March 26 2008, 7 pm

HarperCollins Publishers India and Prakriti Foundation in association with Madras Book Club launched The Silent Raga by Ameen Merchant

Reading of excerpts from the book by Subhasri Ramachandran Deesh Mariwalla & Ameen Merchant

Venue: Taj Connemara, Binny Room, Chennai

Ameen Merchant was born in Bombay and raised in Madras, India. The Silent Raga is his first novel. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he is working on his next novel and programming a new Bollywood audio channel for the CBC.

Ameen Merchant is a first-time novelist and author of The Silent Raga, a lyrical book that traces the paths of two sisters from Madras to Bollywood and back. Janaki’s mastery involves a deep understanding of ragas -- the musical scales of Indian classical music.

In the story, the raga seems mysterious and exotic The fundamental structure is no different from that of Western Classical Music. Seven
Notes. There is the upward movement and the downward movement. A Raga is basically a particular ordering of those seven notes. Each order is given a name. Just as the scales have Major and Minor, the Ragas are also differentiated by these two categories.

The ragas are always classical; it is the interpretation of a raga that has modern possibilities. If one decides to step out of the set order of one particular raga, one must also be ready to accept the corruption that comes with it.

The sections in the novel are titled Varnam, Alaapana, Krithi, Ragam Thaanam Pallavi, Padham, Thillaana, and Mangalam. Evidently these reflect the elements of a raga. The sections in the novel correspond to the categories during a South Indian (Carnatic) classical concert. It is within these categories that the artiste explores the same or different ragas. The structure is integral to the novel in many ways. Most importantly, it captures the concert of emotions between the two sisters as they prepare for their meeting.




Landscapes of memory
By Ranvir Shah
The Hindu Literary Review, Apr 6, 2008
http://www.hindu.com/lr/2008/04/06/stories/2008040650020100.htm
Exorcising Janaki
Ranvir Shah interviews Ameen Merchant
The Hindu Literary Review, Apr 6, 2008
http://www.hindu.com:80/lr/2008/04/06/stories/2008040650130300.htm