By Narasimhan Vijayaraghavan
If It’s Tuesday,This Must Be Belgium. If it’s January 1st, it must be Sanjay Subramanyan on Brahma Gana Sabha stage. This time, at 09.30 am at R R Sabha, Mylapore,,Chennai. This concert is designed to be Special. Not because it lasts a good four hours. But it is more of a ‘Neyar Viruppam’ or ‘Listeners’ Choice’. Initially, Sanjay pleases his palate. Then listens to his ‘rasikas’ a.k.a. fans. Some elders, in a morning Lec.Dem vehemently/vociferously protested against ‘fandom’. It was hero worship, they said, and did not belong here. An unwanted import from filmdom, they opined and it was insulting sacrilege and blasphemy.
Spot on, in spotless white shirt and veshti, the entire team, Sanjay wished a formal New Year greeting and began with Sarasijana Varnam to get to grips with the morning concert to start 2023 at a brisk and musical pace. No matter the hour, the hall, including the balcony and the Dais were filled, sardine like. Strange mamas and mamis and boys and girls were leaning on each other to adjust themselves.
Smilingly, he broke into dayApayOnidhE mAm pAhi tEjOmaya shrI sadAshiva brahmEndra in jaganmohini. Rest assured, between one concert and another too , he expands his repertoire. Refuses to go stale and his rasikas love it. Sorry, no point in reviewing his concerts. There is an inevitability associated with quality. He follows a SOP which never goes off-target.
Sir Neville Cardus once said this about Sir Donald Bradman, “ He is become too predictable. Too good. At the end of the day, you know his score. Break them into cover drives, on drives, cuts and pulls. And add the tired and frustrated bowlers, you get a picture. Give me his score, and I can paint a picture any day. With Stan Macabe I may struggle”. Same with Sanjay. Tell me the songs he sang, I can go ga ga. That does not make him a bore. It makes him exciting. Look forward to an enjoyable concert, with certainty, day in and day out. So
I leave the concert and him there.
Bharat Jodo Yatra is becoming a Big Bore. Too predictable. What is new? Bearded Rahul? The angry old man has tried all the tricks. Nothing seems to morph to the good for Congress.Millenials and GenZ are sick of dynasties.
INC succumbed to the repeated calls to change the ‘head’. They heeded. Lost Gujarat, even worse. The quest goes of for ever. Seven times thumped now. What next? Congress can try Bungee Jumping or Sky Diving? Himachal Pradesh, was nothing new. Voters were consistent in changing stances. Congress ‘happened’ to be in the opposition this time. That is all.
Come 2024, would anything change. Most unlikely. Rahul, if still is their mascot and star speaker, Narendra Modi can go through the motions, to be returned to power. And if dear MSM props up BJY as if a JP movement, only their desperation shows. Nothing else. Good luck to them as NDTV megaphone would also be missing.
Indian economy is doing well. Despite the pandemic,Ukraine-Russia war and more, we seem to be better placed than other emerging economies and may in 2030, possibly become the 3rd largest economy. Just take the BSE/NSE dance in 2022. The Dow and S&P were slaughtered. Chinese economy is trending back to the past declines, and that does not augur well for the slump in European and US economies. They have also poured too many trillions in the name of Quantitative Easing. The sudden Quantitative Tightening is leading to breathlessness.
India is in a ‘sweet spot’, say balanced economists. Except a peeved Raghuram Ram Rajan, who joined the BJY to reveal blatantly, where his allegiances lie. The direct and indirect collections are at record levels. Even the CAD is manageable,IMF records. But budget time, a year ahead of 2024 may be Revdi based. Already, the year long free lunch has been introduced. We will never change.
All in all, 2022 was not the year ravaged by Covid or the Ukraine war, in India. We got ring fenced and insulated,by our reluctance to splurge. Our vaccines worked. The threat of Recession still hangs, over US & Europe. But thanks to our old Indo -Soviet ties which have survived as Indo-Russian, till date, we may not be mauled. EAM Subramanian Jaishankar has become a diplomatic star, though a political paperweight he may be. Good for the nation.
We the Nation is in a sweet spot. Undeniably,unless we chose to play ostrich. We the People may not have milk and honey flowing. That is still a long,long way off. That we have moved on, and not stood still is cool, in the last 9 years; in the current lingo; I give a proud and loud shout out to you, a BRO and a DUDE.For, it is their take over TIME.
(Author is practicing advocate in the Madras High Court)