Category Archives: Arts, Culture & Entertainment

How a recent archaeological discovery throws light on the history of Tamil script

About Chennai(Madras) / TamilNadu, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Leaders, Records, All, World Opinion
DECODING THE SCRIPT Archaeologists taking an estampage of the Tamil script found on the oil press. Photo: Special Arrangement | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
DECODING THE SCRIPT Archaeologists taking an estampage of the Tamil script found on the oil press. Photo: Special Arrangement | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

A team of amateur archaeologists discovered an oil press belonging to 10th century C.E. near Andipatti with a Tamil script. It is one of the earliest Tamil inscriptions to be found in this region.

When R. Udhayakumar a research scholar of Government Arts College, Melur got a call from Tamil teacher Balamurugan from Andipatti about an age-old stone structure that resembles a grinder, he did not take it seriously. But when he along with his friend C. Pandeeswaran, who is also a research scholar from Madurai Kamaraj University, visited the spot he came to know that it was not a grinder but a ‘chekku’ (oil press, used to extract oil).

“When I went there I could locate the oil press neatly carved on the rocky bed of a wild brook, which now runs dry,” says Udhayakumar. “The place is very near to the revenue department office in Andipatti and many villagers say that they had seen water flowing through when there was flood some years ago,” he says.

The team took estampage of the inscription and it was brought to C. Santhalingam, secretary, Pandyanadu Centre for Historical Research, to decipher. “Based on the inscription, the oil press belongs to 10th century CE. It is written in Tamil script and says that the oil press was installed by one Kudiyaan Thevan for common purpose. Also, the inscription throws light on the village and its geographical location. The place is inscribed as ‘Thenmutta Naatu Kannimangalam’. Probably, there should have been many Kannimangalams and this one is located in Thenmutta Naadu, a geographical unit Kings followed in those periods. Places in and around Andipatti region were called as Thenmutta Naadu and there are references,” says Santhalingam.

Though discovering an oil press is nothing new in these parts as the team identified similar one in Chitharevu near Periyakulam six months ago. What made the discovery significant is the Tamil script on it. Earlier ones had Vattezhuthu script. “King Raja Raja Chola I ruled Pandya Kingdom during 10th century CE and he introduced Tamil script here as he was quite adept in it. Also, he did not know to read Vattezhuthu. Hence, he recorded all his documents in Tamil script and encouraged the people to learn the same. The king had even translated Vattezhuthu script to Tamil script evident from the Kutralanathar Temple inscriptions in Courtallam. Comparatively, Tamil script was easy to learn than Vattezhuthu and public patronage grew that saw the decline of Vattezhuthu. Gradually, Tamil script gained prominence,” he says.

Tamil script was widely practiced and popularised by Pallavas who had inscribed on the door jambs of sanctum santorum of temples in Thanjavur. “In fact, it was Pallavas who helped Cholas learn the script. Most of the inscriptions after Chola rule in Pandya kingdom are in Tamil script,”

Early inscriptions found in Pandya Kingdom are in Tamil Brahmi and Vattezhuthu scripts. Even in Irukkandurai, a medieval period port city in Radhapuram Taluk in Tirunelveli, which was discovered by Santhalingam and his team last year, there are 25 inscriptions. Of them, only three belonged to early Pandyas and they are in Vattezhuthu whereas the rest are in Tamil script and they talk about the prowess of Rajendra Chola I.

The oil press found in Andipatti goes into history as the symbol of transition from Vattezhuthu to Tamil script.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society / by T. Saravanan / Madurai – February 21st, 2018

Organic, handspun, handwoven: this muslin from Dindigul doesn’t get any better

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Green Initiatives/ Environment
Dyed yarn is hung for drying. | Photo Credit: G. KARTHIKEYAN
Dyed yarn is hung for drying. | Photo Credit: G. KARTHIKEYAN

It is now up to the next generation to take this exquisite tradition to the runway

It’s that time of the year when a heavy mist rolls down Sirumalai, and the surrounding hills look forbidding. On the highway leading to Dindigul, streaks of yellow light stain the pre-dawn sky. And some shafts of sunlight stream in through the chipped tiled roof of V. Jeevanandam and J. Bhoomadevi’s home.

Bhoomadevi is already huddled around a bubbling cauldron, making the starch that her husband will use to stiffen yarn.

The previous evening, she bagged the best artisan award from Gandhigram Khadi Trust in Dindigul, a district in south-west Tamil Nadu. She is chuffed by the recognition, but it is time to get to work.

In her home in the Weaver’s Colony, Bhoomadevi opens a suitcase to show me her most prized possessions: Muslin saris that she and her husband have woven. There aren’t too many in the suitcase: because although the couple makes them, they can barely afford them at ₹4,000 to ₹5,000. Sometimes she indulges herself, like last night, when she wore one of these heirlooms to the award function.

The concoction in the cauldron has reached the right consistency and Jeevandam picks up the vessel and in the faint light of street lamps makes his way to the open space outside where a series of wooden structures have been arranged. He and his friends stretch the yarn tautly between pegs and brush the starch on to it. The sun has risen now and the yarn can be dried.

Native over BT

Near the foothills, about 20 km away, at A. Vellode village, G.F. Viswasam, a marginal organic farmer, works the black loamy soil where a tall cotton crop is already bearing plump little buds. This is karungani, a native variety of cotton, which Viswasam adopted despite his community’s scepticism.

Colourful thread ready for weaving. | Photo Credit: G. KARTHIKEYAN
Colourful thread ready for weaving. | Photo Credit: G. KARTHIKEYAN

He knew the challenges that awaited him: that traders, who preferred BT cotton — considered better suited for powerloom production — won’t be knocking on his door.

But Viswasam was afraid to grow BT cotton. If the rains failed in this dry region, not only would the crop fail, the land would be contaminated with chemical fertilizer rendering it unfit for cultivation.

Karungani on the other hand had deep roots that reached almost two metres deep to tap water, and didn’t need constant irrigation. All it needed was goat dung to thrive.

The only catch was that the native cotton fibre was 24 mm in length on average, compared to BT cotton fibre, which was 34 mm long. But karungani is well suited for handwoven muslin. And thanks to Gandhigram Khadi Trust secretary K. Shivakumar’s love of muslin, Viswasam, Jeevanandam and Bhoomadevi now have assured sources of income.

Gandhigram is now trying to revive interest in this delicate fabric that Europe once imported in copious quantities from India. “It is a niche product and we are striving to keep the tradition alive,” says Shivakumar.

The trust has been conducting workshops for farmers hoping to encourage them to cultivate native cotton because it is better suited for the local climate.

“The muslin saris that we make have a thread count of 100,” he says proudly. Cotton bales are spun into yarn at the Gandhigram mill where machines from the 1950s still run smoothly.

The only thing Gandhigram lacks is a ginning unit to separate the seeds from the fibre and also help create a seed bank of native seeds. A. Prasath, who left his cushy job at Reid and Taylor to be a part of this movement, and C. Saravanan, the master dyer, are tapping into the organic dye industry.

A worker spins cotton yarn at Gandhigram. | Photo Credit: G. KARTHIKEYAN
A worker spins cotton yarn at Gandhigram. | Photo Credit: G. KARTHIKEYAN

At the dyeing unit at Gandhigram are T-shirts, shawls and stoles, each bearing a tag that says they are organically dyed, ready to be shipped to Europe.

Wanted: designer

Outside the dyeing shed are nuts, tree barks and roots, procured from tribal communities in far away Chhattisgarh, drying in the sun. They will be pounded, ground and boiled to release hidden colours.

P. Palaniammal, a worker at Gandhigram dips yarn into a pot of indigo dye. The yarn turns light green after the first dip, emerald after the second, dark sapphire and then finally a brilliant indigo.

Lalitha Regi, a doctor, is helping the team market this product. What can be better than organic cotton, hand-spun, hand-woven and hand-dyed in organic colours, she asks. But this fabric is in need of a designer who can popularise it. Lalitha has been attending exhibitions to display these unique weaves.

Slowly but surely muslin seems to be coming into vogue. S. Meena, 24, who now works in one of the dyeing units at the Trust, tells me that she spent her first Diwali bonus on a ₹2,600 muslin sari. “Not even a silk sari would have given me so much happiness,” she says. “It is the texture, the satiny feel against the skin and the lightness of the cloth, and the fact that it breathes, that makes this fabric so alive.”

It is six in the evening and Gandhigram is shutting down. But the day has not ended at the Weavers Colony. As the shadows lengthen over the loom, Jeevandam is tying up the warp and weft for tomorrow’s weaving.

I hear the clickety-clack of a lone shuttle somewhere as a radio hums in the distance. It is now for the next generation to carry forward this exquisite tradition, popularise it, and one day maybe even take it to the runway.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Life & Style> Field Notes> Fashion / by Beulah Rose   beulah.r@thehindu.co.in / February 03rd, 2018

Meet the archivists of Carnatic music

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Records, All, World Opinion

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Even in this day and age, when any music is available at the click of a button, their passion propels them to keep adding hours of music to their personal stockpile.

They seek out the old and forgotten and curate them back to life. They hoard them, in thousands of hours, they revel in their possession — even if they can no longer ‘touch and feel’ it. They are the collectors of Carnatic music.

Even in this day and age, when any music is available at the click of a button, their passion propels them to keep adding hours of music to their personal stockpile.

There are many, like K.G. Sivaramakrishnan, a retired physics teacher and a die-hard Madurai Mani buff, who has about 700 hours of music in his possession. There are people, like Rajappane Raju, an oil industry professional and an avid photographer, who has built a collection of Sanjay Subramanian’s music by picking up every bit of his music put on sale. But people like Sivaramakrishnan and Raju are really small-timers in the collection game.

The big collectors are those who have tens of thousands of hours of music, and counting — result of decades of meticulous mopping-up of private pools of music, often lying in the cellar gathering dust.
 Carnatic02CF01feb2018

S.L. ‘Yessel’ Narasimhan of Triplicane, Chennai, claims to own the “biggest collection of Carnatic music in the world” in his computer — about 60,000 hours of music. R. Sridhar, executive vice-chairman of IndoStar Capital Finance and a former managing director of Shriram Transport Finance, owned about 25,000 hours of music. R.T. Chari, a septuagenarian, who runs the TAG Corporation, is another major collector who merged his 10,000-hour collection with another huge trove of the Music Academy, the premier music and dance chamber in Chennai.

Yessel would track down a person who has old music — cassettes, spools, gramophone records, or even iwire — and talk him into gifting the huge collection. He never stops until he succeeds in his mission. He has no compunctions about having sometimes copied the music clandestinely, without the knowledge of the owner, for after all, there is no commercial angle here.

“Those who possess recordings generally are willing to share, but they fear the cassette or spool may not be returned and are loathe to part with it even for a few hours of recording,” says Chari. “Many people had old music recordings in the form of spools, but would say, ‘you bring the machine to my house and copy it here’, and that is what I did.” Sometimes, people died leaving a pile of music and their family, not being particularly interested in classical music, would happily hand them over to a collector like Chari or Sridhar.

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Sridhar recalls a happy moment in 2003 when he made a big acquisition — about 2,500 concerts. An acquaintance of his, called Krishnamurthy, told him he had some music recordings and invited him home to see his huge collection — filling up the shelves. Just when Sridhar thought he had seen it all, Krishnamurthy pulled a big drawer from under the cot filled with cassettes. Krishnamurthy himself had built up the collection, copying private recordings of concerts from spools and gramophone plates.

When Krishnamurthy expressed his concern about safe-keeping of his stockpile, Sridhar offered to digitise the entire hoard. The cache changed hands. Meanwhile, Y. Prabhu, son of R. Yagnaraman, who was the secretary of Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, also donated recordings of around 1,000 concerts from the sabha archives to Sridhar, for remastering it digitally.

Chari’s story is similar, except that he began collecting earlier than Yessel or Sridhar.

Why do these people collect music? After all, there is only so much music a person can listen to in a lifetime! The answer is: to preserve for posterity.

Carnatic04CF01feb2018

Chari, who is the vice-president of the Music Academy, after donating his collection to the Academy, sets himself upon the task of digitising the whole lot. The Academy, in May 2008, made available a room and four full-time assistants. Chari, spending ₹ 30 lakh, has converted about 12,000 hours of music and “another 25,000 hours waiting to be converted.” Meanwhile, Mathew Chacko of the Precision Group of Companies developed a software for the Academy, gratis. The result of the effort can be seen in the archives of the Academy — it has ten terminals, with individual headsets, where any person can come and access music and dance according to the year, artiste or raga-wise. A researcher can compare the same artiste’s music over the years, or a raga sung by different people over decades and analyse the evolution of music.

Like Chari, Sridhar also donated his collection to the Yagnaraman Memorial Trust that he founded, in memory of the late secretary of Krishna Gana Sabha.

Yessel, who prefers to call himself an ‘archivist’ rather than a collector, says his 60,000 hours of music, available in hard disk, is a database for any researcher. He has put a lot of his music for public access at sangeethapriya.org.

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But how many access it? Unfortunately, not many.

Carnatic05CF01feb2018

For instance, the Music Academy archives gets not more than three visitors a day, says Chari. And the visitors are either students or junior artistes, who want to pick up tips from the masters or researchers. Rare is a visitor who wants to listen to the music for the pleasure of it.

“You have to make music available to people on their mobile phones,” says Sridhar, who, in collaboration with Yessel, attempted, in vain, to get people come to his ‘listening sessions.’ Now the two are jointly developing an app for that purpose.

That is the irony of Carnatic music today. While the supply has increased exponentially, both with new artistes coming onboard and collections in Cloud, the constituency of listeners has not gone up.

“Nothing can be done,” says Chari, nonchalantly, “Carnatic music is a complex system to understand.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Entertainment> Music / by M. Ramesh / February 01st, 2018

Two T.N. students’ artwork finds place in NASA calendar

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Science & Technologies, World Opinion

NASA had received about 3,000 entries from 193 countries

Two students from Shree Vidhya Mandhir, Pushpathur, Dindigul district won the NASA’s 2018 Commercial Crew Program Calendar Art Contest.

The artworks of students Kaviya B.J. and K. Selva Sreejith of Class VI were among the 12 selected from about 3,000 entries submitted by children in the age group of 4-12 years from 193 countries. Their work will be printed in the 2018 calendar of NASA will be sent to the International Space Station.

While Kaviya drew an organic space garden, Sreejit’s artwork was titled ‘What would you take from home’, where he drew an astronaut who brought along his daughter, dog and all his favourite possessions to the space shuttle. The winning students will receive a gift package from NASA. The students were able to participate in the contest because of a tie-up between the school and Imageminds, a digital media training centre.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities / by Staff Reporter / Chennai – January 17th, 2018

The legend of Vellayi

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Records, All, World Opinion
TALE OF A TOWER: The Eastern Gopuram which stands testimony to the poignant tale of Vellayi, in the Srirangam Temple. Photo: S.R. Raghunathan
TALE OF A TOWER: The Eastern Gopuram which stands testimony to the poignant tale of Vellayi, in the Srirangam Temple. Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

Eastern gopuram, symbol of sacrifice

On the eastern entrance of the Srirangam temple, there stands a white tower, popularly known as the Vellayi Gopuram. Residents of Srirangam call this east tower as the Vellai Gopuram. It is generally believed that the tower is so called since it has been painted white by the temple authorities. But the tower has actually been named after a Devadasi called Vellayi who had sacrificed her life to protect the idol of Namperumal from the Sultanate forces who had invaded the temple.

Srirangam was attacked by the Sultanate forces in the year 1323 during the Tamil month of Vaikasi. Nearly, 12,000 residents of Srirangam island had laid down their lives fighting to protect the temple. The forces attacked the temple and Lord Ranganatha’s jewels and the temple gold were taken away.

The forces also wanted to seize the idol of Namperumal, which they believed was made of pure ‘Abaranji’ gold. They searched for the idol but the Vaishnavite Acharya, Pillailokacharya had taken the idol away and fled to Madurai. (The idol of Namperumal that left Srirangam in 1323 returned back only in 1371).

Unable to locate the idol, the Sultanate forces killed the temple authorities and later launched a massive hunt for Pillailokacharya and Namperumal.

Fearing that the forces would capture the Acharya and the idol, Vellayi, performed a dance before the commander of the forces thus gaining time for Pillailokacharya to escape with the idol.

Her dance lasted for hours together and finally she took the commander to the eastern gopuram and pushed him down. After killing him, Vellayi jumped to her death from the tower chanting the name of Ranganathar.

Hailing Vellayi’s sacrifice, the chief of Vijayanagara forces, Kempanna, who drove away the Sultanate forces, named the tower after her. The gopuram continues to be painted white in her memory.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Tiruchirapalli / by T.A. Narasimhan / January 04th, 2012 & updated July 25th, 2016

Journalist, theatre personality Gnani dead

Arts, Culture & Entertainment

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In a career spanning four decades, he directed several plays and nearly 40 documentary films

Journalist, theatre personality and literary critic Gnani (born V. Sankaran) died here in the early hours of Monday following a cardiac arrest. He was 64. He is survived by wife Padmavathi and son, Manush Nandan, a cinematographer.

Gnani had been suffering from a kidney ailment and undergoing dialysis.

A native of Chenglapattu, Gnani had begun his career at Indian Express in the mid-1970s. Veteran Tamil playwright Indira Parthasarathy recalls that he had met Gnani for the first time in 1976 when the latter was a cub reporter and had come to interview him (Prof. Parthasarathy). “I could feel even then that that he was a bright guy. My assessment of him continues even now. He was an amazing, fearless and versatile personality,” the playwright points out, adding that he dedicated to Gnani’s memory the lifetime achievement award that he received on the second day of The Hindu Lit for Life.

Gnani was trained by S. Ramanujam, G. Sankara Pillai and Badal Sircar, all doyens of Indian theatre. Originally a member of “Koothu-P-Pattarai,” a theatre group, he went on to set up in 1978 ‘Pareeksha,’ whose maiden play was Porvai Porthiya Udalgal of Prof. Parthasarathy.

“The play’s central character was a woman, ‘Vasanthi,’ and Gnani could not find a suitable person. But he had the ingenuity to use the voice of a woman (Gnani’s stepsister) instead. The impact was great, though there was no woman physically on the stage to represent ‘Vasanthi’,” says the playwright, adding that he had come to Chennai from New Delhi, where he was living then, to see the play.

When the influence of cinema and television was growing in the early 1990s, ‘Pareeksha’ had staged a play every week along with others in Chennai.

Equal space

In his 40-year-long career, Gnani had directed plays based on the works of several prominent writers, including Harold Pinter, Bertolt Brecht, J.B. Priestley, Vijay Tendulkar, Ashokamitran, Sundara Ramaswami and Jeyanthan. Gnani had produced around 40 documentary films and half-a-dozen tele films. Among them was Ayya, which was based on Dravidian movement’s prominent figure, E.V. Ramasamy.

Actor Balasingham, who began his career with ‘Pareeksha,’ said Gnani, as the theatre group’s leader, gave equal space to everyone and he was very friendly to all. “As the director, he never indulged in show off,” says the actor.

In his career as journalist, Gnani set up a Tamil periodical, Dheem Tharikada. He was also in charge of editorial production of the Sunday magazine section of Murasoli in late 1980s and Junior Post in the early 1990s.

His columns, O Pakkangal in popular Tamil journals became a big hit and sometimes, his views triggered controversies.

T. N. Gopalan, veteran journalist, and a colleague at the Express, says “I have always envied his uncompromising personality. His determination to fight back and stand for values that he cherished has a legacy for coming generations of journalists.”

Minister Ma Foi K. Pandiarajan, veteran CPI leader R. Nallakannu and Bharatiya Janata Party state president Tamilisai Soundarajan visited the house of Gnani at K. K. Nagar and expressed their condolences to the journalist’s family.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Tamil Nadu / by T. Ramakrishnan / Chennai – January 16th, 2018

Church Park’s centenary

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Nri's / Pio's, Records, All, World Opinion

Oh my god, I can’t believe you’ve actually come!” exclaimed a middle-aged woman as she hugged her friend. All around, there was non-stop chatter and raucous laughter. The excitement was palpable at the school auditorium as young and old merged to form a timeless mosaic. For long moments, the alumni who had gathered seemed to bring the past alive, looking every bit the giggly schoolgirls they once were. The occasion was the celebration of 100 years of their beloved alma mater, the Sacred Heart Matriculation School, Church Park.
As a significant part of the centenary celebrations, the alumni association brought out a coffee-table book, The School in the Park: 100 years of Church Park.’ The contributions of several past students were put together and edited by S Muthiah, Chennai chronicler.

The book traces the beginnings of the Church Park story that had its roots in County Cork, Ireland, where Nano Nagle founded the Presentation order of nuns in 1771. Some of the nuns came to India in 1842 to set up schools in Madras, Kodaikanal, Delhi and Rawalpindi.

Uma Narayanan, past pupil and principal writer of the book, said that they used old log books, archives from the Nehru Memorial museum and various interviews of alumni and Presentation nuns to gather information. “This was an exhilarating journey for all of us at Church Park and we are very proud of the outcome,” she said. Pointing out that he had to face many battles with “this incredible group of women,” Muthiah said tongue-in-cheek, “If I lost some of those battles, it was only because those were Church Park girls. By the end, we had formed a story of courage, a story of Irish nuns who came to India at a time when it was unthinkable.”

Kenneth Thompson, the Irish ambassador to India, received the first copy of The School in the Park: 100 years of Church Park.’ “Many of the nuns’ names are forgotten, but their sacrifices to further education in India will be cherished forever,” he said. He quoted the book and added, “It’s not the names that matter, but the school and its ethos.”

Copies of the book were presented to the school’s old teachers. In the audience were Pramila Ganapathy, the first Indian student of the school, and Chandok, one of the boys who passed out of the school in the eleventh standard. There were a few celebrities too – Dr Kamala Selvaraj and Lady Darshana Sridhar, special adviser to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. “It was here that I learnt to be confident,” said Sridhar, “the fact that I can deal with different situations with impartiality and integrity is something I owe to Church Park.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Chennai News / by Lakshmi Kumarswami / TNN / January 11th, 2009

Journalist Gnani passes away

Arts, Culture & Entertainment
Writer Gnani.
Writer Gnani.

The literary critic is survived by his wife and son

Journalist, playwright and literary critic Gnani died in Chennai in the early hours of Monday.

He was 64. He is survived by his wife Padmavathi, who is also a writer and son, Manush Nandan, cinematographer.

Gnani, whose original name was V. Sankaran, began his career at the Indian Express. Later, he edited a number of journals in Tamil. He ran a theatre group, Pareeksha. His column O Pakkangal in popular Tamil weeklies was a big hit.

He contested the Alandur by-poll unsuccessfully in April 2014 on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ticket.

According to Jananee, journalist and who is close to Gnani’s family, it has been decided to donate the body to Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital-Medical College.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Tamil Nadu / by T Ramakrishnan / Chennai – January 15th, 2018

New amphitheatre facility at Rail Museum

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Records, All
CHENNAI: TAMIL NADU: 02/01/2018: Lawn at ICF Rail Museum in Chennai on Tuesday. Photo: V. Ganesan. | Photo Credit: V_GANESAN
CHENNAI: TAMIL NADU: 02/01/2018: Lawn at ICF Rail Museum in Chennai on Tuesday. Photo: V. Ganesan. | Photo Credit: V_GANESAN

If you are looking for a space to organise a long-overdue get-together during the Pongal holidays, here is an option for you.

Recently, a 14/10mt amphitheatre with a seating capacity of 150 to 200 persons, was inaugurated at the Regional Rail Museum, Chennai.

This is one of four facilities on the premises of the Museum that are open to the public to conduct events for a few. The other three facilities — two lawns, each of which has the capacity to accommodate 75 to 100 persons, and a roofed enclosure.

It is four months since the Regional Rail Museum has opened up its premises for events by members of the public.

According to a Museum official, this initiative is aimed at increasing the footfall at the museum during weekdays.

“The response to the new measure has been good. Since, around 20 get-togethers have been held. Many of these get-togethers have had to do with families and friends. Recently, a school and a women’s association organised get-togethers. The Museum also allows corporates to organise their events at these facilities,” says the official. Outside caterers and use of audio systems are allowed. Consumption of alcohol and smoking on the premises are strictly prohibited.

Chairs and wheelchairs will be provided, if sought.

A few months ago, the museum increased the number of rest-rooms, which include specially-designed ones for senior citizens and the differently-abled.

The Museum’s closing time has been extended from 6 p.m to 10 p.m. on weekends. Regional Rail Museum, Chennai is located on the premises of Integral Coach Factory on New Avadi Road near Villivakkam. Those interested in booking any of the venues, may call V. Venkataraman, the Museum guide, on his mobile at 98418 68402.

Photos: V. Ganesan

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by L. Kanthimathi / January 12th, 2018

Award conferred on veteran singer

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Records, All

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SPB praises violinist L. Vaidyanathan

Singer S.P. Balasubrahmanyam was conferred the Lifetime Achievement award by Nandi Fine Arts and KAPRI, in association with the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan at an event titled ‘Violin maestro Kalaimamani L. Vaidyanathan – 75 – a celebration of his life and music’.

Addressing the audience, Mr. Balasubrahmanyam said that though he was not properly trained in Carnatic music, he had been singing for over 50 years and considered it to be a great blessing. “I am not a learned singer, but I learnt so much by travelling along with eminent people,” he said.

He said he had sung over 40,000 songs till date, but he was more concerned about the songs that pleased the audience than mere numbers.

The singer shared his memories of violin maestro L. Vaidyanathan and spoke in detail about his humility and spiritual inclination.

Earlier, speaking at the event, L. Ganesan, BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP, said: “In most countries, music is just a form of entertainment, but in India, it is closely entwined with devotion too.”

Singer Vani Jayaram, musician V. Rajkumar Bharathi and other eminent personalities took part in the event.

s0urce: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / by Staff Reporter / Chennai – January 13th, 2018