Album Reminiscences – 4 – Mandolin Shrinivas

Raja Govindarajan has tagged me in this FB chain game of choosing 10 albums. Here is the fourth one.

I started collecting music from the late nineties. In a few years, I was obsessed with the recordings of Mandolin Shrinivas. I wanted to have every available recording of the maestro. I can actually do this 10 day series just based on albums of Shrinivas. The recordings and the memories associated with it are vividly etched in my mind for life. I had written one such experience with a Shrinivas album (in Tamil) here:

மேண்டலின் ஸ்ரீனிவாஸ் – பிலஹரி

I was in college when I started collecting these albums. I studied in Thanjavur. Three of us had rented a 1 BHK apartment. I used to live on a monthly allowance of 1500 Rs. per month. I had to pay rent, manage my food/travel expenses within that amount. There wasn’t much leftover by the end of the month. Every rupee was precious as I had to buy the music albums I wanted only from what I could save out of the monthly allowance. A tape cost anywhere between 30 to 40 bucks.

Fortunately I had Sriram Vijayaraghavan as a partner in crime. He was equally crazy about Carnatic music. Our musical tastes were in sync. – rather we influenced each other heavily. Coincidentally, both our homes had an Aiwa double deck music system. We must have dubbed several hundred tapes in a span of five years. His budget was short stringed as well. So, every purchase of an album had to debated upon and planned upfront. Hindustani Albums used to frustrate us endlessly – for they were almost always double the cost of Carnatic tapes.

I don’t how, but Sriram struck gold one day by discovering Muthu musicals in RK Mutt road. They had so many Mandolin Shrinivas album releases from the eighties that were not available in the then popular outlets such as Music World and Landmark. The bonus was the tapes were also from the old stock – with the inlay card displaying the price from the pre-1990 days. We somehow pooled in a little over 200 bucks and purchased 7 or 8 tapes in a single day. I think that would count as a single largest purchase in terms of number of albums till date. When we headed back to Perambur in the 29C we felt as if we owned the world.

There is an album titled “Rama Sreerama” by Shrinivas. For some reason, the album was priced 125 bucks. After earning my first pay check as a teaching assistant at the University in the US, the first thing I did was ordering this Album in an online store.

By the way, buying an album was the last resort. We would meticulously explore every possibility of someone in our circle owning that tape. If we were successful, we had to only make a copy of the album. That was only one third the cost. We would also try to lure someone whom we knew was into carnatic music to buy the album so that we could manage to get a copy.

One time Sriram even managed to convince the priest of the temple he used to visit regularly to buy an album that we wanted and made a copy for ourselves. I vividly remember that album had a beautiful Sahana with ‘Giripai’ as main rendered in the Mandolin with Kanyakumari on the violin. Often our scapegoat was Sriram’s cousin (and my classmate in school) Srivatsan. With some coaxing it almost always worked with Vatsan.

My parents liked Sriram a lot. So, I would demand for an extra allowance to buy him a birthday gift. It was granted without any questions. Sriram did the same with his parents for my birthday. Those special allowances were saved for expensive Hindustani albums or carnatic albums of international fame artists (again expensive) such as L.Subramaniam or L.Shankar.

Occasionally, my dad would realize that we had a 3CD changer music system (that was a big deal then) and we hardly had any CDs. He would entrust me the job of buying CDs. I would invariably buy T-Series released CDs and report an inflated cost and silently use the remaining amount on tapes.

In the year 2001, BMG Crescendo released four tapes titled “Classical Encounters” – all four recordings were from live concerts. As I mentioned earlier, we never knew Live concert recordings existed in private. Most commercial albums were studio recordings. Live recordings available commercially were very rare. We were desperate to buy them – but there was a problem. Each tape cost 75 bucks. 300 bucks was well beyond our reach.

We had faced some bad experience when we had spotted some live concert recordings of Shashank that we postponed buying and were never able to locate again. The thought of such occurrence with Shrinivas tapes was giving us nightmares. After much thought, we decided to use our trusted trump card one more time. We convinced Srivatsan to buy these albums. He had agreed to buy all four tapes. Sriram went along for the purchase.

It was only during the purchase Sriram noted an interesting detail. Vol 2 and Vol 4 were both showing the same content. They both were having a Ragam Tanam Pallavi in the same raga – Kambhoji. It was ridiculous to spend an extra seventy five bucks on a recording that had the same raga on two recordings. Sriram did the prudent thing. He bought Vol 2 and let go of the Vol 4.

We had made copies of the three tapes and were listening to the tapes happiy. In fact, the first time I heard the raga Sucharithra was in these recordings. I would later go on to name my daughter Sucharithra thanks to the impact that rendition caused. Ideally, I should have been happy. Buy what started as a insignificant irking about not possessing an album of our hero, started to grow bigger and bigger every day. I was close to buying that missing tape several times but managed to pull myself out of that temptation at the last moment.

Months passed by and after discussions with Sriram, we were ready to buy the next set of albums. Sriram couldn’t join me to Landmark that day. I was supposed to buy three tapes that day. One of those albums was out of stock. While it would take just a few minutes to finish the purchase, usually our visits to Landmark would last for well over an hour. We would go over the collection in every section and make a mental note for future purchases.

While I was doing my usual browsing, I ran into Vol 4 of Classical Encounters. I was caught between satiating my obsession and having to face Sriram for making the purchase. I was sure, he would take me to task if I bought the tape. I took the tape all the way to the billing counter and then went back to place it back fearing consequences. Eventually, the temptation got the better of me. I bought the tape and took the bus to Sriram’s place.

As expected, he was totally mad at me when he saw what I did. I silently let him have a go at me. I didn’t even feel like taking the tape along with me. Next day morning, our landline phone was ringing. It was Sriram on the line. He was hysterical. He was trying to speak but his laughing wouldn’t allow him to speak. I could imagine how his face would turn red and how his eyes would well up when he laughed uncontrollably.

He gathered himself and said, “Super news da! The tape that you bought did not have a rendition of Kambhoji”

“What?”

“Want to take a guess?”

I was in no mood for guessing games. I urged him to tell me the contents of the tape.

It was an RTP in Charukesi.

Within the next half an hour I was at his place to listen to the tape. The rendition was out of the world. As if the elaborate soul stirring RTP was not enough, Shrinivas has played a brilliant ragamalika swaras in Ranjani, Bahudari and Shubapantuvarali. The Shubapantuvarali swaras are particularly long – we almost forgot that the raga that was elaborated was Charukesi. The theermanam ending with a series of ‘kitathakatharikiadhom’ patterns rendered at unimaginable speed and precision cannot be described in words. We must have rewound and heard that portion at least a dozen times that day.

I used to tease Sriram for a long time asking him, what a miss it would have been if I had made a prudent choice like him.
Very soon, I had to go to the US. We couldn’t co-own tapes anymore. It was decided that the person who gets to keep the original tape cannot have the inlay card. I got the inlay card of the tape.

Sriram had neatly scratched the Kambhoji with a black marker and written Charukesi on the inlay card. That looked like the most beautiful handwriting ever to my eyes.

P.S: I could manage to find the faulty inlay card in an internet search!

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Album Reminiscences – 3 – Madurai Mani

Raja Govindarajan has tagged me in this FB chain game of choosing 10 albums. Here is the third one.

Today I’m a Madurai Mani fanatic. In fact, one of my lifetime goals is to write a biography on Madurai Mani. I spend at least a few hours in a week discussing one rendition or the other of Ganakaldharar with my friendVishnuramprasad Vasudevan.

But it might surprise you if I said it took me several years to warm up to this great musician.

The album I share today is a LP gramophone recording from the 1960s with Vidwans T.N.Krishnan and Vellore Ramabadran. The reason I share this is because this was my first brush with MMI.

It was in 1997 and my neighbor had this tape and I cannot remember what I felt when I listened to it. It still beats me why I didn’t get completely floored when I heard this for the first time. I didn’t even bother to give this a second time listening then. I just moved on and eventually found GNB’s music.

I was completely floored by GNB’s music and the personality I imagined myself through various stories I came to know off. I went to US for my Masters Degree in 2001. I didn’t have to go to browsing centers, sharing a thirty minutes slot with two other friends just to check my emails. Nor did I have to compose emails on notepad and patiently wait for the dialup modem to make all kinds of noise and manage to send the email after three failed attempts.

I became a net addict quite fast. Internet forums and yahoogroups introduced me to several wonderful people.

In fact, Raja – who has tagged me to do this series – is a friend I met online then.

There was an e-group called cmxchange. While MP3s had come into vogue, much of carnatic music collection were still dealt in tapes. Collectors usually were discreet. Anytime, you manage to get a concert recording from a collector, you were told a hundred times not share it with anyone. These days, people often reach out to me for my collection. When I ask them, what exactly they are looking for, many times I hear them say, “Dump whatever you have in a Hard Drive”. The digitization has no doubt made life easy. But, it has, to some extent, devalued the music as well. When we dealt in tapes, we actually listened to the collections. Today I know of a few who flaunt that they have 200 concerts of MDR alone. I wonder if they will finish listening to 10% of that in their lifetime.

OK! Enough digression! Let me come back to track.
In the cmxchange group, I found Lakshmi Subramanian. He did the unthinkable!

He had not only collected hundreds of concerts over the years and documented them meticulously into excel sheets but also he had shared those in excel sheets in public as well. Perhaps, he was too frustrated scouting for the concerts that he didn’t have and their existence was maintained as a guarded secret. He opened up his collection in the exchange forum. I was thrilled for several days just looking at the endless lists of GNB concerts. I probably had 4 or 5 full length concerts of GNB then. I somehow wanted to possess the entire GNB collection of Lakshmi Subramaniam.

But there were two problems.
1. It was a exchange forum. I didn’t have anything that I could offer Lakshmi in return for the GNB concerts I wanted.
2. His collection was in tapes. That meant, even if he agreed to give me his entire GNB collection, he will have to record them on 100+ tapes. Then there was TNR, Karaikuruchi, MLV and others. I wanted their concerts as well! How on earth someone will agree to copy that many tapes and ship them?

I was waiting for an opportunity to contact Lakshmi. Vid. N.Ramani had visited our university for a performance and I managed to get a recording for that concert. I wrote to him offering him the concert recording and was hoping that he would be interested in it. He politely refused my offer but said he was happy to share from his collection. He was ready to take ten requests at a time. We started exchanging mails and quickly moved onto phone conversations. We struck a chord from day 1 and I was mostly learning from him during the long hours of conversations. He would play great pieces from his collection on the phone and I would enjoy listening to them for hours. He was ready to take ten concert requests at a time. By then, I had known other collectors in who dealt in MP3s. For some reason, many of these collectors didn’t want to deal with Lakshmi directly but were interested in specific concerts from his collections. I quickly increased my collection by getting there digitized collection in return for the concerts they wanted from Lakshmi. Lakshmi was aware of this and was keen to help me build my collection.

I must add here that Lakshmi is a Madurai Mani fanatic. He would give an arm and an eye for an MMI concert that he didn’t already possess. I was mostly “putting up” with his raving for MMI during the conversation but never actually asked him to give me a concert of MMI from his collection. Every time I sent him a request he would offer me a MMI concert and I would find a reason to turn it down. It used to frustrate him but he put up with that for a few times. After all these years, I now realize that was big concession he gave me. When it came to MMI, even the slightest of offenses would have resulted in parting ways for good with Lakshmi. For some reason, he not only put up with me but also kept on offering MMi concerts.

One day, he snapped but to my surprise he said, “you know what! I’m anyway going to send you a MMI concert over and above what you ask for this time” and said he was going to send me a radio concert with Chowdiah and Palani as accompaniments. He also mentioned that there was an out of the world rendition of ‘manasu nilpa’ in abhogi in the concert and a fabulous ‘Endukku Peddala’ to boot. I immediately started to refuse. To me, any song rendered by GNB was not worth listening to when sung by anyone else. After listening to those cascading sangatis of GNB with Lalgudi and Pazhani and those lovely swarakshara poruttams at ‘Ma Dha Manasu Nilpa’, I was definitely not open to listening to anyone else singing that song. I tried to push back. But, this was an extra tape that we sending me. i could only push him so much.
The tape arrived and I reluctantly listened to it – only to tell Lakshmi that I heard it and close the chapter. That was the day I became a MMI convert. I have never heard anything like that before. Every swara lilting with beauty. I was hating myself to admit that this rendition was becoming my favorite rendition even before I was done listening to it for the first time. The famous sarva laghu swaras finally captivated me!

By the time I visited him in Tampa – I was mad about MMI’s music. A long ride when we listened to MMI singing nereval in “ethanaiyo piravi” with Palani on the mridangam is an experience I will cherish for the lifetime.

I went back to the gramophone record much later and this time it was total bliss. Be it a six minute 78 rpm, 30 mins EP or a 4 hour concert, one element that strikes you in MMI’s rendition is him hitting the strides right from the word go!

In life, many beautiful things loose sheen over time. We get used to them and finally forget their existence. We need a fresh perspective to go back and appreciate them.

Life would be blissful if one could recreate the first time like experience every time. MMI was able to convey that ‘freedom from the known’ through his renditions. It could be the zillionth Kamboji he was rendering, he was able to approach it with the freshness of the first time.

By the time, this record was released, MMI must have sung those songs for thousands of times – yet he is able to weave his magic and give us an ecstatic experience.

Thank you Lakshmi for your patience in converting me. I’ll be indebted to you for life just for this!

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தொலைந்தது மீண்டது

வலைப்பூக்களுக்கு நான் ஒரு late entrant.. 2003-லிருந்து 2005 வரை நிறைய கட்டுரைகளை (பெரும்பாலும் இசை விமர்சனங்கள்) தெரிந்த சில நண்பர்களுக்கு மட்டும் மின்னஞ்சலில் அனுப்பி வைத்துக் கொண்டிருந்தேன். அப்படி அனுப்பிய மின்னஞ்சல்களில் ஒன்று கூட கைவசம் இல்லை.

அப்படி அனுப்பிய ஒரு மடலை பிரகாஷ் அவர் வலைப்பூவில் போட்டார். (இங்கு படிக்கலாம்).

15-20 கட்டுரைகள் காணாமல் போனதே என்றெண்ணி அவ்வப்போது வருந்துவதுண்டு. யாருக்கும் பெரிய இழப்பில்லை எனினும், அந்த கட்டுரைகளைத் திருபிப் பார்க்கும் பொது, நினைவில் நிற்கும் அக் கச்சேரிகளை மீண்டும் ஒருமுறை கேட்பது போன்ற உணர்வு எனக்கு ஏற்படுமே, அந்த அனுபவத்தை இழந்துவிட்டோமே என்று நினைத்துக் கொள்வேன்.

நேற்று, a blast from the past, அன்பது போல, 2003-ல் நான் எழுதிய மின்னஞ்சல் ஒன்று கிடைத்தது. மீண்டும் தொலையாமல் இருக்க, இங்கு போட்டு வைக்கிறேன்.

Dear Lakshmi,

Hope everything is fine at your end. I’m having some free time today, thought I would write about the TNK concert I attended.

It was on 27th dec. 2003 @ Nada Inbam, Raga Sudha hall.

It was heartening to see a full house for a TNK concert (which unfortunately is a rarity these days). Violinist Shriramkumar and vocalist Chengalpet Ranganathan were also among the fortunate few to have listened to this amazing concert.

Concert started with the begada varnam rendered in 2 speeds. I was expecting “entharO” to follow. But, TNK played “Nadha thanumanisham” in his own bhava-laden style. He surprised me with several rounds of brisk kalpana swarams.

Duo-concerts become a problem when one of the 2 artistes is of a higher calibre. Viji might be a good violinist, but when playing with TNK, esp. during the kalpana-swarams, one gets a ‘sine curve’ feeling.

Although I had told u in my earlier mail that the kalyaNi aalapanai I heard that day was easily one of the best ever, for me the highlight of the concert was the 2-min. raga sketch of saramathy. I’m sure it would have melted the hardest of the hearts. Just a few strokes brilliantly brought out the pathos feel of saramathy. After the aalapanai I thought there was nothing left in that raagam to be explored. Such was the ‘niRaivu’. The best thing about TNK is his krithi rendition. I would be stating the obvious if I say that the “mokshamu galadha” was rich in emotional content. (TNK was in such a form that I dint even feel like opening my eyes to ‘sight-adichufy’ a ‘sooper-figure’ sitting beside me;-)

Without wasting anytime, he started playing kalyaNi. When I think about that aalapanai, I could imagine a beautiful painting unfolding in front of my eyes. If you imagine TNK as a painter and raga kalyani as the painting, he drew a few sketches here and there on the canvas(his violin) outlining the length and breadth (scope) of the painting(raga). Then he started painting (playing) the details with finnesse and precision. His fingers were weaving several beautiful patterns soaked with a very very pleasant bhavam. One could really feel the first few lines grow into a amazingly colourful, highly imaginative, captivating painting. (huh! I’m running out of adjectives.)

After the kalyani aalapnai, Chengalpet Ranganathan rose from his seat and made a statement from the bottom of his heart. “ithuthaan uNmaiyaana kalyaaNi, intha maathiri kEttu romba varusham aachu.” TNK seemed to be extremely happy after the aalapanai as he won several rounds of applause from the audience.

He dedicated all the applause to his guru semmangudi. He also recollected his initial days when he played kalyani with a flat nishadam. “oru thadavai appadi vaasichapOthu avar mugham suLichathai paarthen, aprum flat-aa vaasikkavE illai, as far as kalyaNi is concerned upper-sa is the nishadam and the madhyamam should be almost near panchamam”

He also demonstrated the kalyaNi “ni” with a flat note and with the gamakam.

He followed the aalapanai with “birana brova” and when he started the kriti almost everone in the hall let out a cry -recollecting the epic rendition of this krithi by semmangudi. Guruvayur Dorai’s accompaniement during the swarams was enjoyable.  Especially his anticipation requires a special mention.

When the kriti and the kalpana-swarams were over, I couldn’t believe that TNK had played kalyani only for about 32 mins. I was left wondering how he managed to fit in so much in such a short time.

Saveri is another bhava-laden raagam. I need not say it would only be a treat if someone like TNK plays it. He took it for elobarating as an RTP. Thanam is a wonderful part of our music, which unfortunately most people do for the sake of doing it. The semi-rythmic syllables are such a pleasure to listen. I was a little disappoined when TNK after a few short-rounds of thanam started to play the pallavi.

When he started the pallavi, it reminded me a lot of the ARI’s saveri pallavi which we were debating on. However, when I went asked the sahithyam for the pallavi after the concert, he said it was “kari mora vina ledhaa hare krishna”, which I dont think is the pallvi line of the ARI concert. The pallavi neraval was pretty elaborate and he did tri-kaalam on it. He played several rounds of swarams at the slower speed and I would pick that as the best part of the RTP. After playing swarams at the faster speed, he played ragamalika swarams in sahana, poorvi kalyani and sree.

After the RTP, the percussionists got a chance to prove their prowess in the thani-aavarthanam. Guruvayur Dorai and Vaikom Gopalakrishnan were very enthusiastic in playing the 2-kaLai aadhi thani. After several aavarathanam in chatrusra nadai, the duo played a few aavarthanams in tisra-nadai. The kuraippu was delectable, especially when Guruvayur Durai played several aavarthanam pre-dominantly with his left hand. His subtle variations on the ‘thoppi-side’ of the mridangam was extremely good.

After the thani, SVK started to speak and he was showering TNK with accolades. Although, TNK deserved that and much more, I felt irritated listening to someone speak in the middle of a great concert. The only good thing he did was requesting TNK to play raagams like “kaapi, yadhukula kambhoji” etc. Which, TNK promptly obliged a played a garland of raga-sketches on ragas kapi, mohanam, thodi (in thodi he made 1 stroke with his bow and said”oru stroke-la raagam vanthudanum, raagam enga-nu thEdindu irukkak koodaathu”), Neelambari, Atana and behag.

When he played the mangalam, I’m sure all the hearts in that room would have been filled with extreme happinness.

regards,
Ram.

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Welcome Back Schumi

தமிழ்ப் பதிவுலகில் ஃபார்முலா-1 பற்றி யாரேனும் எழுதுகிறார்களா என்று தெரியவில்லை. சிறு வயது முதலே ஃபார்முலா-1 ரேசிங் மேல் நிறைய ஈடுபாடு எனக்குண்டு.

ஸ்டார் டிவி வகையறாக்களின் வருகைக்கு முன், டிடி-யில் வரும் ‘world of sports’-ம் வாரா வாரம் மலரும் sportstar இதழுமே ஃபார்முலா-1 நிகழ்வுகளைத் தெரியப்படுத்தின. Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost மூவரும்தான் அப்போதைய சூப்பர் ஸ்டார்கள். அதிலும் ப்ராஸ்டும், சென்னாவும் ஒரே டீமுக்கு ஓட்டிய போதும், ஒருவரை ஒருவர் மிஞ்ச போட்ட போட்டியைப் பற்றி படிப்பது கூட பயங்கர திரில்லிங்காக இருந்தது.

Pit Stop Strategy, Engine Cooling, Tyre maintenence என்று எதுவுமே தெரியாத போதும், சும்மா சுற்றி சுற்றி வருவதையே வேடிக்கை பார்ப்பதில் ஏன் விருப்பம் ஏற்பட்டது என்று இன்று வரை புரியவில்லை. பள்ளி லைப்ரரியில் நிறைய படம் போட்ட ஃபார்முலா-1 என்சைக்ளோபீடியா ஒன்று இருந்தது. கருப்பு வெள்ளையும், கலருமாய் பல படங்கள் அடங்கிய புத்தகத்தை வாய்ப்பு கிடைக்கும் போதெல்லாம் புரட்டுவேன்.

பின்னாளில் மெக்கானிக்கல் எஞ்சினியரிங் எடுத்த போது, கேபிள் டிவி-யில் ஃபார்முலா-1 லைவ் ரிலே தொடங்கிவிட்டது. நிறைய ஃபார்முலா-1 பார்க்கும் நண்பர்களும் செட்டு சேர்ந்தனர். ரெண்டு கட்சிதான். 1. ஷூமாக்கர் கட்சி. 2. ஹாக்கினன் கட்சி. 2-3 வருடங்களுக்கு எக்கெச் செக்க nail-biting races பார்த்தோம். IC Engines, Automobile Engineering போன்ற பாடங்கள் படித்த போது, ஃபார்முலா-1 ரசனையும் வளர்ந்தது. கிட்டத்தட்ட 11 வருடங்களாய் பெரும்பான்மையான போட்டிகளை தொடர்ந்து பார்த்து வருகிறேன். 2000-லிருந்து, 2004 வரை தொடர்ந்து ஐந்து சாம்பியன்ஷிப்-களை ஷுமாக்கர் வென்ற போது, அத்தனை போட்டியையும் பார்த்தேன்! 2006 சீஸன் முடிவில் ஷூமாக்கர் ஓய்வு பெற்றார்.

டென்னிஸில் பெக்கர் ஓய்வு பெற்றதும், அடுத்து ஒரு ஃபெடரர் வரும் வரை டென்னிஸ் பார்ப்பதில் ஒரு தொய்வு ஏற்பட்டது. அதே போல, ஆதர்ச ஹீரோ ஷூமாக்கர் ரிடையர் ஆனதும் ஒரு தொய்வு ஏற்பட்டது. வருடா வருடம், ஃபார்முலா-1 பார்க்கும் ஆர்வம் குறைந்து கொண்டே வந்தது. சென்ற வருடம், Felippe Massa-வுக்கு விபத்து ஏற்பட்ட போது ஷுமாக்கர் மீண்டும் போட்டியிடுவார் என்று அறிவிக்கப் பட்ட போது மீண்டும் ஃபார்முலா-1 பார்க்க நினைத்தேன். துரதிர்ஷ்ட வசமாக ஷுமாக்கர் போன வருடம் போட்டிக்கு வரவே இல்லை.

யாருமே எதிர்பாரா வண்ணம், இந்த வருடம் Mercedes GP-ன் டிரைவராக ஷுமாக்கர் அறிவிக்கப்பட்டார். ஃபெராரி-யில் ஷுமாக்கர் ஜாலம் புரிந்த போது, டெக்னிக்கல் டைரக்டராக இருந்தவர் ராஸ் ப்ரான். அவரே தொடங்கிய Brawn GP-தான் போன வருட பட்டத்தை வென்றது. இந்த வருடம், Brawn GP-ன் Stakes-ஐ வாங்கியுள்ள Mercedes, அவர்கள் பெயரிலேயே ஒரு டீமை உருவாக்கியுள்ளனர். (Mclaren-ம், Force India-வும் கூட Mercedez Engine-ல்தான் ஓடுகின்றன.)

3 வருடங்களுக்குப் பின் ஓட்ட வர்உம் ஷுமாக்கரால் பழையபடி ஜெயிக்க முடியுமா?

நேற்றுதான் சாம்பின்ஷிப் தொடங்கியது. முதல் ரேஸான பெஹரின் கிராண்ட் பிரி-யில் Ferrari முதல் இரண்டு இடங்களையும் பிடித்தது. Red Bull-ன் Sebastial Vettel ஜெயிப்பார் என்று நினைத்திருந்த போது, அவர் காரில் ஏற்பட்ட கோளாரால், அவரால் நான்காவது இடத்தையே பெற முடிந்தது. ஷுமாக்கர் ஆறாவது இடத்தில் வந்தார். முடிவிற்குக் காரணம் கார்தான் என்று பழியைப் போட முடியாது. ஏனெனில் அதே காரை வைத்து ஓட்டிய மற்றொரு டிரைவர் கூட ஷுமாக்கருக்கு முன்னால் வந்திருக்கிறார்.

மூன்று வருடங்களுக்குப் பின் ஓட்டிய ஷுமாக்கர் சற்று rusty-ஆக இருக்கக் கூடும்.

In any case, I’m glad that the Charisma is back in Racing.

வருடம் முழுவதும் தொடர்ந்து நடக்கும் race பற்றியும், ஃபார்முலா-1-ன் நுணுக்கங்கள் பற்றியும் எழுதலாம் என்றொரு எண்ணம். பிழைத்துக் கிடந்தால் பார்ப்போம்!

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