Diwali Weekend

Festivals are huge here. I mean huge. Even when they say that they don't really celebrate something, they do. I gotta say, our idea of a crazy party dramatically pales in comparison. For weeks I've been seeing signs anticipating Diwali: shopping sales, club advertisements, etc. I asked Rahman's sister Fatima what goes on in Chennai for Diwali and she basically said "if you really want to celebrate Diwali, you have to go up north. Nothing big happens in Chennai." Hmm, ok. Nevertheless, I decided I didn't want to go anywhere for the long weekend and just stayed in Chennai.

I can't even begin to describe the crazyness. Even though Diwali was on Monday, the fireworks and crackers started on Saturday. Liz and I went up to the roof of KM just to get a better view and were just awestruck at how much was going on. The sky was completely lit by fireworks all 360 degrees around. It was just incredible and I've never experienced anything like it. It was so bright outside, 9 pm seemed more like dawn. The funniest part was the fact that rules about such things just don't exist so there were cracker shops set up on every corner and kids as young as five and six were lighting them on the street. It's not like the fourth of July where the masses volunteer to go to a designated and protected spot where a group of professionals execute fireworks cautiously and with safety in mind. No. If you can get a hold of them, you can light them. No laws, no ticketing, no punishment - even if someone throws one directly at you and your arm gets blown off. I guess we're just not used to such a 'c'est la vie' attitude. Not only were they lighting them, but the little rascals were throwing them at people walking by despite the fact that these things are explosives and can actually cause significant injury. There were a couple moments where I really thought I would perish and at times it made me wonder if this is what war feels like. Some crackers sound horrifyingly like gunshots. Liz and I walked home from KM fully alert and right as we were reaching the faculty house we heard a bundle of crackers go off at the same time sounding like ten machine guns directly over our heads. Swearing to ourselves we ducked into our house only to find the source: Robert and Shasta lighting them from our balcony roaring with laughter. Rascals.

Saturday afternoon I was called in to Panchaton for another recording. Turned out I was summoned to sing with a local choir for a short choral part in Yuvraaj. I have to say, it's so frustrating sometimes during the recordings because even though they say that they want a "western operatic sound" for the part, they actually really don't. No one here is used to singing, or even hearing vibrato. Vibrato = wrong. They're also not used to the western tone quality - the actual sound of the voice in western music is thicker, heavier and more rounded. The Indian way of singing to me resembles animated chipmunks - it's a thin, chesty, nasal sound. So it's incredibly irritating to be coached to sing in a way that I've been told not to for years. The sound editor had to keep moving me around so that I wasn't directly in front of the mic because a. my voice was louder than everyone's, and b. I sing with vibrato. The other thing is the music. They're not used to reading notation here but we were given an obligatory piece of sheet music that remotely resembled what they wanted to hear. The parts weren't separated into soprano, alto, tenor, bass and we had to decide on the spot who should sing what. There were also glaring mistakes in the notation which I'm just not used to. In my world, what's written is what's right. Not here. Here, it's compulsory to use your ear rather than know how to read. What was surprising to me was even in the fast paced world of Bollywood, things just aren't as efficient as we're used to. I was at the studio for about six hours and if things were organized and prepared in advance, it probably would have taken at most an hour. I'm still getting used to that. In any case, the recording was fun even though I was out of my element. I met some nice people, and had a good time. The part is actually going to be played during a fight scene in Yuvraaj, so keep an ear out.

We got through Diwali alive and decided to stay in on Tuesday and just relax. I got up early and went to the gym. Right as Alison and I were about to jump on the treadmill, I got a call from Liz: "So... Rahman wants to have a photo shoot with the KM faculty in western evening wear." WHAT? "He wants the men to wear suits and the women to wear evening dresses." WHAT? "Yeah, and we're supposed to be holding champagne glasses." Jigga whaaa? The shoot ended up being at like 10 pm in one of the performance rooms at the conservatory. We all got dolled up in the best outfits we brought and nervously walked to school as the neighborhood stopped and stared. We walked in and saw that a carpet was laid down on the floor with one of the digital pianos carefully positioned on top. The best part: the shoot was to be in front of a GREEN SCREEN. We were told that it would be a photo shoot, and of course we thought that meant still photos. No. We were actually filmed with an HD video camera. Do you know how awkward and bizarre it is to pose but to be video taped? Still photo: easy. But to act natural on video is nerve wracking. Rahman came in wearing a suit and was positioned by the crew at the piano. Meanwhile, we were standing behind him trying to pretend like we were at a lavish party with wine glasses (filled with pepsi). It was one of the most fun, nervous, and hilarious experiences of my life. This video shoot is apparently going to be shown during the end credits of Yuvraaj. Why? No clue. What does KM have to do with Yuvraaj? Nothing, really. So not sure. But hopefully you guys will be able to see it. I can't wait.

Monica

Last weekend was fantastic. Maya's college friend Monica is in India right now visiting her family in Delhi and she contacted me and asked if she could come visit and see Chennai. She came last Thursday and I picked her up at the airport in a ricksaw and we got back to my apartment and started planning the weekend. I couldn't really figure out where to take her because even though Chennai is a big city, there aren't really any tourist attractions here. I mean, how many shopping centers and malls can you take someone to? So what did we end up doing? Going back to Golden Sun resort of course. Why not?

Robert, Shasta, Monica and I took the bus to Mahabalipuram which was quite an ordeal. We managed to find seats, but not in the same place and we were all smashed next to sweaty smelly men playing the equivalent of arm rest fighting with our knees. The Golden Sun resort is about 10 kilometers before the city and normally if we were anywhere else in the world we would have probably just waited till we got to the city and then taken a cab to where we needed to go. Not in India - rules don't seem to exist and we're definitely getting the hang of it. As we approached the giant sign for Golden Sun, the four of us stood up and ran toward the front of the bus yelling STOP!!! The driver calmly slowed down and we jumped off before it came to a halt. Laughing hysterically at the absurdity, we ran toward the resort just as the sun was setting. We got our rooms, put our stuff down, got into our bathing suits and jumped in the pool. We had a great north Indian dinner, drank a couple Kingfishers, alternated between the ocean and the pool, and happily came to a compromise with the seemingly 75 year old "lifeguard" on duty who made sure we could swim before retiring for the night. Totally prune-skinned and exhausted, we went to bed late, fully planning to wake up early enough to see the sunrise.. Of course that didn't happen. Instead, we woke up at around 10 ish, ate breakfast, nursed our hangovers and took one last dip in the pool before we had to check out. Robert and Shasta ended up staying at the resort for another night, but Monica and I took a cab into Mahabalipuram so she could see the temples and caves. A couple hours later we took the bus to Pondycherry which took about an hour and a half and were met by Pushkar (who used to work for KM but left about a month ago). We were just planning on wandering around Pondy until we found a place to stay, but Pushkar had graciously booked us a room in the Sri Aurobindo ashram next to the promenade. To stay at the ashram for one night, it was only 100 rupees. 100 rupees! Even though I am suspicious about the source of the various bug bites I got that night and the possibility of head lice.................... 100 rupees! We dropped off our bags, and then went to this wonderful French restaurant called Le club near the sea. The ashram was situated in the French part of the city - cobblestone streets, colorful shops, smart cars. We really could have been in Europe. The restaurant was beautifully lit with lights strung around all of the trees and hanging from the thatched straw ceiling. I started with a cream-based seafood soup then moved on to steak with mushrooms and pommes frites. Crazy ey? After dinner we took a walk along the promenade and then headed back to the ashram to make the 10:30 curfew. Despite us being blanket-less, I slept quite well. In the morning we woke up pretty late, went to Fab India, and then had breakfast at a place called Rendezvous where I had eggs, chorizo, ham, grilled tomato, potatoes and black tea. Heaven.

Next on the itinerary was to meet Pushkar in his hometown: Auroville. What a strange city! Founded in the 60's, this socialist community was supposed to be a spiritual experiment in creating the "ideal". I looked it up and found this:
"Auroville belongs to nobody in particular.
Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole.
But to live in Auroville, one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
Auroville will be the place of an unending education,
of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.
Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realise human unity."


There is no religion in Auroville but anyone wanting to practice their own faith is of course allowed to do so. Instead the community has adopted a sort of general spirituality that focuses on the teachings of Sri Aurobindo to attain enlightenment. Because of these views, and because the city was founded in the 60's, you can imagine how many hippies migrated from all over the world to participate in communal living. The four main languages of Auroville are English, French, Hindi and Tamil and even though I was there only briefly, I managed to hear all four of them in addition to Russian, Italian, and Spanish. We learned that the soil of 143 different countries was brought to the city and the layout is a circular design around a central banyan tree where they built the Matrimandir. Pushkar took us on his motorbike to the Matrimandir and it is just breathtaking to look at. Not only that, because he is a member of the community, we actually got to go INSIDE which visitors are not allowed to do. The inside of it is just another world altogether. It feels like you're in a spaceship. As soon as you walk in, you have to sit down and put on socks which are provided for you. Then you walk up this HUGE spiral slope that twists a couple times up to the very top where there is a an ominous looking heavy door. We opened it cautiously and stepped inside to a room ten times as large as I thought it would be with soft white carpet, white walls, giant white pillars that seemed to disappear into the ceiling, and white towels purposefully laid out in a circular pattern. In the center lay a massive crystal ball held up by four gold triangles. We chose our towels, sat cross-legged and meditated for ten minutes and left. Despite its futuristic and deliberate design, the energy inside was surprisingly neutral. We left the Matrimandir and had a nice lunch of tofu lasagna and quiche at the visitor's center, and then headed back to Chennai. I slept the whole time on the bus.

The next morning I was summoned to Rahman's studio at 7 am and recorded yet another demo for the same "eastern European short film" that I recorded for before. But this time I pried a little bit more and found out that this demo that I've nonchalantly been recording for the past 2 weeks is actually for a short film by Shekhar Kapoor (Elizabeth, The Four Feathers)! And after about 11 hours of recording and revising and re-recording, Rahman sent the demo to Shekhar and he accepted it. Woohoo! Monica came to the recording session and hopefully she wasn't too bored. She left at around 4 pm. I had a really great time with her.

Unfortunately I can't get the recording until the film comes out, but perhaps I can somehow weasel my way into getting the demos that were rejected. We'll see.

What a weekend!

Recording

Oh my goodness, I once again had a surprisingly eventful week. I have been meditating a lot more and I feel myself definitely settling in here. Chennai is really starting to feel like home. It's nice to not have to think about how much you're spending, how much money is in the account, how much to pay for utilities and credit card bills etc. This is luxury. Who would've thought that I'd find myself in the height of luxury... in India... of all places. I even have a set schedule now. Things were just really crazy in the beginning because I didn't know what to do with myself when I wasn't teaching and even the school wasn't fully settled yet, so it seemed like there was just constant chaos. Now however, I'm starting to keep a daily routine that is delightfully boring. A typical day is: Wake up at 10, teach choir from 10:30 - 12 at KM, come back to the faculty house for lunch, give private lessons at KM from 1 - 4, go to yoga at 5, eat chaat standing up at the local stand near the corner store at 6:30, buy milk and come home and make chai at 7, do some work till 9, eat dinner, hang out with faculty till midnight and then go to sleep. I think I will miss this chaat stand more than anything else when I leave here. 5 rupees for a samosa and 10 rupees for samosa chaat. Yum. And eating it off of a dirty cardboard plate with a teeny sample spoon is for some reason wildly fulfilling.

Anyway, so two days ago I was going through my routine when Josh told me there was going to be a group meditation at this thatched hut near the faculty house. So I agreed to go. It's this random hut near the grocery store and everyone just sits and waits for the preceptor to come and once he does, he says "begin meditation" and then you sit with your eyes closed and clear your thoughts for a half hour. Straightforward enough. I had my phone on silent so I didn't check my phone until we were done and almost home. It was Faiz saying that I had to go to his office immediately for an urgent matter. I was like what's going on? Did something happen? Then when I got there, he called Rahman who I talked to for all of 2 minutes and he asked if I was available to record at 9 pm! So of course I said yes. I came back to the faculty house, ate dinner and went to Panchaton, his house/studio.

I went to Panchaton at 9 where Rahman showed me the basic idea of what he wanted, which he had already mixed and recorded on the computer. He played it for me a couple times, and then left to go have dinner with his family. But while he was playing it for me he kept talking about what he was thinking of changing, what was working, what wasn't working, what ambience he was looking for etc etc. And without thinking I started giving my opinion and talking about what he could do for the effect that he was looking for...... and then realized that I was giving A.R. Rahman advice.....and then felt really weird.....and then shut up. Anyway, he left and I sat for about an hour and just listened to it repeatedly until I learned it. Basically he needed ambient background music for an eastern European short film that he's doing the music for. So I learned exactly what he had recorded himself on "aaa" because I assumed that there wouldn't be any words if it's supposed to be ethereal. And then I waited and waited and waited for him to come back. That night was apparently a huge deadline for him for like four different projects that were all being worked on at the same time, so he was running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get everything done because he had a flight to catch later. So I waited till about 1 am when he came back and said "ok, shall we do it?" I go into the studio feeling confident that I had learned it correctly, when he turns to me and says "oh, I just talked to them and they say they want words." Then he says "let's put Sufi words, but is it possible for you to pronounce them like German or Hungarian?" Um. What? First of all, I don't know what Sufi is. Second, how in the world does one make very arabic-sounding words sound eastern European? So he finds words to put together and scribbles them on the back of another piece of paper. He continues to work on mixing the demo so I go back outside and hang out with the others who are there waiting as well - the others being Benny (who sang in Jaane tu ya Jaane na and Yuvraaj) and Shrini (also in Yuvraaj). I'm sitting on the couch yawning and Benny laughs and says, "Ha! It's your first time, isn't it? You can't be yawning yet, the night is just beginning." What??? I go back into the studio and Rahman says "are you ready?" And I say, "Sure." I go into the sound booth, put on the headphones and look over the words, when he starts playing the music and... it's COMPLETELY different from what I had listened to earlier. Like, it could have been a different song. I think he saw my concern and said "don't worry, let's just take one phrase at a time." So I start singing and the reverb on the microphone is so intense, I barely have to open my mouth. As a western classical singer, we're just constantly taught to sing...OUT; with a full voice, full support, and loud. Rahman kept saying "could you do it a little softer?" and "could it be lighter... with more air?" On top of that, he wanted it slightly Indian sounding too, so I did my best to do the ornaments he was asking for. All in all, I think I did it pretty quickly, without written notation, and I think it was a success. He seemed pleased, anyway. The best part of the whole thing was that HE was doing all the recording and mixing himself. There was no one in the studio except for me and him. How crazy is that? I'm like trying to concentrate on what he's asking me to do, all the while having flashbacks of dancing to Chaiyya Chaiyya like 10 years ago and hearing Vande Mataram at the 50th anniversary of India's independence parade. It was just a surreal experience.

I finished recording in an hour and a half but he asked me to stay in case he still needed to record something. I was at the studio till 7 am. 7 am!

I came home and passed out with a satisfied smile.