Vilayanur Ramachandran again on TED!!!

Awesome lecture by Dr.Vilayanur Ramachandran in TED India..

A.R.Rahman... Art of Living...

Vinnaithaandi varuvaaya songs are really good.. atleast one song is awesome ("Hosanna"). I enjoyed these songs much more than the older songs of A.R.R.. i dunno why, probably it could be because of the book i read some weeks back. the book was "A.R.Rahman: The Musical Storm" written by a chennai based journalist, Kamini Mathai. the experience of listening to his songs after reading the book was like enjoying the beauty of Toyota after reading "The Toyota Way". the book is unique b'cos it reveals so many things about the genius that not many people know.. do you know that A.R.R composes only in the nights?? it was always a mystery to me how he manages to use so many instruments ( i meant sounds)and singers in a single song unlike Maestro Ilayaraja who composes a full 6 minute song with a tabla, a violin and a SPB-Janaki combo. that mystery became unresolvable when i read that during the composing of a song, at any point of time, there would be just one singer/ musician in his studio. what that means is that he does a lot of cutting-joining-mixing to produce a complex masterpiece like "hosanna".. but the concept is simple if we look at it from a larger perspective. think of how a car is made. engine is made somewhere, screws, bolts etc are made somewhere else. similarly brakes, clutch, fuel pump etc are made at different places and all these are assembled at one place. and that assembler here is the master engineer A.R.R. he is the one who designs the song, gives out the specifications etc to the musicians and finally assembles it.
No wonder the songs of A.R.R are so complex and it takes quite sometime for the songs to sink in.
but the devotion and a spiritual component that he adds to his compositions differentiates his songs from others who compose A.R.R-like-songs.

spirituality reminds me of the Art of Living Course that I attended for the past 3 days. it was a nice and different experience. firstly, it was a welcome break from the assignments and submissions that had forced us to stay awake at Artha jaamam .. plus, we became aware of the fact that we breathe every second :). the teacher, another-iitian-engineer-spiritual guru, was a gr8 guy.. 3 days of sudharshana kriya, pranaayama, Bastrika.. (im putting all these here, so that i would be able to recall these names in the future).. though it was meant to be a life transfroming exercise, i saw him as a "consultant who was brought in by the Management to advice the line managers on how to transform a loss-making unit into a profit making one".