Sounds of the soul.

Raag Malkauns is one of the most beautiful ,popular and most ancient of the raagas in Hindustani Classical music. Raag Malkauns belongs to Bhairavi Thaat or scale of Hindustani classical music. It is a pentatonic raag ie its type is Audav Audav and this raag is sung at late night. The notes of this raag corresponds to Bhairavi Thaat ie, komal notes are used.

In raag Malkauns Rishabh and Pancham are prohibitted. When ascending(aaroha) the notes are Sa Ga Ma Dha Ni Sa. While descending(awaroha) the notes are Sa Ni Dha Ma Ga Sa.The vaadi swara of Raag Malkauns is Madhyama. Sanwaadi Swar is Sadaja. These notes in combination portray darkness and secret.

The raag is said to have evolved when Lord Shiva performed The Taandava dance. The raag thus evokes a feeling of vigour or we can say this Raag is a VEER rasa raga. And as traditions in Indian classical music ascribes this vigour and veer rasa is not the veer rasa of the battlefield but a sense of conquering the self and reaching a state of inner satisfaction.
This raga is said to have supernatural powers and can conjure spirits if rendered properly. Though a simple pentanoic raga in structure, it requires great skills to convey and evoke the mood of Malkauns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DwI3bbXGlA


Pure magic. Yes. There's no other way to describe it. When I play Malkauns, I feel powerful. When I play this raag, I feel like I can rule the world, that nothing can overpower me. I feel as if all the pain and fear I've ever felt is rising within me like a tornado. It gives me strength, strength which creeps upto my fingers as they dance upon the strings. Melody fills everything around me, surrounding me, almost like a shield. Nothing can touch me. No one can harm me. There is this a supernatural feel in the ga-ma-dha-ni-sa...

(E)Xuberance, etc.

I haven't blogged for a pretty long time and I have loadz and loadz of things to write about!

Xuberance took place on saturday and I really did enjoy it. Our hard work and practice(and being stuffed with food up to the neck by Shreya's mother) did pay off. For once I was really very happy with our performance. It couldn't have been more perfect. The judge was Tanmoy Bose and that did make me a little nervous initially and I did make a minor mistake and missed a beat but i came back with what sounded like a complicated tehai :P. Shreya also won best solo performer! I know this is a stupid place to make acknowledgement, but the least I can do is to mention that this really wouldn't have been possible without Konika di's help. We were pretty clueless until she came and perfected us.
It felt amazing when I went backstage after our performance and every single person there were like 'whoa you played well!' :)

Then us musicians and the reps went out to a little sweet shop for 'lunch' which comprised of 2 pepsis, two packets of lays classic salted chips and bingo mad angles and two samosas shared among the six of us.(My mother would forbid me from stepping out of the house if she knew this).

We lost the quiz badly, and Sreeja knew all the answers but wasn't in the team. They handed out Tropicana apple juice to audience members who could answer questions put to them so Sreeja ended up with four juice packets and we happily drank away. :)

Then. The most awaited even of the fest - western music. It started pouring heavily on our way to the school grounds and we were completely drenched(drat it HAS to rain at almost every fest I attend!). The worst part was, there were no other people there other than the band and the reps for a while so I was the lone audience member from our school. :( But people did turn up eventually.

The rest of the girl bands there weren't really great and there was one school(I don't remember which) who did Zombie as part of the medley(they had four vocalists mind you) and they kept coming back to the chorous of Zombie and they did that three times and we FELT like zombies. CBS was decent but their PSP12 was rather slow. Xaviers were very good and they ended with Rock you like a Hurricane and Joker and the Thief. And after that there was a lazer light show which was brilliant.
And I got to meet a lot of people there. Thatz one thing I like about fests. :)

So that's it about Xuberance.

School is becoming increasingly boring by the day, unless you count mondayz and our football matches. this time we actually had proper goalposts in proper places and proper teams(but too many people actually). It was a good game. Only problem was that we had to join some juniors while they were playing because our classes clashed. It would be great to play 7-a-side like we used to. Atleast we'll all get to kick and pass the ball around. Improvement, yes. I wish school could have a proper football team like basketball and we could have proper football tournaments. The girls schools in Calcutta should get together and consider the idea.

Oh and I wanted to know, is there any truly unisex team sport(other that mixed doubles in tennis) where men and women play in the same team? If anyone knows, please let me know.

Anyway, as for more recent(random) events:
1. The bangla debate in school where once again, Adrija stole the show and made the debate a stand up comedy. We all agreed unanimously that she should have won but she didn't, but she was undoubtely the star of the show. After the winners were announced we created quite a noise shouting 'go Adrija!!'. I don't think anyone really bothered to congratulate the winners. A truly unprecedented event!
2. I made patterns with iodine on filter paper during bio. And i got really pretty plasmolyzed cells under the microscope. :)
3. I stayed up till 3:30 am last night to complete filework and I kept myself awake by indulging in a midnight feast of chocolates, chips and fruit juice. It is fun I tell you.
4. J.A.M, our music club is actually getting down to being a real club rather than gossip sessions and we've started preparing agendas for every meeting. AND school has a BEAUTIFUL electric piano!! :D
5. Neo asked me to say something about his bass solos. He's composing some new ones and the ones he last made me listen to were very cute(sorry Neo, I know you're going to have my blood for this). Hopefully(for him) the new ones won't be 'cute'. ;) [=:*]

Haha.

Now I better get myself off to bed because if I stay write anymore, you might be under risk of suffering brain damage. good night!