Author: Mandar Karanjkar
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The Difficulty of Singing Easy Ragas
Ragas are the back bone of the Indian classical music. A certain collection of notes which follows certain rules and behavior becomes a Raga. As one starts learning Indian classical music, the journey begins with practice of basic Swaras and then eventually by learning Ragas and various compositions in those Ragas. Naturally, students find some…
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Better Late Than Never : Reflections on Pt. Sharad Sathe’s Concert
Listening to different artists and attending their live performances contributes a lot to the understanding of music of any artist or even student of music. After I came to Pune in 2008, for pursuing my engineering education, I attended most of the concerts taking place in the city. Eventually, attending concerts became like a routine.…
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Kabir Doha on Recognizing Hidden Gems Around Us
चन्दन गया बिदेस, सब कोई कहत पलास। ज्यो ज्यो चूल्हा झोंकिये, त्यों त्यों महके बास।। Imagine a block of sandalwood visiting another country, where people do not know anything about it; people will simply think that it is an ordinary block of wood. But when they start burning it in their stoves, due to its…
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How to live a fruitful life: Wisdom from a Doha by Sant Kabir
हरिजन तो हारा भला, जीतन दे संसार । हारा तो हरी सो मिले, जीता जम के द्वार ।। English translation of Doha: A seeker of truth is happy with the fact that he has not conquered anything and is a loser from the worldly perspective. The whole world is after conquering something and let them…
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What Making My Tea Taught Me About Solving The Problems That Our Society Faces
Suddenly, the importance that tea has in my life has gone up. While working full time, I used to have a cup or two of tea during the day, more as a formality and as an excuse to spend some time away from the laptop screen. Now, as I practice classical music more seriously, tea…
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Why finding fault in others means wasting your time!
On social media and everywhere around, people finding faults in others have bloomed like anything. Thanks to social media, we not only read various (many times false and fabricated) news/updates but we now also have power to share them with our circles and even comment on them. This power to share and comment on stuff…
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Why Snapdeal (or even Flipkart or Amazon) can never unbox your life and what should one do to really unbox it!
Sometimes, especially when I am really tired or bored, I do enjoy watching action movies. It is a deliberate effort to help the brain to relax. For past few weeks, I can sense the aggressive advertisements and campaigns run by different e-tailers to empty out the pockets of customers as deeply as possible on the…
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Kabir Doha on Patience: धीरे-धीरे रे मना, धीरे सब कुछ होय
धीरे-धीरे रे मना, धीरे सब कुछ होय, माली सींचे सौ घड़ा, ॠतु आए फल होय। (Be patient, my mind. Everything takes its own time to take place. Look – even if the gardner pours hundred jugs of water, the trees will bear fruits only when the right season comes.) One of the values and capabilities…
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A Question for Everyone
Is ‘thinker’ separate from the ‘thought’? Or what we consider as ‘thinker’ is just another thought? In the daily course of life, we always have a divide within ourselves; we always look at ourselves as an entity separate from our own thoughts. ‘I am angry’, ‘I can control my anger or sadness’, ‘I can control…
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Can we stop the wars from happening?
Wars seem to be an integral part of life. Wars are happening on the earth for ages; between castes, societies, countries, animals and individuals. With the recent happenings (India and Pakistan), we are again on the brink of war. Over the period, the way we fight wars has evolved; it has become more sophisticated and…