Tears on a Lotus - dhrupad music album review

The clock ticks towards midnight, a time when I spontaneously move to a routine desperation for my usual brain cleansing session -- reading bedtime poems and listening to some soulful music.

Tonight's music pick is "Tears on a Lotus", one of my most favourite Dhrupad albums, by the Gundecha Brothers. Despite a couple of hundreds of rewind and forward, I remain smitten with the album's persisting melodic nuance since I heard it for the first time two years ago. 

Being the most ancient form of Hindustani classical music that still remains beautifully intact, Dhrupad has not only gloriously survived in India over the centuries, but has also enthralled Indian classical music lovers across Asia, Europe and North America for several decades. Going by the innate nature of Dhrupad, which is spiritual and aimed at inducing the feeling of contemplative meditation to the listeners, the Gundecha Brothers -  desciples of prominent Dhrupad exponents Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar and Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar - have done full justice to "Tears on a Lotus." 

Whether it is Raag Gaoti Alap or Raag Gaoti Dhrupad or Raag Shivranjani Alap, each of the seven tracks is an absolute meditative delight, transporting the listeners to a realm of trance. The last track of the album is my personal favourite evening raga Shivranjani Dhrupad, which is usually known to evoke the pensive mood of sorrow and romance. However, the Shivranjani sung by the Gundecha Brothers is a hymn to the Hindu goddess of power Shakti, and the following beautiful Sanskrit couplet used in it makes the dhrupad recital more spiritually touching: 

"Sandhya sanjivani sur samadhi rupini

Gayatri trivarg dhatri savitri trilok yatri

Mahamantra mahayantra mahatantrini

Rahoyaga krimaradya rahstarpini

Om lum vam ram rhim yam.

Sandhya sanjivani..."

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Eternal Mewar

Photograph taken from the roof of City Palace complex, Udaipur, during a past trip of mine to the city.

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R
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Documentary: Operation Wrath of God

An interesting film about a secret operation done by the Mossad to assassinate individuals alleged to have been directly or indirectly involved in the 1972 Munich massacre in which 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team were murdered.Their targets included members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, who were responsible for the Munich attack, and members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) accused of being involved. Authorized by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in the autumn of 1972, the operation may have continued for more than 20 years.Covert Israeli assassination units killed dozens of terrorists and conspirators across Europe during this time, as well as mistakenly murdering an innocent waiter in Lillehammer, Norway, in what became known as the Lillehammer affair. An additional military assault was launched by Israeli commandos deep inside Lebanon to kill several high-profile Palestinian targets.

More background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wrath_of_God