Shows
The Neuroscience of ImprovisationThe Poetry of Improvisation, with author Mira T. Sundara RajanThis is the second part of our conversation with author, pianist, and law professor Mira T. Sundara Rajan. In this segment, she describes her experience of poetry and how it relates to her experience of playing composed music. Mira also reads poetry by Percy Blythe Shelley and provides a translation of poetry by her great-grandfather Mahakavi C. Subramania Bharati. She tells a fascinating story about Bharati improvising poetry. The musical interlude towards the beginning features music composed and performed by Bradley Vines on baritone and alto saxophones. It also includes quotes from Anil Seth and Swami Sarvapriyananda...2023-07-1328 min
The Neuroscience of ImprovisationImprovisation in Western Classical Music, with pianist Mira Sundara RajanThis episode features the first part of a two-part interview with Professor Mira T. Sundara Rajan. In this segment, she shares her perspective on the role of improvisation in Western classical music. Mira is a concert pianist, amongst other things. Improvisation plays an important role in her practice and performance of music in interesting ways. As it so happens, the approach she describes is similar to that of the great pianist Vladimir Sofronitsky, which I discuss in an Epilogue to our conversation. For more information about Mira and her activities, see her website: https://professormira.c...2023-07-0127 min
Bharati 100 PodcastBharati's LifeDecember 11, 2021 was C. Subramania Bharati's 139th birth anniversary. On this occasion, I was interviewed by Storytrails, an Indian company interested in discovering, exploring, and sharing stories about India's culture and history. "India exists in her stories," they write. In this case, they wanted to know the story of Bharati's life - to trace the basic outlines of the poet's biography, attempt to separate fact from fiction, and celebrate the legacy of the great poet on his birthday. This will be the first in a series of podcast episodes dedicated to Bharati's biography this January, simultaneously allowing us to celebrate...2022-01-1653 min
Bharati 100 PodcastUnknown WarriorsIn his short life, Bharati had to live through the first great disaster of the twentieth century: World War I. This episode examines the complex emotions of Indians faced with this stunning development, just as the Independence movement was poised to take flight. Instead, Great Britain's attention turned to the battlefields of Europe. In a powerfully moving essay, entitled "India and the War" - one of two English essays that he wrote on this subject - Bharati puts aside his passionate desire for India's immediate freedom, and instead, throws his support behind the British, approving India's "generous" and "m...2021-12-0120 min
Bharati 100 Podcast"Equal Among the Servants of the Lord"As India celebrates its festival of lights - Diwali, also known as Deepavali - this episode examines Bharati's views on religion. As he explains in his poignant essay called "Patriotism and Religious Differences," the poet feels that religious differences are necessary for a healthy society, and that dogmatism and homogeneity of belief should be avoided both for the good of society and for the sake of individual development. He reveals himself as an individualist and a humanist, advocating for something far richer than religious tolerance per se: diversity. Percussion by tabla maestro Bickram Ghosh and ghatam maestro...2021-11-1118 min
Bharati 100 PodcastThe Nobel Prize in LiteratureThe award of the 2021 Nobel prize in literature to Abdulrazak Gurnah, a writer originally from East Africa who writes in English about the ongoing legacy of colonialism, presents an interesting counterpoint to Bharati's own "Reflections" on the first Asian Nobel prize winner and, to date, India's only laureate in literature: Rabindranath Tagore. In this essay, Bharati writes about Tagore's travel to Japan and his reception in that country. He exhorts the Indian press to do more to publicize the exploits of great Indians, and urges all Indians to be inspired to new heights of achievement by their deeds. Expanding...2021-10-2416 min
Bharati 100 PodcastThe Jewel in the CrownThis episode challenges romanticized notions of British rule in India with the eyewitness account offered by C. Subramania Bharati in his extended English-language essay, "The Political Evolution in the Madras Presidency." Bharati's article should quickly curtail any nostalgia for empire. It is a stunning narrative of the reality of colonialism in the southern part of India - a story that has been virtually forgotten by the world, but that now demands a fresh hearing in our current time of reckoning with injustice. Even more than police repression, Bharati dwells on the chilling hypocrisy of the British government, which claims f...2021-10-1613 min
Bharati 100 PodcastThe National MovementThis episode introduces Bharati's writing on the Indian national movement. His perspective as a freedom fighter from India's South is uniquely valuable to us today. Much of the discussion surrounding India's freedom movement in our era focuses on key political figures from the North of the country, while the story of the freedom struggle in other parts of India has been largely neglected. The extraordinary involvement of intellectuals, artists, and educators provides an important counterpart to the political struggle; it is a particularly exciting aspect of the freedom movement that deserves deeper exploration. The period of the late nineteenth...2021-10-0919 min
Bharati 100 PodcastWomen Shall Write the LawsThis is the next in my series of conversations with filmmaker Michael Wood, where we discuss some of poet C. Subramania Bharati's most famous and important contributions as a champion of women's rights. Bharati believed that women should be leaders, writing, in a poem entitled "Pudumai Penn," that the "new kind of woman" he imagined would "write all the laws" for society. No advocate of women's rights has been more impassioned, in India or elsewhere, during Bharati's times or since - or more convincing. Episode 4 features A. Kanyakumari's "Melting Aura" played by her Carnatic String Ensemble. She wri...2021-10-0124 min
Bharati 100 PodcastThe Case for Tamil (and Every Other Language)In this next episode with world-renowned filmmaker Michael Wood ("The Story of India"), the theme is Bharati's beloved Tamil language, and the poet's fight to preserve it against the encroachment of English. Bharati's concerns are highly relevant in today's world, where linguistic diversity is globally threatened, and the poet's attitude offers fascinating ways of meeting this challenge. Michael and Mira explore the idea of a future where Indian literature takes its place alongside major works from the Western canon, and quality translation forges new paths between cultures, building new hopes for mutual understanding. Episode 3 features A. Kanyakumari's "M...2021-09-2721 min
Bharati 100 PodcastThe Story of Bharati with Michael WoodThis is the first in a series of episodes where world-renowned filmmaker Michael Wood ("The Story of India") and Mira discuss C. Subramania Bharati. This episode covers the story behind the new book of Bharati's English writings, The Coming Age, reviews Bharati's life and times, and considers the place of his writing in a "decolonized curriculum". Episode 2 features a composition by violinist A. Kanyakumari entitled "Melting Aura" and played by her Carnatic String Ensemble. She writes: "This piece as the name suggests melts the listener's mood with its beautiful structure and scintillating Raga – the Charukesi. Though the pie...2021-09-1827 min
Bharati 100 PodcastPrescient & Powerful: Introducing BharatiBharati 100 explores the life and work of C. Subramania Bharati, an iconic Indian writer and visionary of the early twentieth century. It is being launched on September 11, 2021, the hundredth anniversary of his death at age 38, and is based on a new Penguin Modern Classics book of Bharati's original writing in the English language, edited by podcast host and the poet's great-granddaughter, Mira T. Sundara Rajan. Episode 1 introduces the podcast themes and features music by violinist Ganesh Rajagopalan and S. Vijaya Bharati, and text by Mira T. Sundara Rajan. Executive Producer & Host: Mira T. Sundara Rajan P...2021-09-1124 min