SPIC MACAY - The EYE

The logo of SPIC MACAY is the EYE. The logo is a eye not in the regular sense but an eye drawn vertical. It represents the third eye of Shiva, the Hindu God. It is said that Lord Shiva used his 3rd eye when he was disturbed while he was doing penance, and when he did open his 3rd eye it caused a great deal of destruction and had immense power. The 3rd eye of Lord Shiva is generally depicted as being closed. This again signifies that the inner eye has immense power and that one most utilise and harness the immense potential inside to seek the divine and a deep sense of satisfaction.
To me it personally means that the greatness of our musical heritage and culture, we can awaken this inner or 3rd eye of ours and thus release an infinite amount of potential within us and also sense a sensation like never before. Through the interaction with artists of great calibre and repute, it makes us humble human beings constantly reminding us that we are a small drop in such a huge ocean of natures creation. But then again we must not forget that

"Its only a congregation of small drops which makes up a huge ocean"

SPIC MACAY

SPIC MACAY, Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth, is a youth organization started by the visionary Dr. Kiran Seth, professor at the mechanical engineering department at IIT Delhi. The organisation, since its inception in 1977, has been motivating and trying all it can to uphold and carry forward Indian classical music and art forms into the new century. Their activities mainly involve arranging of concerts, not of an ordinary kind, but rather the students and the youth of the country as their main target audiences. Its no wonder then that most of the concerts encourage interaction between the student audience and the artist to develop a taste and know more about Indian classical music and thus help in carrying forward the ancient torch of the great art forms.

The Title

My greetings to everyone reading, this has been a long time coming and now it is here! In this first post I'd like to mention a little about the title I have chosen for the blog. A lot of you may think this is too philosophical, religious or whatever may be the case but to me it holds a great place in my heart. During my recent visit to Nagaland as part of the national convention of SPIC MACAY, I was fortunate to be under the tutelage of the great Dhrupad maestro Us. Fahimuddin Dagar ji. He always used to tell us,

"ishwar nirakar hai, naad nirakar hai aur atma bhi nirakar hai. nirakar hi nirakar mey pravesh kar sakta hai".

meaning , the Almighty is formless, so is naad or music and so also is our soul. We can reach our inner-self or soul, wherein lies happiness with no bounds, only by means of a formless entity. Thus, the words Naad Bhrahm which translates to music being divine has a very deep meaning. These words when uttered in the right chord creates great calmness and also brings great satisfaction to ones mind, atleast mine.

This is just the beginning in series of writings I would like to post. I look forward to posting about my experiences with Dagar ji, the SPIC MACAY national convention at Kohima and so on and so forth about a few things I know in music that I want the world to know.