Author archives: ludwig

Video | “There is more than one form of being a devadasi”: The complex world of India’s devadasis – Interview with filmmaker (Lady) Beeban Kidron

Interview with filmmaker Beeban Kidron, plus exclusive clips from her new film. Sex, Death and the Gods explores the complex world of India’s devadasi, girls devoted to a goddess and then sold for sex at puberty | Lindsay Poulton and Joanna Moorhead, theguardian.com, 21 January 2011 >>

Documentary maker Beeban Kidron (4:49): “They [the devadasis themselves] know what an education means. And what an education means is a possible way out. Not necessarily a way out but a possibility that you could earn your money some other way.  […]  This is about economics. This is about poverty. This is about not having alternatives.”  […]  

Girl taken out of school at a young age by her mother (5:30 onwards): “It’s been two years.  […] No money in our hands, so I don’t go [to school].”

Beeban Kidron (7:27): “One of the things that is fascinating but complicates the whole issue is that there is more than one form of being a devadasi. I think what is important is to know and to understand that the elite devadasi are actually the grandmothers of Indian national dance bharata natyam in the elite world of temple and court. These women were the lovers of princes and priests and other high caste men. And it was a huge privilege and a sign of social mobility to be a devadasi. But there has obviously been a break in the tradition and it was made illegal in 1947 as the British left India. […] We have to be careful how we view things. And that was the journey for me.  […]  That system of dedicating young girls is abusive, is sex slavery, and so on. It’s paradoxical, you have to raise the age of consent, you have to work with the women, you have to help them educate their daughters, you have to help with the alternative.”

Read a recent interview with Beeban Kidron in The New York Times, on protecting children online

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/technology/baroness-kidron-children-tech.html?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

The Baroness Fighting to Protect Children Online
By Natasha Singer, August 27, 2019

Beeban Kidron has successfully pushed stricter limits on how tech companies can target children online in Britain. […]

A member of the House of Lords, she had just flown in from London to attend an international meeting hosted by the social network. And now, in a hotel thronging with tech executives, she was recounting her plan to overhaul how their companies treat children. […] Read the full interview here >>

More (documentary) films by Director, Producer and writer Beeban Kidron on imdb.com >>

Learn more about the devadasis throughout (known) history in Music, Dance and the Art of Seduction

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/826453329

Chapters by Joep Bor (pp. 233), “On the dancers or Devadasis: Jacob Haafner’s Account of the Eighteenth-Century Indian Temple Dancers” and Tiziana Leucci (pp. 261), “Between Seduction and Redemption – The European Perception of India’s Temple Dancers in Travel Accounts and Stage Productions from the Thirteenth to the Nineteenth Century”

Open access version (text and audio files): The goddess Māriyammaṉ in music and in sociology of religion

The Goddess Mariyamman in Music and in Sociology of Religion by Pia Srinivasan Buonomo & S. A. Srinivasan (German) >>

Listen to the four recordings here; and download the audio and text files on
https://archive.org/details/mariyamman-in-music >>

The mridangam makers of Mylapore

Jesudas Anthony makes holes in circular leather cutouts, which he fastens to one end of the mridangam using thin strips of reed. Right: A wooden stick and stone are used to regulate the instrument’s pitch 
https://ruralindiaonline.org/articles/the-mridangam-makers-of-mylapore

Jesudas and his son Edwin are skilled craftsmen, known in the Carnatic music universe of Chennai and elsewhere for the mridangams they give life to, though they still face occasional communal biases | Read the full article with more images in full size here >>

A musical tribute to Prof. S. A. Srinivasan by Karaikudi Voyage – Sreevidhya Chandramouli (vocal & vina)

Vocal with vina accompaniment: Sreevidhya & Chandramouli (Karaikudi Bani)

  • To listen and view photos on youtube, click here >>
  • Find the lyrics* sung in the tribute by Dhvani in the search window seen below or click here >>
  • Visit Dhvani’s homepage >>

Dhvani was formed to Preserve, Explore & Disseminate Indian art and cultural heritage. As a grassroots organization devoted to expanding knowledge in our community, Dhvani fulfills the need to inculcate an integrated understanding of art in Indian culture as well as other cultures.

The compositions heard in this musical tribute are:

  1. Paripalaya – Ritigaula – Adi tala – Tyagaraja
  2. Ramapahi meghasyama – Kapi – Adi tala – Tyagaraja
  3. Amba nilayatakshi – Nilambari – Adi tala – Muttusvami Dikshitar

Find song lyrics by typing any of the above in the search window:

S.A. Srinivasan (2011)
Prof. Dr. S.A. Srinivasan
18.09.1932 – 02.05.2019
Deutsch: Tributes by colleagues (in German) >>

Find publications by Prof. A.S. Srinivasan (search for Srinivasa Ayya Srinivasan) on worlcat.org:

Select titles

Search for an item in libraries near you:
WorldCat.org >>
 

Hinduismus und ökologische Ethik: Einige Bemerkungen
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/900603864 | Details in German (Vienna University) >>

The goddess Māriyammaṉ in music and in sociology of religion
by Pia Srinivasan Buonomo; Srinivasa Ayya Srinivasan
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/247408025
Open access version (text and audio files discussed):
https://archive.org/details/mariyamman-in-music

On the composition of the Nāṭyaśāstra
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/499646888

Studies in the Rāma story : on the irretrievable loss of Vālmīki’s original and the operation of the received text as seen in some versions of the Vālin-Sugrīva episode
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/560465987

Nonviolence and holistically environmental ethics : gropings while reading Samayadivākaravāman̲amun̲i on Nīlakēci
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/929910155 / http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/899297850

There really is no such thing as a ‘learner’ raga

Image © The Hindu

Gouri Dange, The Hindu, 11 May 2019 | Read the full article here >>

Every kind of music has a protocol for ‘beginners’ or ‘learners’. Students must practise paltay, alankaras, scales, études, tonalisation exercises, depending on the kind of music they pursue.  […]

However, here’s the rub: for many learners, these ‘early’ ragas get translated in the mind as something very basic, or ‘shikau’, with a novice ring to them. They are seen, most misguidedly, as mundane, without the strut and stature of the ‘larger and later’ ragas that are taught after you are deemed fit to learn them.  […]

It is surely a disservice to a raga and to those who lift it to its best potential, and even more so a disservice to the young student, to allow the mental stamping of some ragas as ‘learner material’.  […]

The novelist, counsellor and music lover takes readers on a ramble through the Alladin’s cave of Indian music.

https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/music/column-can-there-really-be-such-a-thing-as-a-learner-raga/article27093490.ece

Purandara Dasa (1484-1564), a prolific poet-composer and mystic of Vijayanagar, introduced a music course that is followed to the present day. Since the 17th century, hundreds of ragas (melody types) have been distributed among 72 melakarta ragas (scales).

Learn more here:

A brief introduction to Carnatic music

Was die südindische Musik immer interessanter macht

Wie kaum einem anderen deutsch-stämmigen Musiker ist es Ludwig Pesch gelungen, tief in das Wesen der südindischen „klassischen“ Musik einzutauchen. Der Autor lebt heute in Amsterdam und ist als freischaffender Musiker, Sachbuchautor und Dozent tätig. Seine Erfahrung befähigt ihn, die karnatische Musiktradition auch einem Laienpublikum verständlich nahe zu bringen.

Foto: Rainer Hörig (Kalakshetra 1978)

Die Wintermonate sind für Reisen nach Indien am besten geeignet. Dieses Heft schildert waghalsige Abenteuer und weniger bekannte Reiseziele, die neugierig machen. Autoren teilen Erfahrungen, die sie als Leiter von Gruppenreisen oder in einem Arbeitsaufenthalt machten. Junge Inderinnen und Inder, die in Deutschland aufwuchsen und durch Indien reisen, erleben zwiespältige Heimatgefühle. Indien beschert immer wieder Überraschungen und Wunder.

Online Ausgabe von Meine Welt & Archiv

Seit 1984 bildet die Zeitschrift MEINE WELT ein Forum des Austausches zwischen Migranten aus Indien und ihren deutschen Freunden. Sie erscheint dreimal im Jahr in einer Auflage von knapp 1000 Exemplaren – das größte Printmedium mit Indien-Bezug in der deutschsprachigen Presselandschaft!
Ein herausragendes Merkmal von MEINE WELT ist ihre enge Anbindung an die Leserschaft, die Hinweise, Themenvorschläge und komplette Artikel liefert. MEINE WELT ist kostenlos und werbefrei! Herausgeber ist der Diözesan-Caritasverband im Erzbistum Köln. https://caritas.erzbistum-koeln.de/meine-welt/

Veena Dhanammal’s soulful music

Read the full report in The Hindu (13 December 2018) >>

Vainika K. G. Vijayakrishnan’s determination to get the younger generation interested in Veena Dhanammal’s soulful music resulted in a documentary on the legend. The documentary, conceptualised by Vijayakrishnan and directed by Avinash Prakash, was recently launched at the Music Academy. […]

Vijayakrishnan’s father had all seventeen of Dhanammal’s 78 rpm records. He recorded them in his Grundig spool recorder. Except for the Kapi javali ‘Sarasamulade’ by Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar, Vijayakrishnan has digitised all the others. He presented the entire set of recordings to the Music Academy. […]

N. Murali, President of the Music Academy, said that Dhanammal was a mystical genius, who played for herself, and not for an audience. HMV, which cut all Dhanammal’s discs had difficulty marketing them, because only a few had the knowledge needed to understand the nuances of her music. […]  

K.G. Vijayakrishnan has performed in leading sabhas in Chennai and in Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and the U.S. He is the author of The Grammar of Carnatic Music published by De Gruyter Mouton, Germany. 

1. Varnam 2. Triloka Mata 3. Sri Narada 4. Bhajare 5. Marubari [JavaLi]

Grammar of Carnatic Music by on Scribd