I was once very taken aback when I heard someone commenting that violin should not be counted as an Indian instrument because it is something from the West. I wonder how many people actually think the same way, and do they realise that in Carnatic music, the violin - adapted by Muthuswamy Dikshitar's brother Baluswamy two centuries ago - is tuned differently and played vertically rather than horizontally like the western violin. It is supported between the musician's ankle and shoulder blade instead of held with a shoulder rest at the musician's neck, so as to free the hand for sliding movements, to add 'gamaka' to the notes. One who rejects the Indian violin as part of our musical heritage is either a foolhardy cultural fundamentalist or someone trying hard to please a western tourist's curiosity for an 'untouched' world of 'exotic' Indian culture. Do you know that one of the musical instruments used in Chinese music is actually a kind of santoor? It has been in use in China for a few hundred years, got there somehow from Persia and was renamed as yangqing, and nobody now would ever think of it as a foreign instrument. And do you know that much of the drums and percussion in western orchestra and so-called western jazz and rock music today actually originated from Turkish military bands? The bass drum, cymbals, triangle, kettle drums. Even today Zildjian (a name from Turkey) remains a famous brand for cymbals.

The way to protect a heritage is not to imagine how things were like 1,000 years ago and deny whatever happened after that. Dr L. Subramaniam not only knows Carnatic music but also has a master's degree in western classical music. Ravi Shankar would not have become so famous if he never collaborated with western musicians. This is not to say that you have to give everything a disco beat or a western orchestration just so you can call it a contemporary work. But to say that we should only do things as what our gurus taught us is to fall into a trap that the western perception has set up for us: you must either be 'purely' traditional, or the minute you touch fast food you are getting westernised, there is no middle way, whereas a Westerner can eat Indian food today and have Chinese takeaway tomorrow and still remain a Westerner. By all means, let those musicians who want to experiment just do it, as long as they don't forget how to do a traditional concert. Time will tell if those experiments prove memorable. Ravi Shankar has written a couple of sitar concertos based on the western orchestra, using not just a different raga for a different movement but also several ragas within the same movement. That is something interesting that deserves a page in history, although the symphonic format is not something that will be popular among Indian listeners in the foreseeable future. In a western symphony or concerto, the habit is to sandwich a slow movement of adagio or whatever between fast movements of allegro and so on. In Indian music, however, one simply goes from very slow to very fast, from alap to jhala in Hindustani music, or ragam-tanam-pallavi in Carnatic music. It is a habit just like a fixed sequence in one's meal from rasam, sambar, moru to paisam. You can eat with fork and spoon if you like, but basic things like one's taste, that doesn't change.

In Hindustani music, one is very particular about the time of the day in which a raga is performed, whereas in Carnatic music, there is generally no such restrictions. However, I just learnt that certain Carnatic ragas are also said to be suited for particular times of the day, for example Bauli is for the morning, Bilahari after the sun rises and so on. There are also ragas like Kambhoji and Arabhi that were classified traditionally as Sarvakalika ragas, meaning they can be sung at all times. I was surprised initially when I knew that about Bauli, because my first impression was that it's something nice to listen to deep in the night. But they say it's best performed just before the sun rises, I guess that is also quite close . I don't know many songs in Bauli actually, the main thing is Sreeman Narayana by Annamacharya. He was a composer from the 15th century, who lived half a century earlier than the man known as father of Carnatic music, Purandaradasa. That makes the song about 500 years old.

What really amazes me now is to read that the raga Bauli apparently existed already about 2000 years ago. It was mentioned in the 2nd-century Tamil epic Silappadikaram as the pan Nodiram, 'pan' being the Tamil word for raga then. In one passage of Silappadikaram, the bees are said to be humming the pan Nodiram melodiously at daybreak. So Bauli as a morning raga is really a long tradition! By the way, Silappadikaram also contains plenty of other information on music, for example on how to play the instrument called yazh which predates what we identify as the veena today. It also gives the names of the seven swaras in ancient Tamil music, in other words the Tamil words which correspond to our Sa Re Ga Ma today which are taken from Sanskrit. Incidentally, the animals associated with the seven swaras in the past were also different from what music teachers now teach - the shrill of the peacock being Sa, bellowing of cow being Re and so on, that is just from the Sanskrit tradition. Well this is not to talk as if one should replace all the Sanskrit words with Tamil now like people replacing Sanskrit prayers with Tamil, all that stuff about Brahmins using Sanskrit to dominate and so on. Culture is something that keeps evolving, there is no need to revise things to inconvenience oneself. But history is something that is always interesting to know.

Life is short. I'm always reminded of that whenever the tune of Kal Ho Naa Ho is ringing in my head. For life is as unpredictable as the weather and you never know what tomorrow may hold, so you have to seize the day and make the best of what you have. I can't help dwelling on this point again and again during the last few weeks of the World Cup. Just think about it, even if you are a football star of worldwide fame, how many times in your life can you enjoy the World Cup action? Three times maybe? And then you have to head for retirement. You may well be the top scorer 8 years ago but this time it may already be your last appearance; you may have arrived on the scene with a bang back then but this time you may well be leaving the stadium quietly with only a shadow of that former glory. That's why I will always tell anyone, if you really believe in something, just go for it, whether you want to be a scientist or an artist, a dancer or an adventurer. Not everyone will go all the way to the top in life, but at least you give it a shot. If you keep thinking you must earn enough first to buy a decent house and a decent car and so on, you can't afford to choose a job according to your interests, or you can't even afford free time to pursue your hobbies, before you know it you will be too old for anything, for the body tends to decay and the brain tends to go slow.

Vivekananda once said: "You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through a study of the Gita." He liked to preach the importance of strength over religious theories, for it is weakness that leads to sin, fear that leads to selfishness. "Stand up, be bold, be strong," he said. "Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny." The problem with our world today is just like the problem with the World Cup now - the players have too much fear for losing. That's why they resort to tactics like diving and they relish seeing their opponents get the red card, instead of concentrating on playing a beautiful game. Why don't people try to rise like heroes instead of cowering as cowards? Life is short, you don't get much extra time. When it's the time to work, work; when it's the time to disco, disco! What is there to be afraid of?

There was a time, when Tamil film songs were more interesting to me than Carnatic music, especially when A.R. Rahman was the rage of the day for making Indian songs sound as contemporary as western pop. One of the turning points for me was probably the song Alaipayuthey. I was rather intrigued when told it's a classical piece. Still, at first I was simply thinking, yes the tune sounds nice, and yes I can tell it's a classical piece with the drone and the bells in the background, but so what? Then the tune just grew and grew on me, and I began to feel how the melody just winds and turns, rises and falls, coming at you like one wave after another. It's like you can listen to all that nu-metal and surf rock stuff but it won't take you on a rollercoaster ride like this music. Never mind the techno and drum and bass stuff that just sounds monotonous and sterile after a while. I was then convinced, if there's one thing that A.R. Rahman did right here, it's that he did a very simple arrangement, basically just a driving beat like a remix that stays faithful to the original otherwise. Why add on unnecessarily when something is already so great?

It was more recently that I actually learnt about the composer of the song, Oothukkadu Venkatasubbaiyer, who lived through the first half of the 18th century, predating the Trinity of Carnatic music. I had found by chance a recording by Sudha Ragunathan of Oothukkadu songs. Apart from Alaipaayuthe Kannaa in Kanada raga, the most famous song there is Thaaye Yasodha in Thodi raga, in which the gopis tell Krishna's mother Yasodha of his michievous tricks. Both songs are well-known in the Bharata Natyam repertoire. Krishna is said to be Oothukkadu's chosen deity and source of inspiration. Despite being a prolific composer, Oothukkadu was some kind of recluse, he signed off his name in the lyrics only in few works.

There remains a lot in the works of Othukkadu that I have to discover and learn to appreciate. But I suppose Alaipaayuthe will always occupy a special space in my heart. It's a song that I can listen to and hum to at all times, whether I'm feeling happy or sad, or simply confused. Alaipaayuthe... en manam alaipaayuthe...