Fusion Music - Lesson Summary

Fusion Music - Main ideas from the lesson 

1.  This is a speech delivered by Ravi Shankar on the death of his friend and musical partner George Harrison.

2.     The speech begins with the question - Why did he have to go so soon at such a young age when I really wanted to go first? 

3.     Ravi Shankar talks about some of the personal qualities of his friend whom he met 30 years ago. 

a.     Childlike quality.

b.     Naughty but little smile

c.     Passion for music.

d.     Serious interest in religion particularly the old Vedic Hindu Tradition

4.     They both used to crack jokes and always enjoyed each others company. 

5.     Ravi Shankar used to give Sitar lessons to George. 

6.     George was very talented, and he loved Indian music. 

7.     Ravi Shankar gifted him the book - The Autobiography of a Yogi by Swami Yogananda.

 

8.     Ravi Shankar’s description of George - ‘He was more Indian than many Indians’

9.     It is because of George Harrison that Ravi Shankar’s music reached the whole world. 

10.  He was treated like a superstar and was known as Beatle George’s Guru. 

11.  They were able to collaborate in three musical events - Monterey Music Festival, Woodstock Music Festival, and the Bangladesh concert. 

12.  Ravi Shankar also collaborated with famous musicians like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Leon Russel. 

13.  When George visited Ravi Shankar at his house, he suggested that they make music together and a tour of the US. 

14.  Ravi Shankar says that he will never forget the time they spent working together. 

15.  Between the rehearsals they would eat Indian food and snacks 

16.  Ravi Shankar recalls the memories of recording songs and composing music with George Harrison 

17.  George Harrison always was always concerned about the health and well-being of Ravi Shankar. 

18.  From the role of a disciple and friend George Harrison became a son to Ravi Shankar especially after Ravi Shankar’s son died in 1992. George Harrison always accompanied Ravi Shankar during hospital visits. 

19.  Ravi Shankar recollects two wonderful musical creations they did together. One is the 4 CD boxset titled as ‘In Celebration’ which contained selections from 40 years of Sitar performances and compositions. 

20.  The second project is the CD – Chants of India and some songs for this album was recorded in Madras. Ravi Shankar talks about George Harrison saved him from the fans acting as a personal bodyguard. The incident happened in Udaipur. George Harrison, his wife Olivia and his son Dhani visited Ravi Shankar, his wife Sukanya and daughter Anoushka in India. 

21.  Ravi Shankar describes George Harrison using these words: 

a)     A person with a Magnanimous heart

b)     Always caring about others

c)     Fearless and a beautiful soul 

d)     Always conscious of God 

e)     Eye for the details – As we can see the album cover of Chants of India 

The Life of Two Musical Giants - Fusion Music - Lesson Introduction

 

Ravi Shankar; George Harrison, by Clive Arrowsmith - NPG x199702

     Ten facts about Pandit Ravi Shankar

Indian musician, player of the sitar, composer

Born on April 7, 1920, in Varanasi (also known as Benares)

Seven years he studied the sitar

Shankar composed the film scores for the Indian director Satyajit Ray’s famous Apu trilogy.

Helped bring Indian music to the attention of the West.

He won Grammy Awards for the album West Meets East

Seeing the famine and hardship faced by the people of Bangladesh, Shankar and Harrison organized the Concert for Bangladesh.

His daughter Anoushka Shankar is also a highly successful sitar player

Another daughter of Ravi Shankar is the multiple-Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, Norah Jones

Two months after his death, Shankar won a fourth Grammy Award

Known fondly today as the "godfather of world music

Source: https://www.biography.com/musician/ravi-shankar

Ten facts about George Harrison:  

George Harrison was the lead guitarist of the Beatles

The Beatles became the biggest rock band in the world

Beatlemania was in full swing across England, and by early 1964, with the release of their album in the United States and an American tour, it had swept across the Atlantic as well.

While on the set of the Beatles' second film, Help! Harrison took an interest in some of the Eastern instruments and their musical arrangements that were being used in the movie, and he soon developed a deep interest in Indian music. 

Harrison taught himself the sitar. 

Introducing the instrument to many Western ears on Lennon's song, "Norwegian Wood.

Cultivated a close relationship with renowned sitar player Ravi Shankar.

Harrison's interest in Indian music extended into a yearning to learn more about Eastern spiritual practices.

In 1968, he led the Beatles on a journey to northern India to study transcendental meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Charitable leanings and continued passion for the East

He named his son, Dhani.

Source: https://www.biography.com/musician/george-harrison

Plagiarism and the need to protect your ideas...

Hello everyone, today I would like to discuss five incidents. The first three happened this week and the last two are a bit old.

 

The first one is about the blatant act of plagiarism related to the article in TOI which appeared on Friday. (Page 6 – Bridges to Learning – How Scots left a mark on Madras) One whole paragraph ( 5^th para) was plagiarized from an article which appeared in The Hindu a few years ago. It seems even some other parts in the article were lifted from the articles of the revered historian S Muthiah which had appeared in The Hindu. 

 

The second event is when the first-year student of mine messaged me a verbal analysis question involving one Mr Gopi and his mother. The student got the question from an entrance exam question of a prominent Central University in South India. Since I am not an expert in these type of questions, I did a quick search in Google and to my astonishment found that question was ‘inspired’ by a question which appeared in a foreign university. The question had Mr Horton and his mother instead of Mr Gopi and his mother. What a convenient way to set question paper. 

 

The third episode is about the way students’ copy and pastes answers from the Internet during the online classes. They are can very well brainstorm and find the answers from within. I was teaching them the topic ‘Giving and following instructions’ and had asked them to write some sample instructions. The result was some sophisticated answers copied from Google which were far removed from the topic. 

 

The fourth episode is now forgotten by many. An Assistant Professor ( Shift 1 or Aided stream) in a well-known college in Kerala was caught for publishing a poem written by someone else in her name. The poem was published in a magazine. This initiated a UGC level inquiry and the College Principal was issued a legal notice. 

 

The fifth and final event involves a UK based Malayali writer Karoor Soman and his life mission of publishing 100 books. He wanted to be part of the Guinness Book of World Records. He published a book ( published by Mathroobhoomi Books) which had passages lifted from the travel blogs of the popular blogger Manoj Ravindran. 

 

Why did these people commit plagiarism? 

1.     The desire to act like God– Omniscient and Omnipotent 

2.     Work pressure, time and deadline in the case of the journalist 

3.     The desire to be famous or infamous.

4.     Low ethics and no moral compass

5.     Plagiarising is quite a normal activity for them. There is no feeling of guilt and they are not aware of the pain of the original creators. 

 

There was a time when I used to share the e-paper of The Hindu with my students and even in RR.  PJ who is part of The Hindu web team, strictly warned me not to share a part or whole of the newspaper via Whatsapp or any other medium. So. I started this project for my students where I give them a short preview of the news items. There was a time when I used to share chapters from audiobooks here, copy book summaries from Blinkist app here in RR. Now, the very thought give me shudders. 

 

There is the need to have a ‘collective will’ ( to borrow a phrase from the excellent Netflix documentary - The Social Dilemma) to remove plagiarism from the academic world and our little world. 

Dr Amartya Kumar Sen - Infographics

 

20 ways to Improve your Listening Skill

 

 

1.  Maintain eye contact - When you listen to someone it is important to maintain eye contact. 

 

2.   Use a notebook - This will help you to be active during the listening process plus you will have the ideas recorded which can be retrieved later. You can also use an audio recorder. It is always good to check with the speaker or the organizers before you do the digital recording. 

 

 

3.   Ask questions to the speaker - This will demonstrate the fact that you were attentive during the session. You can also exercise your critical thinking skills by asking some probing questions. 

 

 

4.     Ask questions to yourself - This will help you to improve your critical thinking skills. You can also assimilate the ideas that you have listened to which will make you more grounded in the topic. 

 

 

5.   Research:   Read or do research beforehand about the event, speaker or the class or the lesson - This is part of the pre-listening activity. 

 

6.     Don’t talk to your friends or use your mobile.  This will help you to focus totally on the listening activity with minimal or zero distraction. 

 

 

7.    Occupy the front seats - This will help you to get a better view of the proceedings.  It will also help you to clear all distractions between you and the speaker. 

 

 

8.   Get proper rest:  You should not attend the lecture or the event in a tired manner. You cannot doze off while listening. 

 

 

9.     Listen without judging or jumping to conclusions - Don’t make any subjective evaluation of the speaker or the topics he is presenting. You focus should be on the lecture not the lecturer. 

 

 

10.  Don't interrupt - Wait for the lecture or the speech to get over. You should never interrupt the speaker in between. Wait for the question & answer session to ask your questions. If there is no Q and A session, then you can approach the speaker after the presentation to ask your questions. 

 

11.  Acknowledge: Using brief responses like “I see,” “I know,” “Sure,” “Thank you,” or “I understand” is a good way to acknowledge that you are actively listening to the speaker. Even a simple nod of your head is a good method to acknowledge the speaker. This acknowledgement is important in face to face communication or interpersonal communication. 

 

12.  Remembering - It is always good to recollect the ideas presented in the event or the speech. This will help you to consolidate your knowledge. The notes that you have jotted down in your notebook will help you in this act of remembering. 

 

 

13.  Respect the speaker. If you don’t like the speaker. You can leave the venue or the class. You should not be the reason for the event to become a failure. If you do not see any purpose or aim in listening to the speaker, then you might as well leave the venue. 

 

14.  Listen to audiobooks - This is an excellent way to improve your listening skill. Audible and Storytel are the two popular audiobook companies in India. Like shadow speaking, you can also experiment with shadow listening. If you can grab a copy of the book and read along as you listen to the audiobook, it will be an interesting activity. 

 

 

15.  Radio news - The good old radio is still a useful tool for improving your listening skill. You can tune in to the English news in All India Radio or the BBC. You can also listen to the news bulletins in your own mother tongue. 

 

 

16.  Podcasts - They are very popular these days and there are thousands of podcasts to choose from. You can always select the ones you need based on the subjects or topics. 

 

17.  Listen to English songs - Always try to listen to songs with some nice and decent lyrics - There are many English songs which have wonderful and inspiring lyrics. It is always good to choose slow numbers. Listening to these songs will help you to get into the rhythm of the language and improve your pronunciation.

 

 

18.  Watching movies - Try watching English movies without subtitles. This will help you to grasp the language faster and at the same time enjoy the content of the movie. 

 

19.  Listen to yourself - Record short audio - You can use your phone or laptop to record your own voice and check for voice clarity and other details regarding your voice. You can also forward the audio clip to an expert and ask for his feedback and advise.  

 

 

20.  Listen to great orators. There are many great speeches delivered by great men and women. Most of them are available on YouTube. You can listen to these speeches to feel inspired and to improve your speaking style. 

Dr Amartya Sen Kumar - Summary

 

Dr. Amartya Kumar Sen

 

Part 1 - Shantiniketan, Tagore and Amartya 

Born on November 3, 1933, at Shantiniketan in Bengal. He was given the name Amartya by the first Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. He had his schooling in St. George’s School in Dhaka and then later at Shantiniketan.  Shantiniketan and Tagore’s teaching had a profound influence on his life.  At a very young age, he decided to become a teacher and a researcher.  When he was in Shantiniketan, he used to run evening schools in the surrounding villages. Even though he studied Sanskrit, Mathematics and Physics, he was fascinated by Economics He was fascinated by the cultural diversity in the world. The syllabus/ curriculum at Shantiniketan had cultural/analytical and scientific heritage of India, but also other non-western cultures - East & South East Asia (China, Japan, Indonesia, Korea) West Asia and Africa. 

 

Part 2 - Two memories: 

The memory of an incident that occurred in Dhaka in his childhood made him think about divided humanity. A man by the name of Khader Mia was attacked by some things as he was working in a neighbour’s house. Khader Mia came to Amartya Sen’s home bleeding and Amartya’s father took him to the hospital. Khader had come to the Hindu dominated area in search of work and that too for a small payment. He couldn’t see the hungry faces of his children. He later died at the hospital. Amartya Sen was disturbed by this and he realized that it was extreme poverty that led this man to his death. He also realized the divisiveness in the human race. He aspired for plurality.

 

The memory of the Bengal Famine of 1943 also made him think about poverty and economics. He was fascinated by the class-dependent character of famine. The famine didn’t create problems for his friends or family. The people belonging to the lower class like the landless rural labourers suffered a lot. 

 

Part 3 - Health Issue: 

At the age of 18, he had developed cancer of the mouth. The radiation cured cancer but destroyed the bones in the mouth. After a long operation of nearly seven hours, the doctors were able to repair the bones. 

 

Part 4 - Amartya in Calcutta: 

By the time Amartya Sen arrived at Calcutta to study at Presidency College, he had two ideas reinforced in his mind - One is plurality and the other one is absorption. He was greatly influenced by the educational excellence of his teachers and the political activity among the students. He studied in Presidency from 1951 - 1953. 

 

Part 5 - London - India - London - India

1953 - Amartya Sen moved from Calcutta to Cambridge to study in Trinity College. He did his second B.A in Pure Economics and he finished the course in two years. 

In his first year of research, he took a leave for two years and started his PhD under the supervision of the famous teacher A.K Dasgupta of Banaras University.  At the age of 23, he was asked to establish a new department of Economics at Jadavpur University. He won another Prize fellowship at Trinity College for submitting his PhD thesis. This fellowship gave him 4 years of academic freedom.  In 1963 Amartya Sen decided to leave Cambridge and came to Delhi as a Professor of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics. 

 

Part 6 - What is Welfare Economics: 

Welfare Economics: is an Economics which is an assessment of how well things are going for the members of the society. He combined the tools of Economics and Philosophy. It is an ethical way of looking at vital economic problems.  Amartya Sen focussed on practical problems rather than the theory. He worked to assess poverty, to evaluate inequality, gender issues, unemployment. All these ideas were published together in two collections of articles (Choice, Welfare, Measurement and Resources Values and Development). He wrote about Welfare Economics in his book (Inequality Re-examined) He used the money he received from Nobel Prize to start Pratichi Trust which does social and charity work in India and Bangladesh. 

 

Part 7 - Awards and Present Status: 

He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. He is known as the Mother Teresa of Economics. He dedicated his life to fight poverty. He continues to work as a teacher and researcher at Trinity College, Cambridge U.K 

 

Happy Prince - Infographics

 

Topic 1 - Bridge Course - 20 TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR SPEAKING AND PRESENTATION SKILLS

Hello everyone, this is Premjith Mathew and today I would like to share 20 tips to improve your speaking and presentation skills. 

 

1.    Rehearse before you speak: It is always good to do a mock or dummy speaking session before the actual one. This will give you more confidence and will make you more familiar with the topic you have in your hand. 

 

2.     Use the mirror: One place where you can practice speaking is in front of the mirror. You can ask a friend of yours to observe and listen to your speech. You can also ask your friend to give feedback about the presentation. Make sure you select a friend whom you think can help you. 

 

3.     Learn new words every day: This will help you to have linguistic confidence. You should make reading a daily habit. Read books, magazines, and newspapers. The reading can be just in any language that you know. Reading is a meditative process. New words can also be gathered from watching English news channels like BBC and listening to the English news in All India Radio. You can also listen to podcasts. 

 

4.     Engage in self-talk - One way to improve your speaking is to talk to yourself in English. Please make sure that you are also alone when you are talking to yourself. 

 

5.    Friends with linguistic benefits: Try to find friends with whom you can talk in English. You can also be part of a WhatsApp group where English is the medium of communication. 

 

6.  Read Aloud: Reading the text in a loud manner will help you to improve your pronunciation and help you to develop a unique style of speaking. 

 

7.  Brainstorm your ideas: To collect the best ideas possible, it is always good to do a search within your mind. I always believe that the original and genuine ideas are found inside your mind. Before searching outside, it is always good to look within. 

 

8.     The Use of Body Language: The most powerful form of body language is the contact that you make with your audience using your eyes. Along with the powerful eye-contact, you should use gestures and postures to enhance the presentation. 

 

9.     Be confident: Your speech should reflect the level of confidence within you. You will display more confidence when you are fully prepared, and you have a grip over the subject matter. 

 

10.  Have a positive attitude: It is vital for you to develop a positive happy frame of mind when you speak. Your utterances should be filled with positivity and should make the listener comfortable and hooked on to your speech. 

 

11.  Drink Water: To keep the insides of your mouth hydrated, it is always recommended to drink enough water before you can speak. It is also suggested that you carry a bottle of water with you. 

 

12.  Do research: If the topic is given beforehand, you will have enough time to do a proper research about the main ideas to be included in your speech. Don’t spend too much time researching. Search for only what you need and make it part of your presentation. 

 

13. Speech Shadowing: This is an interesting activity where you can imitate the speech style and stage manners of great speakers. Some of the great speakers whom you can imitate are Barack Obama, Deepak Chopra, Martin Luther King, Steve Jobs, Shiv Khera. You can play the audio version of these great minds, download the script and read along as you listen to the speech. It is exactly like singing along listening to the songs of K.J Yesudas, SPB or even Kishore Kumar or KS Chitra. 

 

14.  Use Technology: You can use the AI voice assistant available in your smartphones to improve your speaking skill. Voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri and the Google Voice Assistant can be used for this purpose. There are also bots available on the internet with whom you can talk to. Some of them are free and some are paid. 

 

15.  Think in English. We are so lucky that the first language that we learn is our mother tongue but learning one language is not just enough to survive in this world. Since the first language is the mother tongue, we will be inclined to think in that language. You should make some conscious efforts to think in English. 

 

16.  Retell a story in English:  One easy way to improve English speaking fluency is to retell a story, preferably from your mother tongue into English.

 

17.  Don’t focus on your errors: Mistakes are bound to happen, and they are proof that you are trying. Be aware of the mistakes and but don’t feel bad about making them. Errors should not kill your enthusiasm to learn a new language. 

 

18. Use a good dictionary: I am not referring to the age-old big book, which is lying somewhere in your home gathering dust. In today’s world, online dictionaries are more popular than physical ones. The good thing about online dictionaries is that you will get the pronunciation of the words. 

 

19. Speak to express not to impress: Your speech should always express good thoughts and ideas. Use short sentences and simple words. Don’t try to impress people with your language fluency. Always express yourself. Do not try to impress. 

 

20. Speak! Speak! Speak! Like any other skill, unless you practice your speaking every day, you will not improve it. Just by watching this video, you will not become a good speaker. You need to practice it daily and it will take time. It is like cooking; you cannot learn cooking by reading a recipe book. You need to get inside the kitchen and cook. 

 

Wishing you all the best and if you have some queries you can always contact me in the email id - jith77@gmail.com