Another Weekend
Hard to believe it’s been a week since my last entry. Time either goes very quickly or very slowly here. So what follows must be 3 or 4 entries worth!
Sunday dinner with Merlin Isaac and her family was a delightful change of pace. Eating alone is one of the things I like the least here. Today I told a friend they should send company over when they bring meals to the guest house! Merlin is a very outgoing, friendly person (something she attributes to her husband and the supportiveness of the MCC family). Her husband is a man with great curiosity about foreign countries. He works for an American company, so he knows quite a bit already, and we talked and talked and talked about American politics, people, and economy. Most of you know I tend not to be the most loquacious person on earth, but he kept me talking till 10:00 p.m. Fun!!
Shopping in the City!
Mathivan and I went into the city AGAIN on Monday. I felt like I was playing hookey (which I more than made up for getting ready for those history lectures!). Don’t get to do that often. We’d been talking Saturday about some of the great Carnatic classical artists—he knows SO many great stories, they should be written down!—and he wanted to take me down to get some of their CDs and DVDs. I was more than happy to go with him. He knows the musicians and their music intimately—who’s good, who’s not, who’s up and coming, who’s truly great—and he knows the best recordings to look for. I’m not totally ignorant. I know a good number of important names, but I don’t know them all, and I tend to know the current generation better than the older one. Well, for once I didn’t have to stand there and guess whether I was getting something good or not (hmmm … I know this artist is good, but I’m not familiar with that one, but maybe they’re also a good bet since there’s a whole shelf filled with their recordings … etc.). So we got some really fine stuff, including a couple of rareties. And Mathivan even insisted on buying of few of the best things as a gift for me. I am continuously bowled over by such generosity! Then off for a lovely traditional Madras-style tali meal (lots of small portions of this and that in small metal cups arranged lovingly on a big banana-leaf-covered tray). I think that was my first time having Madras tali (had it in Tirupati in 2005, but that’s the next state over, and MUCH more spicy). After lunch the Music Academy in time to check out their new digital music archive. Really nice collection of older and more recent recordings, some very rare. As they keep adding to it, this should become a really exceptional collection, the kind of place one might go for historical study purposes. Now if they would add video as well … !!! On the very last shelf after a quick browse through the Academy library what do I see but two books by Bruno Nettl, the keynote speaker I introduced at the CMS conference in Normal last year. Knowing that Bruno would like to come back as a Carnatic classical singer in his next life, I dropped him an email to ask if he knew his books were in Madras! (He did not, but was glad to hear it!) Stopped at a khadi shop for fabric. I want some kurtas (traditional Indian style shirts), and there’s no fabric more breathable in all the world than the homespun cotton Gandhiji encouraged. I got a few colors & patterns. And then one last stop to price out some inexpensive cameras (mine is on the fritz—I don’t like that grinding noise—still under warranty, thankfully, but repairs only covered back in the U.S., grrr …). And since there was a Yamaha piano/synthesizer showroom right next door, we couldn’t resist. Mathivan was fascinated by all the instruments, “Mark, I would never go into such a place if I were not with you!” Really classy place. They even had a baby grand displayed prominently. And then the long drive back to MCC. Seems like it’s not taking quite as long as it used to. It has taken as long as 90 minutes in past years, but we’ve consistently been making the trip in just under an hour. The flyovers make a difference, and so does the railroad bridge just east of campus. That cuts off a LOT of the jams around the commuter rail stations, not to mention possible LONG delays at the Tambaram railroad crossing.
Two history lectures back to back was more of a stretch than I anticipated. Seems like that’s all I did between Monday night and the end of my second lecture Friday morning. I really feel the pressure to do well, especially as they are first getting to know me and my work. Perhaps I will feel less pressure as time goes on. Who knows?
New shirts got delivered mid-week, nice Madras-style cotton shirts in plaids of different colors. The tailor made them very nicely loose, so there’s room for the to circulate underneath. A few of the faculty members here caught Joseph and I running to his car after a planning meeting for January and snapped a photo with me in one of my new shirts. I’ll add it to the Flickr Photostream below so you can see what I’m talking about.
Two More Lectures Down!
Well, both history lectures went well. I can’t believe I got through nearly 15 pages of Civil War song material in under an hour! It helps that a lot of it was song lyrics that didn’t fill the whole page from left to right. I sang about 4 or 5 songs (only one complete song—Tenting on the Old Campground). The history department chair seemed pleased with how it went. Major technical difficulties the second day, though. I wanted to run a Powerpoint presentation on songs of the civil rights movement. It took forever to get the projector up and working. Just when I was ready to give up and just read it, somebody got up from their seat, hit a few buttons, and voilà! Sadly, the sound was way too low for the songs to be heard. I saw it at the Onam festival, and here again—when they don’t have the right cables, they will take a microphone, put it by the small speaker, and run it through the P.A. But the laptop I used had very weak speaks, and the P.A. just couldn’t amplify it sufficiently for the large room we were in. Ah, well. I would have used my equipment, but I don’t have the right video output cable. I thought I had one (from my old laptop), but no—the new MacBooks use a fancy new configuration called “Mini Displayport.” I won’t get it for another month when Virginia arrives here, but I ordered one and had it shipped home. Dr. Rukumani and I commiserated afterwards. She suggested that having the lyrics in the Powerpoint would have helped a lot, and she was absolutely right. Even if the sound system was up to snuff, the African-American English used in many of the songs is hard for Indians to understand. Live and learn! Dr. R. is very reserved, and since I don’t pick up on all the cultural cues yet, I find her hard to read. But by the time all was said and done, I came to understand that she was very, very pleased with my lectures. I hope I can keep up the good work!
Funny what tastes good these days. Thursday night it was “finger chips”—what you or I might call french fries! I can’t remember when fries have tasted so good. At lunch Friday there were some lovely small potatoes in a mild sauce, and the carrot slices were really sweet-tasting. Friday night it was a few nicely cooked pieces of chicken.
College Life
Another big adventure. Every residence hall here has a big festival sometime during the year. This weekend it was Selaiyur Hall’s Moonshadow. For three days they have special contests and events. They took me over Friday afternoon in time to watch the “Fashion Contest.” Each of the four halls (3 male halls and one female) had a team come up on stage to strut their stuff. First there might be a formal wear set with suits and ties (for the guys), etc. Next maybe something ethnic or novel, and finally something decidedly hip (Bollywood-style, though that also includes imitations of American hip—rappers, for instance). While all of this is going on, a huge crowd of students is watching and cheering (or jeering if it’s not their hall on stage). The halls are very competitive here. This isn’t what I remember from college dorm life. It’s a lot more like the British system (think Harry Potter and Hogwarts) with heavy influence of American fraternities woven in. The guys from the last hall up got rather risqué at the very end of the set—they came out in jeans and wet, ripped T-shirts, a couple of which got ripped totally off and thrown into the audience. One guy even started tugging down his pants, hiphop style, to reveal just the top of his thong-style undies. This was in total violation of contest policies. Now, outside of some hoots and hollers from the students, this would have caused no consternation in most U.S. colleges, but the U.S. is the U.S. and India is India. Bollywood movies notwithstanding, even partial nudity is seen as an embarrassment. (Remember the scene in Lage Raho Munna Bhai where the old fellow takes off his clothing one piece at a time, offering them as payment for a loan he owes to an unscrupulous fellow—who is so embarrassed by this that he forgives the loan!). I don’t know what will happen to those students, but I suspect a stern reprimand at the very least. And today they had me come in as a guest judge for a kind of “battle of the bands”—six acoustic acts and three high-volume rock bands. Fun! I’m discovering that being an honored guest means you have to do a lot sitting, even if you’d rather mill around and chat with folks! Now if my ears would stop ringing ...
