Tandoori Beaver Tails

Cats and Dogs and sundry ways to avoid riyaaz

2012-01-16T10:23:00.004-05:00

TablaGeekery

2011-12-08T14:20:00.009-05:00

Tabla + Cartooning is double the fun.

First up, who has got my goat ?

And talking of aggressive, Pandit Big N Fat Ji is known for his uhmm... aggressive accompaniment syle.

Anaghat, a tabla composition that is brought to a climax just before the sum !!

And one I did a little while ago that is topical again as the snow comes and the sun beckons :

The puppets do a traditional tabla composition recitation :

Write a Letter To The Rivers

2011-11-02T14:08:00.005-05:00

Anytime a pickup a book by Dr. Patar, it inevitably means a return to melody. It is as simple as turning a few pages and inspiration strikes - and boy does it take hold !

This poem - Nadiyaan Noo Khat Likho (literally translates to Write a Letter to The Rivers) touches me at so many levels. It has this one line that describes the poetic metre to use to write that letter :

kin min , chhama chham, chham chhama, rim jhim, kalala kalala

In all my years of reading poetry in various languages, I am yet to encounter something so profoundly musical. Hope you enjoy it just as much as I do.

Romancing the rain

2010-11-10T22:48:00.004-05:00

Two Punjabi poems on the monsoons of memories.

The first, Saavan Langh Gaya, is by Shiv Kumar Batalvi. He has, no doubt, been done to death (death being his subject of choice) by just about every Punjabi crooner, dead or alive. This poem is not one of his better-known ones; yet, I feel it captures the spirit of longing exceptionally well without a ton of sentimentality.

Much thanks to Gurpreet Singh of Jalandhar, India who agreed to let me use the very beautiful pictures of Phulkari for the background. ( Gurpreet’s photostream on Flickr can be accessed here )

The second poem, Pehlaa Saaun , is one of mine that I recited at the Montreal Kavi Darbar on October 30, 2010.

The painting in the background is a late 18th century piece from the Kangra School of Art in the Museum of Fine Art Boston collection, that I happened to discover at this site. It has all the elements : the dark-clouds, lightning, one damsel in distress, two trees in a violent, erotic embrace and three snakes to add that extra zing. Forget about the newly-wed bride; I am scared.

Many thanks again to Prasad Upasani for iTablaPro – a Pandora’s box of musical possibilities, that lets me have this much fun.

Composing with iTablaPro

2010-08-17T05:43:00.010-05:00

A word about the absolutely wonderful app (iTablaPro) created by Prasad Upasani : with a few touches on the Ipod Touch, I can fill my house with a background drone and welcome the dawn - a fresh morning; a new beginning. Sing, hum, renew the centuries-old musical compositions. Revel in the joy of something new that inevitably springs forth once one’s heart and mind are in the right place. Repeat the fun when the sun goes down with a different palette - a different raaga , a different taala.

I am as old-school as they come; but buying this app is the best $25 I have spent in a long time, for sure. It is a God-sent for us loner types when it comes to music, allowing one to work at one’s own pace and to not have to deal with the logistics and artistic-differences of collaborative work; not to mention avoid the constant juggling to keep a myriad of instruments in tune.

Here I present to you the virtual one-man-jatha : I sing and Prasad's app does all the accompaniment (tanpura + surmandal + tabla ). A brief mangalacharan (prelude) precedes each Gurbani shabad.

Saadho Mun Ka Maan Tyaago, based on Bairaagi, a morning raaga :

Har Charan Saran Kalyaan Karan, based on Kalyaan, an evening raaga :

Tum Ho Sub Raajan Ke Raaja, based somewhat on Pancham Malkauns, a late-night raaga :

An Oil Painting

2010-05-07T05:54:00.005-05:00

No Tomorrow. Mixed-media. Oil on water.

Gulf of Mexico, circa 2010

photo credit : U.S Coast Guard

the surjeet paatar project

2009-10-18T13:39:00.005-05:00

The Surjeet Paatar Project has been a background preoccupation of mine for the last few years. Life has chugged merrily along with its usual baggage of highs and lows, successes and failures, focused sprints and unhurried meanderings : in all of that the one constant has been casual interplay of music and poetry in the background. The project is an attempt to pick a few flowers from Dr. Paatar’s garden and arrange them into a bouquet.

Of all Punjabi poets, old and modern, Surjeet Paatar has a very special place in my heart. The sensitivity that he exemplifies in his poetry is remarkable and his canvas is so large that there is practically no issue of concern that he has not written on – poverty, globalization and immigration, terrorism, love, history, war, environment, spirituality. And in every verse, his humanistic streak is evident :

kisay de vaastey shaayad birkh banaa main vee,

issay ummeed te thal vich khadan dopahar andar

for the sake of somebody else, I too, could become a tree

with this hope, I stand in the desert mid afternoon

It was my good fortune to sing two of his poems to him while he was here in Ottawa in July 2007. I was very apprehensive because a good poem is a very delicate construct – imposing a musical framework on it can often be fraught with danger, destroying its very essence in the process. He was very appreciative and encouraged me to continue with this experimentation of weaving my two passions – poetry and music, one feeding the other.

Dr. Paatar’s poetry is a delight to work with – it is obvious when one looks at some of his poems that these are meant to be sung. The poetic meter is amazingly precise; there is never a need to stretch or compress a word to fit a melody. I have let his poems pick the tunes for this journey together : hopefully, my musical adaptation has been unobtrusive enough to let the beauty of his words to shine through.

From his book Lafzaan Dee Dargah (The Shrine of Words)

faslaan_udaas_hoieeaan

dukkhan_bhareya_dil_paimaana

bahut_gul_khilay_ne

naa_eh_paun_hai

From his book Birakh Arz Karey (Thus Speaks A Tree)

bansari_naal_behas

roan_sau_saarangiyaan

Punjabi Poetry By Anwar Masood

2009-09-13T08:28:00.004-05:00

One of life’s greatest pleasures is stumbling upon something stupendous. We go about the daily grind taking a detour here and there to preserve our sanity and then, all of a sudden, there is a chance discovery that causes a wholesale realignment of our neurons. Our world magically expands as do the limits of what we think as humanly possible.

Anwar Masood’s Punjabi poetry has such an impact. He crafts the words with such amazing skill and feeling that I keep wanting to listen to his flights of fancy again and again and again. Over a marathon session last weekend scouring everything (poetry recitals, lectures, interviews) available on Youtube, I picked six of my favourites. Each and every one of these is a gem; crafted with a labour of love that is visible in his impeccable choice of words and flawless delivery. Listening to him, one cannot but fall in love with words. The Punjabi spirit of no-nonsense plowing through life with gusto shines through; some things cannot be expressed in any language other than Punjabi.

We start off the proceedings with a hawker selling a Banian (vest) :

Continuing on with the theme of hawkers, we take a ride in a bus. At one point, the bridge over the Jhelum river in Pakistan was restricted to a single-lane causing the traffic to stop for some time in each direction. In a separate lecture, Anwar Masood talked about undertaking this journey many times over three years copiously taking notes and studying the people as they went about making a living selling various things. Astute observations and remarkable sensitivity, as he chisels out this classic : Jhelum Da Pul

On to Ajj Kee Pakayiye – a dialogue between a Chaudhry (landowner) and his cook (Rehmaa) on the age-old premise to what to cook tonight. We all ponder the decision daily in our lives; in the poetry of Anwar Masood, the mundane is elevated to the sublime.

Anarkali is the most famous bazaar in Lahore – Anwar Masood captures the imaginary conversation between a villager and his majh (buffalo) as he leads her through Anarkali. Simply beautiful. Anarkali Deeyan Shaanaan.

In a tussle of culinary heavyweights, Lassi takes on Chaah. Tradition vs Fashion. Old vs New. I love the forcefulness of the language that the bitter fight brings out so beautifully.

And in the end, Ambri (Mother), where Anwar Masood takes a break from humour. A very moving poem, based on his personal experience as a teacher, on the subject of domestic violence. It is not too often that one sees grown men brought to uncontrollable tears by the power of simple words.

I hope you enjoyed Anwar Masood’s poetry just as much as I do. It is impossible to be a great poet without being a great human-being : creative, compassionate, humble. I feel fortunate to make his acquaintance via the miracles of technology. Youtube is not all garbage, for sure.

Yet Another Rejection Letter

2009-09-01T16:47:00.008-05:00

Dear Mr. Parker,

After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that the bank has rejected your business-loan application for a cannibal restaurant. In keeping with our new corporate policy of full and honest disclosure, I have highlighted the relevant sections of your business proposal that the committee feels are problematic and present a high risk exposure.

While we do not doubt your culinary creativity, as evident from the highly imaginative daily specials (pan-seared love-handles, baby bottom roast, granola-fed vegan fingers), we do not see anything in your business plan that demonstrates how you would tackle the inevitable supply-chain issues. Banks are in the business of making money and we routinely support and fund businesses that are accused of bloody murder but in your case such accusations may literally be true and that will not be good business. Breast-milk frozen yogurt for the Freudian-vegetarian market ? You must be crazy.

You state, with a zeal typical of a freshman taking Marketing 101 : I would put Cannibal Junction in the Byward Market in Ottawa, right in the middle of the action, where the propensity to sin increases as the night progresses and everyone starts to look for a quick bite. A neat little play on words, but business proposals are the last place for such trickery. Your audience is men who live in the world of finance and fine-print and they found this loading of the phrase 'a quick bite' with highly suggestive sexual-cannabalism imagery very disturbing. This did not exactly help your chances, as you may well understand.

On behalf of the bank, I thank you for your ongoing business, and I trust that we will continue to serve you in the future. Perhaps, in a few years, when genetic engineering would have advanced to such an extent that one would be able to pick a meal-mate based on looks, intelligence and flavour; you may chose to resubmit your application and we will be happy to reconsider it.

Yours truly,

A. Stiff
Small Business Loan Rejections,
Big Bank Inc.

A Rejection Letter

2009-08-27T09:12:00.006-05:00

Dear Mr. Parker,

First and foremost, I would like to thank you for submitting what you ,ever so humbly, refer to as your magnum opus. We are honoured that you decided to submit samples from your masterpiece to us; and not, I quote, any of a dime-a-dozen small publishing houses specializing in sustainable living, spirituality, wild flowers, hemp clothing and the Canadian immigrant experience. Unfortunately, we will not be able to publish it as the work does not meet our guidelines and requirements.

Who am I kidding ? It stinks. It stinks so bad that I feel very strongly that it deserves a personalized rejection letter. A form letter would just not do as I would really like to 'nip the evil in the bud' where the evil in question is your rather misplaced faith in your inner writer. I will be doing my fellow editors a big favour by sparing them the torture of having to read through the mounds of drivel, that I am sure, you are capable of churning out in abundance.

Where to start ? The pomposity is evident from the title itself - A Book Of Wisdom for the 21st Century. It is rather presumptuous of you to think of the problems that the book-store managers would face upon its publication (What to do with the many tons of conventional wisdom that will rot in warehouses once this is out ?) but we are all entitled to daydream, so I will let that one pass.

Let us move on to the actual content.

While I do see a very faint semblance of something remotely workable in a few of the quotations you have dreamed up (A man is known by the bookmarks in his web browser. Never trust a man who sells value-added services.); I do need to remind you that these become quotations only when these are quoted (repeatedly) by people other than YOU. As they stand, these are merely grammatically correct sentences that are being rejected by an editor as being unworthy of publication. I would certainly not be as charitable about the rest of the duds in that section.(Uneasy lies the crotch that wears a pager. Every barber is a Dalai Lama.)

No publisher in their right mind would want to open themselves to libel by accepting such tasteless limericks that you would like to pass on as some sort of aphorisms for the trademark-laden digital age :

Blackberry^TM wielding man of power,

twiddled his thumb in the shower,

for the stress from vibration

and years of radiation

had reduced to a stub 'twas once a tower

My Powerpoint^TM presentation,

received a standing ovation,

the crowd on Atkins Diet^TM

sat through all quiet

on the subject of constipation

Granted, the nonsensical limerick form is difficult to criticize and I can see how you may be naturally attracted to it but even a nonsense poem must, at the very least, have some artistic merit or redeeming quality. Your limericks have none. Sure, if I were to dissect one, there is rhyme and if I can stretch the standards a bit, there is reason; but as a whole, I find no rhyme or reason to publish such puerilities.

What I find the most upsetting, however, is your attempt at hijacking the haiku. You have taken what is a sublime poetic form and turned it into just another container for your trash. Basho and Issa would, no doubt, be turning in their graves at the travesty you unleash in these ditties :

setting sun –

commuter swears,

whither goddamn sunglasses

a cardinal sin -

to ogle neighbour’s wife

or to Google her

I suggest that you continue to publish this balderdash on your own blog and force feed it to the few friends that you might have. If you would really like to see it in print, I suggest buying a printer and making a few copies for bathroom-reading which is about the only genre I can place this in.

There are a million other meaningful pursuits that one could follow in life other than writing and I wish you success in any one of them.

Regards,

Anna Biting-Critic

Chief Editor, Lowest Rung,

High-Brow Publishing House

An Ode To Autumn

2008-10-22T22:32:00.018-05:00

(Photo Credit : natureluv on Flickr)

The colours have been absolutely amazing this year. Not only has the spectacle been extraordinarily vivid, it has lingered on a fair bit longer than normal. Thanks to a wet summer, perhaps. It is impossible to go for a long walk in woods at this time of the year and not emerge transformed. The autumn forest can make a poet out of anyone. (You should know where this is heading)

My ode to this, the most beautiful season of the year, in Ottawa anyways, is in Punjabi. I have attempted to sing my poem in Raga Megh - the raga of the torrential rains so metaphors mix, characters clash and images flash in and out of sentimental nostalgia and a yearning to belong in nature.

rang_gulabee_laal_peelay

I recited this at the CHUP Society’s Evening of Poetry at the Centrepointe Theatre on October 18th, 2008. ( CHUP stands for Canadian Hindi Urdu Punjabi and chup literally means silence in all of these languages; which is quite apt, as one of the poets remarked that evening. All poetry is born out of silence). Hope it does something for you; it sure was immensely pleasurable to write and compose.

A rather contrived translation (for those who could not endure more than a few seconds of the audio) is :

Autumn

colours pink, red and yellow
the season of falling leaves is here
why do you stay all cooped up inside
while nature weaves a tapestry

the ancestral trees have sent you an invitation
laying out a light-yellow bed
tis, the season of colour, busy men sleep
while leaves lose their lives

Do not be a man
be one with nature
enjoy my son
enjoy the Godliness

take off your blinds
take off your muzzle
sing Megh
dance with the squirrel

Megh raag was the call of the babeeha (bird)
Megh was the company of clouds
Megh raag was raindrops falling on the kikkar (tree)
Megh is now the colours of the maple

The Maple is dressed up as newly-wed
Take off my veil, my lover, it sings
Why grieve the passing of youthful exuberance
When it will be back again next year

Canada : According to Google Trends

2008-10-08T10:11:00.003-05:00

A colleague recently directed me to Google Trends and I was hooked. Here is something that really appeals to the armchair social commentator in me. I can enter any word or phrase, chose a country and time and generate a chart based on Google searches for that particular word or phrase. This is really quite fascinating and for most cases, the sample size far exceeds the 1000 people that Mr. Gallup polls with the caveat that 19 out of 20 people still speak the truth when their supper is interrupted by a telephone survey.

We will start with the basics to get our feet wet. I will localize the searches to Canada and select the time to be the years 2004-2008. Nothing fancy. I enter hockey and the graph shows me that the season is far too long with only a very brief respite in the summer. There is a lot of interest in hockey during the Christmas holidays and during major tournaments like the World Cup. So far so good. I enter Stanley Cup and I can see when that occurs, just in case I live in Canada but do not talk to anyone or read any newspapers or watch any television. But take another look at the data; in particular at the list of the top 10 cities where the Stanley Cup searches originate from. There is no Toronto or any of its suburbs. I am amazed that resignation can be this qualitatively quantified !

Let us try a few more. Canadians start to think of summer as soon as the snow starts coming down and the interest peaks at around Canada Day. There is precipitous fall in the next month, brought about in no small measure I am sure, by the criminals that lure us into fall fashion. Notice also how the pointy fall fashion peaks are sliding ever so early to take a bite out of our already short summer. Oh my God, is this all real ? I need some reassurance so I will lob a few other easy ones, in particular to see if the regional splits make sense. So, OK, the prairies care about wheat, Alberta about oil and Quebec about poutine and Celine. I feel the nervous excitement that an executive must feel when he is about to make a presentation where the data nicely fits the lies that he is going to pitch.

Foliage. It seems the term just enters our vocabulary in late September and quickly vanishes a week later never to be uttered or typed again until the same time next year. Cleavage, on the other hand is a perennial favourite from coast to coast.

Life is not all fun and games though. So let us get the ugliness out of the way. Finance, investment, MBA. Notice how these words are all the rage in Markham, Scarborough, Toronto, Burnaby, Richmond Hill. So if I were the dean of a business school all tied up in knots because a third-rate magazine rated my school as merely prestigious ( the lowest of the three categories – prestigious, world-class and elite); I know where to launch my next big tootmyownhorn blitz with the works - full page newspaper advertisements of smiling alumni executrons and promise of free wine and cheese in a swank hotel lobby. Swank. Which brings me to one of the pitfalls of using the Google Trends search data - it is absolutely garbage if the word happens to be a celebrity name, which is again apt in its own way.

Fascinated as I am with what this all means, it is still a tad worrisome to think about how this data can and will be used in the years to come. But let us banish those negative thoughts, my friends. Let us not take precious jobs away from academics, consultants and policy analysts. Let us, instead, look at farts. Is it any surprise that our brothers (and sisters, for it is a scientific fact that men and women fart in equal measure) in the Maritimes are the most interested in this, rather sublime activity ? Why not, I ask. Let Western Canada worry about greenhouse gas. And now for something really disturbing : Masturbation. I know the Quebec premiers have been struggling for decades to offer effective incentives for fornication but looks like Quebecers are taking the easy way out. Taking matters in their own hands, so to speak. Stop the handouts, I say. Insert your own pun here. All I can conclude by looking at the data is that while in Rimouski, Sherbrooke or Trois-Rivieres, it is best not to shake hands with strangers. Or with anyone, just to be safe.

A sobering thought to end this fun experiment (just as it was getting real interesting) is how an article or a blog would read in a few years should the underlying assumptions change. Trends change. So, too, will Google Trends. Fashions change. The knowledge base of a society changes. But stereotypes have survived far more formidable opponents than the scourge of political correctness and likely will be around long after the impending doom and gloom. Come 2058, if the planet manages to somehow survive the relentless business of business, Newfoundlanders will still have the best sense of humour, the Spelling-Bee Finals will still be Swaminathan vs Chang, and the Stanley Cup Finals will be a clash between two teams, neither of which will be the Toronto Maple Leafs.

A Political Trick-or-Treat

2008-09-19T04:50:00.003-05:00

Halloween arrives a few weeks early this year. The trick-or-treaters are already here. The Blood-Red Liberal, The Green Goblin, Mr. Pumpkin and Deep-Blue will all come knocking on your door for your vote. The conversation at my front door has always followed the same basic script.

Hi. Hello. Nice weather, eh.
I am Blah and I am the candidate for Blah for this riding. I have two children and a dog.
Do you have any questions?
Umm. No. Not Really.
I hope I can count on your vote.
Umm. Yes.

Sure there are subtle variations. The Conservative is usually a man with a no-nonsense, no humour approach. As he grills and interrogates me on my voting history, I have this terrible feeling that the corporate world with all its alpha-maleness has invaded even the privacy of my house. When he shoots "Do you have any questions?", I meekly say "No" and I assure the Terminator of my vote just to see his back. As soon as he leaves, I have to come in to the house and hug something to feel normal. A child. A blanket. A teddy-bear. Anything.

The Liberals send in Ms. Smalltalk. She could just burst from all the goodness and happiness she has packed in her. In two minutes flat, she covers healthcare, kids, weather, jobs, economy, Afghanistan, environment and taxes; carefully treading to not take a position on any issue that cannot be harmlessly retracted.

High-Tech Boom, High-tech Bust,
High-Tech Maybe, High-Tech Must.

She flits from topic to topic looking carefully for any sign of my weakness where she can perch a little longer. And then, with that hallmark Liberal insincerity, she takes a whiff and asks "What is cooking in your kitchen? The aroma is wonderful."

That is no aroma. That is the stink of Saag, my dear lady friend! Spinach, Broccoli, Rapini, Cabbage, Brussels sprouts, Bok Choy, Kale. If it is leafy and green – we show no mercy and chop it up and put in the pot with the spices. It is one big Green Party orgy going on in there. Sure, it tastes awesome and does wonders for the system as it goes barreling down the bowels, but it does test the limits of good-neighbourliness when we chose to cook it on a nice day with the windows all open.

"Oh, that? Just a vegetable stew. Bit of a strong smell, I am sorry." I reply.
"You wouldn't mind if we put a sign on your lawn, then?"
(What with you being an immigrant and all, surely you cannot vote for anyone but Trudeau's Liberals)

"Umm". I hesitate. Well, that is not a blunt No as far as they can see. The two twenty-something eager Hoovers accompanying her start hammering the sign in my lawn. I have to wait for them to be done my street before I pull the sign out and put it in my garage. It will make a very good Halloween prop. It is already a gory red; all I have to do is to cover the writing up with a picture of a decapitated head and I am all set. Liberals funding the Liberal Arts. There.

Then there was that NDP fellow who had dropped by while I was out perched on a ladder cleaning the eaves trough a few years ago. Pulling out the muck; I had been projecting that nice, hard-working, getting my hands dirty sort of family-man-demographic that all parties crave for. I had stopped dead in my tracks, as I am likely to do with the very first excuse that gets me out of housework. We had started talking and the closet-Marxist in me had come out. Before long, we were having lengthy discussions on trade unions, corporate greed, organic tomatoes and squeegee kids; sometimes all in the same narrative. I had felt a sudden urge to scratch my beard till I had realized that I no longer had that. I had given that up for the clean-cut image required to plunge into the corporate world and swim with the sharks. We had bonded and bitterly complained about how the world just does not take the leftists seriously; how the world always conspired for the doers and go-getters and against the serious thinkers and men of inaction like us. I had given him the assurance of my vote and lugged the ladder inside calling it a day; had poured myself a glass of wine and put on some classical music to reflect on the meaninglessness of it all. The eaves trough job, as my wife reminds me every chance she gets, remains half done to this day. And that, my friends, is the day we had become a politically split family. My wife has never voted NDP since that incident but I still do it on compassionate grounds.

This time I am ready for change. I only have their sympathetic ear just prior to the election and I fully intend to use it this time. This time I will have questions for them. Even better, I will have a questionnaire that I will hand to them and trade with their brochure. "This will only take a few minutes", I will assure them. "Please answer these multiple-choice questions. Your answers will help me decide who I vote for. You can leave it in the mailbox when done." And then I will step back into the house and try to hold my laughter.

Which is the lesser of the three evils?
Baby Seals.
Baby Taliban.
Baby Bloc Quebecois.

Why should I vote for your leader?
He has a manly moustache.
She does not have a manly moustache.
He is not overly manly.

Prime Minister Harper can play the piano, or so his party would have me believe. What musical instrument can your leader play?
Air Guitar, because politics is all about simulating action.
Violin. But he is a beginner. Ouch.
Hot-Air Flute.

(Although, the PR agency should really have had Harper play the harp for the benefit of us word-play and tongue-twister aficionados. Down by the harbour, Harper plays the harp at the harpooning of the harp seals. I can visualize a rather lovely cartoon)

If the Americans started to jump off a cliff, would you?
Celebrate.
Jump off a cliff as well (as any good, incapable of independent thought, neighbour would do).
Plead with them to not do it (as in the magical tale about the lowly beaver and the raging elephant)

What do you think of Prince Edward Island?
Cute and picturesque
Largely irrelevant
These questions make no sense at all. What a jerk !

Thank you for your patience and understanding. You can count on our support. See you again in five years. Maybe three. Maybe next year.

Silly Cartoons or High Art

2008-08-02T23:15:00.009-05:00

Guess The Raaga, A blogsical

2007-08-25T07:28:00.000-05:00

Use what talent you possess. The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best. (Henry Van Dyke. American author and educator)

I like this quotation a lot and use it fairly often to justify my own noise pollution credits just as I am about to do right now. Here are a few samples of my scratchy Esraj playing – presented as a blogsical. The samples are fairly short – a couple of minutes each ; if you are able to guess the underlying raga – Congratulations ! You have a finely-tuned ear that can extract a raaga no matter how crappy the playing. Reward yourself with a Timbit.

As the whole raaga-theory is rife with esoterica , no harm is done if I add my own commentary on what feeling a piece of music evokes. It will serve absolutely no purpose as a clue. On the contary, it will (intentionally) confuse the listener by associating some sort of kama-sutric spirituality and mystique to the music. Let me set it all up for you.

First up, we have a scantily-clad celestial nymph (are there any other kind ? ) gyrating towards the river to fill her pitcher with water. The holy man in a saffron robe is secretly following her, hiding behind trees. She can sense something and looks back but sees nothing. The air is thick with an intensely lustful longing for the forbidden fruit, as can only be harbored by men of God who have spent a lifetime in meditation and denial of pleasure.

nymph_water_hmmm

The holy man is in luck. She has decided to take a bath. She looks all around to make sure she is not being watched. But she is. The gradual aaroh (ascending pattern of notes of the raga) is significant here at multiple levels. The transformation of holy man to demon is near complete.

the_demon_awakes

And he gets caught by zealots. For every holy man with less than holy intentions, there exist a hundred men who firmly believe that if they never realized their fantasies, nobody should; least of all, someone in a saffron robe. I present to you, the raaga of interrogation. What the hell were you doing hiding behind the tree eyeing her, you imbecile?

scheudenfraude

The fanatics are a merciless lot. The holy man is to suffer the the pitter-patter of inconsiderate souls in a 16-beat cycle. That the lehera, the accompanying melody is in a soothing raga is inconsequential. There is nothing soothing about the savagery that is about to be unleashed.

god_that_hurts

And we now move on to pathos. They have left the poor soul to nurse his own wounds and he cries out to the nymph; who has long since left the scene. Just the faint yet intoxicating smell of scented soap lingers.

the_fractured_cries

All the animals from the jungle gather around the tattered holy man. Animals have had the capability of experiencing and expressing deep-seated emotions long before the age of Disney. Feel the tears run down the eyes of the deer and the rabbit.

a_royal_tearfest

I believe in laying it thick. A shot of melancholy on the rocks. Life sucks. Especially if you are a holy man caught with your robe up. A heady mix of emotions here : repentance, pain, yearning.

a_shot_of_melancholy

And the curtains come down.

Musibling Rivalry

2007-03-02T15:06:00.000-05:00

The Tabla is a very perceptive instrument. I could see that it was not terribly excited to see me lug three other instruments and force him to share his closet space with them. He had ruled the household for the past seven years; being played daily barring illness or civil war. Come to think of it, played even more during incidences of civil war or family feuds and much more vigorously and furiously as if to make a point. These days he is being played less and has more time for contemplation. I can read some of his deep thoughts. The bald bastard had to go out and get himself these toys of the melodic persuasion. Somebody needs to tell this man to grow up. He thinks he is going to play the Sitar. And Dilruba. And Sarangi. My ass. I guess, we impart a bit of our character and attitude to whosoever we live with. Much like in our children, some of our own idiosyncracies are reflected in our musical instruments. My Tabla certainly mirrors my pettiness and disdain. And I absolutely love him.

But how can a parent love one child more than the other, I try to reason. It is just that the Dilruba is brand new to me. I am an absolute beginner. I have to spend the hard hours getting the bowing motion right else the scratching will make people's ears bleed and as much as I am enthralled by the grotesqueness of the idea, I do not think music should do that.

Enough, wise guy. Reserve your carefully thought out justifications for covering up your sorry ass the next time you screw up at your day job. Which should be anytime soon now that the Dilruba, the queen of your musical harem, is on your mind the whole time.

Come on now, I plead. I carried your obsession with me all these years; successfully juggling career and family and you, didn't I ?

Well. Well. Well. Calling ourselves successful, are we ? Let us not wake up those sleeping dogs.

That is not even the correct expression. It is let the sleeping dogs lie. And it does not even make any sense in this context.

Sure it does. If you keep playing the Dilruba as awfully as you do, you will wake up the sleeping dogs. And they will be mad. First they will hump the Dilruba and then they will hump you.

OK. I am not continuing this conversation. You leave me no choice other than a timeout. In the closet you go and think long and hard about what you said. In my house, we learn to coexist.

But I am soft. Sometimes I wonder how bad a soldier I would have made. The timeout did not last one minute and I took a break from tuning the Dilruba to play the Tabla. All the acrimony was soon forgotten. The bond between a human being and his musical instrument is much stronger than most would imagine. And the Tabla sounded so good. Sometimes apologies do not have to be explicit. His frown was now gone. I give him a minimum fifteen minutes a day and he reciprocates by toning down the sarcasm. I even see him enjoy a passage or two as I try to scratch out a Bhimpalasi or a Megh on the Dilruba. You see, I tell him, here is Bageshri. And I change one note, and see how the mood changes so dramatically. That is Rageshri. Now Bageshri. Now Rageshri. Bageshri. Rageshri. It is like I am doing twins. The Tabla chuckles and I know we are in for the long haul. Me, my Tabla and my Dilruba.

Life In The Slow Lane

2006-12-23T05:23:00.002-05:00

I love December. It is the month I try to live life as a human being instead of a human doing. Catch a sunrise, take a walk in the woods, make some music. Simple pleasures. If you have to pay for it, it has already lost a bulk of its worth. Kahlil Gibran wrote :

Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

I do not own any sheep and I certainly am no poet ( though I have tried with quite disastrous results that I am sure I will foist here in creatively leaner times when the right half of the brain, in charge of putting food on the table, completely shuts out the vagabond left. It happens every few months of the year, strangely coinciding with the software release cycle at work. ), but I can certainly vouch for the putting your child to sleep part. In fact, in my twisted frame of thought, that is one chore I am sure to miss the most as my children grow older. Mannat, eight now, was conditioned to sleep to ragas Bhimpalasi and Shivranjani. Rajvir, now four, holds the record for dozing off into his nap in less than thirty seconds to Bhimsen Joshi’s Shuddh Bilawal. And not just once, I had successfully recreated this flash-sleep process enough times to consider filing a patent for the procedure. ( Put in the CD. Walk the extra slow rhythm cycle in large circles holding the subject in your arms under an intense paternal gaze. The father may shed a tear or two as the child drifts lazily into sleep and he becomes aware of the ephemeral nature of such joys. Side effects may also include the father continuing to walk the cycle in a hypnotic trance well after the child is in deep slumber, unless snapped out of it by a beautiful, complaining wife). Enough mush. I have to stop blogging while under the influence of five-dollars-a-bottle-make-your-own-at-the-wine-garden. (But it is really good !!)

Some musical vignettes for these lazy December days when all senses slow to a crawl due to overeating. These were recorded in Adam Duncan’s living room on December 20^th, 2006 with an el-cheapo digital recorder, hence the poor audio quality. The audience consisted of Adam’s cat and her six new born kittens so if you hear an occasional purr or a meow, consider it heartfelt applause. ( This is her second six-kitten litter in the last few months; I should notify the Indian High Commission that their missing Black Cat commando is probably hiding out in the Ottawa East End).

Adam on guitar, me on tabla, unplugged :

A dhun ( tune ) based loosely on Raga Yaman :

yaman

Much the same notes, but this time in a 4-beat cycle giving it a lighter feel. Raga Hansadhwani :

hansadhwani

Something a little heavier. A slower composition in Bairagi Bhairav :

bairaagi_bhairaav

Happy Holidays. Wishing your batteries a full recharge for 2007.

A Canadian Toy Story

2006-11-28T16:12:00.000-05:00

This will definitely be the toughest challenge to face the Conservative government of Stephen Harper. Forget Afghanistan. Forget Quebec. The Chinese threat is the real deal. China owns Tibet. Fair and square. It came. It saw. It conquered. The West should have no problem understanding this modus-operandi. That is precisely why the Chinese are incensed that the Canadians have the gall to grant honorary citizenship to Dalai Lama and comment on Tibet. Or Falun Gong. President Hu Jintao of China has taken the unprecedented step to settle this once and for all by using sanctions. And thanks to Stephen Harper’s bravado, Canada has been chosen as the country the Chinese will use to set the example. Make no mistake. It is a clear signal for all countries. You mess with China, you suffer Chinese torture. 21st century style. Toy sanctions. Just in time for Christmas.

Starting December 1, 2006, China will stop shipment of any toys to Canada. The sanctions will stay in effect till further notice. The tersely worded statement from Premier Wan was released to the press today by the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa. North Pole moved to Tibet. Canada Post send kids letters to Dalai Lama now. Bad country. Bad Harper. No toy for you this year. Happy Christmas Canada. Not so happy. Eh.

Soon the newspapers will spin the story based on the orders from their taskmasters. Some will spin it left, most will spin it right. Some will intentionally spin it so fast and furious that it will be hard to see which direction it is being spun in. The President of The Toy Council Of Canada and the Vice President of Plush Toy Purchasing for Hudson Bay Company will get their five minutes of fame as they forecast doom and gloom for this holiday season. Once the mainstream media latches on to a story, it becomes very difficult to get the facts as they get buried in the mountain of manure that the experts and the analysts generate at a rate that would put an industrial hog farm to shame.

So let us look at the facts. From the moment a child is conceived in Canada, it begins to impact the Canada China toy trade. Statistics Canada probably does not have the toys per stem cell index figured out just yet but if we add the accumulation from the baby showers, it will likely run into tens of hundreds of dollars per baby. The first peak coincides with the actual birth as the Chinese dragon starts its invasion of the home disguised as cute little bunnies and bears. The frenzy continues in the first few months as the baby learns to associate happiness with AA batteries and the yuppie parents race to outspend other yuppie parents with Baby Einstein and Baby Mozart products so that their Baby Brat does not turn out to be as dumb as themselves. Pretty soon the vacuum cleaner is sucking up the dismembered limbs of Happy Meal foot soldiers and the Baby Einsteins have learnt the correct pronunciation of the choicest four-letter words from their father during one of his “little assembly required” sessions. Every birthday produces another peak in toy consumption made possible by the collective efforts of the community and Wal Mart and the dragon starts to acquire swords and guns. Harper needs to be very afraid. The toy sanctions are going to affect the Canadian lifestyle far more than Kyoto. It is going to be like the spectre of Quebec appeasement being played out at a microeconomic level in every Canadian household. And no government can survive such restlessness in its tax-paying population. If Harper does not go down on his knees and beg the Chinese for forgiveness, he will be out and the Red (or Pink) Progressives will be back in power before the end of the year. Santa Claus will feature in a lot of campaign commercials and he will look a lot like Ignatieff, who by the way should have no problem offering an apology to the Chinese as he is the master of spit and lick politics.

How did we get to this stage where our foreign policy is dictated by the whims and fancies of the ones in diapers? And no, this is not a comment on our ageing Senate. This is a serious matter that we need to think about before the Fraser Institute, the venerable Canadian think-tank does it for us. (Whenever I hear the word think-tank, I think tank. For if you have a tank, you can drive it over all the ones that think, which is more or less what all think-tanks are funded to do). Brad Parker explored the consequences of perpetual titillation on child development in his seminal treatise The Anatomy of a Child's Smile (Chronically Under-funded University Press, 2005). His study was initially funded by the mob - the Canadian Dental Association, but left with no support once it was determined that it had swayed too far from its initial goal of surreptitiously marketing tooth whiteners, crown bridges, braces and candy. Parker's scholarly work clearly demonstrated the role that China plays in a child's smile and warned of the dire consequences for a society that is much too dependent on manufactured happiness. From the barbie doll in the shower of the thirty-seven year old Xbox junkie (here-after referred to as the man-child demographic) to the rubber duckie in the toddler’s bathtub, Canadians start their day squishing and fondling something Made in China. And with every passing moment through the day, a Made In China toy-thing is no more than a few feet away for most Canadians. They make our cute little stuffed Mounties who then escort the bottles of Maple Syrup from airport gift shops to all corners of the world as glowing marvels of an economy based on value added products and services, which the Fraser Institute tells us is the way of the future. Toys made from softwood lumber just do not fly.

So what is Harper to do? Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. Especially when all crowns are now Made In China. He could face the challenge head on and embark on an ambitious program to reduce the proportion of Canadian joy derived from Chinese toys by 2050 or he could take the easy route and learn to say sorry in Mandarin. Some bending over may be required but nothing beyond what a politician is used to from day to day. He could think of it as taking a flu shot on his butt.

World Sweet Olympics on CBC with Brian Williams and Teleprompter

2006-10-13T06:52:00.000-05:00

BW : Welcome to CBC television’s live coverage of the World Sweet Olympics. We are dedicated to stooping down to the standards demanded by you, our discriminating viewers. The National will feature a newer, hipper, jazzier Peter Mansbridge, with a nose ring and vocabulary upgrades tied to the latest iPod release. Street Cool. Watch him tonight at ten when we include a hilarious blooper where he gets all bloody-nosed trying to extract a booger in between segments. And earlier at eight, David Suzuki will toss live chicken to the hungry lions on The Nature Of Things. Enough with each CBC program pitching at least two others to save on advertising costs for you, our valuable tax-payers. Now , on to the live coverage.

TP : OK. That last bit was uncalled for. You have 40 seconds till the background music dies down to start sounding semi-intelligent and macho at the same time. You are a sportscaster and this IS a sport. Rabinovitch says so. 37.36.35.34.33

BW : It is an absolutely gorgeous day in Kanata, Ontario. Silicon Valley North. With all of the bad silicon and none of the good. We are in front of the BrookStreet Hotel, striving hard to bring class to suburbia. First the Bilderberg Conference and now the World Sweet Olympics, BrookStreet is definitely putting Kanata on the fast track to somewhere. After a week long competition, we are down to the final four. And as Canadians are painfully getting used to after each Olympics, our contingent has not performed very well. Shocking, because as a sweet tooth nation, we are right up there. Heads will roll. I see a royal commission being instated.

TP : OK. Enough. Why do you always have to lead things away from sport into politics ? We have enough of those bozos on our payroll. Do the job you are being paid for. Talk sports, Brian. 3.2.1

BW : The Sweet Olympics. It may seem so frivolous, but there is a lot of strategy involved in the sport. Possibly more than poker; although not quite as much as darts. For example, you do not want to use up your aces in the qualifying rounds because every confection is allowed but one chance.

What was the point to start off with the Beavertail ? It was overkill for the first round. Canada could have really used it later when the Italians and French pulled out their Tiramisu and Crème Brulee . I say fire the coach and the manager. Let us get some fresh cream in there.

TP : The viewers are not there to appreciate your fine nuances. Few words on the contest. The rules. The contestants. 100 seconds to commercial break. 99.98.97.

BW : The final four. One of these will go home without a medal. The rules are simple. The dessert will be prepared on the spot and will be judged on technicalities including calories-per-milligram punch and artery-clogging potential. Points are subtracted for any nutritional content. The taste and texture points are discretionary based on the preference of the judges so just like figure-skating and gymnastics, a little sleeping around cannot hurt. Although looking at our first contestant, the big, burly, hairy man from Turkey carrying his tray of ingredients for Baklava , the judges would have to have a death-wish to even contemplate that. Unless they are into that sort of physical punishment thing. Like Belinda Stronach.

TP : No. No. No. You idiot. 9.8.7.3.2.1 Commerical break.

Lots of choice four letter words are exchanged in the ensuing melee in the studio but the viewers are spared that excitement. Instead, they get the commercial.

The World Sweet Olympics, brought to you by Tim Hortons. If you are remotely patriotic, you will shut up and drink our substandard coffee and think of open skies, winter storms, loon calls or whatever the hell the ad agency deems Canadian enough to perpetuate the corporate truth. Tim Hortons. A Canadian Institution. Come and line up in the drive-through where we feed you images of muffins gaining weight and a Boston Cream donut masturbating its guts out. Come on, you have to have at least some Timbits, those lovely little droppings of a constipated moose. Tim Hortons. A Canadian Institution.

The font for the commercial is intentionally loud and in your face to preserve the aesthetics of the medium.

BW : Welcome back to CBC’s live coverage of the World Sweet Olympics. The second finalist is from Quebec. The La Belle province. Potholes and Poutine. Let us see if the truly distinct society can whip up a truly distinct confection to justify competing in this Olympics as a separate team . Jean Pierre Tremblay will compete with his Maple Bourbon souffle. How could one go wrong with adding alcohol to a dessert ? But will it stand up against the other heavyweights ? We will have to wait and see.

The third contestant, C++ Rangarajan, is from India. That country is sneaking up, I tell you. No medals in any Olympics for fifty years and then, all of a sudden, a bronze. Four years later, a silver. You mark my words. Some day they will win a gold and it could well be today. And it was the Indians, who were the centre of the controversy yesterday that escalated to a huge diplomatic row over the rules. To give us the inside scoop on that story , we are joined by T. Sher Singh, our resident expert on all matters multicultural. So what was the big fracas about, Sher ?

TSS : The Indians were caught unawares with the rule that in the finals, the dessert has to be prepared then and there. You see, the Indian cuisine depends on forecasting and planning ahead. Just about everything requires meditation and marination. Salivation begets salvation. And their entry for the finals, Gulab Jamun, the deep fried milk balls, need to relax in a hot-tub of a massively concentrated sugar solution for at least a night to soak up the gazillion or so molecules of refined sugar into their being.

BW : It is a shame we will not be able to witness a judge go blind on live television upon consuming it, because as much as we are a public broadcaster, we do understand the ratings game. So how was it all settled, then ?

TSS : After much deliberation by the Canadian Ministry of Heritage and then the WTO, the decision was handed out against the Gulab Jamun. No surprise there. Quite simply, if I may use some legalese here, the world is divided into two camps. The Hosers and The Hosees. In a dispute, the WTO can always be counted on to side with the Hosers. So India will compete instead with Jalebi – a sweet equally devastating where the technical problem of getting the syrup into the batter is solved by mixing the sugar solution into the flour and gradually pouring it into the deep fryer in a circular pattern where the flour coalesces into little tubes that close in and trap the melted syrup. Caramel secret, Sharamel secret. What is the big deal ? Every street vendor in India knows it.

BW : Thank you, Sher, for that wonderful insight that you bring to all matters. You garner so much respect with your erudite comments till we tell the viewers that you sunlight as a litigation lawyer.

And to round off the finalists, we have the good old U.S.A. From the culture of excess that gave us the Turducken, comes Death By Chocolate. Skor Bars. Chocolate pudding. Whipping cream. Kahlua. And a celebrity to whip it all up – none other than Michael Moore. Let us see if he can lay it on thick ; much like he does in his films.

Stay tuned for all the action when we return.

The World Sweet Olympics, brought to you by Tim Hortons. If you are remotely patriotic ...

Click.

And God said. Click. Do not ignore municipal politics and. Click. Fur is back on the catwalks. Click. Click. Click.

Mile High Cyber Lounge

2006-09-20T15:44:00.000-05:00

Dr. Ardu Bello ordered his fourth drink. This time on the rocks. No soda. He was now in the Zone. The philosophical no man’s land between Good Time Republic and Inebria. This is where he was the most profound and did his best work ; dreaming up innovative pitches to help separate the fools from their money. Shorn of any political correctness and fancy packaging , his thoughts were now completely naked, just as he liked them. There are but two times when a person can think straight. Sitting on a rock by a river as the sun sets. And between his third and fourth drink. Much of the problems of the world can be attributed to people being too busy to do the former and not being allowed the latter.

Penelope served him his drink. With a smile that could melt a nuclear reactor. But he had more urgent matters on his mind than indulge in yet another exercise in seduction using his English. Not Queen’s English but Clerk’s English. Britain’s gift to the less civilized cultures across the globe. I would most humbly and respectfully beg to submit to your goodself my desire to mount your highness. He dismissed the thought and tried to concentrate on the job at hand.

Sorting through the plethora of passports, he was trying to decide on which persona to take on for his trip to the Far East. Dr Uba Jega, of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. Abbah Abacha, illegitimate son of the late dictator of Nigeria, General Sanni Abacha. Dr. Yabril Omotayo, from the Federal Government Contract Review Panel. He had travelled as each one those on countless trips around the world with his stories of sixty million dollars waiting to be shared by a respectable family man for assistance in the transfer of his money. From subrate satellite links to fiber-optic rings of excess, he had circumnavigated the globe more times than Carl Sagan could count up to. From the touchy feely orgies in the dot-org domain to the giant bubble baths of dot-com, he had seen it all. And in a world that worships frequent flyers, this meant he was member of the premier, exclusive, executive club. The name is not important. The perks are. Penelope serves you drinks and there is never a wait.

But it has not been easy climbing the internet ladder. He still remembers the pain of travel in the hospitality section where spam served spam. With a never ending stream of the scum of the earth for company. The commonest of the commons. Pfizer salesmen with their suitcases bulging with adjectives. Big, Large, Huge, Enormous, Humongous. Long lineups of university professors and economists waiting to change the light bulb. Ponytails taking out their sexual frustration by heaping scorn on Frequently Asked Questioners. He does not have to put up with any of that and is proud of his achievement to live out loud the American dream with its endless possibilities to climb the stairways to exclusivity. Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be earned. (Ayn Rand, the patron saint of Business Class)

Early boarding announcement for those seeking their fortunes in the Far East. Dr Bello is jolted out of his drunken stream of consciousness. There is no time to waste to change personalities. He will proceed as Dr Bello. He has enough experience to bullshit his way through firewalls and spam detection software. He may fail a thousand times, but he will get his sucker. Money for nothing has such a universal appeal.

The Art of SkullDrumming : An interview with Brad Parker

2006-09-11T06:35:00.000-05:00

Brad Parker is the only known practitioner of skulldrumming, a term so new that even Google had nothing to say about it till this interview transcript appeared on this blog. Here he talks candidly about his passion and inspiration and the practice of this unique form of relaxation therapy with CBC radio host, Yetanother Tweedjacket . The interview first aired on Quirky Quacks, a program dedicated to finding people with unique talents anywhere other than the countryside pubs in the British Isles.

YATJ: Welcome to the show, Brad. First off, what is skulldrumming and how did your interest in it develop ?

BP: Well, come to think of it, it is a perfectly natural combination of my passion and desire. The passion is the Tabla , the hand drums used in North Indian music, which I have been playing for quite a few years. And the desire is to be able to do something to touch people at a cerebral level. Skulldrumming allows me to indulge in both. I play Tabla, but instead of using the hand drums, I play the rythms and the patterns on people’s heads. Preferably bald heads.

YATJ : Interesting. Why bald heads ? Would that not make this rather exclusive ?

BP : Yes. It is exclusive. I will not do it unless you are called Tom, Dick or Harry. ( YATJ fakes a laugh ) Seriously though, it just works a lot better on bald people for obvious reasons. Sure that severely restricts who can enjoy the pleasures of a skulldrumming massage, but you would be surprised to find out the percentage of population that is bald. And as a group, they have largely been ignored. Bald folks are a contented lot that value the good things in life. You will meet an abnormally high proportion of them at wine tastings, live theatre, farmers’ markets. And if you experienced the pleasure of a skulldrumming massage, you will look forward to your bald years too. I guarantee that.

YATJ : So walk us through the ritual. I smell incense. I hear Sitar. I see Karma. Chakra. Beads. The whole nine yards of New Age paraphernalia. (YATJ feels the glow of intellectual self-flagellation as he utters this gibberish )

BP : No. There is none of that. You walk in. You fill out a form that helps me chose what compositions to play on your head and what melody to use for ambience. I douse your head in mustard oil and away I go. DhaTirikitTakDhereDhereKitTak. Forty five minutes later, you come out of the trance, a rejuvenated bald man, who has in one session experienced the ancient art of champi or head massage combined with the classical repertoire of Tabla.

YATJ : How do you chose what to play ? What would some of the questions be that would help you make the determination ?

BP : I mean, there is the obvious. For a first-timer, I would play compositions from the Delhi Gharana. Start with a slow peshkaar; refined and sophisticated where the emphasis is on deft finger-work and getting the right tone out of the skull. After the scalp is sufficiently warmed up, I will play the fixed compositions and then move on to the faster repertoire – the laggis and the relas. I do not introduce the louder, bolder, more heavy-handed techniques from the Punjab and Banaras Gharana till after a few sessions, by which time the skull is primed and ready , or broken in , as we say in skulldrumming lingo.

The questions on the form help me identify the right melody, the raag, and the right rhythmic cycle, the taal, to fit the the person. What they do for a living; do they have a family history of sense of humour deficiency; would they rather be an ant or a butterfly; these are all valid questions that help define the personality. What may work for a low-powered Greenpeace activist may not work for a high-powered corporate executive. Not all balds are created equal, you know. Some skulls ring hollow on the left side, others on the right. And then there are the bureaucrats whose skulls emit the loveliest tones from both sides. I just love working with them. And they are such nice people, too. Cotton candy blobs of soft skills.

YATJ : That should bode well for business in bureaucracy rich Ottawa ! Sure you must have your skeptics, though.

BP : Oh Yes. Skeptics. They are everywhere. The regular massage therapists , chiropractors, acupuncturists and the whole array of assorted animals in the alternative medicine jungle who see this as an encroachment on their sacred turf. Marked, if I may say this on CBC radio, by their holistic piss. Health Canada and the insurance industry, who have been passionately waiting for the first case when my drumming cracks open a skull. Tabla players, some of who see this as disrespectful to their art. I mean, if I were to stop doing something for fear of skepticism and the fear that somebody, somewhere will find it disrespectful, I might as well stop pursuing anything meaningful. Become an accountant, perhaps.

Skepticism is very healthy but one must also have an open mind. Take the case of Ergonomic Spud. He works in the high-technology sector which is another bald-heavy demographic, what with all the radiation from computer screens and the stress of making the world a better place. He had developed severe seasonal allergies and excruciating migraines and had tried every possible quackery covered by his health plan but was really a mess when he decided to give skulldrumming massage a try. It was a nice sunny morning in early autumn, the best season in Ottawa. For him, I picked a spot outdoors, in Gatineau Park, surrounded by the wonderful spectacle of leaves starting to change colour. There was a gentle breeze carrying pollen from the fields of pharmaceutical blissweed for an assault on Spud’s senses like no other. I drummed on his bald head like I never drummed before for a few hours straight. No more allergies. No more migraine. Sometimes you have to face your demons head on. Ergonomic Spud is back to his healthy old self, designing value-added products and services that make our world so beautiful.

YATJ : How does one train for such a career ? Did you try the techniques on mannequins, like the ones they use for training barbers ?

BP : Well, first and foremost, you have to love to play the Tabla. Spend the requisite years to learn the trade; not the tricks of the trade. If you are really into Tabla, you will have enough experience playing it on your knees when sitting in a chair or on your belly after an all you can eat buffet. The adaptation to playing it on the head is not much of a stretch, really. A course in First Aid and learning how to deal with a concussion, and you are set to get into skulldrumming.

YATJ : That just about wraps up our time. A few closing words, perhaps ?

BP : I am not quite sure who would be up at this hour. It is almost 3 A.M. (YATJ : 3:30 in NewFoundLand ) but if any of you security guards , listening to the show from coast to coast, are bald or getting there and happen to come to Ottawa , do drop by. The place is not very easy to find; but then, nothing precious is. It is only a short walk from the Parliament Hill. Just follow the whistling bald guy.

YATJ : Thank you, Brad, and thank you all for tuning in. This is your host, Yetanother Tweedjacket, and you were listening to Brad Parker, skulldrummer. Next week, we feature a talking parrot who will read from Margaret Atwood’s latest novel, The Edible Cat.

An Open Letter to God. From a Chicken.

2006-08-29T07:01:00.000-05:00

Dear God,

I have never quite bought in to the whole creation theory. At best, it is a fine story that keeps them, your chosen species, perpetually amused and smug in their specialness. And I must admit, it is fascinating that all sub-species of humans, white, black, brown, yellow and all the shades in between, subscribe to this fairytale in one form or the other. All human packs, from the most primitive to the one most evolved in cruelty, seem to have independently come up with the notion of a Human God. And a method to brew spirit . And a recipe to cook a chicken to consume it with. Which brings me to the reason for this letter. In the collective wisdom of all poultry that has shared this planet with the Hominoid Haemorroids, the only force that has the potential to affect their behavior, somewhat predictably, is religion. For them to stop doing something, it has to be codified as a commandment. Ingrained into their consciousness through the persuasive powers of the keepers of the myth. We, the chicken of the world, want you to send in another one of your messengers down in a human form. Apparently, that is how all the religions start. The real ones, anyways. Not sorry excuses like Scientology or Pilates. And please make sure that “Thou shalt not eat chicken” is the founding principle of the religion. We do not care what other ideology it espouses. It can be completely illogical such as a tooth for an eye and an eye for a tooth; or completely logical along the lines of covet your neighbour’s wife but do not let the neighbour covet yours. Just make them not eat chicken. Please. We need a break from their feeding frenzy.

It seems that if the humans are your chosen species; we certainly are their chosen species. No other animal is as unfortunate as us. The pigs have their Middle East. I mean, those people cannot agree on anything but they can certainly agree on not consuming pork. How did the pigs swing that ? I guess Orwell was right. They are an intelligent species. Chicken, however, has no such luck. We are devoured with equal fervour by all parties on the negotiating table. Moshe Kosherman. Abu Halaal. Colonel Sanders.

The dogs have it made. All they have to do is avoid East Asia and the dimly lit back alleys in Chinatowns and they are all set. Hell, in Paris they can defecate all over Champs-Élysées and the French will have their caninettes scoop it all up and ship to Bordeaux. To fertilize the vines for that quite undefinable terroir, the uniqueness that defines a French wine. Which, by the way, a trained sommelier can match with the appropriate method to torture and prepare a chicken. Boiled. Stir Fried. Braised. Or even tartare – if you happen to be genuinely concerned about the welfare of cute animals. Like Brigitte Bardot is. Did you realize that Dog is just God inverted ? Which may explain, among other things, their odd sniff salute method of greeting each other. The less said about cats the better. Never has an animal so utterly useless been rewarded more handsomely than a cat. Eat. Sleep. Purr. Repeat. In Punjabi, they would describe such a life as having come to earth to attend God’s wedding.

The cows have India. Revered, worshipped and milked twice a day. Up until a few years ago, they were even enjoying carnal pleasure a couple of times a year. The old fashioned way. With a Bull. Of-course, the bulls have had to pay a huge price for progress. Their jobs have long been outsourced. A qualified veterinarian from the Punjab Agricultural University can artificially inseminate a lot of cows in the time that it takes a bull to get in the mood. And at less than half the cost and more than ten times the motivation of a call-centre worker in the West. At least, so says the report from the Harvard Centre For Studies In The Latest Fad. But I digress. Sometimes I do that. Like cross the road for no apparent reason. The point is, there are a billion people in India who do not and never will have sirloin, tenderloin and Creutzfeldt-Jakob as part of their vocabulary. All thanks to a religion that forbids beef. The chicken, of-course, has no such luck. There is Mughlai Chicken. Butter Chicken. Chicken Pakora. Chilli Chicken. Chicken Chopra Deepaki served with wholesome, organic fluff. Chicken Biryani. Chicken Vindaloo. Even the samosa, the perfectly innocent pyramid of joy, is now stuffed with leftover chicken from the dinner buffet; such is the entrepreneurial spirit that drives Silicon Valley. And I do not mean leftovers from the buffet table. Where would the competitive advantage in that be ? It is the leftovers from the plates frisked away ever so quickly by the friendly waiters. Mush it all up, add a dash of cardamom, stuff it. And the chicken samosa is ready to explode into a cornucopia of exotic flavours inside the food critic’s mouth.

The Tandoori Chicken needs a paragraph of its own. This is the stuff of legend that comes from the North West Frontier Province. An incredibly beautiful land with a violent history. A rough and tough country where the skewers are larger than Kalashnikovs. It is here that the boys are separated from the men. So that the boys can be had by the men. Allow me to share their recipe. Take the chicken cubes and marinate them overnight. Do not forget to poke holes into the flesh for the marinade to completely embalm the fowl in body, mind and spirit. Pierce the pieces on to the skewers and lower them into the Tandoor, a contraption that must have taken a genius to invent. Turn the dial on the clay oven to fifty-thousand degrees. I am not sure what the daily specials look like in heaven but it is safe to assume that you can always order Fat Man Tandoori à la carte at Satan’s.

Dear God, you may very likely receive upto five copies of this letter for they all claim a direct connection to you. The priest, pandit,imam, rabbi and monk, being God's men, were all too happy to deliver the letter to you. I was fortunate to have run into all of them together at the strip club. Just my luck, that they would decide to go there after conducting the multifaith prayer meeting. For beer and chicken wings, of-course.

I sincerely hope that you will consider our request. It is trivial for you to start another religion and easier still for humans to fall for anything new and fashionable but it will mean a lot to us. Please help us end the torture of chicken and egg, no matter which came first. We promise that we will rein in our fanatics and put an end to experiments in avian flu.

Yours truly,

Chicken Salmonella