March 7 - Rotary Club of Madras East

7 March 2012
Thought for the Week
A Musical Marriage
YOU are Great if you can find your faults,
Greater if you can correct your faults, but
Greatest if you accept others with their fault
Meeting was brought to order by President Rtn Udayakumar after Rtn Venkatadri
sergeant in arms gave the ribbon to him.
Secretary Rtn Murugavel Selvan was present along with the president. Chief guests
Ms Ujjaini and Edward De Genero were called on stage.
Rtn Rakesh read out the birthdays for the month of February.
Birthdays
Mar 3 Annette Nitya
D/o Rtn. K.Rajendran
President Elect Dr.Uma then gave a brief account of the PETS training in Singapore.
She also spoke about the ambitious school project in Pallikaranai. A govt school
with no benches, roofs and toilets for the students will be renovated and built using
rotary grants.
Mar 5 Annette Anuj
S/o Rtn. P.Ramaswamy
Rtn.V.A. Ramesh made an appeal about funding for a photo journalist to travel and
attend the Wisden prize giving ceremony in London.
Mar 6 Ann Uma Natarajan
W/o Rtn.K.S.Natarajan
Rtn Sreen Raghavan introduced Ms.Ujjaini and Mr.Edward Degenero.
Mar 1 Rtn. V.S.Mohan
Edward started off about how they got to know about each other. He was initially
reluctant to mix work and relationship however Ujjaini prevailed. That has then
Wedding Anniversaries
Mar 5 Rtn Rakesh Chand & Ann Punitha
Mar 7 Rtn.Rakesh Chand &
Sunitha Kumari
Next Meeting
14 March 2012
Governors Visit
Time: 6:00 pm
Venue: Park Sheraton
RCME: Board 2011–2012
President: Rtn. N S Udayakumar
Immediate Past President: Rtn. K Rajendran
Vice President: Rtn. N Sudhakar
President Elect: Rtn. Uma Maheswari
Secretary: Rtn. Murugavel Selvan
Treasurer: Rtn. Rakesh Chand
Asst Secretary: Rtn. Ravi Venkataramani
Director - Club Administration: Rtn. T Siva Subramanian
Director Public Relations: Rtn. Balaji Srinivasan
Director - Membership: Rtn. M Srinivas Rao
Director - Service Projects: Rtn. T R Gopalakrishnan
Director - The Rotary Foundation: Rtn. R M Narayanan
Director New Generation: Rtn. Babu Krishnamoorthy
Sergeant-at-Arms: Rtn. P L Chidambaram
taken them on a journey to where they are now trying to
release a fusion album together. Edward was taken back initially by the cultural differences. Ujjaini was a perfectionist
to the core due to her classical training in Hindustani and
Carnatic music, whereas he was a poster boy for ADD (attention deficit disorder) and would accept any Indian sounding
music to be added even without proper tuning. He was a typical western ‘happy go lucky ‘guy and would wait for a happy
accident to happen and create music, whereas Ujjaini wanted
to visualize the picture completely in her brain before even
A question answers session from Rotarians continued, Edward
had classical western training till the age of 15. His father himself was a strict disciplinarian and classical musician. Ujjaini
was a corporate high flyer who came to Chennai in search of
music opportunities in Kollywood. It was interesting to note
the contrasts between the west and east, where the teachers
starting the painting, the same for music as well. They talked
about the 72 melakartas and Edward’s interpretation using his
strength in numbers and a mathematical way of approaching
the ragas. Edwards was surprised that these ragas were made
with computer like precision even few thousand years ago.
encourage the students to ask questions and to even question
the teachers if the need arises. However in the Indian system,
it would be seen as arrogant to question the teacher. Edward
has found it difficult to teach our Indian students for the same
reasons. “Give me roomful of arrogant students” he said.
Past president Rtn Gurumukh gave away the mementos.
Our secretary made announcements about the next meet.
“Greatness of Ayurveda” by Ms Sheela Rani Chungath IAS
next week.
Ujjaini was requested to sing, she obliged by singing an AR
Rahman hit number from Azhagiya Tamizh Magan – nee
­Marilyn Monroe cloningaa. She swiftly changed to a Bengali
folk number with Edward accompanying in guitar.
Next week there is club assembly and governors meet in VHS
and later in park Sheraton.
Rtn Babu Krishnamoorthy gave the vote of thanks.
Rtn. Dr. S Thiagarajamurthy
Volume 27 Issue 29 Page 2
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