"MSV CLUB" - The Discussion Forum of MSVTimes.com

[N Y MURALI]

DEAR ALL INDIANS,

We Indian’s are proud of Mr. A R RAHMAN for his Oscar award. It is happy time and we should celebrate this achievement. Indeed ARR rose from difficult way of life to becoming fame.

I have not seen the movie but I came to know about the story of a slum boy becoming rich and fame in a short span of time. Even if one such similar boy/girl from India could get inspired by this movie and become better, then the person who conceived the idea of this movie can get full satisfaction.

I have always admired ARR for his intelligence and not looking for quantity but quality. While I am still reserving my view whether he is a complete musician, I accept the fact that he has intelligently used the knowledge he got and started making his own ideas about music and offered to the current generation and making them accept his ideas.

Music, especially cine music has many aspects. One of that is the technical aspect called sound quality. ARR was brilliant in that aspect. Of course his western music knowledge would have helped him better. Like IR he also studied western music from the London School of Music. He has used the technology available in his time to the fullest extent possible. So ARR getting a foreign country’s award recognition is a boost to us. It gives us encouragement that India is not behind many countries in the technological prowess. Equal appreciation has to be given for Mr. Rasool Pookutty for the the best sound mixing.

But at the same time I also feel I must share some of the feeling about the concept of this movie. I feel that brining out a negative factor in the India has been used effectively by many foriegners. History tells us many lessons. Initially when cinema came in India, the concept was in divine subjects. Then people understood the power of the cinema media and started portraying the social aspects. They showed the social negatives in the society and produced films. In Tamil we see ‘malai kallan’. The songs of such kind of movies inspired many. Take for instance the song ‘ethanai kaalam than yemaatruvaar indha nattile’ But unfortunately the theme of the song holds good even now.

Yesterday I was watching the news programme in the English news channel and watched the debate about this movie. One debater said that the success of this movie is because it appealed to western audience. Does negative portraying of India appeals to western audience? At the same time an Indian documentary film which portrayed the positive, also got Oscar award. But we cannot look aside the western taste of portraying a negative aspect about India. We have to mention here that great creators like Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopalkrishnan, and our own K Balachander have shown this kind of negative aspect in order in infuse positive action. Why these people are not recognized? Satyajit Ray was the only person who got the ‘Life Time Achievement’ award but his movies never got Oscar.

There is a fundamental reason for this. That is, all these movies were Indian production unlike ‘slum dog’ which is a British production. People could argue that the movie ‘Gandhi’ got Oscar which is a positive aspect of a concept called modern India. I accept that. But I also wish to add one point here. That is also a foreign production and not an Indian production. There is one more point. The movie ‘Gandhi’ got 8 Oscar awards out of 10 nominations. But it never got the award for the music. The music was composed by the great ‘Pandit Ravi Shankar’ the sitar maestro & George Fenton. The music was very much Indian. If it has not had the Indian ness, the movie would have been without Indian emotion. The music was for the most part involved in the melody of ‘ragupathy raghava raajaram’, ‘vande maataram’ (original) and ‘vaishnava janatho’. No other tune has tied up millions of people like ‘ragupathy raghava raajaram’ and ‘vande maataram’. This tune is one of the many factors for India’s independence. Why did it the movie ‘Gandhi’ not got the award for music?

While we accept that a foreign production portrays the ill of Indian society, why should not we do the reverse? After all every country, every society in the world has got good, bad and ugly. What happens when we try to portray the reverse? I shall give an example. When Ameer Khan’s movie ‘Lagaan’ hit the screens it was also nominated for the Oscar. But it never won. Why? Because it had portrayed the reverse.

Yesterday during the debate our leading film personalities mentioned that we should not look in to the negative aspect of the movie and take positives. Yes. That is always an Indian way of thinking. But how did the British media react when the movie ‘Lagaan’ hit the screen and went for Oscar nomination. They quoted that Indians are still not out of the hangover mood of the British occupation!!! Hangover!!! It is not hangover. It is the emotional scar my dear friend! I do not know how many people know about this fact. When British set their foot in India during emperor Jahangir’s time our country was the largest in the world in the GDP. Dhaka was the foremost in cotton production. Just in the course of 10 years it has become unknown. There is an estimate of at least 5 billion dollars of Indian money got drained during British occupation. There could be still 100s of movies that can hit the screen in future about this concept of British occupation and Indian resistance. Will these movies get Oscar? Where as 100s of movies hit the screen about the ‘Nazi’ occupation and atrocities. These movies came when Germany was in peace with other world and the German population was trying to reestablish their identity as nationhood after the Second World War. I am not discounting the atrocities of ‘Nazi’ occupation. But German people could also say this as hangover.

So though we feel happy that some Indians have been recognized for their talent, the real happiness would come only when an Indian production which apart from projecting negatives about India, also projects positives about India.

But at the same time we as Indians should also understand our problems and make appropriate corrective action. And we have to learn the lessons from anybody even be it a foreigner. I shall quote an example. Mr. Jackie Chan was in Chennai recently. I saw in the TV when he attended one programme. There was a momento presented to Kamalahasan by him. The person who brought the momento removed the wrapper and handed over it to Mr. Jackie Chan to be presented to Kamal. He dropped the waste wrapper on the Dias itself. As soon as the momento was given everybody was clapping. But I saw Jackie quietly removing the waste wrapper and handed over to a person to drop it in the dust bin.
So let us not blame others for this state of affairs. Because the society whether it is politicians, government etc all consist of individuals like us. So the corrective process of individual has to happen first. How many of us stop in the traffic signal when there is no police constable to monitor us?

At the same time let us also not get inferiority complex. Yesterday ARR and POOKUTTY have proved to the world that Indians can understand their music and technology and reproduce it. It would be much more happiness to us when a Westerner understand the traditional Indian music and reproduce the same.

The day when it happens, only then the true India is represented to the Oscar.


Regards,


N Y MURALI

[madhuraman]

Dear Mr.Murali,
You have taken pains to suggest a couple of points that display of abject poverty and abyssmal ignorance as two facets of India goes down well with Western minds as true reflection of our 'PUNYA BHOOMI' and that any attempt of portrayal of 'good' about this country falls by the wayside. Well it is a matter for serious thought. One basic limitation that Indian movie houses suffer from is exaggeration as an element of cinema strategy of penetrating the audience. Now a stage has come when Indian audience accept humanly impossible stupidities of hero and heroins and look for such gimmicks and stand by such movies for a couple of early shows and thereafter the moviemaker has to suck his thumb and resort to additional gimmicks of orchestrated hypes and 'build ups' even for survival of the movie for a few days. Whether you like it or not there is a severe dose of artfificiality in Indian movies while projecting items on a celluloid. Too often pathos themes ofour movies succeeeded phenomenally because they do not suffer from the standard defects of dispropotion in heroics.
Also, many Directors seem to imitate subtle ideas from sources unknown to us and look 'creators'. At the levels of OSCARS, how an item is presented matters the most. If the west suffers from notions of looking at India for its unhygienic environs and uninhabitable sanitations, then we should consider making our personal living more safe and boldly state that we do not deem Oscar any great for, the jury suffers from notions. My humble submission is our cinemas are way behind in concept though contemporary in technology. I trust the spirit is clear.
Warm regards Prof.K.Raman Madurai.
_________________
Prof. K. Raman
Mumbai

[N Y MURALI]

Dear Ram,
I appreciate for your valuable points in your reply for my posting. There are some points which I would like to clarify. My perception that ARR is not a complete musician is based on certain facts. I do agree that there can be no complete musician including MSV who I adore as the gift of Music God. Also it is a fact that there cannot be a complete rasikan. Each has their perspective and if he feels that his quest or requirement is given by a person he becomes his rasikan. Sometimes he might even go overboard to acclaim that whatever is given by his admirer is always great. This comes out of bias and he even does not know about this.

I do agree with you that he has followed certain aspects of MSV including the revival of Hindustani ragas and Western style. But when I said ARR is not a complete musician, I have some logic. I am not here to talk about his ability to absorb world music and able to present to the current generation’s likings. But the fundamental problem is that in the process of presenting a foreign style he should not spoil the accent of the language.

I have seen many of his songs have an undesired Tamil accent being pronounced in the name of style (current pop style). The Tamil words have to be pronounced in a proper way. I was irritated when some national news channels pathetically pronounce our south Indian town’s names, person’s names etc in the news. They can hire south Indian person and learn how to pronounce the words. In that sense BBC is much better.

In my opinion ARR is the first person to have brought this concept of deliberately bad Tamil accent in the cine songs in the name new style. Take the case of ‘Pon Magal Vandhal’ remix. When the person pronounce ‘muthukkal sirikkum’ why he has to twist and stretch the words. Does ARR not notice this? No not at all. Because again when the singer sings the same line he sings perfectly. So it is deliberate. Even worse is that he has cut and pasted a line which TMS originally sung. At least they could have learnt from TMS as to how to pronounce these words.

Today we see our Indian students learn American accent for getting visa. There are quite a number of institutes to teach this. So why should we take a song which is badly and deliberately pronounced in the name of fashion. I want to give one example here about MSV. We have a rare video clipping of MSV’s interviews. In one of that he is explaining about the story of the birth of the song ‘maadi mela maadi katti’. He was explaining how the original words ‘Isonover aalalooya’ changed as ‘viswanathan velai vendum’. See his accent of the original words. Typical Western accent. I could not believe myself how a person from a tiny village in Kerala was able to pronounce the accent of the western style.

But pity that ARR has allowed the destruction of the Tamil words in this song that he being a native of Tamilnadu. Today this fashion is carried all through the FM channels in Chennai by comparers. The current generation MDs also follows this trend which is paining me.

I agree that people, in their younger days do fall prey to false ideas and fashions. I myself remember my younger days when we friends used to sing the national anthem tune with the changed words which talks about Indian poverty. I feel ashamed now.

My daughter once called my wife “mummy’. She immediately corrected her that she has to call her ‘amma’. My daughter said that in their school they are insisting on speaking in English only. But my wife passionately explained her about the greatness of the mother tongue and told her at least outside her school she could speak in her mother tongue.

But at the same time Mr. Ram after reading your various posts in Tamil I admire your fluency and the understanding of our mother tongue, I have confidence that there are people who can take care of this.

So even if he has followed and improved certain aspect of MSV’s style he has not followed this particular trait of proper language pronunciation. Apart from this aspect I have no other issues about ARR.

Regards,

N Y MURALI

[parthavi]

Dear All,

Kudos to AR Rahman for winning the prestigious Oscar awards. I am also proud that he used a Tamil quotation, “Ellaap pugazhum Iraivanukkey! – All the glory rightfully belongs to the Lord, a la Kannadasan’s ‘Potruvvar potralum, thootruvaar thootralum pogattum Kannanukkey’ line)

But I feel that there certain disturbing aspects about the film itself. Several other films have portrayed the poverty of Indians and the repulsive conditions of the slums. But this film, in addition to portraying the squalor of the slums, has a few other subtle messages, which are bound to sully the image of a country, which is threatening to overtake the superpowers as an economic giant. Even in portraying the dirt and squalor, Slumdog Millionaire has sunk into a deeper abyss (literally) by showing the boy jumping into a pool of filth (I would like to avoid the American favorite term here, which has been used by Indian newspapers also!) in his anxiety to meet the superstar Amitabh Bachchan and get his autograph. But the other insinuations are more venomous.

A slum-dweller participates in the 'Who wants to be a crorepati?' program and the host treats him with utter contempt. He asks for his background. When the young man says that he works for a call centre, the host Anil Kapoor asks, "So, you are the one who calls me everyday offering a credit card?" The boy says he is just an assistant. The host in inquisitive about the guest's job. When the candidate says that he serves tea, he days contemptuously, 'A chaaiwaala?' And he maintains the contempt and prejudice throughout.

This is not the reality. People participating in reality TV shows have always been treated with dignity. But the film wants to project the Indian elite as snobbish, contemptuous and unable to tolerate the success of the downtrodden people. This may be true of UK and US not India. We saw how Shilpa Shetty was insulted by her British co-participant in a reality show in BBC. But embarrassed by the incident, the British media made the British actress (her name is something like Rudy - she regretted her remarks and visited India to learn better about the country.) a scapegoat by attributing her behaviour to her low-class background, again displaying a typical snobbery of the British nobility.

The film also shows our systems and the people managing the system to be corrupt and indecent. Here is a host who is perplexed how the uneducated chaaiwaala from the slum could answer all the questions correctly. So he hands him over to the police in a surreptitious way and the police torture him for the whole night asking him to reveal the trick he had used! Police tortures, illegal arrests and harassments of the poor by the police and authorities are not uncommon phenomenon. But torturing the boy for getting the truth about his "tricks” is ridiculous. The host should have known that no tricks are possible in the system where the computer produces questions at random. This part of the narration seems to have the only purpose of hinting that the downtrodden in India will not be allowed to succeed even when they are honest and simple.

The host makes several derogatory remarks about the guest, reminding the boy now and then that he is only a chaaiwaala. But the height of impropriety comes when the host tries to "help" the boy by suggesting him a wrong answer. When a question is asked about the batsman scoring the highest (or fastest - I don't remember), there is a commercial break before the boy answers. Both the host and the guest go to the rest room. The host writes "B" on the wall of the restroom for the boy to see. The boy sees that but he gives a different answer and wins. Now, will there be a break during this question? Even if there is one, will the host and the candidate be allowed to go to the restroom, that too together? What kind of a system is this? The message is very clear. In India, systems will be corrupted giving room for manipulation and favoritism!

I read that Amitabh Bachchan was critical of this picture. I don't know exactly what he said but I think he should have been upset by the distorted image of the crorepati show projected in the film. Of course, in the film, this is shown as a different program with a slight difference in the name and the channel. But the structure of the program remains the same. But Star TV does not seem to be protesting. On the other hand, it is seizing the opportunity to revive the crorepati program with Anil Kapoor as the host.

There is also a communal angle. The Muslims in the slum are attacked by a mob of Hindus and the boy's parents are killed. Again, this is not something that has not happened. But the shocking thing is, as the boys are running for their lives, they see a young boy dressed up as Rama, with a bow in his hand. Will the rioters bring along a boy to the scene of riot? This scene has the objective of showing how the hero knew the answer to the question, "What weapon does Rama hold on his hand?" But every child in India knows that Rama's weapon is a bow. Maniratnam showed the riots more objectively in Bombay.

This "harassment and butchery" of Muslims by the Hindu militants is likely to be used by foreign terrorist outfits to brainwash Muslim boys in India.

I have not read the novel "Q and A" on which this film is based. Comparing the novels and the film, we can spot the deviations and get an idea of the motives behind these deviations.

Let me summaries the messages conveyed by this film – some of them overtly and others clandestinely:
1) Life in slums in India is as horrible as it could be.
2) Poor people of India are treated with contempt by the society. The poor have no protection against illegal detection and torture by the police.
3) The elite of India will not allow the poor to come up. They will stoop to any level and play all kinds of dirty tricks.
4) All systems in India are corrupt. Even a reality show is not free from manipulation and sabotage by the powerful people.
5) Innocent Muslims are butchered by the Hindu militants. This is done in the name of the Hindu God Rama.
6) Children in the slums are not only unhygienic but also devoid of any sense of revulsion for dirt and filth.
7) Foreign Tourists are taken for a ride by uneducated Indian Youth who manage to speak English. Urchins will steal their belongings and sell in the market openly. (It is funny that the film shows a young boy taking away the shoes of the foreign tourists visiting Taj Mahal and freely selling it outside. Does Taj Mahal not have an arrangement for safe keeping of footwear worn by the visitors?)
Orphan boys are blinded and made to beg, the people behind this venture” pocketing the alms earned by these blind(ed) beggar boys. If it is a girl, she will be used for the oldest trade of the world, of course.
9) There is no fairness in the Indian society. If the poor ever manage to come up, it is only by sheer luck. (like the hero winning Rs.2 crores for the last question, by wild guessing out one of the four options!)

From time immemorial, westerners, unable to digest the richness of our culture and heritage, had derived satisfaction by describing India as a land of superstitions, snake-charmers and primitive faiths. Now, they have got even more reasons to be jealous with India breaking barriers in fields like economic development, technological advancement etc. Naturally, relishing the negative aspects about India would give them some of the much needed satisfaction to compensate for their jealousy and agony. I think it is very likely that there would be quite a few films in the next couple of years from Hollywood focusing on the negative aspects of our country. This is not going to make us comfortable. But I think that we can’t do anything about it, except to watch them helplessly.
_________________
P Rengaswami (9381409380)
MSV, Un isai kettaal puvi asainthaadum, idhu iraivan arul aagum.
http://msv-music.blogspot.in/

[N Y MURALI]

Dear Mr. Parthavi,
Thanks for your information in your posting. I did not see the movie and am unable to comment about that. How ever the fact that certain western minds are perverted because of the superiority complex there by creating deliberate manipulation of truth is not new to us. At least in this case this is a fiction. How about our history which has been tampered through out from Arian invasion theory to the first war of Indian independence. Whatever has been written by them has been accepted by us without even questioning their logic. I shall quote an example.

First we should not discount various western scholars’ untiring efforts to catalogue and research our literature, language, history and our culture. They were the pioneers for our history books which we and our children are studying in our schools. However many of us never reread or analyze the information given in our history books. But some information about our history has been deliberately tampered in order to ensure disharmony and difference of opinion with in India. The very famous ‘divide and rule policy.

This Arian Invasion theory has been first propagated by one Mr. Max Muller a German who was appointed by Oxford University. Mr. Max Muller was good in English which was an advantage for him. He came to India and studied our Vedas and with the help of some local scholars propagated this theory based on certain similarities of our Sanskrit and European languages. So this theory is purely based on linguistic approach. This is in the year 1869 that is 12 years after the first independence war. The idea was to intellectually degrade and suppress Indian thinking power.

What is Max Muller’s knowledge about Sanskrit? I shall quote one gentlemen Mr. Jothi Rao Pule, who was the first Indian to accept that theory. He says “I visited London once and for the first time met Max Muller. I spoke to him in Sanskrit. Mr. Max Muller stopped me. I asked him why? He said he cannot understand or speak Sanskrit” this is clearly after 10 years after Muller propagated the theory.

Many of the Indian who had opposed this theory are like Swami Vivekananda, Shri Aurobindo, Mr. Ambedkar etc and they have written voluminous articles to oppose this theory. We cannot and should not brush all the westerners with the same thinking. Now for the past 30 years there has been many researches taking place with a view to re look at the Indian history and many western scholars have made commendable contribution to oppose this theory. One of the people is Mr. David Frawley from USA. See what is his qualification. He studied all our four Vedas and can write, read and talk in Sanskrit. He can chant the Veda mantras just like our Pandits. There is another person by name Koenard Elst who is a Belgian. The foreigners list goes more than 50. There is an intellectual war going on in the academic field. Large numbers of Indians are also involved in this. Notable among them are Shri N S Rajaram who is a mathematician and is a mathematics consultant for NASA, USA in the field of artificial intelligence for robotics. He says he is giving the consultancy with the idea of Vedic mathematics.

We all know Mr. Mackalay is the one who has introduced our modern education system. Today though our education system has got refined, still it retains the core idea about the subjects our children have to study. But unfortunately there are 2 subjects which we, including us, our forefathers have not learnt, logic (Tharga Sastram) and Attitude. We need to understand the power of these subjects.

Once Mr. Henry Ford was sued by someone. The lawyer who was arguing against him wanted to score points over him. So he was asking unwanted questions like who was the first president of USA, who was the senator for a state etc which were unconnected to the case argued. Initially Ford was answering his questions. But then he stopped answering and said that he did not know the answers for many questions like this. Then he commented to the court room saying that he has 100 of books in his library and 100 of aides who could give him the answer by pressing his calling bell and he does not want to keep his brain as a garbage bin. He said it is fine for him as long as he knows how and from whom he has to get the information. How true? This comes from the attitude.

In the case of ‘Tharga sastra’ we all know the great philosophers like Sankara, Ramanuja and Madva propogated their phililosophy only based on the power of ‘Tharga sastra’ and not by political or money power. This is one of the reasons that today we are not able to determine the actual birth date of Sri Sankara whether it is BC 509 or AD 788. Because in all through out the literary works of Sri Sankara there is no mention of any kings name during his life time. If the king’s name is available we could have come to conclusion about his period.

So the average Indian who lost the power of the ‘Tharga sastra’ and attitude failed to understand and come to conclusion based on logic. He felt so inferior in his thinking that what ever that has been told to him he accepted without any argument. See how history is manipulated.

Take the case of Alexander the Great. We have read in our history books which are the creation of the so called western scholars. Unfortunately we do not have any Indian records to highlight the fallacy. Alexander the king from Macedonia from the Baltic region of Europe conquered all over Europe, Central Asia and came to India. There he fought a war with an Indian king called Porus. His actual name is Purushotaman who founded the city called ‘Purushapuram’ which was later on called as ‘Peshawar’. This is the place from where the Great Kanshika ruled as a king of Kushana Empire later on.

Now if we see the Greek terminology they always have the habit of pronouncing many names ending with ‘iss’ or the phonetic terms ‘sa’ in the Sanskrit for ‘saraswati’.
More valuable information we get from the Greek records is the name ‘santracottus’ which is described in the ‘Indica’ written by Meghathanis. See his name itself is ending with ‘is’.
Western history scholars have based our Indian historical chronology based on this term ‘Santracottus’. They assumed this to be ‘Sandra Gupta Mauriya’ the founder of the Mourian Empire. The period of ‘Sandra Gupta Mauriya’ is fixed as 323 BC based on the period of Meghasthanis which is correct. But is it necessary whether the person mentioned in the ‘Indica’ should be only ‘Santra Gupta Mauriya’. Why not this as ‘Chandra Gupta’ or ‘Samudra Gupta’ the Gupta kings who come some 8 centuries later.
There is one more point. The Greek records mention ‘Sandramas’ and ‘Sandrocyptus’ as the kings immediately before and after ‘Santracottus’. These names in any way are not phonetically similar to Mahapadma Nanda and Bindusar, who were the predecessor and successor of Chandragupta Maurya, respectively. However, if ‘Santracottus’ refers to Chandragupta "Gupta", the Sandramas reckons to be his predecessor Chandrashree alias Chandramas and Sandrocyptus to be Samudra Gupta. The phonetic similarity becomes quite apparent and also, with the assistance of other evidence, confirms the identity of Sandrocottus to Chandragupta.

If that is proved then our history could be taken back by at least 800 years back. The whole chronology of Indian history is based only on this assumption of the term ‘Santrocottus’ as ‘Chandra Gupta Mauriya’ which is available in ‘Indica’. Even the original ‘Indica’ written by Meghsthanis is not traceable but they have found the information and reference about ‘Indica’ from another book which had been written some centuries later. So now we hear many voices which say that Indian history has to be reviewed thoroughly.

Now coming back to Alexander, as per the history available now to us through the western scholars, the Indian king Porus got defeated. But Alexander the great after seeing the valor and courage of Porus and out of his benevolence hands back the territory to Porus himself! The logic says the opposite. How could a king of Alexander’s stature whose life ambition itself is to conquer the whole world, can hand over the territory back to the king whom he defeated? That too Poru’s defeat (if that is true) would open the flood gates for more territories in India for Alexander. For me, if he had really won then Alexander is the worst tactician. And his benevolence towards Porus is unbelievable keeping Alexander life time ambition of conquering the world. If he had really won then he should have marched his troops to the main Indian land.
Now the same western source which glorified Alexander’s victory gives some contradicting information after the war. One information was that Porus got more territory than he was holding before the war.

“YENNE UN KARUNAI Mr. ALEXANDER?”

Information was that the war with Porus was the last war in his life. Now after the war, Alexander goes back to his native place. Normally if he had been victorious and because of the friendship he got with Porus, he should have gone back in the same way he came victorious. But here is a suspense and surprise. He goes via by hither to unknown route which is via Sind Desert! Why should a king who is so victorious and benevolent has to go through a hard journey through the Indian desert that too without any motive of having war with any other Indian king especially the kings in the Sind region. There is one further information available is that there was a mutiny in Alexander’s army and he barely escaped assassination. This could be possible because after some time in 323 BC he died when he reached Babylon, a town in Iraq. His immediate successor Philip is assassinated. And one of his army general Selucus Nichodar claims that part of area which was under his control deputed by Alexander before his death. There is every reason to believe that the assassination bid on Alexander could have been due to the disharmony and lack of unity. Disharmony and lack of unity comes to a group when the head of the group loses control. Loss of control comes because of defeat which logic teaches us. And that defeat could have come from Porus. But when the western scholars mentioned that the war was a ‘draw’, we Indians were happy just like the recent India’s Cricket Tour of Australia the series which ended in a draw. Actually we should have won the series but for the manipulation.

See what happens to Selucus Nichodar. He again tries to march towards India. But this time he has to face the mighty army of ‘chantrakottus’ (we are not sure who he is) and faces defeat. He had to give areas which were held by him. But he makes a treaty with him and then never ever dared to attack. Luckily this is time we have Indian records to support this view. In fact ‘Indica’ would not have come to the world but for the treaty. Other wise this also would have been manipulated.

The reason why I had written about this subject is not to degrade westerners as a whole. I have highlighted some of their good intentions also. Now the important message here in this forum is that these 3 trend setter MDs in TFM have come from a very poor back ground and excelled to great heights. Education, political or money power was not the reason for their success. Their success was basically from their burning desire and attitude to excel. That is why our GURU MSV can play a Piano of the Russian composer who lived 250 years back in Russia that too without even having the notes. That is the reason IR can conduct a Symphony in London. That is why ARR succeeded in Oscar. These 3 greats have shown the west that Indians can excel in their music and even perform better than them in their own court yard.

But how many of the so called westerner can come to our ‘Thiruvaiyaaru’ and perform a Pancharatna Keertana. There are some examples like ‘Higgins Bagavadhar’. There are also others like David Frawley etc who made their mark in other Indian fields. But the important message they showed is they approached India as a culturally enriched and spiritually self sufficient land. They came with that ‘mano bhaavaa’. So we appreciate them.

But if a person approaches India with an ulterior motive he will not stand the time and will collapse one day. Just like the Australian Cricket Team suffered humiliating defeat at India and worst a home defeat at the hands of the South African Team.

Truth always prevails,


Regards,

N Y MURALI