Stray Afterthoughts on India at the Oscars.

I was waiting for the euphoria to die down somewhat.

It feels great. We always knew that AR Rahman was a rare genius. I love music but have little or no knowledge of its science. But one doesn’t have to be a music academic to know that AR Rahman is the rarest of gems. I can never forget the first the first time I heard Chinna China Asai in Tamil. I was checking university papers. The song stunned me into inaction, suspended all my senses except that of hearing. It was nothing like I’d ever heard before. The novelty of it – the sounds and their management, the sound of water?, a brook tripping over stones? all captured in a harmony that I was sure would suspend the motions of the stars. Such was the total effect. It was incredible. Listening to Chinna Chinna Asai for the first time was an experience - of a sensation coursing through my blood; it was not just an act of listening to a composition. It was like being part of a hitherto unheard harmony of strange sounds descending from another galaxy. When Ar Rahman tamilised Beethoven in Thiruda Thiruda, I was bewildered, dazed, and ecstatic. The space between systems of music seems to collapsed totally.

Now, of course, the novelty has worn off.

However, we didn’t need an Oscar to tell us what AR Rahman’s place was in the world of music. But we are happy that he got this recognition.

But it took an Oscar and other international awards for Pookutty to make us realize that the ‘technicians’ are/have to be artists par excellence, that there is a high degree of aesthetics involved in the role of these technicians. I remember, more than twenty years ago, my very intelligent niece Anita was very vociferous on this issue. Strange, it took a quarter of a century and an Oscar to make me realise how truly she had spoken.

Both the Oscar award winners carried themselves with extreme dignity and confidence at the function and after.

But our own dear Anil Kapoor. What on earth got into him! On several occasions he made us go red- eared! But what took the cake was his excited declaration ('Guess who came on the stage after the best movie was announced?' Anil Kapoor -) that Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russel came to the stage to congratulate the Slum Dog team, that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt came to his house(?), “they didn’t know who I was, they didn’t even know I'm an actor - - –“!!!??? He was incoherent with excitement.

Oh, he embarrassed us, to say the least. Why doesn’t he realize that the adulation of millions of his countrymen is a greater recognition than a few Hollywood stars shaking hands with him?

And so back to my pet theme. When will we recover from this colonial hangover?