Amjad Ali Khan says
Every state capital in India should have a cultural complex
Like London’s South bank Centre or Carnegie Hall, New York

One can’t say it any better! One can’t excel also the Western countries when it comes to culture and what it means culture promotion. Amjad Ali Khan is a great Indian musician, a great sword player with an illustrious leneage. Perhaps, he is only next to the great Ravi Sankar and the other great Kahan, son of the legendary Alaudin Khan of the Maihar gharna.

Only those who have listened in a sustained manner to the strings of the Sitar and Sarod could appreciate the greatness of these two streams, of course the vocal music of the Hindustani is another unbeatable genre.

India is home to these great traditions, both the Hindustan and Carnatic music streams have evolved in their own two distinct manner.

I would divide the history and evolution of the Indian music as that what we had before independence and what we have after independence. Even here, it is very useful to take note of the recent developments, just after we have been witnessing the globalisation spin-offs in the culture field, in the music in particular.

There is so much music traffic from the West and so too in a way from the East, from India to the West. Now, we hear too many times the music celebrations in Celeaveland, USA, than from Indian cities! So too the music masters, from rock to what have you, the classical musicians and instrumentalists are travelling from the West to perform in India.

Bangalore for instance is witnessing a new trend in presenting these many streams in an increasing manner.
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Government of India must have conferred the Bharat Ratna

Even on his deathbed, he deserved the highest honour!

Sam Bahadur as he was lovingly and with much indulgence called by one and all is no more. Salute to his memory. He would be remembered for a long time to come.

It is nice to remember that he chose to live his retired life in the beautiful Nilgiris and Wellington and he now rests in Udhagamandalam (Ooty in the Parsi graveyard along with the side of his beloved wife, Silloo who died seven years ago.

What a life he lived! By any standards it was remarkable and a testimony for man’s innate qualities of head and heart, to deploy a cliche!

Yes, there are so many nice things being said of his soldierly qualities and that will be discussed and retold in all military lores.

What has now come out in print and what is not mentioned are very noteworthy.
First, his life was unique. He chose a field in which he reached the ultimate recognition.

Second, his unique way to deal with very difficult situations. The way he handled a difficult Indira Gandhi. His reasons for delaying the launch of attack against the then East Pakistan in November instead of June was very wise. A military genius can’t compromise with a hurrying politician.

That part of the story need to be told and retold many times for public enlightenment.
Then, comes the way he was overlooked by that another politician of big ego, V.K.Krishna Menon. He was overlooked and the fooly B.M.Kaul (I briefly met him once in London along with his boss, Thapar when one of Tahpar namesake, my Oxford friend took me to see them in a London Hotel in Mayfair) was promoted.

Third, the way he was honoured by the then British Commander, D.T.Cowan when Sam was wounded and almost died. Cowan, it is now written, saw traces of life in Sam, quickly pinned his own Military Cross Ribbon on to the chest of the barely alive soldiers. Military Crosses are not awarded to dead soldiers. This soldier, says a writer, lived to become the Army Chief in 1969 and India’s first Field Marshal in 1973!

There is much to write about Sam and his sense of humour and his very earthiness and humility and last of all what we, seeing from a distance the style and flair  he brought to an otherwise seen as a dull and colourless life of an average army man.

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Globalisation where India holds central place!

Globalisation is now taken for granted. What is not made clear by our planners and policy makers are the fact that globalisation is neither 100 per cent possible or desirable. There are limits to globalisation. The point is whether we in India have realised the full dimensions of the globalisation process.

Our entrepreneurs, more so the new generation IT entrepreneurs have propagated the myth of “world as flat”. The world is not flat. Yes, it is flat and at the same time nationally, still a divergent world.

Ratan Tata, the group chairman of the Tatas is now 69 and has expressed a desire to retire soon. He says it would be a terrific time if he can retire after the Tatas unveil the Rs.one lakh small car in the mid January.

But Tatas are no ordinary business group. They are old and also value-driven with 65 per cent of their shares held in trust and the group under Ratan Tata (RNT) had made tremendous transformation since the late, legendary J.R.D.Tata. It is now even talked as if RNT had outstripped JRD! Yes, such is the total transformation. Tatas had bought the foreign steel company Corus for a few billions! Now, another one billion (we mean in American dollars of course!)Would be shelled out for the Jaguar and Landrover takeover! These are not just big funds but also big management challenges!

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Let him not reach for the moon!
Let him walk on the M.G.Road!

Mr.N.R.Narayanamurthy, the Infosys founder and the IT industry icon is justly lauded for his great achievements. He had in a way, transformed India single-handedly and as such he deserves a Bharat Ratna.

If  he had not been so honoured so far, it only shows how politics works in this country and how even men and women entrusted with great responsibilities fail in not rising up to their full potential.
In fact, we wrote to the then President Abdul Kalam, more than once to confer the highest award on Indians who have contributed to enhance the quality of life in the country. For some strange reasons, we neither saw any action nor heard from him! Our countrymen and women don’t realise that power and glory are short-lived!

Now, for Narayanamurthy. In a recent interview in an economic newspaper, full page, he has said several things that are already well-known and he had said it and again here he has repeated. Nothing wrong.

But here we like to make some comments and also some suggestions in view of his standing in the corporate world and also in the public eye.

First, he says and also seems to be repeating that ethics for him comes first and foremost before profit. Admirable! But for a person who has such a reputation and who is now almost seem to have withdrawn from day to day running of such a big enterprise and also who is now talking like an elder statesman of the industry as well as the country to say that ethics comes before profit, he seems to be sending out the message that it is only Infosys is doing this and not others.

To talk of ethics in business is rare and for a man of his stature to talk so, so often seems to give the impression that only Infosys is doing it at its best. For he also seems to  say that his only preoccupation even now, after he ceased to be the executive Chairman and also after Nandan Nilekani had done so and when a new man is now in charge is to say that his interest continues in Infosys and this is not wrong. But to say that he when he is still continuing to promote the brand of Infosys, he travels 20 days abroad just to talk about Infosys, he says so openly and also with emphasis his only interest even now is to promote the Infosys brand and in such a context to emphasise ethics before profits leaves some uncomfortable feeling.

The feeling arises from the thought that he should be knowing only too well, as he was once a Socialist (also a Communist or Communist sympathiser as well?)He must be only too sensitive to the public perception that no private sector, we mean, Capitalism can’t be free of the charge of “exploitation’s and also free of some “unethical” practices, call it business strategy or whatever name you prefer to call it, there is this basic and inherent contradiction between Capitalism and profit making.
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Biltin Toker, my friend Biltin Toker was my friend at Oxford, he was from Istanbul, Turkey. He studied architecture at Oxford and we became close friends. He used to win prizes for his innovative architecture designs and he and his designs used to be flashed at the Oxford towns local paper, Oxford Mail. After we departed, we used to correspond regularly and I was kept in constant with his art, business and politics. Our ways went in different directions and we lost touch with each other. Suddently now, all of a sudden I got this email from Alaz Toker after he noticed his fathers’s name in one of my artices on my personal blog. I mourn the loss of a dear friend, full of fire and energy and dreams and ideals to create a better world. V. Isvarmurti.

Usually people speak about the good and bad sides of technology and how it(the consumerist mass media society) captures the individual….but this meeting on the internet once again showed/proved me that the facts are not always that bad!… Unfortunately biltin passed away 11 years ago…he was born in 1937 so he was 59 years old when he passed away….Biltin’s father was one of the top doctor’s/prof’s of the country who founded the main 2 hospitals in turkey just after the foundation of the republic in 1923….. Unfortunately, he himself passed away in 1954 when he was 61 years old….our family has a heart problem I believe, like the famous composer Gustav Mahler’s family…. Biltin used to go doctors regularly and he had his check-ups every 6 months…but all of a sudden, he had an heart attack at a bus when he was on his way to a meeting, at the centre of Istanbul-taksim square….

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The multi-faceted genius of a lawyer.

The book (Nani A.Palkhivala, a life by M.V. Kamath, Nani A.Palkhivala Memorial Trust, Hay House India, 2007, pp 524, Rs.595) is a rare one. A beautifully written book on a beautifully-lived life. The subject of the biography is a distinguished lawyer whose types are not born every time in these days of fast changing society and values. The writer of the biography is also equally a distinguished journalist. One reason why I bought the book in the first instance and decided to   review it is, among other reasons, a purely personal one. I happened to know both the late Palkhivala and also Mr. Kamath.

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I have written elsewhere, some time ago, about the number of persons who influenced my thought and also the way I think about issues. Those whom I didn’t not know personally but whose books influenced me form one set of such persons. These range from poets to philosophers, journalists, men like Boris Pasternak and other poets and writers, Y.B.Yeats and James Joyce and many others, of my own times and also from the past. Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats among the older poetical generation, T.S.Eliot and the Thirties poets, Stephen Spender (whom I had met once at the Oxford Poetry Club meeting) and the names can go on and on!

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Sir Isiah Berlin in my time was professor of Political and Social Theory and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. I attended his lectures regularly and became much influenced by his way of thinking and arguments. Sir Berlin was for longtime attached to New College and I used to see him often in the College Quadrangle often engaged in animated conversation with such greats like Sir Alfred Ayer and others.

 

Mrs Reena Ganguly (right) seen with her daughter Kushi at Santinikathan. Reena was my classmate during all my four years at Santinikethan. She is an eminent researcher in Chinese topics. She has retired from Cheena Bhavan after a distinguished career in teaching and research. She now lives at Santiniketan.

R.K Narayan, the internationally renowned writer of English novels was a long time friend of Isvarmurti. They used to meet at Coimbatore and Madras and discuss various topics besides literature. There emerged a close relationship and understanding.Infact R.K Narayan’s in-laws were living in Coimbatore and were friends of Isvarmurti. Thus the relationhip was more than just literary interests. Many of the unknown interests of Narayan in politics, religion and society were revealed in these conversations and showed R.K Narayan as more than a novelist.