Can’t Cross the Road the Same Way Two Times

24Nov09

“India and Hungary are very close to each other”

Almost 900 film scores, 5000 film songs, countless discs — a dizzy amount of work stands behind IlaiyaRaaja. The most wanted composer of the Indian film industry is a relatively frequent guest in Hungary: as friend and as colleague, he is in touch with several Hungarian jazz musicians, from time to time he also resorts to the help of the Miskolc Symphony Orchestra. He has recently been to Budapest again.
Csider István Zoltán, Le Marietta| Népszabadság| 2009. november 18.

One tries to imagine Indian film composers very rarely, but still: we had imagined IlaiyaRaaja exactly like this. Bright eyes, friendly face and the obligatory glasses. He received amicably the journalists of Népszabadság in an elegant, stylish hotel room, after offering them a seat, he almost disappeared in a giant armchair. During the conversation there was a bleak smile on his face, even when we were asking him about his ex-disciple, the composer to the soundtrack of Slumdog Millionaire, A. R. Rahman and his success in Hollywood, or about Rahman at all. Smiling and correct, he refused to answer by saying everybody can do what he’d like to do, and well, it wouldn’t be elegant to talk about a fellow. “And anyway, would a Hungarian journalist talk about other Hungarian journalist colleagues?”, he asked, and it could be seen he was sure of getting a negative answer.

Right from this saw we that IlaiyaRaaja doesn’t know the Hungarian, to a bit extended level: the European press relations. Which is, however, a good thing.

The most productive composer of the Indian film industry came to Budapest to do the post-production of his newest film score which had been recorded in July with Miskolc Symphony Orchestra conducted by László Kovács, the mixing was done at the Hungarian Radio’s studio with the help of Dénes Rédly, sound engineer. But why had he chosen a Hungarian symphony orchestra for the records? The two countries are fairly far away from each other…

“India and Hungary are actually very close to each other, the national tricolors differ only in one tone of color,” he answered laughing, but then turned to talk seriously: he thinks Hungarian musicians can compete anytime with other countries’ artists. In his homeland there are no symphony orchestras at all. In Chennai where he lives, there are excellent musicians playing on strings, playing on wind instruments but they’re never organized to one orchestra: setting up this kind of ensembles has no tradition there.

When IlaiyaRaaja had been in Budapest around 2000, he had gotten to know Attila László jazz guitarist-composer. He had liked the compositions of László so much that he had asked him to work together. In August, this year the Hungarian composer traveled to Chennai with Béla Lattman, bassist and János Nagy, pianist to play for the recording of the Indian master’s 882nd  film score.

A series of coincidences had led IlaiyaRaaja to the profession of music, for that later his goal could be defined: once he would be music director. When he had stepped into the field of film-making, composing had had just a functional role in the Indian film industry, there had been far less spiritual content, and the variety of music had had much room for improvement, too. This probably had derived from the working method of composers, indeed from the relations among musicians. Raaja had found something important for him in Western music, he had started to play the guitar, the piano and the violin, and he had been the first to use Western instruments, indeed unknown genres in his compositions. Just to mention some examples, pop, jazz, rock and roll, bossa nova and flamenco had gained grounds on the Indian screen by his work. And it’s not an irrelevant feat of arms that he had been the first Asian artist to compose a symphony for the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Raaja said, in the beginning, if something hadn’t worked out as he had wanted it, he had become impatient with his musicians. Afterwards, by more and more spirituality moving into his compositions, this gradually had disappeared.

When asking him about the method of composing — by thinking that a work of life like his (more than 5000 film songs and almost 900 complete film scores are signed by his name) is a result of an effective method of composing — he answered: composing is not a question of will or ambition for him. It doesn’t need to be that.

Music is born mentally, in the soul, one doesn’t think about it too much. IlaiyaRaaja used a statuesque metaphor: when one’s crossing the street, he never pays attention to each step, but to the goal: to get from one side to the other. One can’t cross the road the same way two times.


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“He Would Have Already Sent Me To My Mother”

11Nov09

At my university we have a group of students in social sciences who are organizing panel discussions on the Hungarian transition in 1989 every Tuesday till December 8. I’ve been attending the events from the beginning and I have to admit that the one of today was the best so far. We had political researcher, political philosopher, constitutional law expert and historian among the panelists, and also a journalist as moderator.

After the discussion the audience (university students) could ask their questions, and a boy raised the issue of what would they say if our PM, Gordon Bajnai asked them what to do for the society to increase trust towards government and help poor people, for example. First, the panelists denied answering by saying if a PM asks something like that, then he should leave his post fast because a PM must have a conception on what to do. Finally László Lengyel, associate professor and political researcher, stated that actually Bajnai really had asked him a question like this a few weeks ago, and it’s sort of okay, since Bajnai is PM only for one year, for a temporary government. Lengyel declared it would be better to raise the question of what should we (university students) do. “If we were in 1989, Viktor Orbán would have already sent me to my mother in the fifth minute of the discussion.” he said.

By his words the Civil Society Forum came to my mind. There I attended a session with Jiři Pehe and Martin Bútora, both had been advisors to Václav Havel, and much to my astonishment Martin Bútora raised the same question when they were talking about the transitions in Central and Eastern Europe. He turned to the table where some of us from the younger generation were sitting and said: “Your parents did 1989, now it’s the time for you to do something.”

So, now it was the second time I heard from senior experts in politics that they are expecting “something” from the generation born around the transition. But what? In Hungary, for example, young people are not that concerned about politics, indeed they can’t be because they can’t even understand it. After high school, we’re starting the university without arriving to the transition in our History studies. Better teachers try to talk about it but it’s a sensitive topic, and so influenced by actual politics that if one doesn’t want confrontation with parents or other colleagues, then he just leaves this out from the syllabus. And if a pupil wants to know more, he has to learn it by himself, or at private classes, or at extra classes in the afternoon, so from somewhere else, but not from school. The latest historical event, where everyone is about to finish their Hungarian History studies is the Revolution of 1956. (Not that easy field either!)

I can’t imagine what are these people expecting from a generation which was not informed about what happened during the transition, and whose first thing to remember when it comes to politics is related to DuckTales. I also remember (I was 6 years old then) the day when the public TV interrupted its Disney show at 17:20, December 12 in 1993. The announcement of the death of József Antall, the first democratically-elected PM of Hungary, interrupted an episode of DuckTales. According to the oral history of our generation these had been the last broadcasted moments of the cartoon. (Be careful, it’s in Hungarian.)

The Facebook group “Akik nézték a vasárnapi Disney-t, amikor meghalt Antall József!” (“Those who had been watching the Sunday Disney when József Antall died!”) now has 10697 members, so these are who had been in the age of watching cartoons on TV and are registered on FB. Some 11 thousands seem to be a high amount in politics. If I was trying to start up something, I would use them. These are young electors without any remembrance of the USSR, grown up by watching commercial TVs and surfing on the worldwide web. They (we) are thinking totally different than those who lived their lives during the communism.

Of course the declarations I quoted were not addressed to this after-transition generation generally, but to those who feel themselves at least a bit concerned. And it’s very hard to attract the attention of everybody who had been watching TV December 12 in 1993. If I was told to do something, I would set up an NGO. An organization promoting democracy to young Hungarian people: what’s that, how to elect, how to govern, what is the so-called politics for etc. And I would found an NGO for collecting and representing under-30 generations interests, but never a political party. Never.


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See You In Two Years

09Nov09

Just a short post about the reconstruction of Liszt Ferenc Zeneakadémia (Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music). Today was the closing day of the building, from now on the reconstruction works will take 2 years. The Academy of Music in Budapest will reopen its doors in October 2011.

During the day today people could attend guided tours in the fancy building which will be totally renovated from 10,5 billion HUF, according to the Hungarian public TV’s news, 90% financed by the European Union.

While I was listening to the nine symphonies of Beethoven played after each other from 3 PM today (conducted by Zoltán Kocsis), I was wondering that the Academy really needed the renovation. I tried to take some photos with my mobile, well, not the best photos of the building, but to show some arguments why are we spending money on this very nice piece of Art Nouveau style built in 1907.

On this picture below you can see one of the chandeliers in the concert hall. I don’t know since how long are those nets on the chandeliers but I’ve seen them many times, and it always shocked me, that just in case if a crystal-something wanted to release itself and fall down on the audience, they are putting nets there…

Or this one. This is a famous Hungarian porcelain called Zsolnay on the wall of the Academy (still in the interior). I actually saw in the news on TV that at some corners of the building, this very expensive wall wrapper is fixed with scotch… If had known that earlier today, I surely would have taken a photo of that too, but this one’s showing an intact part of the porcelained wall.

The best recent story happened to this Academy-in-bad-condition in the beginning of October. Our famous organist, Xavér Varnus gave a last concert on this big instrument, but somehow the organ thought that it would be better to make its last concert memorable, and the engine inside of it just burned out. Varnus could give another concert later in October but he was sure it wasn’t by chance that the engine broke down at his last concert on the big organ, so he reported it at the police and according to some news sites, an investigation is going on. But probably the problem was that the organ should have been repaired or replaced before.


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Videos Filmed In Budapest

06Nov09

After talking to several foreigners who declared they loved Budapest, I am starting to understand why. Because it’s impressing. But the impressing things were mainly built or planned between the 19th century and the WWI. The structure of the city center, the old and stylish houses… The contemporary architecture should speed up a bit and communicate that it’s existing. I haven’t ever met any tourist who traveled to Budapest to see the modern buildings but to see the “city of knights” which is a total delusion. In architectural respect the city center lives on impressing tourists with an image produced  in the mentioned some 150 years.

I am happy to see start-ups like Artur because they show the capital’s other face which is so modern and colorful, also up-to-date, following the international trends in urban planning and architecture. I suppose even Hungarian citizens are slowly getting used to the new buildings, which means for example, that it hardly comes to their mind to show the tourists The Palace of Arts when crossing the bridges from where it can be seen. It’s really sad that we need so long time to integrate new things to the old and traditional image of the city, that these things are not the parts of our Budapest-perception yet.

But the worst is that the international image is not changing either. The next two videos were filmed in Budapest, in places that you can see on every postcard, in every tourist or city image video.

1. So typical: Andrássy Avenue, Heroes’ Square, Buda Castle

2. Interesting part starts at the second minute. Buda Castle again, Chainbridge, some of the traditional city center. Better in showing a bit of the factory in Csepel which had it’s best times during communism.


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Who Would You Save First?

29Oct09

I am totally overrun by the fact how much we trust the malfunctioning systems we use, because we consider them the best that can exist. I suppose it’s not a specific Hungarian problem, but this post is inspired by things that happened in Hungary.

Yesterday, somehow in a group of people at a bar I found myself next to a man who works part-time as ambulance nurse. He started to tell a friend of mine how he likes to help people and there’s no better feeling than saving lives. As normally I was just listening to their conversation, trying to analyze and summarize the general content.

Usually this kind of chats turn to calling to account the person who is in charge of a responsible, public service job. This time the ambulance nurse. I think my friend put her sort of offensive question in the 5th minute of their talk. She asked the guy to explain why had that happened several years ago at her high school that a 18-year-old boy had died because of the ambulance arrived 32 minutes after that a teacher had called the emergency phone line.

Of course one emergency nurse shouldn’t be responsible of every case in the whole ambulance field, but our nurse tried to give an answer to my friend. He emphasized how hard is for the operators at the emergency phone line’s call center to organize and put the cases in order of who to save first, where to send the ambulance cars by getting information from people who usually can’t even express what kind of help they need and where.

I am following this train of thought, but I have to admit that the system has many points that altogether create a general rate of malfunctioning. For example the traffic, the weather, the number of ambulance cars available, etc.

But if we take only the role of the operator in the call center… I think everybody who ever heard about social work, or started to study how to work with people, knows the classic riddle: If you had a priest, a pregnant woman, a young couple and an old man in a deep cave, and you could use only one rope to pull them out, then who would you save first? What would be the order?

There’s no good solution. Every society has it’s own traditions, principles and rules, and in addition to this every individual has his own. Now, who knows what was the exact situation when in that case the operator had to state an order, and finally an 18-year-old boy had to die?

My friend was totally furious because our ambulance nurse emphasized the responsibility of the operator. It seemed like our life depends on the person who picks up the phone. I finally entered their conversation and stated that she shouldn’t be that angry because it’s the negative result of a malfunctioning system. How could the emergency service work perfectly if we have less available ambulance cars in service than we really need, and the operator has to work like that always? (And still no other factors considered!)

Of course the operator has given references, but what if a computer would decide who to save first? Let’s take out the human factor from the system. Let’s give points to the cases that arrive to the call center. Well, it’s still people who decide how many points we give to each case. We can give points by how useful is the person in question for the society, for example. This would mean that the computer would never send ambulance cars to old people in the first place even if the ambulance car stood right next to my grandmother fallen to the ground.

As an extra, I’m telling what happened some days ago in Hódmezővásárhely. A 84-year-old woman fell to the ground in the parking lot of a shopping mall, a man who saw this called the ambulance line (104 in Hungary) and tried to describe the situation, but finally got very angry because of the questions of the operator who tried to get more information about the patient. The angry man used swearwords which made the operator furious. The operator said “Your mother’s ass!” (I think it’s not that important what was the exact swearword…) and hung up the phone. The man who tried to help the old woman, started to call the general emergency line (112 in the EU) but in that minute he heard the ambulance car arriving. The old woman, who had problems with hypertension, died. The ambulance spokesman stated that the strange phone call didn’t make the ambulance car arrive later, but the case would be investigated.

I don’t want to comment the case. I’m finishing my text by this tune of Aaron Funk, inspired by the ambulance cars’ sound in Budapest.


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Kertész Street

28Oct09

This Sunday I ended up buying a Sachertorte at Kertész Street-Király Street corner.


View Larger Map

I haven’t walked in Kertész Street for years, and now I had to realize that this street is actually one of my favorites. There you can find anything you need: confectionery, pub, club, coffee shop, wig shop, music shop etc.

We had a really nice weather that day, it was fantastic to see a street like this.

I suppose I can’t exactly depict how I felt walking at the end of October in a shiny street with plants, nice street art pieces of the Two-Tailed Dog Party on the walls, smiley people, the silhouette of a violin under my feet…

A memorial plaque-like street art, remembering the martyrs of the spaceship battle of Ganümédesz in year 3723.

“Nem fog kif” means “It won’t f” [fit].


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Preparing Ourselves

22Oct09

Tomorrow will be the national holiday of the 1956 Revolution. Some articles have already debated if there would be any kind of riot this year, because since 2006 each national holiday was a potential source of danger, the political situation was so tense, that I don’t really believe Hungarian authorities were ever able to guess in the last years, if they would have to use tear gas the next time or not… This far speculations and reports say this year October 23 memorials would be peaceful, even if some far right groups announced that they would also rally.

Generally, this holiday is considered something to be proud of, as Hungary had been one of the first countries that had tried to secede from the USSR. I remember some years ago I had to write an article about Vietnamese press in Hungary and one Vietnamese journalist working here mentioned that in Vietnam which is a socialist republic, this Hungarian October 23 revolution is still considered as a counterrevolution officially. While we in Hungary changed the political system in 1989 and October 23 can be officially celebrated as a ‘normal’ revolution since then. It’s funny how history changes with political regimes.

These posters celebrate that the ‘Hungarian Republic is 20 years old’ (actually that’s the title for the exhibitions on the street). The two lines literally translated: ‘Live the freedom, live the republic!’. I was always wondering why is it forced to invent or reuse slogans for national holidays that sound totally out-of-date. I never hear people talking about our ‘republic’. Is somebody out there who still uses this word in everyday life? I hear people talking about Hungary, our country, homeland and such. The word ‘republic’ is not that strongly related to Hungarian or Hungary like for the Czech when talking about the Czech Republic.

By the way, this year I heard politicians talking about our democracy, that turned 20 years old. I think that sounds better, and worth the discussion. Republic became a form of a state without any serious meaning for the citizens, but the word democracy symbolizes the change of the system, the new system, the differences, the difficulties, etc. Something that we have to (or we feel we have to) fulfill with a common, Hungarian meaning. It’s already 20 years old!

I have to announce that the old Soviet cars’ exhibition has already been put to Blaha Lujza Square but they are cordoned down till October 23. And should be remembered the 2006 riot when somebody stole a T-24 tank from an open-air exhibition like this.

There are a few places in Budapest where images of the revolution, or 1989 are projected on buildings. This one is still at Blaha Lujza Square.

And a last note. The posters are illustrated with poppy-flowers that are in blossom in summer. I love poppy, that’s the most beautiful flower in Hungary, but for me it’s a bit confusing to see a summer-flower at an almost winter exhibition.


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Try Again

22Oct09

Seems like this was the time to restart the campaign of bringing the Olympic Games to Budapest. Not so long after the decision about the 2016 games, that the host will be Brazil, Hungarian would like to try again. A video for the next, 2020 Olympics has been published on Youtube.


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Artur – Architecture

20Oct09

As if someone wants to get know the contemporary architecture in Budapest, then should try this new website:

http://www.artur.org.hu/

artur.org.huThis website shows 7 tours that one can do in Budapest by visiting contemporary examples of architecture (buildings built after 1989). I am totally delighted because the website is structured by the Hungarian zooming presentation tool Prezi, which got the World Technology Award in Arts this year.

http://artur.org.hu close to Blaha L. Square on Twitpic2dbarcode

And also because it uses so-called QR-codes, or 2-dimensional bar codes that anybody can decode with a mobile phone equipped with a camera and a bar code reader (like this) – and of course with wi-fi access. Because the QR-codes are hiding the link to the website where the informations are about the building in question. I don’t know exactly where are these bar codes placed at the buildings, are they on the wall or where, but I’ll check it later.


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Hungarian or Gypsy?

18Oct09

I got totally inspired by the website whatthetrend, and I’m trying to use my time for updating my blog with interesting topics trending in Hungary now. I’ve just left home, I’m sitting now in a fast food restaurant and I’ve seen on my social networking websites the new topic trend. It’s about our U-20 bronze medal at FIFA World Cup. A very sensitive and important topic, football is considered to be one of the national games, everybody remembers the great player Puskás and hopes that those times will come back again when Hungary will be among the best in football.

The national team arrived back home at midnight and an article about how they were welcomed at Ferihegy airport was published at index.hu’s sport site today. Twitterers and Facebook-users started to debate the article because its author wrote the team was welcomed by Gypsy music. Indeed, he gave the title ‘Cigányzenés éjféli futballköszöntő Ferihegyen’ to the article which means: ‘Midnight football-welcome with Gypsy music at Ferihegy’.

The players were addressed one after the other by István Hajdú B., who played well the role of a presenter too. The supporters equipped with Gypsy musicians cheered heartily everyone, they also sang the national anthem in honor of the team, which lined up on the podium in front of the transit.

Here’s a video about the event in question, everybody can decide if the music they hear in the background, it was Hungarian folk music or Gypsy music.

Update: thanks to Rkit I learned that the song they are singing in the video after Gulácsi’s interview is the folk song ‘Gábor Áron rézágyúja’ which you can hear in this video from 2:38. Shame on me that me that I haven’t realized either that this was a song we used to singing at elementary school, but I suppose it’s worse for the journalist of index.hu.

Update2.: Today, 19/10/2009, I saw that the title and the quoted part of the article have been changed. Funnily, the author made a fault of spelling instead of  ’zenés’, they wrote ’Zenéz éjféli futballköszöntő Ferihegyen‘,  (zenés means musical or with music – ‘Midnight welcome with music at Ferihegy’). It’s not a big surprise as somehow index.hu is famous for the faults of spelling, but I would even suppose that this time it was intentional, to distract the attention from the fact that they just took out the word ‘Gypsy’ from the text.

Update3.: I checked the website again 20/10/2009 and the fault has already been corrected. (:


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