“When he got the job 33 years ago, the rats were no match for the catchers. Government service attracted India’s brightest in those days, and Mumbai was still clean enough to starve rats of the garbage on which they snacked. But in three decades, India has turned inside out, and so has the equation between catchers and rats.”

Mr. Harda is admired by his colleagues as the last of the great Mumbai rat catchers. His is a dying breed in a city whose dreams of being rat-free recede year by year.

… But Mr. Harda is an Indian Sisyphus. When he got the job 33 years ago, the rats were no match for the catchers. Government service attracted India’s brightest in those days, and Mumbai was still clean enough to starve rats of the garbage on which they snacked. But in three decades, India has turned inside out, and so has the equation between catchers and rats.

Private-sector jobs in call centers and software firms beckon, and the government struggles to attract men of Mr. Harda’s caliber. Many rat-catching posts lie vacant. Meanwhile, Mumbai has metastasized from a genteel city of a few million into a grimy megalopolis of 17 million. More than half of the population lives in shanties surrounded by garbage — and, consequently, by rats.

[Link: New York Times: ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: Published: July 20, 2007]

A thought for today: Three in the Morning

When we wear out our minds, stubbornly clinging to one partial view of things, refusing to see a deeper agreement between this and its complementary opposite, we have what is called “three in the morning.”

What is this “three in the morning?”

A monkey trainer went to his monkeys and told them: “As regards your chestnuts: you are going to have three measures in the morning and four in the afternoon.

At this they all became angry. So he said: “All right, in that case I will give you four in the morning and three in the afternoon.” This time they were satisfied.

The two arrangements were the same in that the number of chestnuts did not change. But in the one case the animals were displeased, and in the other they were satisfied. The keeper had been willing to change his personal arrangement in order to meet objective conditions. He lost nothing by it!

The truly wise man, considering both sides of the question without partiality, sees them both in the light of Tao.

This is called following two courses at once.

[Thomas Merton: The Way of Chuang Tzu, Shambala Pocket Classics]

Image: THE MONKEY TRAINER
India, Bengala, Region of Chandraketugarh
2nd-1st c. BC
Terracotta, 15.5” by 21”
asianart.com: Link

Luaka Bop, Part II — David Byrne’s former label:

I don’t have much to do with Luaka Bop these days …. Clearly, for me at least, it was time for a change …. So I got out.

Yale Evelev, God bless him, kept it going. …. Yale’s got a distribution deal with V2 and has released some records in the last year that have been very well received.

[DavidByrne.com: Link]

Byrne is streaming a delightful, diverse selection from the Luaka Bop catalog — I’m digging it, song after song.

Vijaya Anand: Lots of great music in the mix, but one song stands out — no, it leapt out, through the air, past my ears, deep into my helpless brain — traditional raga meets Klezmer meets Loony Toons while tripping –

Asia Classics: The South Indian Film Music Of Vijaya Anand
Naane Maharaja (I Am the Emperor) [4:33]

Byrne notes:

Vijaya Anand
One of our worst sellers. Yale had, over the course of many visits to India, collected examples of some of the stranger and wilder examples of filmi music I’d ever heard (music done for film soundtracks and musicals.) The Chennai productions of Vijaya Anand were among these — psychedelic techno cut and paste tunes that encompassed more genres that one could imagine, not just Indian genres — but disco, techno, blues, romantic ballads and synth pop. Wonderful stuff that never failed to make me smile. Despite being appreciated by the hip downtown crowd who saw similarities to Zorn, Zappa and others, the public stayed away.

[David Byrne]

Vijaya Anand — the early years:

When he was in the 10th grade, he started an orchestra at school. He also began composing songs for different occasions on a harmonium that his father bought him and began listening to more and more cinema music.

His mother’s worst fears were confirmed when he finished his schooling. He did not want to continue his academic education. Instead, he started a band of his own called the Melody Cans. By playing the latest cinema hits, he captivated the ever-hungry cinema-music audience at wedding halls and in theaters. Vijaya Anand and his Melody Cans continued to play cinematic music until he came to a saturation point; just playing the latest hits on stage became unexciting. This is when Vijaya Anand felt the urge to create cinema music rather than simply to reproduce it.
[Luaka Bop: Link]