Victor Wooten + Guitar Prasanna LIVE

Much music discovery happened last year, Guitar Prasanna was one of them (thanks again to cousin). Think Carnatic music on guitar. Now imagine Carnatic+Bop+Blues. Ahh.

Finally managed to catch his concert last year. Prasanna was playing with Victor Wooten, and most of the crowd seemed to have come to listen to him. I'd never heard Wooten before, but Oh-My-God, the man has magic fingers when it comes to the bass guitar. Most of the pieces they performed were Prasanna's tracks though (I really love the names of all the tracks. So very Madras)

I squeezed my way through the crowd and managed to draw a bit, again in the dark.





The entire ensemble: Prasanna on guitars/vocals, Victor Wooten on bass/vocals, S.Karthick on ghatam and Bangalore Amrit on the kanjira.

The End of Summer Last

Trying to keep a feng shui plant from drying up, hot sticky auto rides back home, A and I giving each other company while I illustrated and she studied; the only thing keeping us going through it all were the coffee house breaks (sometimes to work, thanks to Bangalore's many many power cuts), the constant fresh fruit bowl courtesy JJ waiting in the fridge every other night and accidental (and rare) discovery of good mallu music.






~
It's been a long long time since I showed my head around here; almost exactly a year. Now, a diploma project+documentation+graduation+new apartment later, I'm back.

Cue: *APPLAUSE*
~

Kochi

I finally made my way to Cochin last week. Internet Kerala was actually all around me and I got extremely kicked when I saw an endless canopy of coconut trees before we landed at the airport (the inside of which smelled of sandalwood). On the car ride from the airport, I counted Kallu kadas, lost track of coconut trees and attempted to read Malayalam. I can actually make out a lot of the characters, so a game of fill-in-the-blanks usually worked for the simpler words.

It was all so oddly familiar.
Except for the accent, which was extremely surreal.

Drew Mohiniattam and Kathakali dancers in the dark, sniffed at spices and stared at windows in Jew Town, saw how fish is caught in Cheenavalas and watched fishermen mend nets, and sat at random places in the sun to draw.

Airports and Sleepyheads

Bengaluru, Amdavad, Kochi

*new notebook: A gift from long ago, and a format that I ought to learn to use better me thinks.