On Vagator beach, a prayer for Japan

Nigel Britto

For those not used to it, Tibetan sacred music can be a rather rattling experience. No gentle sounds of running water and flutes calm the mind, and no pleasant melodies by stringed instruments lull the soul. 

When the robed Tibetan monks began their chants for Japan on Vagator beach on Friday, it was with an intense, low guttural growl. With little by way of musical accompaniment except cymbals and the piercing Dungchen horns, it was only the monks' formidable vocal cords that provided an aurally magical and transcendental experience for the few hundred gathered around. 

In the distance, much like William Wordsworth's Daffodils, the Lungta flags were fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Illuminated by bulbs in painted black bottles at their bases, they stretched in a never-ending line, along a spiral path into the lofty hills beyond. 

The six hundred vertical flags, named after a mythical Tibetan horse that carries prayers from earth to the high heavens, represent the six million people of Tibet. In the midst of the serenity, many an individual seeking solitude meditated to the flapping sound and the cool sea breeze that surrounded it. 

Then, in the lit up area on green and red carpets, the monks started dancing. If the singing ones wore a bright yellow Shamu hat, the Cham dancers wore an elaborately coloured and crafted costume with a black hat. The twirling dance, somewhat reminiscent of the Sufi dervishes of the middle-east, is an annual ritual to exorcise evil, and is rarely seen outside a few, inaccessible Buddhist monasteries in the upper realms of the Himalayas. 

Beyond the dances and the flags, a full-blown Tibetan cultural festival was in progress; locals as well as tourists made a beeline for the stalls selling necklaces, pendants, cuisine and the famous Tibetan singing bowls. Many of the stalls had chants playing, and interested foreigners browsed through, holding them on their palms and testing their tones. 

The Tibetan vendors, known by reputation to be a largely honest bunch, resorted to no annoying sales gimmicks and peacefully demonstrated the utility of their wares to any inquisitive soul that cared to wander by. 

The installation and festival were conceptualized by artist Subodh Kerkar when he visited Sikkim in 2009. "I saw the flags on the mountains, and was immediately struck by their beauty, simplicity and peaceful nature," he told TOI near the Lungtas on the beach. He then decided to install them in Goa by the sea. 

"Then, last month, I met His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who blessed the project and asked me to have it on March 10, which is the 52nd anniversary of the Tibetan revolution", he adds. 

Kerkar then contacted the Tibetan community in Goa and asked them to be part of the project, in what is probably the first time an effort has been made to assimilate Goa's Tibetans into the community. 

A firm believer in the Tibetan cause, Kerkar got the flags shipped in from Sikkim, and dyed them at his studio at Pilerne. Up in the Himalayas, the flags symbolize the carrying of blessings to all beings; as the flags age, the Tibetans install new flags alongside the old, a metaphor of life moving on and always being replaced by the new. 

Here in Goa, Kerkar says it symbolizes the ocean praying for the freedom of snow, referring to Tibet's troubled relationship with China and its freedom struggle. 

"The Tibetans sell jewellery, but lack the most important jewel of all—freedom", he trails off. The Lungtas will stand on Vagator beach till March 17. 

This article was first published in The Times of India's Goa edition dated March 13, 2011.

Coomi and her Faithful

Nigel Britto

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, perhaps the world's greatest choral group today, was once described by Ronald Reagan as "America's Choir". To him, it epitomized the spirit of America. The 160-year-old choir, which is made up entirely of volunteers, was also called "a national treasure" by another US president, George H W Bush. In a country where the choral tradition is as strong as its military prowess, the Tabernacle choir's ability to constantly evolve its craft and stay ahead of the many hundred choirs in America is unmatched anywhere in the world. 

India, on the other hand, is not a land of choirs. Its rich musical tradition focuses on the individual rather than choral prowess. Since 1950, Mumbai's iconic Paranjoti Academy Chorus has been India's best answer to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Like its American counterpart, the Paranjoti has a long, unbroken tradition, volunteer members, a dedicated conductor and a constantly evolving repertoire. As the flag-bearers of the choral tradition in India, the choir has toured the world extensively, to great response, and performs in a mind-boggling 22 languages, many of them Indian. 

It's 8 pm at the majestic Chapel of Our Lady of Monte at Old Goa, and there's a gardi (crowd) at the door. This is a free concert, and the Paranjoti are performing here after over 40 years. Inside, people wait patiently for the recital to start;soon, two rows of men and women file in. The men are in dapper black suits, the women in purple saris. Even the Chapel's resident owl, who's usually hyper-active, knows it's time to be quiet, and sits peacefully on a ledge above the altar. At first glance, the choir looks like any other. And then they start to sing. 

There is no amplification here, so the choir's extraordinary sound - rich in dynamics and extremely powerful - has no support. As the sound ricochets off the 400-year-old walls, it makes one think that this is what the angels surrounding god's throne in the high heavens must sound like. 

The Paranjoti members are as varied as their repertoire. The youngest singer is 18 and the oldest close to 80. Its formidable conductor Coomi Wadia has been with the choir for over half a century, first as a singer and then its conductor and director of music. Some of the singers are students, some professionals, one is a vice-president of a multinational bank, one is a prominent HR consultant. Some are Christians, some are Parsees, some Goans, some Mumbaikars and some South Indians. What makes the choir's performance so incredible is the singers' ability to memorize entire presentations in different languages. In addition, they normally perform acapella (without instrumental accompaniment), as they did in Goa, and the absence of both accompanists and musical scores makes it even more challenging to hit the right notes at the right time. 

The choir is named after its founder, Dr Victor Paranjoti, who led and groomed it till his death on February 1, 1967. A little later that year, the choir, under the baton of his protêgê Coomi Wadia, performed a tribute. During Paranjoti's lifetime, Wadia sometimes led the choir when he was unavailable, so in 1967, "I was unanimously chosen to lead, " she says. From then till the choir's most recent performance in Goa, Wadia has led the choir and, despite members drifting in and out, maintained a standard rarely seen in Indian ensembles. 

Sitting on a bench inside the majestic stone basilica where her choir gave a short recital after Sunday Mass, she recalls her early days as conductor. "When I first took over, many people thought I wouldn't last, " she says. And if it hadn't been for her husband Nariman, who also sometimes writes music for the choir, she wouldn't. "I'm where I am today because of his constant support. Over the last 50 years, my life has revolved around the Paranjoti chorus, every decision I take has to bear in mind the choir, " she says. Although happy with the giant strides the choir has made, the constant turnover and the way members float in and out continues to be a source of concern. 

Wadia also has another choir, Singing Tree, made up of young children. Some of these members eventually graduate into the PAC, like doctorin-training Ranzelle Fernandes and commerce student Freya Mazda. They're the youngest members of the PAC, have been so since 13, and are open in their admiration of their conductor. "I adore her, " Fernandes says. Both say "she's a perfectionist and it's a privilege to work with her". Another member, Christopher, who has sung with the choir for 25 years, describes Wadia as "a class apart". 

In Goa, the choir started with a Konkani song, followed by original compositions, songs based on the Upanishads, Negro spirituals and innovative adaptations of popular hymns. Of late, many other Indian choirs have expanded their repertoire to Bollywood to garner new fans. But Wadia will hear none of it. "We're a choral group, " she says. "We'd rather bring people to our level than go to theirs."

This article was first published in The Times of India's Crest edition dated March 12, 2011.

Song to the Sirens

Jane Russell, who died recently, was among of the best-known of classic Hollywood's sultry sirens

Nigel Britto

It all started with Jean Harlow. If she'd lived, she would have been 100 this month. In her first major role in Hell's Angel, she shocked audiences with her generous exposure and the immortal line: "Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?" She was 18 and the year was 1930. A little later, she played an adulteress in Red-Headed Woman, another role following the same underlying theme - using her sexuality to stop at nothing. In an era when curves were out and being flat was the rage, the platinum blonde was the first actress to peddle her bosom, as it was called then, as an object of erotic fantasy. 

Across the Atlantic, Marlene Dietrich was German director Josef von Sternberg's Harlow;he cast her in several perverse dramas;in her iconic role in The Blue Angel, she played the cheap floozy Lola Lola, a manipulative and scratchy-voiced cabaret singer who reduced a professor to a smitten cabaret clown when he went to find out why his students were circulating pictures of her. The then-shocking role, along with her trademark song Falling in love again, introduced Dietrich to the worldwide audience. Later in Hollywood, she would go on to become one of the highest-paid actresses of her era. 

If the early sirens set the tone for sexuality in cinema, which was still taboo back then, Jane Russell broke the glass ceiling in 1942 in The Outlaw. Her 'twin-engines' were the driving force behind the film;when the controversial film's director Howard Hughes realized that his cameras didn't do justice to Russell's huge assets, he deployed his engineering skills to invent the now-legendary cantilevered underwire brassiere with an innovative design that allowed the 'bosom' to be generously exposed. 

Russell acted in several other films, mostly comedies, post-Outlaw that partially erased her notorious image;but when she died last week due to breathing complications aged 89, most tributes and obituaries still focused on her obvious. Once introduced as 'the two and only' by comedian Bob Hope, Russell was the last of the trio that opened the floodgates for sexual content in mainstream cinema. Though Harlow and Dietrich laid the groundwork with their blip-on-the-radar roles, it was Russell's devil-may-care on-screen attitude that is today seen as the most avant garde of all early siren's roles. 

Today, roles like those of Russell, Harlow or Dietrich would probably elicit a 'meh' from an informed moviegoer, but back then, it was addressing the figurative elephant in the living room. In the modern era, 'leaking' a sex tape may be an established path to celebrityhood;family dramas and even some animated serials have sufficient explicit content to make a seasoned sailor squirm. 

Yet, in the 40s and before, Russell's roles were indeed a big deal. In addition, she also laid the foundation for the popular acceptance and admiration of Marilyn Monroe, the greatest sex symbol of all time and the person whose image comes to mind whenever the two words are used together. The impossible combination of physical characteristics she possessed have never been captured better than in the promo for the film The Seven Year Itch. 

Norma Jean, as she was born, largely built on the groundwork Russell had laid down and arguably influenced the subsequent golden age of sexuality which came in the form of Hugh Hefner's Playboy Empire. The musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes pitted Russell and Monroe as best friends - it was the brunette's lightning-quick wit against Monroe's legendary, more memorable role as the gold-digging Lorelei Lee. 

Half a century later, sex symbols continue to come and go;society's perception of what's sexy and what's not may have changed, but its objectification of beauty hasn't. Cinema has sold female sexuality right from the silent movie era: the first striptease was by Louise Willy in the 1896 film Le Coucher de la Maria. The same year saw perhaps the first instance of censorship in Fatima's Coochie-Coochie Dance, her gyrating pelvis was too much to handle, as was May Irwin Kiss, a less-than-a-minute-long film which was branded pornographic and caused the Vatican to call for censorship. 

Today, lip locks of that kind appear on primetime TV and are hardly considered embarrassing. The change in perception of sex symbols is hardly exemplified better than the male variety. Generally, male stars have never been branded sex symbols, and have not lit up the sets the way the women do. In the 1920s, Rudolph Valentino was everybody's dream man - called the Latin lover, he's one of the most-recognized faces of the silent movie era. 

A little later, women preferred the supersophisticated charmers;Paul Newman's blue eyes and prominent locks, Cary Grant's tuxedos and slicked hair, Fred Astaire and his top-hats, and then Sir Laurence Olivier's attitude and impeccable accent. Legend has it that when the ultimate female and male sex symbols met on the sets on The Prince and the Showgirl, Olivier refused to acknowledge Monroe as an equal. Cinematographer Jack Cardiff writes "Olivier went out of his way to be a pain in the arse to Marilyn". He even invited his wife, Gone With The Wind star Vivien Leigh, to the sets to freak Monroe out. 

Today, the perception of sexy has gone from debonaire to grungy. Not too long ago, the rugged Johnny Depp was voted the sexiest man alive. Known for his rather unconventional roles, his multiple tattoos and weird fashion sense, he is a far cry from the well-polished, three-piece tuxedo-clad dream men of yesteryears. Ditto with the fairer sex;the Gibson girl, an artiste-created personification of the feminine ideal at the turn of the century, has given way to sex symbols of all flavours;the not necessarily attractive vamps (Clara Bow), the shortskirted flappers (Louise Brooks), the bombshells (Harlow, Dietrich, Mae West), the girl next door (Judy Garland), the playful gamine (Audrey Hepburn), the bimbos (Farah Fawcett, Adrienne Barbeau), and the ambitious (Madonna, Megan Fox) while Rudoph Valentino has given way to the bad boys (Marlon Brando), the gentleman (Richard Gere), the vulnerable (Dustin Hoffman) and the rebels (George Clooney, Denzel Washington). 

Towards the end of her career, Jane Russell switched roles. From ultra-liberal to ultra-conservative, she founded the Hollywood Christian Group, a weekly Biblestudy for Christians in the movie business. A little later, she described herself thus: "These days, I am a teetotal, mean-spirited, right-wing, narrowminded, conservative Christian bigot, but not a racist". She also expressed concern about the decreasing morality in movies. And when a confused fan asked her about her change in roles, she replied, "Hey, buddy, Christians have big breasts too".

This article was first published in The Times of India's Crest edition dated March 12, 2011.