Reassessing favorites and lost for a current favorite...

As one learns or listens to more and more music, one evolves as a rasika. For me, every music session opens a new door that forces me to reassess my tastes. Consider this. When I was young, K J Yesudas was my absolute favorite, and then it was Maharajapuram Santhanam. I spent a long period when I used to adore and mimic the way P Unnikrishnan sang. The cassette era saw me liking new comers like S P Ramh and Balaji Shankar. I then graduated to guru Neyveli Santhanagopalan, T V Sankaranarayanan, and T M Krishna. Of the older musicians, I would listen to only Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, G N Balasubramaniam, and M S Subbulakshmi. Dr. M Balamuralikrishna was another musician I used to follow (whom I respect immensely today, and believe that trying to copy his style is like playing with fire).

When cassettes started going out of fashion, I was forced to listen to music on the internet, and this is when I realized that I had been an ignorant child all along. My journey as a rasika and singer took a different route as I developed a liking to K V Narayanaswamy and Oleti Venkateswarulu. I started learning music from Girish anna, who is T Brinda's grandson and this, I believe, started refining my taste immensely. In reality it was Oleti and Brinda amma's music that affected me the most and I would like to believe that I have begun a journey towards musical excellence ever since I have been exposed to the music of these two stalwarts. However, now I find that I am able to enjoy only a few musicians, and the troubling(?) part is that these musicians are NOT current performers. Has my outlook become very narrow and is that why the current musicians fail to create any impact on me? Is my taste really getting refined?

Some of my favorite artistes in concert

Sri Oleti Venkateswarulu
(Sri V Kamalakar Rao on Mridanga)

Sri Palghat K V Narayanaswamy
(Sri Palghat Mani Iyer on Mridanga and Sri Papa Venkataramiah on Violin)

Smt M S Subbulakshmi
(Sri Trichy Sankaran on Mridanga and Sri Sundaresa Iyer on Violin)

Smt T Brinda and Smt T Muktha

Smt D K Pattammal and a very young Sri D K Jayaraman

Sri T V Sankaranarayanan
(Sri Guruvayur Dorai on Mridanga, Sri Nagai Muralidharan on Violin, Sri Suresh on Ghata)

Sri Neyveli R Santhanagopalan
(Sri Trichy Sankaran on Mridanga and Smt Kalpana Venkat on Violin)

Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan

Ustad Amir Khan

Ustad Ali Akbar Khan

Ustad Rashid Khan

Organic milk? Duh!

It had been a long day. I had been in Cleveland since morning – music classes, a rehearsal, and a concert. The tired body thanked me when I accepted my friend Krishna’s invitation to crash at his place for the night. We decided that we’d spend the night singing and playing music. It was decided that we would fuel ourselves with some good ol’ Bru and milk. So, on the way to the crash pad, we stopped at a grocery store to buy milk. Krishna refused to purchase the lacteous at a gas station because “they don’t sell organic milk”. At that moment, I laughed at him. My brain refused to understand what he was trying to say when he mentioned something about hormones and antibiotics in regular milk, but it came back to me today when I heard a woman say that she thought organic milk tasted better than regular milk. This led me to research a little more about this and that is what this post is about.

Every time I shop in my dairy section, I see organic milk advertised at twice the price of my favorite 2% milk, and I always ask myself, is organic milk worth that extra money? However, if you were to look at the actual cost that goes into producing organic milk, the price would make sense, but the real question is - does it make a difference?

Before we go into that, we must understand what organic milk really is. Essentially, it has to do with the way the cows are treated. Let us see how organic milk is defined. In order for milk to be “USDA Organic”, it has to be produced by cows that meet four criteria specified by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

1. Feed your cows the “good” stuff. Don’t let them eat stuff treated with harmful pesticides or fertilizers that are not organic.

2. Let your cows grow and lactate the way they would naturally do. Don’t inject them with bovine growth hormones (BGH) that artificially increase milk production. Don’t subject them to genetic mutation or irradiation.

3. If one of your cows falls sick and needs to be treated with antibiotics, separate her from her friends for a while. Let her not return to the herd for a year to make sure the antibiotics are out of her system.

4. Provide your cows with pasture access. Let them freely graze the way they would naturally like to do.

So now you know why organic milk is so expensive. Also, you would have noticed from the expiration dates, organic milk stays fresh a lot longer than regular milk. The reason is that organic milk is pasteurized using a different process. Regular milk is pasteurized by what is known as “High Temperature Short Time (HTST) pasteurization” where the milk is exposed to 161 degrees F for 15-20 sec. Organic milk is pasteurized by what is known as “Ultra High Temperature (UHT) pasteurization” where the milk is exposed to 280 degrees F for 1-2 sec and then is then subjected to Extended Shelf Life (ESL) treatment that involves microbial filtering. UHT pasteurization can cause Maillard browning of the milk, changing its taste and color (probably explaining why it tastes slightly different), but the flip side is that it kills the spores in the milk, allowing it to stay fresh for a relatively longer time even without refrigeration while not destroying other useful nutrients in the milk.

Now, all this starts a new line of thought – if you think of it, organic milk is not just about healthy milk. Consider this. Your cows must no longer eat toxic food. So they now no longer eat food made from animal byproducts, so the chances of illnesses transmitted through food are lower. They no longer receive bovine growth hormones (BGH) so they are less like to develop complications like mastitis (an udder infection). They no longer go through the vicious cycle of antibiotic treatments to cure these types of complications either. So your cows stay healthier in general. Milk production might actually increase and perhaps become enough to even out with the milk produced by the sicker cows that receive BGH. But it’s not just the cows that are healthier now. You start using organic herbicides and fertilizers. So there is at least one less person (you) that is contaminating water. You and your workers stay healthier yourselves. Mother Earth is happier. Another thought, albeit farfetched, might make Mother Earth happy is that UHT milk need not be refrigerated. This reduces the use of refrigerants, thus cutting down greenhouse gasses (I warned you that this thought would be farfetched!).

In any case, organic milk is advertized to be much healthier than regular milk, so let us analyze this aspect. As is obvious, organic milk is truly free of hormones and antibiotics. So now let us look at regular milk. Recombinant bovine somatotropin, commonly known as BGH, to which these “non-organic cows” are treated, promotes the secretion of an insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) in their milk. IGF-1 survives the pasteurization process is passed on to those who drink this milk. However, BGH is a protein hormone. This means that if any BGH appears in milk, the human digestive tract has enzymes and acid to destroy it. In fact, studies have shown that the traces of IGF-1 found in milk actually amount to only a tiny fraction of the IGF we all produce each day, and that one would have to drink 95 quarts of milk to equal the IGF-1 one normally secretes daily in saliva and other digestive juices. As far as antibiotics are concerned, it is illegal to treat a lactating cow with antibiotics. While it is assuring to know that “organic cows” that receive antibiotics are kept away from the herd for a year, it is also true that the milk from “non-organic cows” that receive antibiotics is not used either until tests show it is antibiotic-free. Tanks of milk are routinely tested to ensure no antibiotic content. So, unless there is some hanky-panky going on (there was some scary talk though about a study where 38% of milk sampled nationally was already contaminated by illegal residues of antibiotics and animal drugs), you can be pretty sure that your favorite 2% milk does not contain any antibiotics.

So that’s the story of organic milk. I sign off feeling more confused than before (readers are free to advise)…

Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna and traditional Carnatic music

I am a great admirer of Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna's music. Very often, people who attend his concerts or listen to his music complain that his exposition of ragas is too complicated and he makes even the most mundane ragas like Shankarabharanam difficult to identify. Even if one manages to identify the raga, one never knows when he will break into a seemingly easy and painfully scalar but yet intricate interpretation of the raga. A lot of people view his innovative style of rendition of certain ragas as something that is taboo as far as traditional music is concerned. However, I feel that very few people can reach the level of expertise required for such obscure interpretations of popular ragas (not to mention BMK's own interpretations of obscure ragas!). But I've always wondered why he does that when Carnatic music is already so well defined. And then today, I came across one of his interviews on youtube. Below is the text version of the same. I would love to hear what the reader thinks of this.

Interviewer: You have done over 400 compositions.

Balamurali gaaru: Yes

Int: Intially when you were doing that, the traditionalists, the purists, were a little outraged?

BMK: (getting a little irritated) I'm sorry?

Int: (now meekly) The purists of Carnatic music...

BMK: (interrupting) There is nothing like purists, you see. "Pure", "traditional"; there is no meaning for these. Nobody knows the meaning for these.

Int: (poor guy is still trying) But the traditionalists of carnatic music...

BMK: (interrupting again with fiery eyes) There is no tradition..

Int: (close to tears now) Okay, the Carnatic musicians were used to singing Thyagaraja keerthanas...

BMK: (mellowing down a little) Yes, Thyagaraja keerthanas... but they are not singing alike. Each one has his own way of singing; quality of voice and presentation differ for each individual. Otherwise, how can you identify that so-and-so is singing or playing? There is something always there. Tradition means the fundamental thing. Tradition means "sa ri ga ma pa dha ni", that's all. When you know it, forget about it, and you improvize. See, the tradition in those days is not the dress you are wearing now. But it does not mean you have gone out of the tradition, right? You always walk with your legs, talk with your mouth, see with your eyes. That is tradition. Tradition is the base. That base will never change. Everybody has one nose, two eyes, two ears, but each one is different. So you can't say that if someone looks handsome, it is not traditional.

Int: (has given up by now) Right, right...

BMK: So, you have to give importance to tradition as a foundation. Like a blue print of a house. The house is built on it.

Int: Absolutely..

BMK: (continuing) So that base is very important, but it does not mean that you should always remain at that level. That is how I feel abt the tradition. People who talk abt tradition or convention usually don't the meaning of what they r talking about.

The latest...

The large time gap between my last post and this one would have no doubt lead the reader to get the idea that I no longer am one of those chaps that involve themselves in blog post rambling as a measure to rid themselves of a certain lethargy. The reader is partially accurate because the aforementioned indisposition has eluded me (thankfully) for the past few months. I would however like to assure the reader that I do not view literary “traipsing” (if that is an appropriate term to use here) as something I do as a last choice of activities; I do enjoy writing!

Now, a lot has happened since my last post, but I will spare the reader from rubbing their face in every detail of my crazy life - I will simply “traipse” along presenting, hopefully, only the interesting portions of my activities.

The first important thing that happened to me in the last few months was the completion of my masters thesis. The degree of exhilaration that was involved at the conclusion of biomedical research in my student life can be a subject of empathy only to those members of the student community who are put to an ordeal defined by the following –

1. What you were originally interested when you joined grad school - 3%
2. What you think is cool but nobody will fund - 9%
3. Your thoughts on why you are doing what you are doing, more like soul searching - 14%
4. Your department's interests - 74%

A majority of the members of this community would agree to this kind of inhuman reduction their lives into undeniably ignoble existences (until the sweet release of “graduation”). However, I am also aware that there will be certain, more “elite” members screaming “get off the soapbox, you idiot” at me at this point. So, with all due respect, I shall move on to the next chapter in my life – the marriage.

As soon as I defended and submitted by thesis, I hopped on a plane to India. Awaiting me in India was a beautiful wedding ceremony followed by a reception of proportionate amplitude and splendor. The whole series of events was made a journey of pleasure and comfort by the lovely bride whom I knew right from the beginning was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

Ahem…

Right, so the next important thing to happen in my life was the job. Again, I take the liberty of ascending on to the soapbox – If one has a desire to start a new job after graduation in a job market of today’s nature, one has to be prepared to be reduced to a grease monkey that tries to make a dysfunctional printer work by fiddling around with the ink cartridge even when the tray has no paper. The most unfortunate part of all this is that one is entirely aware that one is hardly touching the root of the problem (the paper tray) and yet one is forced to play with the ink cartridge (or the traditional application process) because the paper tray is locked and no one will give one the key to the mint (access to the hiring managers)! However, once the hands are greased enough, someone usually takes notice and one gets a job (unlike the printer that remains dysfunctional – that is the silver lining). Without delving into any further details, I finally graduated from being a grease monkey to having a job offer for the position of product engineer. It happened at the right time, and fortunately for me, the offer came from good medical device company. At this point, I was still staying in Akron and I had to move to Youngstown where the company is located. And I moved.

Youngstown! Refrain from judging the town based on its name. Apparently the town was founded by a gentleman who went by the family name “Young” and that’s how the town got its name. A limited excursion through the heart of Youngstown, however, will convince you that nothing here is young. This hit me when I came here first by a Greyhound bus and was greeted by a building with a board that said “city jail”. As one walks on the streets of downtown, one would see structures mostly of antediluvian architecture but sadly devoid of any grandeur because they are empty and as a result, shockingly unmaintained. One gets the impression, as one looks at the buildings and roads, that in its heyday, the town would have been a cheerful and busy place but one day something terrible happened and it all ended. Walking through the seemingly bohemian surroundings, one would see countless run down houses. There are a few handsome houses but they are empty and sadly run down. Strangely, there is nothing cheerful or homey about the kids that are seen playing on the streets or the women that are seen sitting in their verandahs smoking their cigarettes. You would see little office buildings with doors that are bolted, but only as a sign of vacancy because the roofs had collapsed and the windows were shattered. Occasionally you would see a signboard that says “Grocery store” or “Supplies” but with a broken building behind it. Every time I see such signboards, I cannot help but picture a probable homey history of that neighborhood. Every street corner is marked with a “Neighborhood crime watch” signboard that I have now become so familiar with. The weirdest thing about the town is the lack of sidewalks – you have GOT to drive to live here! And it’s not easy to drive either because the roads don’t have readable name signs. Well, a lot has been written about Youngstown and the reader may browse the internet to learn more, but now when a newcomer or a visitor arrives here and sees the “city jail” sign with an expression that is indescribable, I would simply say, “Welcome to Youngstown!”

Okay! There's a lot more that I would love to share with the reader, but I’m going to terminate this post here. More later!