brahmanyan,
i started this thread as i could not find any place for comments on your blog. also this might get a wider audience (or maybe not) for my queries.
when i used to go to my grandparents to badagara, they too used to have a hmv gramophone which had to be wound for every 78 rpm and the needle replaced after about, i would say, 10 of those bakelite records.
my grandma used to have tons of records of sets of dramas produced by the saraswati stores, mount road madras.
i remember listening to 10 - 20 part 78 rpms of stories like nandanar, vallala maharaja, meera and such.
my grandma used to explain the story of nandanar with pride and no guilt; even though i was very young i could suspect the disjoint in her arguement ie how an untouchable reached God, and how we used to treat our vaalikaran and maids, and out thottis... this mainly due to coming from an urban madras of those days...horrible it was to hear the ululating sounds of the dalits when they passed brahmin's houses..i cringe with shame 55 years later and i cannot believe the ignorance of some of the answers i got in another forum about the existence of those habits. it is on such times, i am ashamed of my heritage..and i hope you atleast (and maybe sangom) would understand, if not agree or empathize...thx
to revert to more cheer
,,,, i remember hearing my first 'nagumomo ganaleni' in a scratch l.p. by chembai whom we used to call chozhian. i did not know at that time, this was a disaparaging remark at a brahmin of a supposedly lower cadre. i was so ashamed of my family when i came to know of such 
i still remember m.s.subbu's records of meera ..'jai krishna mukunda murare....' and even now it haunts me 'kaatriniley varum geetham'. all i have to do, far away in time and distance, this 50 years away, close my eyes, and there it floats, those divine vocal chords of MS. i cannot say it better than nehru, 'after all before MS we are only but mortal' or something along those line.
years later, when i heard a comment from the family, that MS' venkateswara suprabatham, was her way of atoning for her 'sins', i cried, that these folks, with her inherent corrupt form of brahminism, could only look upon her as a devadasi who redeemed her self, and not as the divine living goddess. brahmanyan, i hope, you atleast understand the intensity of some of my posts as i remember the ignorance, and worse, it is still prevalent among the blind ones here..thx.
to sum up....i wish to thank you for prompting so much fond memories. bless you sir.
ps.. my paternal grandfather was a clerk of the imperial bank of india, first in bombay, then in madras. he died of t.b. in 1924, a few months before my dad was born .. and thus started the downward spiral to poverty of my dad's family. so quickly one could descent from prosperity to poverty in those days.
i guess it was fear of this, and my own dad's vulnerable health, that made me look for a spouse who would continue to work after marriage, so that if anything should happen to me, atleast there would be income for sustenance. so much of our behaviour centred around the insecurities of our youth...sort of poignantly bittersweet when i write this.
pps. i am going to stop the interruption of this post here but for one last time. to me kovai was unknown, but it was podanur that symbolized the divide between tamil nadu and kerala. after podanur, came shoranur, then tanur, trichur, ottapalam, kozhikode, and badagara my home town (now called vadakara which is how we used to call it those days).... sighhhhh
i started this thread as i could not find any place for comments on your blog. also this might get a wider audience (or maybe not) for my queries.
when i used to go to my grandparents to badagara, they too used to have a hmv gramophone which had to be wound for every 78 rpm and the needle replaced after about, i would say, 10 of those bakelite records.
my grandma used to have tons of records of sets of dramas produced by the saraswati stores, mount road madras.
i remember listening to 10 - 20 part 78 rpms of stories like nandanar, vallala maharaja, meera and such.
my grandma used to explain the story of nandanar with pride and no guilt; even though i was very young i could suspect the disjoint in her arguement ie how an untouchable reached God, and how we used to treat our vaalikaran and maids, and out thottis... this mainly due to coming from an urban madras of those days...horrible it was to hear the ululating sounds of the dalits when they passed brahmin's houses..i cringe with shame 55 years later and i cannot believe the ignorance of some of the answers i got in another forum about the existence of those habits. it is on such times, i am ashamed of my heritage..and i hope you atleast (and maybe sangom) would understand, if not agree or empathize...thx
to revert to more cheer
,,,, i remember hearing my first 'nagumomo ganaleni' in a scratch l.p. by chembai whom we used to call chozhian. i did not know at that time, this was a disaparaging remark at a brahmin of a supposedly lower cadre. i was so ashamed of my family when i came to know of such i still remember m.s.subbu's records of meera ..'jai krishna mukunda murare....' and even now it haunts me 'kaatriniley varum geetham'. all i have to do, far away in time and distance, this 50 years away, close my eyes, and there it floats, those divine vocal chords of MS. i cannot say it better than nehru, 'after all before MS we are only but mortal' or something along those line.
years later, when i heard a comment from the family, that MS' venkateswara suprabatham, was her way of atoning for her 'sins', i cried, that these folks, with her inherent corrupt form of brahminism, could only look upon her as a devadasi who redeemed her self, and not as the divine living goddess. brahmanyan, i hope, you atleast understand the intensity of some of my posts as i remember the ignorance, and worse, it is still prevalent among the blind ones here..thx.
to sum up....i wish to thank you for prompting so much fond memories. bless you sir.
ps.. my paternal grandfather was a clerk of the imperial bank of india, first in bombay, then in madras. he died of t.b. in 1924, a few months before my dad was born
.. and thus started the downward spiral to poverty of my dad's family. so quickly one could descent from prosperity to poverty in those days. i guess it was fear of this, and my own dad's vulnerable health, that made me look for a spouse who would continue to work after marriage, so that if anything should happen to me, atleast there would be income for sustenance. so much of our behaviour centred around the insecurities of our youth...sort of poignantly bittersweet when i write this.
pps. i am going to stop the interruption of this post here but for one last time. to me kovai was unknown, but it was podanur that symbolized the divide between tamil nadu and kerala. after podanur, came shoranur, then tanur, trichur, ottapalam, kozhikode, and badagara my home town (now called vadakara which is how we used to call it those days).... sighhhhh
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