Il nostro cuore è la sede del Sè, dell'Anima, dello Spirito, dell'Atma, tutti vocaboli che esprimono la stessa cosa. "Non siete null'altro che spirito eterno". Si tratta, per noi, di diventare lo Spirito, di realizzarci: tutto il resto appare assai futile. Questa è l'essenza stessa della vita spirituale, il lato sottile della vita e della conoscenza.

E' grazie allo Spirito che esistiamo perché esso è la sorgente primordiale della vita, in noi come nell'universo intero. E' l'essere allo stato puro, la coscienza immacolata, il testimone silenzioso di tutte le nostre esperienze. Lo Spirito è infatti Dio (Dio Padre, Shiva) in noi. Ma noi dobbiamo identificarci in Lui.
Dopo la Realizzazione, vale a dire dopo la connessione dello Spirito con il tutto attraverso il risveglio della Kundalini, eliminiamo progressivamente i nostri falsi attaccamenti (corporali, mentali ed emotivi).
Lo Spirito può manifestarsi solo quando il cuore è diventato un recipiente pulito e aperto. E' allora che esso vi riversa l'amore e la gioia eterna.

La tradizione indiana racconta che il grande Dio Shiva dimora nel suo cielo sui picchi nevosi del Monte Kailash.
Egli è molto amato poiché la morte è semplicemente uno stadio nel ciclo della creazione e rappresenta la liberazione e la rinascita proprio come l'inverno è seguito dalla primavera. Perciò Shri Shiva è "Mahadeva", che significa sia "Colui che reintegra" sia "Colui che distrugge".
Come molte divinità indiane, Shri Shiva può mutare aspetto e, a volte, ha quattro braccia e cinque teste con cui controllare ogni parte del creato. Egli è sempre bellissimo, con la pelle chiara e, sulla fronte, un terzo occhio che possiede poteri terribili quando Shri Shiva si adira.

Prima della creazione del mondo, c'era solo Silenzio. Questo Silenzio Assoluto, chiamato Parabrahma si risvegliò. Così il Silenzio divenne ciò che si chiama Sadashiva; e quando si risvegliò, cioè Shri Sadashiva cominciò a manifestarsi, volle, desiderò creare.

Alla creazione del mondo, le molte cose che avrebbero dovuto viverci scaturirono dal ribollente oceano. Il primo dono dell'oceano fu Surabhi, la mucca divina, il cui figlio Nandi, il toro bianco come la neve, divenne in seguito l'assiduo compagno di Shri Shiva.
Il secondo dono fu una luna crescente, che egli colse dalle onde e si pose sulla fronte per decorare i capelli e dove risplendette per sempre.
La terza cosa, scaturita dall'oceano, fu una dose letale di veleno che Shri Shiva bevve allo scopo di salvare il mondo dal male morale e fisico. Invece di inghiottirlo, egli lo trattenne in gola ed il suo potere tossico gli fece diventare blu il collo.

Un giorno Shri Shiva decise di visitare la Terra, trasformandosi in un uomo, per punire un gruppo di asceti che erano diventati miscredenti e parlavano di un mondo senza Dio. Le loro mogli si innamorarono della grande bellezza di Shri Shiva appena lo videro, sebbene non sapessero chi egli fosse.
Gli asceti divennero gelosi e, facendo uso dei loro poteri riuniti, fecero scaturire dal loro fuoco sacrificale una tigre che si avventò contro Shri Shiva. Shri Shiva si limitò ad afferrare la tigre con una mano, la scuoiò e se la appese sul corpo a guisa di manto.
Allora gli asceti materializzarono un grande cervo per aizzarglielo contro. Shri Shiva lo bloccò con un'altra delle sue quattro mani e ve lo tenne per sempre.
Ancora determinati a distruggerlo, gli asceti crearono un serpente velenoso ma, essendo il Signore dei serpenti, Shri Shiva si mise l'animale intorno al collo come una collana.
Infine gli asceti crearono un orrendo nano demoniaco che roteò verso Shri Shiva una mazza che aveva un teschio ad una estremità. Shri Shiva gli strappò la mazza e la impugnò con la sua terza mano, quindi schiacciò sotto i piedi il nano-demone.
A questo punto Shri Shiva era furioso e iniziò lentamente ad eseguire la sua danza celeste,la Tandava. Questa danza sintetizza le sue cinque funzioni: Creazione, Preservazione, Distruzione, Incarnazione e Liberazione; e si dice sia la causa del moto dell'universo.
Gradualmente, l'impeto della danza di Shri Shiva raggiunse un culmine frenetico e gli asceti eretici e tutte le altre creature che ne vedevano il potere furono conquistati dalla sua bellezza. Si dice che essi abbiano rinunciato ad ogni cosa, in questa ed in molte altre incarnazioni, in cambio della promessa di potervi assistere ancora una volta.
Dopo questa visita sulla Terra, tre delle mani di Shri Shiva rimasero occupate per sempre dalla pelle della tigre, dal cervo e dalla mazza del demone. Nella quarta egli teneva il suo arco o, quando meditava, un tamburo dalla forma di clessidra a simboleggiare che egli continuava ad essere il protettore degli asceti devoti.

The tunes/songs I am talking about are:
1. Mile Sur Mera Tumhara
2. Baje Sargam
3. Jungle Book
4. Malgudi Days
5. Surabhi
6. Byomkesh Bakshi
7. Tipu Sultan
8. Mahabhart (a small part)

Special thanks to Madhav for sharing the songs. :)

You can listsen/download the songs here. The player might a take a little time to load.

Although it takes a while for the "player" to load completely, yet I am pretty okay with it (for now). Moreover, it's in beta. I, however, sincerely hope that it doesn't follow GMail beta path. urghh!

Check back again in a few hours. I'll posting a demo of the player on my portal. A demo is here. The demo would have This demo has a special meaning for the Indians of my age (or older than) because the songs I'll be using will be the one we all grew up with, viz. Jungle Book, Mile Sur Mera Tumhara, Baje Sargam, Byomkesh Bakshi, Malgudi Days, Surabhi, Tipu Sultan & Mahbharat. :)

Special thanks to Madhav for sharing them.

He started small to make a big impression. After more than a decade of hard work, Lady luck has finally smiled on thirty-three-year-old KM Chaitanya. The debutant director’s Kannada film Aa Dinagalu (back in those days) is running to packed houses. Based on the Bangalore mafia of the 80s, this film is as visceral as Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya (“I must have seen this film atleast 80 times”) and yet stays clear of the documentary look and feel in Black Friday.

Humble beginnings

You could call Chaitanya Mr Serendipity. He has never gone after something. Things have always come to him, the moment he wished for one. “You are right, I have never had to try harder for anything,” he admits. One look at his career trail is ample testimony of that. After his master’s in communication from Hyderabad Central University, he got an offer from Channel V to be their executive producer. He rejected it. Instead, he went to work with advertising professional Peter Colaco. The affair lasted only four months. “All I had to do was be in the office from 9-5 and only watch films all day,” he says of those days. “After a while, I got bored because I was being paid for doing nothing.”

And then Girish Karnad approached him (“He was a good friend of my father Marulasiddappa”) to assistant direct his Hindi TV serial to be telecast on DD Metro in 1996. “They were real-life case studies dealt by psychiatrists… from schizophrenic patients to those with an obsessive-compulsive disorder.” Alongside, he was making documentaries, adfilms and corporate films for various clients. And then, he went back to Karnad to direct Kanoonu Heggadati (Mistress of the House of Justice). He also happened to work for CNNindia.com as a tech correspondent before doing feature stories for Surabhi, the then popular cultural programme on Doordarshan. From e-governance in Mandya to computerisation of land records in Ramnagaram (where the film ‘Sholay’ was shot), Chaitanya found himself doing 1-2 stories every week for Surabhi. “When Siddarth Kak (of Surabhi) called me, I thought someone was playing a prank on me, so I replied, ‘And I am Steven Spielberg’. Only later did I realise that a friend of mine had given him my number.”

His international experience

From Karnataka, he moved to London for a good twelve months. His next job was to make a documentary film on South Asians for the National Health Services in the UK. “My job was to track South Asian patients and narrate perfect cancer case studies that were essentially about breaking the bad news. It took me a year to do this 20-minute CD that involved meeting more than 75 patients.”

Chaitanya’s next assignment took his ingenuity to a new level. His job as director of a BBC show was to showcase people in unusual businesses. From the dabbawalas of Mumbai to the management of the Tirupati temple and Sulabh toilets, his canvas stretched the limits of imagination for a programme that was just as aptly titled: Business Bizarre.

Back to his roots

At INTV, it was not just ingenuity but also his power of persuasion that brought Chaitanya an encore. In a programme titled, “Back to the Floor”, his job was to convince eight CEOs from different industries to become an ordinary employee for the day and be captured on film. Some of those who were game to this included Priya Paul of The Park hotel and Capt. GR Gopinath of Deccan Aviation. “Priya had to be a chef for half a day and a housekeeper for the reminder of the day. This meant taking sales calls, cleaning the bathroom and even taking orders for room service.” The hard work paid off. The programme was adjudged the Best Business Programme of 2004 by the jury of Indian Television Awards.

When Cupid struck

Along the way, he married his neighbour Radika Makaram in 1999 after eight years of courtship. Five years later, she gave birth to a daughter. His desire to give his daughter Amita the best environment brought him back to Bangalore where he founded his own production house - Time Code Films. So far, he has directed 1 TV serial and produced 4 under his banner.

How ‘Aa Dinagalu’ came about

It was while he was directing Kichchu (Fire) that things started to work for him in Sandalwood. “The serial wasn’t doing well. That’s when I got a call from Sreedhar (the tabloid editor who is also the producer of Aa Dinagalu). He wanted me to play the role of rowdy Oil Kumar. When he saw me, he said, I didn’t look like a villain. Then he asked me if there was any good person who could direct the film. I suggested Karnad. But Girish said he is too old to do this kind of film and suggested that he look for youngsters instead. Sreedhar took that to mean me and that’s how I became the director of the film. Once my name was finalised, I wound up the TV serial after 120 episodes.”

His journey into Sandalwood wasn’t a cakewalk. It meant two months of going to Sreedhar’s house in Banashankari and sitting on story meetings that started at 2pm and went on till 10pm over endless cups of green tea. He played an important part in casting the actors as well. “I was looking at people whose personality can dissolve into somebody else. A person cannot be a good actor if his self is too strong; it should be fluid.” According to him, some of those who fit into his definition of good actors include Anant Nag, Naseeruddin Shah, Irfan Khan, Brad Pitt and Sean Penn.

So how does he review his own film? “Aa Dinagalu is realist cinema treated as a classic. Every frame conveys a story, including the title.”

(This piece has appeared in the film magazine, South Movies Scenes, where I am an Editorial Advisor )