Saturday, October 24
Every city has a season. New York has fall. Tokyo has spring. Chennai has music. It is probably the only metropolis to have a month-long season of ragas. The Tamil month of Margazhi, from mid-December to mid-January, is when Chennai moves to a different talam. It woke up to TM Krishna singing Swathi Thirunal’s “Pankaja Lochana” in Raga Kalyani and Perumal Murugan’s freedom song on Christmas morning. It sat rapt listening to Sanjay Subrahmanyan’s “Sri Subramanyaya Namaste” in breathtaking Kambhoji, and Vishakha Hari’s “Andavane” in Shanmukhapriya.The Margazhi festival has been around for almost a century. It began with the founding of the Music Academy in 1928, celebrating, in particular, Carnatic music and Bharatnatyam.But is there a chill in the sabhas — the cultural
The federal government's ability to regulate immigration, a basic function of any nation, is broken. Over the past four years, some 8 million people settled in the United States, and most of them did so unlawfully. Instead of an immigration policy calibrated to the needs of the country, both Americans and immigrants are being let down by a set of outdated laws inconsistently enforced by underfunded agencies. Chaos has been a predictable result. Donald Trump won a second term as president on the promise that he would turn back the clock, restoring order by returning immigrants whence they came. The president-elect has vowed to deport all immigrants who do not have legal permission to be in the United States, and some who do. He also has described plans to curtail both illegal and legal immi
