Ustads in whites. In Shastriya Sangeeth there are Gharanas, music schools with distinctive style of rendering ragas and khayals. Ustad bade Ghulam Ali khan was the emperor of the Patiala Gharana, Abdul Karim Khan ruled over the Kirana Gharana and Ustad Allaudin Khan was the exemplar of the Mewati Gharana. The different styles are called Banis is Carnatic music. In the Navy also there are Bhushan Gharana, Bhoopy Gharana and now a Mohan Ram Gharana. The only difference is that our expertise is not in music. It is in narration of unprintable after dinner stories. I must admit that I had a head start in the art, as my father late NR Srinivasan was no mean performer himself. I had the good fortune of riyaz under great masters and risqué raconteurs from all over the world. I started my tutelage in the art under a grandmaster Peter Gonzales, Anglo Indian trainee at GRSE, Kolkata, at the tender age of seventeen and never looked back. Peter had inherited jokes of all kinds from his illustrious ancestors and shared them generously with his shishyas. Bharat Bhushan, whom I first met at Plymouth, sported a more sophisticated style of humor. He took me under his wing and trained me, in addition to giving me the royal title of Mayirandi, a name by which he addresses me even now. For his contribution to ribald anecdotes alone, he deserved the high rank of Vice Admiral. Late Captain Bhoopinder Singh (Bhoopy) whom I met at Vasant Sagar in 1964, had an earthy (Land of the five rivers) flavor to his jokes. They enriched my collection immeasurably. I incorporated alien flavors to my repertoire during my visits to Soviet Union, where I got exposed to Ustads like Sasha, our interpreter in Odessa. Arthur Packhurst, chief draftsman at Bath took me under his wing and exposed me to the British style. I have a good memory for useless information and have a separate hard disc in my brain for this art. I am acknowledged today as an accomplished performer with a fusion style. A colleague was convinced that my VSM stood for “Vulgar Storyteller medal”. Dealers’ conferences in the Industry are rumbustious stag affairs, held in punya kshetrams (holy places) like Pattaya, Paris, Las Vegas etc. After the serious business is transacted, there are dinners and cocktails in the evenings. The dealers let their hair down after the big boss leaves. Party time starts. My training in the Navy came in useful as I had plenty of stories to amuse them. They also had their own stock of stories, which added to my already vast repertoire. Some of us would be familiar with the modified versions of “Clementine and “Surangani ka malu kulawa” the popular Sri Lankan ditty, sung in raucous chorus on such occasions. The Navy does prepare us well for our second careers!
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 03:55:31 +0000
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