Resolutions Resolutions!

It is that time of the year again! The time to make resolutions.

History tells us that new year resolutions date back to the times of the Babylonians, who were the first ones to fest New year and New year resolutions as well. Their most popular resolution was to return the borrowed farm equipment. Do you know what is the most popular new year resolution today? Weight loss. Yes, weight loss! Well, it is completely logical after all. After all the innumerable feasts and rounds of drinks during the festive season, people realise that they have indeed added a considerable amount of poundage and it would not do any harm to lose the same. A rigorous diet chart is plotted, gym visits are planned and the overall enthusiasm to lose weight is very high. Yet, the new year cake is somehow made to fit into this strict regiment and that is something I have always wondered how!

The first of January marks the birth of a new year, according to the Babylonian calendar. Many of us follow different calendars (traditionally, though not officially) and happen to celebrate different new year's day such as the Tamil new year's day, Ugadi (Telugu new year's day) or the Chinese new year's day! So are we to assume that resolutions are made on these days as well? Why is that adopting resolutions on the first of January so important? Why all the hype and hoopla about this?

I am a complete non-believer when it comes to new year resolutions. The first of January is like any other day - except that you change the year when you write the date. If you really want to do something good or change any aspect of your life for the better, there is no special reason for you to wait until the first of January. Say sometime in August, you realise that you are getting too angry and you should control your temper, would you wait until the ensuing first of January and let the remaining four months rot because of your temper?

One must admit that the general excitement about new year resolutions is fading out. Normally, I would have felt happy about this as it would mean people have started realising the lack of rationale behind them. However, people seem to have lost faith in resolutions of any kind, which is not a very encouraging sign.

As for me, the only resolutions that I am bothered about right now are the Security Council Resolutions relating to the ICC!

Happy new year!

The Title Secret

What made me choose this title for my blog? Well, Nicole Kidman, Evan McGregor, Moulin Rouge - Come what may, I will love you until my dying day. Means anything?

I love the song. There are no complex notes. Not many strings. Not many instruments. No star singers. No extraordinarily poetic lyrics. What makes it so special? Simplicity. This song is simple yet beautiful - in its music, the voices and the lyrics. I could never really believe that the gorgeous Nicole Kidman had such a silky voice. The texture of her voice is beautifully silky and slips through the strings like a silk gown would through one's fingers. Even McGregor's voice is filled with passion, fervour and the strength that a woman always expects in her man's commitment. The song starts off with a set of simple string notes - McGregor's rendition of the opening lines has done complete justice to the lyrics - never knew I could feel like this at the start of any song.

However, as the song goes by, one cannot but wonder where the melody had been lost midway. Suddenly the beats take over and one can hardly hear the lyrics. When seasons change from winter to spring, one feels melodiously joyous while the song makes it sound a bit too strong for spring to handle. Yet, the harmony is restored when Nicole Kidman's waltz begins and suddenly the world seems such a perfect place.

This song is an example of a typical American story - the slow start, the rise, the fall and victory at last. Yet it stands distinctly - thanks to its simplicity. Simple is beautiful

Here is the link for the video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7l0O7nCgmI

And for those fans of beautiful lyrics:

Never knew I could feel like this
Like I've never seen the sky before
I want to vanish inside your kiss
Every day i'm loving you more than this
Listen to my heart, can you hear it sings
Telling me to give you everything
Seasons may change, winter to spring
But I love you until the end of time

Chorus:
Come what may
Come what may
I will love you until my dying day

Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place
Suddenly it moves with such a perfect grace
Suddenly my life doesn't seem such a waste
It all revolves around you
And there's no mountain too high
No river too wide
Sing out this song I'll be there by your side
Storm clouds may gather
And stars may collide
But I love you until the end of time

Chorus

Oh, come what may, come what may
I will love you, I will love you
Suddenly the world seems such a perfect place

Chorus

The video has a perfect start - where you can see these words being typed on a typewriter from a bygone era - "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to just love. " :)

Bitter and Cynical

It has been quite some time since I created a post in my blog. It has been a really long week. I always knew I was bitter and cynical but I never knew I could get worse and clearly, I have been proved wrong.

I left 71 Leuvensestraat Den Haag on Saturday (the 22nd) around 0230 hrs, taking a hofstadtaxi to Den Haag Centraal and was feeling nostalgic about the innumerable rides to the Centraal station. We never appreciate the value of our daily routine until it ceases to be one. The taxi driver was very nice and wished us (my boyfriend had come along, to send me off - he is a star!) happy holidays. He did not know that I was leaving for good. Waited for the train in the freezing cold, boarded, reached Schipol safely. Everything was fine. Behold! Not so easy! That was my last smile in two days.

It all started with the penalty I had to pay for having my ticket advanced to an earlier date, since I wanted to attend my graduation on the 24th. Paying the penalty at the airport desk would save me thirty euros, I was told. Being the ever stingy intern, I chose this option, of course (Don't you agree, Neela and Rashmi??). What we saw there was just about enough to freak even Buddha. There were about a hundred and fifty people in the queue at 0500 Hrs and my check in was supposed to close at 0645 Hrs. Above all, the KLM desk would not open until 0530 Hrs, we were told. I fail to see the logic. If they expect people to pay penalty prior to boarding their flight, wouldn't they know that there are flights even during midnight? Worse, there were no separate queues for different purposes - booking, cancellation, information, penalty, et al. No sir, we dont have them. Everyone is equal, so just shut up and stand in one big queue until two of our seventeen booths are open and two beautiful women sit before one computer (after they finish their espressos) to work. God, how could this airline be making profits? Have they heard of the term customer service/satisfaction? Do they even realise that a ticket office is not just for booking tickets?

I somehow weasled out of this situation by calling up the emergency line at ICC and getting the problem sorted out. Even there, I had a problem. The woman at the travel desk did not accept cash - she wanted a credit card! The banks in the Dutch land do not give credit cards to foreigners that easily, yet they want every single expat to own a credit card. Why would a 22 year old intern/student hold a credit card? If I pay in cash, wouldnt a receipt for it be an equally good evidence of payment?

Then started the whole process of going through baggage check-in, security check, et al. There again, the queue for the security check was a complete joke. Airline staff kept moving in and out of these queues with baggage loads, this and that. We never knew where the queue was, half the time. After all this, I reached the gate finally and in time. Whoa! How happy I was! Alas, only for a few minutes. We were told that the staircase was covered with ice and had to be defrosted (de-iced, as they announced) before we could board. Staircase covered with ice? The engines and the wings I can understand (this was a problem too, later about that) but the staircase? Wouldn't you imagine that an airline would have additional/spare staircase, especially in countries such as these when you very well know what the weather conditions are going to be, in December? Okay, that took about 45 minutes. I was still convinced the flight would reach Paris in time giving us just about enough time to catch the connecting flight to Chennai. No sir, that did not happen.

Once we boarded the flight, fastened our seat belts and had yeuck lime juice and crappy biscuits, the pilot very kindly announced that there was ice on the engines and the wings and that we would have to wait for another half an hour for them to be de-iced. He was quite proud of the fact that our flight was the first in a row of flights to be de-iced. Half an hour became forty five minutes and eventually, after about two hours, the flight took off. No news about our connection flights. Nothing.

Luckily, I found a group of young tamilians who were travelling to Chennai in the same flight. They proved to be very helpful and friendly. It is always nice to have good company to undergo such agony. We ran to the transfer desk at CDG, Paris (I never ever imagined that I would, one day, hate Paris!). It took forty five minutes for every person to get their connecting flights sorted out. But I realised that the Air France staff at the transfer desk were very efficient - in the sense that they checked out every possible option available to get the passenger to his/her destination as early as possible. When the guy who was handling my transfer told me I had to wait until sunday evening, I almost cried. I had to explain to him that I had to be in Chennai on Monday, early morning, for my graduation. He took pity on me and somehow managed to get me on to a flight to Bangalore on Sunday (23rd) and then to Chennai. It was too close, but it was something!

The hotel where we stayed - the less written about it, the better. I had this fancy dream of staying in a luxury airport hotel. Whoa! It was anything but that. The food was even worse. However, I met a lovely English couple in the restaurant and we found a place together for dinner. It was one of the best dinners I have ever had in my life (in terms of company and not food -definitely not!). The way the woman told the waiter to smile (she actually made him bend, took his face in her hands, taught him to smile!) while he served food was hilarious yet brilliant. She enlightened me as to how I should sneak out the food coupon and mail it to AF :) Anyways, I did not have any lunch, so I intend to send my coupon along with a complaint letter sometime this week. It was so refreshing and heartening to see such a lovely couple!

0700 hrs - 23rd - woke up, ran to catch the shuttle to the airport, made good timing, finished every single check and reached the gate at 0900 hrs - the flight was at 1100 hrs. Well, boarding was announced. Got my boarding pass. Got on to the shuttle that would take us to the flight. 5 mins - an AF employee gets on to the shuttle, announces that we have to get down and 'de-board' - there was a technical problem. After half an hour, we were told that 3 toilets were not working. I must mention here, that every single announcement was made in French twice and once in English. When we asked for the announcements in english to be repeated, it was refused as a matter of fact. They did not even tell us 3 out of how many toilets were not functioning - but we were told that the Pilot would not take the flight off until every single passenger agrees. How are we supposed to gauge what possible damage could occur unless we know 3 out of how many werent functioning? Above all, what drove me crazy was the remark of an AF staff! He switched off the microphone and turns to his colleague to say - the business class passengers would not like this - they will not want economy passengers to come into their cabins to use the toilets! I couldn't believe I was hearing it! They were ready to cancel the flight because economy passengers shouldnt use business class toilets! And he was commenting on indian toilets and how toilets were important for them there. We had to literally fight to get that plane off and we did that, didn't we!

Landed in Bangalore - almost missed my baggage - retrieved it eventually and ran to the domestic airport - the jet airways flight took off on time (thankfully), reached Chennai, ran home, showered, raced to the convocation venue, slept off through the chief guest's speech, had to be woken up to get my medals, got them in a daze, got the hell out of there, had an awesome lunch at saravana bhavan, came home, switched on the air conditioner and slept off. Have been doing that for the past five days.

Anyways, it was all worth this - http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/25/stories/2007122555080600.htm

Will come up with something cheerful soon - may be about the song that I am recording now! Ciao until then!

And they lived happily ever after

How I loved those raja-rani bed time stories that my mother told us when we were young - they always ended with "and they lived happily ever after". I always waited and ploughed through the stories just to hear these magic words. Somehow, I felt extremely joyous to hear how the prince and the princess got together and lived happily. Such feel-good stories are real winners!

It has been ages since I saw a feel good movie until I had the chance to get a peek into Dance Client (an extraordinarily stunning movie network in a University here) and watch Stardust. It had everything - adventure, fantacy and romance. This Robert de Niro, Charlie Cox, Claire Danes (I hate her - she is absolutely gorgeous), Michelle Pfeiffer starrer is the story of a fallen star (who transforms into a beautiful maiden) and a lost prince. In a countryside town bordering on a magical land, a young man makes a promise to his beloved that he'll retrieve a fallen star by venturing into the magical realm. The star falls in love with him and he doesn't realise that (Men!) until he gives the stardust (which he obtains by deceiving the star into love) to the girl whom he thought he loved. He goes back into the magical world, saves her from witches and what not, is helped by the evergreen de Niro (Captain Shakespeare - I loved de Niro more than I loved Charlie Cox, though I did drawl on him as well - and man, can de Niro dance!), he gets the kingdom, they get married and they lived happily ever after.

I know I sound absolutely girly-girly (I do not do/say such things very often) when I say this, but isn't this beautiful? Especially for someone who is mortified by the thought of surviving a long distance relationship for a fairly long time, there couldn't be anything better than an "and they lived happily ever after" story. It is so full of positive energy that it makes you throw all your worries into the receptacle and believe that after all, the same is going to happen to you - only a little later.

On my way back home yesterday, I was listening to one of my favourite songs - Thenmadurai vaigainadi (Dharmathin Thalaivan). The last stanza caught me off guard! I have listened to the song so many times and I loved it for the music, its simple and nice picturisation. This was the first time I realised that the lyrics were so apt in a situation of this kind. I am not even going to attempt translating the lines here (and disgrace them). The gist of the last stanza could me summed up - The man tells his woman that they are made for each other and will get together soon and live happily ever after. There we go - and they lived happily ever after!

As a very good friend keeps telling me (and to herself as well) - decades! And we will live happily ever after.

Sick leave

Yours truly is battling flu. Had to go to office to complete an extraordinarily thrilling project of reviewing 200 odd documents. Ieke (my landlady and the best one you can ever hope to find) has written a note which says I have an upper airway infection, am being treated for that and will not be able to work for some days. There could be nothing better than being with a landlady who is a doctor - you dont have to spend sinful sums to obtain such notes from the doctors here! Coming back to the point, I plan to do absolutely nothing for the next two days. If I do something, like posting in my blog, it would ruin everything (Line Courtesy: Jerry Seinfeld). So I guess you are relieved from reading my daily posts (see how assuming I am!) for the next few days. Hope to get well soon and bug everyone again! Ciao!

Why cant you just pay us!

One year of hunting for paid internships in international organisations has made me anti-social, frustrated and sick. How does any international organisation expect qualified professionals to work for nothing, especially those coming from low socio-economic backgrounds? Interns work as much as (and at times more than) staff members do. Their obligations towards the organisation and the tasks they perform are in no way different from those of the staff members. Yet, they are expected to travel from their home countries to wherever the organisation is, find accomodation, travel, eat and survive for three-six months all by themselves. It is different in the case of students undertaking summer internships during their undergraduate/graduate studies (which is generally in their hometowns) as these are primarily for gaining practical experience than monetary gain. In case of internships undertaken after graduation or after a few years of work experience calling for unpaid work is unfair and irrational, especially in international organisations.

Take the internships in certain international tribunals in the Hague - how can anyone rationalise the unpaid nature of these internships? How can any young graduate be expected to survive in Den Haag for six months with no pay (even with the generous stipend that ICC gives me, I feel like I am walking on a tight rope)? The argument of these organisations is that they are being funded by State Parties, who allow payments only for staff members in their budgets and that they are taking interns for the sole purpose of enabling them to get an insight into the working of the organisation. These organisations also argue that after three-six months of unpaid work, a large number of interns are generally given contracts or at times even hired as permanent employees and most interns do not have anything to complain about.

Of course they would not have anything to comment about as most unpaid interns in international organisations come from affluent backgrounds or have a sponsorship from their educational institution. In case of developing and less developed countries, the possibility of obtaining sponsorship or funding from an educational institution does not exist at all. Universities in countries like India have enough trouble managing their own existence and cannot be expected to extend their finances for funding internships.

Most international organisations are located in Europe or in the United States of America (and are flooded with interns from Europe and America). This makes it extremely difficult for Asian and African students to make it to these organisations. While these organisations strive to establish equality, abolish discrimination and help the third world countries, the policy of having unpaid internships (and thereby indirectly discouraging candidates from such countries) seems to be paradoxical.

Organisations like the International Criminal Court, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Labour Organisation (and a very few other organisations) have a policy to pay interns who come from a developing country or a low socio-economic background. This has enabled a lot of interns from various countries in Asia and Africa to gain international experience, which they otherwise would not have. These organisations do not lose anything out of paying interns. On the other hand, they would be saving costs (compared to what they would have to pay if they wanted a staff member to do the intern's tasks). It is time these organisations understood that if they really are against discrimination, they should be paying their interns.

Drafting Conventions on minimum wages and right against discrimination and not paying their own interns - I just cant understand what these organisations are playing at!

No. 9

9 is a very fascinating number. Wherever it travels, it comes back to the start. Irrespective of what you multiply it with, the sum of the result is the very number itself. It fits in everywhere - for instance, a quicker way to arrive at a single-digit "summation" is simply to take the value modulo 9, substituting a 0 result with 9 itself. In music theory, ninth is the note nine from the root and also the interval between the root and the ninth, signifying the completeness of the scale. The ninth century had the privilege of giving to this world Adisankara (Sankara Bhagavadpadacharya, the first in the lineage of adi sankar), Pope Joan (legendary female Pope), who propounded (in their respective faiths), the theory of one complete soul. Perhaps, that is why numerology defines this number as "complete".

To a music lover, it cannot mean anything but Symphony 9 (Beethoven essentially and other symphony 9s too). The morning ride to ICC today found me immersed in Beethoven's Symphony 9 and I remembered that this was the last symphony that Beethoven completed (he died leaving his tenth symphony unfinished). He was the first victim of the curse of the ninth, a superstition which says that a composer who writes his ninth symphony will die soon. There could be no better word to describe his Symphony 9 than "complete". At the end of the hour long symphony, I felt complete. In another sense, I felt nothing at the end of it. Symphony 9 goes straight to your heart. You do not stop to identify the sonata (first movement) as you would have been stormed by the rising tempo. Beethoven must have had in his mind a layperson like me when he wrote Symphony 9, for he has been sympathetic enough to employ silence as notes, not only between the movements but also within them. However, the silence only magnifies the recapitulation of the stormy notes that take you to where vanished objects would go - as Professor Mcgonagall would have put it, into non-being which is to say everywhere. Only when you hear the lyrical slow movement do you even realise that you have been taken into the third movement. This movement corresponded so well with the winter in the Hague yet making winter more enjoyable than it otherwise is (I always thought Vivaldi's Spring Largo should indeed be winter owing to the melancholy it carried, while Winter Allegro has such beautiful fast notes which might as well correspond with the flowers and beauty of spring). Vivaldi wrote 12 movements for his four seasons, while Beethoven has written them in just four!

The famous fourth movement, or the finale, is a symphony within a symphony, as Charles Rosen once said (the fourth movement has four movements within itself). It is Beethoven's expression of univeral brotherhood and has a thematic and musical unity all through the four movements (within the finale). The music cannot fit the text better, for both emulate joy. The storm in the first movement, the waverings in the second, the melancholy in the third - all vanish into non-being with the joy in the fourth. Perhaps, that is what makes one feel complete.

Which brings me back to what I thought once I came to my desk after going through the mundane exercise of going through security check at the entrance and plugged in my MP3 player to sink into more music - Beethoven wrote a fifth movement for his Symphony 9 before he actually made it four - we lost the fifth season.

Damage Control

Ra says : "the first rule of blogging is - u dont change a post. if u have posted something and wish to change it, u publish the change in the next post" So here we go!

Para 1: refer myself* - refer to myself
Para 4: Sometimes....the alapanas of life are longer the* - longer than the

Para 4 is tautological. As a few wedding invitations would say - Vachaka Dhoshaha, Chandavyayaha :)

Alapana of life

What better topic could a music lover (I simply cannot refer myself as a musician - that would amount to injustice to those real and pure souls) choose for her first post than alapana, the foundation for a composition and in turn the whole kutchery! To any carnatic musician or rasika, raga alapana is special. To a musician, it is a fruit of knowledge, creativity, hardwork and an ultimate expression of bhava-anubhava. To a listener, it is a source of rasika-anubhava, a prologue which makes the transition to a song smooth, enjoyable and is music beyond language.

Every raga is composed of a number of swaras and simply put, raga alapana is a musical expression sans lyrics of the permutation and combination of these swaras. Alapana precedes a composition. Raga alapana is a form of pure melodic improvisation in which the musician renders a series of phrases so as to create the mood of the raga and lay a foundation for the composition (and probably other creative aspects) to follow.

A raga expansion may be compared to a journey of exploration, each step promising more. The fact that neither the artiste nor the audience know what may be created adds romance to the exercise. However, alapana is not performed without any stragety. Years of learning (or in the rarest of rare cases, prodigal) and listening equips the artiste with the layout for an alapana (which would eventually come down to knowledge of the raga, swara-gyanam, voice culture and creativity), although the details would take shape only as he or she performs.

Sometimes life has its alapanas and as it is in the case of music where the alapanas are more often longer than the compositions themselves, the alapanas of life are longer the events which they preceed. The child that crawls for months, only to stand up and walk in a few minutes; the boy who studies a year long, only to get done with his exams in a few days; the girl who goes through five years of law school, only to get enrolled in the bar in a few minutes; the couple who wait for ages for their love to succeed, only to get married in a day; the mother carrying her child in her womb for nine months, only to give birth in a few minutes; and life in itself - to be overtaken by death in a few seconds. Yet, just as it is in music where an alapana gives life to a composition, these alapanas are those that give life to all those moments of bliss in our lives.