Category: quotes

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True happiness according to Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore sketched by Dutch artist Martin Monnickendam during a lecture tour in September 1920 © Stadsarchief Amsterdam

“True happiness is not at all expensive. It depends upon that natural spring of beauty and of life, harmony of relationship. Ambition pursues its own path of self-seeking by breaking this bond of harmony, digging gaps, creating dissension. Selfish ambition feels no hesitation in trampling under foot the whole harvest field, which is for all, in order to snatch away in haste that portion which it craves. Being wasteful it remains disruptive of social life and the greatest enemy of civilization.” | Read the full lecture >>

Source: Rabindranath Tagore in “Robbery of the soil” (Calcutta University, 1922), posted by Tony Mitra on a blog “Exploring citizens duty on food security, environmental sustainability, covid and freedom issues” (27 September 2015)
https://www.tonu.org/tag/robbery-of-the-soil/
Date visited: 12 January 2021

Worldcat lists compiled by Ludwig Pesch

Carnatic (South Indian classical) music 

Rabindranath Tagore: works by and about the influential writer, humanist and social reformer

Indian performing arts

History 

Publications, book chapters and articles by Ludwig Pesch

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“Accept each other’s right to be human with dignity” – Mahasweta Devi on what it takes for cultures to survive

I see one India in the pattern. You see another. Light and shadow play. History and modernity collide. Superstition and myth, Rabindrasangeet and rap, Sufi and Shia and Sunni, caste and computers, text and sub-plot, laughter and tears, governments and oppositions, reservations and quotas, struggles and captivity, success and achievement, hamburgers and Hari Om Hari, Sanskrit and sms, the smell of rain and the sound of the sea. A seamless stitching. Many, many hands have stitched, are stitching and will continue to stitch India. […]

I cling to the belief that for any culture as old and ancient as ours to have survived over time and in time, there could only be one basic common and acceptable core thought: humaneness. To accept each other’s right to be human with dignity. This then is my fight. My dream. In my life and in my literature. – Mahasweta Devi during her inaugural speech for the Frankfurt Book Fair titled “The Republic of Dreams”

Source: Tehelka, 21 October 2006 | Learn more: https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=7298
Mahasweta Devi 2006 Frankfurt Book Fair – TehelkaDownload

What Are Human Rights?
“Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.”
Learn more : Human rights | United Nations >>

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“To pursue homogeneity is to enter an endless life of purging, secession and self-destructive violence” –Historian Sunil Khilnani

Every dream of homogeneity stares at an infinite regress: there’s always some aspect of identity, some sect, some culture or language, that doesn’t fit it. To pursue homogeneity is to enter an endless life of purging, secession and self-destructive violence. […]

More by Sunil Khilnani >>

Khilnani’s heroes, such as the emperor Akbar and his great-grandson Dara Shukoh, tend to be those who build bridges between India’s varied communities and religions; his demons are those, such as Jinnah, who believe “that there was one key identity, religion, which could lock in all the others”. This, believes, Khilnani, is profoundly wrong: “Every dream of homogeneity stares at an infinite regress: there’s always some aspect of identity, some sect, some culture or language, that doesn’t fit it. To pursue homogeneity is to enter an endless life of purging, secession and self-destructive violence.”

Yet Khilnani is scrupulously meticulous, accurate and unromantic in his depiction of his characters – and never hesitates to show the flaws of even those he most approves of. For “by insisting that figures from India’s past be preserved in memory as saints”, he writes, “we deny them not just their real natures, but their genuine achievements”. […]

Source: “Incarnations: India in 50 Lives by Sunil Khilnani” reviewed by William Dalrymple
URL: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/14/incarnations-india-in-50-lives-fifty-sunil-khilnani-review-ghandi-nehru
Date Visited: 3 February 2023

[Bold typeface added above for emphasis]

Worldcat lists compiled by Ludwig Pesch

Carnatic (South Indian classical) music 

Rabindranath Tagore: works by and about the influential writer, humanist and social reformer

Indian performing arts

History 

Publications, book chapters and articles by Ludwig Pesch

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Livre-CD ‘Musique d’Inde du Sud – Petit traité de musique carnatique’

Livre-CD en Français (2001) recommendé par Ludwig Pesch

Cet essai éclaire les traditions millénaires de la musique classique de l’Inde de Sud, transmise le long d’une chaîne orale continue de maître à disciple. L’auteur nous plonge dans les arcanes du raga et des émotions qu’il suscite et développe les clés des concordances symboliques et de l’apprentissage de cette musique carnatique considérée comme une voie spirituelle pour atteindre la libération du moi individuel et son union à l’universel.
Le CD tente de reconstituer les différentes phases d’un concert de musique carnatique avec notamment la voix d’Aruna Sayeeram et le violoniste T.N. Krishnan.
Un extrait du titre n° 6 est disponible à l’écoute.

Les titres du CD
1. Varnam : Om pranava ; Raga : Mayamalavagaula ; tala : adi (Aruna Sayeeram : chant) : 5’36
2. Kriti : Marivere gati ; Raga : Anandabhairavi ; tala : misra chappu (T.N. Krishnan : violon) : 14’15
3. Kriti : Vallabha nayakasya ; Raga : Begada ; tala : rupakam (Dr Semmangudi R. Srinivasa Iyer : chant ; L. Subramaniam : violon) : 8’01
4. Raga : Alapana ; Raga : Kamboji (T.R. Mahalingam : flûte ; L. Subramaniam : violon) : 3’05
5. Kriti : Raga ratna malikace ; Raga : Ritigaula ; tala : rupakam (V. Doreswamy Iyengar : vina) : 15’50
6. Alapana et kriti : Marakata mani ; Raga : Varali ; tala : adi (D.K. Pattammal : chant) : 9’28
7. Padam : Ninnu juchi ; Raga : Punnagavarali ; tala : tisra triputa (Aruna Sayeeram : chant) : 9’28
8. Tillana ; Raga : kapi ; tala : lakshmsam (Trivandrum R.S. Mani : chant) : 2’02

Enseignante de formation, Isabelle Clinquart a vécu pendant dix ans au Kerala, où elle a appris la danse et le chant de théâtre kathakali, ainsi que la musique carnatique. Elle a donné ses premiers concerts en 1997 et s’est produite régulièrement au Kerala tout en poursuivant son apprentissage.

21,00 € disponible
Collection : musiques du monde
179 pages
Illustrations 35 N&B
14 x 18 / Livre-CD broché / 2001 2-7427-3324-8

Source: Librairie en ligne – Cité de la musique
Address : http://www.cite-musique.fr/boutique/article.aspx?a=890
Date Visited: Wed Nov 02 2011

Voici un livre bienvenu pour le lecteur francophone qui ne disposait jusqu’ici d’aucun ouvrage général et synthétique sur la musique classique du sud de l’Inde abordant en sept courts chapitres à la fois son évolution historique, sa théorie esthétique (théorie des rasa), son système musical (théorie des raga et des tala, règles d’improvisation), les modalités de son apprentissage, ses instruments ainsi que la description générale du déroulement d’un concert.

Source: Worldcat.org where you also may find a library copy near you >>

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Enriching town and village life alike: Suitable, ecologically responsible venues with local materials and expertise

“To talk about the future is useful only if it leads to action now … with new methods of production and new patterns of consumption: a lifestyle designed for permanence.” – E.F. Schumacher in Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered, p. 16 (Abacus 1984 ed.)

“If the town life was rich, the village life was equally so. … The villagers were not altogether cut off from the activities of town life. … The monotonous life of the villager was often enlivened by rural amusements of varied character. Every village had a common dancing-hall (kalam). Even the village women took part in these public performances like the tunankai, a kind of dance .” – V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, The Cilappatikaram (Tinnevelly: The South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society, 1978), chapter on “Village and Village Life”, pp. 61

More Things I recommend: Worldcat.org >>

Download, read in full screen mode or listen to A Theatre For All: Sittrarangam—the Small Theatre Madras by Ludwig Pesch (open domain) on Archive.org >>

Bibliography >>