Bench Strength and the Mumbai Chapter

Many months have passed since I slotted 'Bench Strength' as the word of the month for this blog. For the uninitiated Bench Strength is a term most commonly used in team sport to describe players who do not form part of the starting team in a game, but will be useful during the course of the game. For instance, the 6th, 7th and 8th player in basketball, the 12th man in cricket etc etc. It also refers to budding players who can replace older players in a team.

So what is this term, used so often in team sport and now in corporate sector doing on a SPIC MACAY blog, that too a Mumbai chapter blog ? The author, yours truly, has had the audacity to make it word of the month and provide it a prominent place on this forum. This is not without reason, and has more to do with my intense fascination with the term, which I must admit to!

As I prepared to leave Mumbai earlier this year, I spent time thinking about the future of this chaper. Regular readers (somewhat optimistic here) will remember my post on sustaining chapters and Arvind's wonderful perspective on the same topic. My concerns became more pertinent, as Priyadarshan (PD), whom I considered the bulwark of our chapter, had decided to shun city life and moved on from Mumbai with noble intentions of making a difference to employment levels in some remote districts of Vidharbha region.As an aside, I personally rate PD's step as rather commendable and sometimes believe if his association with SPIC MACAY had the slightest of role in tilting him towards this decision over a corporate career.

I realised that with PD gone and me soon to go, the Mumbai chapter would be left with no 'seasoned' volunteers and activity levels would take a hit. However there was an inherent belief that PD and I had found some new volunteers who were warming uo to the movement. But they could at best be classified as a Bench at that stage - people with immense capabilities and potential but yet to test waters. However now there was no option to let the bench take over the show from us old fogies. The time had come to test the chapter's Bench Strength or the lack of it. Well the Virasat series happened, not without glitches, but happened nevertheless and entirely by this so called bench taking center stage.

Little had we realised that by PD himself leading a group of students to the convention at Kohima, and by keeping them in the loop while planning and executing FEST we were successful in creating a strong bench of volunteers. This bench strength is now running the show in Mumbai. As I write they prepare to conduct a FEST series trying to iron out all glitches they encountered during the Virasat. For they are no longer the Bench but the bulwark of the chapter.

Though I hope they are on their way to adding even more Bench Strength to the chapter

Benjamin Zander: Classical music with shining eyes

Sustaining college chapters (as i saw it)

First a little background about me: I am Arvind Batra. I am from NSIT, passed out in 2k6, worked in Bangalore for a year and currently doing my masters in CS from Georgia Tech. Quite an active volunteer during NSIT, but mostly at college level. I had tried to contribute to SPICMACAY overall Delhi chapter but was not able to do much. Have been inactive after i came out of NSIT but still following the movement passionately. Here I am because of Harsh.

I liked Harsh's post on sustaining chapters and during NSIT, we had some good discussions/experience which i would like to share. Most of the points below are related to sustaining a college level chapter.

1. Continuity howsoever small it may be helps in a long way. In my final year, there were only 3 of us who were active volunteers and it was on to us to organize the fest, mobilize people, plan and execute. There were some juniors (and very very active too) but they wanted someone to initiate the process. The fall semester saw no events as all of us were busy with placements, gre/mba etc. But in spring we made a genuine effort (kicked our asses) to organize a festival. We started by saying we will organize only 2 events and make it a small scale fest. But as we worked on towards it, we got a lot of support (from juniors as well as from faculty of NSIT), and things began to take shape by themselves. So much so that we had 2 rounds of fest one having 2 concerts and one having 3 including a theatre in fest (which is a rarity). And after that, with each year the size of chapter has increased.

Just to clarify: when i write juniors, i am not alluding to any hierarchy in spicmacay. We had a complete flat organization, all being volunteers, but as the tradition of NSIT goes, some people took individual modules to organize while some got the responsibilty at a macroscopic level to oversee that each module in itself is complete and in sync with others.

2. Communication: We had a almost inactive group spicmacay_nsit usually meant for announcements, and we realized that we needed a group to keep a track of day to day activities. It was named spicmacayNsitAtWork and i think we used it very effectively. All discussions, from poster design/making, artist coordination, food, logistics were posted. People were asked to give feedback, both postive and negattive, what they feel and/or suggest alternatives etc. New people find a platform to raise their voice and be heard.
(On a side note, we made it a point that we all will leave this group after we graduate but the group had so much energy that being a part of it was absoluteluy lovely (and nostalgic); i signed off after 15 months and that too with a stone on my heart)

3. New-bees should attend: We tried a lot that people who were associated for the first time must attend all concerts. In terms of organizing, they were given tasks like green room coordination, picking up artists etc so that they got opportunities to interact with artists. I remember some people sleeping on the stage when artist is performing, but those who remained awake had many "aha" moments of their life in those 2 hrs of space/time.

4. One week of semester or one day in every month? We often had the question in front of us - what would make the model more sustainable - one week of fest in one semester or one concert every month. We wanted to ensure that the momentum should always there. We experimented by having two events spaced 1.5 months apart. As expected, it required twice the effort, twice the energy but one good thing that came out of it that we had many people volunteering for second event than the first one. SPICMACAY was always in the air inside college and there were always questions from faculty/students/staff inquiring about future activities.

5. Audience: It is always a heart breaker for organizers when after putting weeks of effort , there are only 20 people in audience. One of the main reasons cited for not organizing concerts is " whats the point, no one turns up". Some learnings of our PR team were:
(a) Local publicity is highly viral. People living closer if informed had a very good turn up rate.
(b)Personal invites to faculty. Having a volunteer go and invite a faculty made a lot of difference. Faculties used to ask questions about the artist, about the art etc and made a point to turn up for atleast one of the concerts. On a sidenote, volunteers got a valid explanantion for bunking classes :), an excuse sympathized by faculty as well.
(c) Give a lot of effort in poster design. A good poster can make a lot of difference. It does not has to be jazzy but it should not be like a classified advertisment of a newspaper. We invested a week in both concerts to make the poster.
(d) Having a dance or folk module in the middle can boost up audience level in pure vocal/instrumental concerts.

6. Don't be an elitist: This is something that i learnt from my juniors. They participated in SPICMACAY with equal fervor as they did in other festivals. They were everywhere and everyone knew them. So associating with SPICMACAY was seen as associating with any other college festival and then some of them were inspired by the movement and decided to stick to it.

A View From The East - Bringing Outside Perspecive

Now describing some special moments from the Kohima trip would be a very tough job because the entire journey was so full of surprises and pleasant experiences.

To be very honest when we embarked on our journey to Kohima every one of us was a bit apprehensive to go there because of the insurgency that preceded its reputation. But the moment we landed in Dimapur a very different atmosphere prevailed. The students of Nagaland University were more than ready to help us…..!

The inaugural ceremony was a really flamboyant one and we had never thought that North East had such a rich culture. I was personally mesmerized at the speech given by Mr. Mani Shankar Iyer.

Now, the Intensives…..well, this was our first convention so we had very little idea about this concept of Intensive. We thought it would be like those mundane workshops we had previously attended. But how wrong we were! I still can't believe that I actually sat next to Shri. J. Guruppa Chetty ji and learnt how to paint with a brush made of bamboo and old kambbal. A traditional art form, more than a 1000 years old from Andhra Pradesh in which natural dyes and colours are used depicting mythologies…..the delicate brush movements and the use of only some basic colours through what we call Kalamkari. He was very interactive and encouraging. I remember one particular incident which I will cherish all my life on the last day of our Intensives. Sir was giving us the last lecture on Kalamkari and we all were sitting around him, I don't know why I was not feeling like writing down what he was saying…..I took a white sheet of paper and a pen and started drawing his portrait…..when he had finished we all rose up to touch his feet and take his blessings….when I went his said " mera painting jo tum banaya woh kahan hain?" I took it out from my bag and showed him…..he was so over-joyed , he said it was lovely and took it as a gift….and said, " agar tum ko yehi karna accha lagta hain to isko kabhi chodhna math tum bahut age jayega…" I was so touched by his words that I can't express…….!

Then on the last day, 20th June we had the classical overnight. A night to remember all my life…. It was during Su. Kapila Venu ji's performance that I was literally smiling and crying with her….. for once I couldn't take my eyes off her…..her expressions were flawless and so was the music. I had previously seen her perform in my school but that night I really got the true essence of Kutiyattam. At around 5 am in the morning it was time for the last performance, by Ustad Abdul Rashid Khan, by the time he started I was leaving for my dorm….as I was walking down the road I could feel his powerful voice around in the air…. I don't know what happened I turned back …… and as I was coming towards the auditorium …… I could finally realize this is what people call the spirituality and magic of Indian Classical Music. For the next 2 hours, it was a lifetime experience for all of us….and I still remember his last song, his composition, " ha se Hindu, ma se Muslim, dono mile to bane hum…".

21st June when we were finally leaving Kohima, it felt as if we were leaving a life, which had evolved us into a new person. Now as a part of suggestion we would like to say that may be the duration for the lunch, dinner and breakfast should be increased. Apart from this we have no qualms because we understand that though things were very well coordinated and organized, some things did not work out well like the acute water scarcity, but again we should also consider the fact that after all Nagaland is a developing state and whatever arrangements they had made, we have no words to show our gratitude for it. Their hospitality and warm welcome is worth mentioning and remembering.

Tanima
Kolkatta Chapter

Workshop on Hindustani Music and Partition

Contact:  saeed.yousuf@gmail.com

 

A Workshop on the Impact of the 1947 Partition on the Classical Music
of South Asia

22 and 23 August 2008, New Delhi

Asian Scholarship Foundation, Bangkok, and Jamia Millia Islamia, New
Delhi, invite scholars, musicians, students and enthusiasts of
Hindustani classical music to participate in and contribute to an
interesting 2-day session of dialogue and music-making where we expect
to have eminent musicians and researchers from India, Pakistan and
Bangladesh. If you have been involved in a unique research or
documentation about the development of classical music in the
post-1947 South Asia, and would like to share your work or findings
with others, kindly send us the details. Or if you are simply
interested in this theme, you are welcome to join us in August in an
informal discussion.

The idea for this workshop evolved out of a larger research and
documentation work carried out by the Delhi-based filmmaker and
researcher, Yousuf Saeed, who spent a few months in Pakistan in 2005
for a fellowship on the music of South Asia. Yousuf's work culminated
in a research paper as well as a feature-length documentary film
Khayal Darpan that has been widely screened, initiating a dialogue
about concerns such as the survival of classical music and national
identity in South Asia. The August workshop is part of a series of
such dialogues which would be carried out in different parts of South
Asia. We hope to bring together scholars, musicians, historians, and
students of music and cultural studies in an informal setting to
reflect upon the various issues in the study of music emerging in the
context of modernity. Some of the following themes or panels would
form a part of this workshop:

1. Cultural identity and the making of nations
2. Partition and the music gharana narratives
3. Traditional knowledge-transmission affected by the border
4. Between popular and elite: Music adapting to the changing audience

More details about these panels and the expected scholars/musicians
can be seen at the following website. Further details would also be
posted on many mailing lists.

http://www.ektaramusic.com/workshop08.html

There is no charge for attending or participating in the workshop.
However, you may like to inform us in advance about your attending as
the seats are limited.

Harsh ( on behalf of Yousuf Saeed)


 

Now that is being Techno Savvy

Junta,

Couldn't but resist the temptation of posting the blog through email. Believe me its quite an effort to edit other peoples blogs, formatting them so that they look good!! So Harsh, well done. Im sure we can have more enthu by making this blog active :)
-priyadarshan

posting emails directly to blog

hi group
here is a very useful thing i wish to enlighten all of you with!

you need not log onto blogger and write in that blogger interface - clearly takes more time and effort you can directly write to your blog via email

if u are a contributing author to that blog blogger gives you an option in settings where you can set an id - for example here i have set 'harsh.taneja.spicmumbai@blogger.com" so that if i send an email to this id it will become a blogpost !

u just need to go to www.blogger.com from inside your gmails and then this will just show your blogs, if you click on settings there is an option of email and there u will find this one

so that means - i will contribute to this blog rather regularly - and for some of you who have been scared of the quantum of my emails have reasons to cheer:)
--
Harsh Taneja
Bombay

Contact : 09820116899
Mail works just as fine