked…the collection in my arms swelled to 20 CDs…I knew I possibly couldn’t get all of them…now the elimination process begins…Shubha, my sister-in-law, very kindly offered to sponsor some CDs…and like this…slowly and slowly…I managed to finally select 8 CDs…I have been eyeing some of these CDs in their websites and lamenting about their cost and my weak wallet and here they are for almost 20% of their original cost…these are World Music CDs from Real World Records…I bought three of these at Landmark – Tabu Ley Seigneur Rocherau and Afrisa International Orchestra – Babeti Soukos (Womad Realworld – Virgin Records) [Zairean pop]; Remmy Ongala and Orchestre Super Matimila – Songs for the Poor Man (Womad Realworld – Virgin Records) [Tanzania – soukos-based music]; Yungchen Lhamo – Tibet, Tibet (Womad Realworld – Virgin Records) [a rare insight into the heart of Tibetan spirituality through the devotional songs of Tibet’s most inspiring female singer]. I also bought four Hindustani classical CDs – Rashid Khan – Ragas Bageshri and Desh (EMI); Prabhakar Karekar – Ragas Bhimpalasi (EMI); Pt Jitendra Abhiskehi – Ragas Lalit, Bhairav Bhatiyar, & Nayaki Kanada (Swar Siddhi series – Virgin Records); Sulochana Brahaspati – Live in Ayodhya 2002 – Ragas Purvi and Surdasi Malhar (Swar Shodh series – Virgin Records)…and I found something that I have been looking around for quite some time…I have a cassette, but was delighted to find the ACD of the soundtrack of Let’s Talk (Thumris in an Urban Landscape – soundtrack and other songs inspired by the film – Music: Ram Sampath – Virgin Records)…but somewhere I felt that I had left behind quite a few albums...and was not feeling happy about it...will let you all know what happened after...
Jai
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