Born in England on June 22, 1966, Sriram had his early schooling in Madras and then in Calcutta. His bachelors in engineering from the Delhi College of Engineering in 1987, was followed by a masters in business administration specializing in marketing and advertising from FMS, Delhi University. Sriram then moved on to a varied career in marketing and advertising before joining his family business in Chennai. Carnatic music has been a passion for Sriram since the age of six, when his grandmother began to teach him the basics, in the family puja room. This combined with a great interest in history, has led him to study the art form in depth with special reference to its great personalities. Since this book first appeared in print in 2004, Sriram has emerged as an engaging historian and chronicler of Chennai, and Carnatic Music. He conducts heritage walks, addresses audiences and is a columnist for city newspapers. Carnatic Summer was his first book and since then he has written eight more, on the arts, corporate history and personalities.

This one-volume thematic encyclopedia examines life in contemporary India, with topical sections focusing on geography, history, government and politics, economy, social classes and ethnicity, religion, food, etiquette, literature and drama, and more. Modern Indian, an addition to the Understanding Modern Nations series, is an in-depth and interdisciplinary encyclopedia. While many books on life in India exist today, this volume is unique as a concise, accessible overview of multiple aspects of Indian society and history. It will be a useful background or supplemental text for anyone interested in modern Indian life and culture. Individual chapters address all aspects of life in 21st-century India, from geography and history to economy and religion to etiquette and sports. Each chapter begins with an overview, followed by entries on, for example, major political parties or literary works. Each overview and entry is self-contained and accompanied by an up-to-date Further Reading list.

Suresh Subrahmanyan draws freely from his life experiences to present this compendium of acutely observed columns. His métier, humour and satire, and his abiding love for the English language, resonate on every page. He delves nostalgically into his childhood, ruminating on, among other things, boarding school escapades and a wide spectrum of music that saturates his life. He paints a vivid portrait of India’s contrariness with a light brush, warts and all. Politics, sport, the arts, current affairs and selective autobiography – they are all grist to the author’s mill. As he himself says, ‘I write for fun. If the reader is amused, it’s a bonus’. Suresh Subrahmanyan is refreshingly different from others of his ilk. He is known for his eclectic tastes, partial to wit and satire, a cricket tragic (in Aussie parlance) and an aficionado of music of varied genres. Small wonder that he has been a regular columnist in leading newspapers. His writings, covering a wide range of subjects, come as a breath of fresh air. This delightfully humorous collection of his choicest columns, impeccably written, will lift the reader’s spirits. N. Murali Chairman, Kasturi and Sons Ltd (Holding company of The Hindu Group) and President, The Music Academy

In Indian context.

These new translations of the Tiruppavai and Nacciyar Tirumoli composed by Kotai, the ninth-century South Indian mystic-poetess, capture the lyricism of the Tamil originals. Kotai's poems--two of the most significant compositions by a female mystic--express her encounters with the divine Vishnu through the use of a vibrant verbal sensuality.

This is a completely revised and updated edition of The [Oxford] Illustrated Companion to South Indian Classical Music, which includes the latest available information on the subject. Acclaimed as the most authoritative reference work on South Indian classical music, the Companion:* provides an overview of the historical and cultural contexts of the music, its instruments, composers, leading practitioners, and schools* contains more than 120 line drawings and photographs of all the instruments discussed, as well as of major composers; includes a special colour plates section* includes detailed biographical notes on musicians and composers* contains Guide to Pronunciation and Transliteration, Select bibliography and Further Reading, Glossary-cum-Index* includes Alphabetical Index of Ragas and Scales, Index of NamesAn indispensable and enriching reference work for the connoisseur, practicing musician, interested amateur, impresario, teacher, and student, the Companion will be of interest to anybody keen to learn about Indian culture.

This monograph presents a diverse collection of articles on Indian Art Music based on analytical work aided by computational tools. The book focuses mainly on the current practices in music and its representation in audio recordings, a perspective that is particularly relevant to oral traditions. It presents a rare and unique example of collaboration between musicians, musicologists, scientists, and engineers. The presentation brings together various aspects of research on Indian art music that benefits from audio processing or computing, ranging from musicology to information retrieval to instrument modeling. It is hoped that the monograph will serve as an accessible introduction to computational approaches for Indian art music in particular, and ethnomusicology more generally.

Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna, an internationally renowned Carnatic musician from the illustrious musical lineage of composer Saint Tyagaraja, wore many hats in his lifetime. Having made a stage debut at the age of seven, he was hailed as a child prodigy. From then till the time he passed away, at age eighty-six in 2016, he continued to be in the spotlight, not just for his extraordinary talent and versatility as a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, but as a composer, playback singer and even, briefly, as a character actor. He was a primary school dropout, a teenage poet and composer, a restless mind, a polyglot, a legacy upholder, a wordsmith, an ice cream lover and a pathbreaker. This is a story of the many lives of Dr Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna. Veejay Sai's in-depth research into his life and work led him deep into unseen archival material and across the Carnatic musical landscape of erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Fortified by interviews with his family members, disciples and peers, The Many Lives of Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna, a definitive biography of the musical genius, is not only a revealing account of the personal traits and facets of an unparallelled genius, but is also a portrait of India's classical music world, a place as much of beauty as of untrammelled egos.