Devotion: Sangeeta Kar and "Meera Nachire"

Indian classical music is the destination of our random tune today. Meera Nachire is by Michigan-based and award winning Indian singer and dancer Sangeeta Kar, the founder and artistic director of the Sangeetayan Institute of Dance and Music of India. She has degrees in classical Odissi (the oldest dance form in India), Hindustani classical vocal music and English literature. She was trained in Odissi dance by Padma Vibhushan Kelucharan Mahapatra and in music by Deepak Basu. Meera Nachire is a Hindu bhajan and can be found on her 1998 album of the same name.

He's Got the Power: Ashwin Batish and "Raga Rock"

How about something different and fun? Today's random global tune should fit the bill. Raga Rock is by Ashwin Batish. Batish is an accomplished sitar and tabla player. Originally from Mumbai, India Batish is the son of composer and Bollywood playback singer Pandit Shiv Dayal Batish. Ashwin Batish was a child prodigy who started playing music on the dholak drum, then the tabla at age 10, but he fell in love with the sitar at age 12. He began to learn sitar through lessons taught by his mother and by listening to Ravi Shankar albums. He also learned some guitar and enjoyed playing Western music by The Beatles, Pat Boone, Cliff Richard and others of the 60s era. After joining his father in England, he began to learn North Indian classical music and composition. His training was rigorous, but Ashwin realized he had to study diligently because he found himself uncomfortable playing in front of audiences. Batish moved to the US in 1973 with his father, and played music with him at their family restaurant. In 1986, he released his debut album called Sitar Power #1. A sitar fueled fusion of Indian and Western rock music, it brought him much attention and a recording contract. He currently runs his own record label that focuses on publishing all of his family's music, and he teaches music in Santa Cruz, California at his Batish Institute of Music and Fine Arts. Raga Rock can be found on his 1986 release Sitar Power #1.

My Sweet Lord: MC Yogi (featuring Sharon Gannon) and "Krishna Dub"

When I lived in New Orleans, just down the street from my house was a large Hare Krishna temple. All I knew about the Hare Krishnas was that they often walked around with flowers and they often chanted "Hare Krishna." I didn't know what the connection was between them and George Harrison's My Sweet Love, if any. They always seemed cultish and were lumped in with other, similar groups such as the Moonies. But the temple down the street did some good works that I was aware of. They fed homeless people and I think they may have even housed some of them. They had a community dinner every week and invited the rest of the neighborhood to come - sadly I never went. The official name for the Hare Krishnas is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and they are dedicated to the practice and spread of bahkti yoga. Of course, knowing next to nothing about Hinduism, I would not have known that the Hare Krishna mantra they sang was a devotional prayer to Krishna, who is seen as the highest avatar of the Supreme God Vishnu in their religious beliefs. Indeed in Hinduism, depending on the way you practice, Krishna can himself is the Supreme Being. And Krishna is considered a great figure in Buddhism, and even in a branch of Islam

So let the love of Krishna wash over you today with this song, Krishna Dub, by MC Yogi and featuring Sharon Gannon. MC Yogi is the avatar of Nicholas Giacomini, a Bay Area hip hop artist and yogi who promotes themes of Hindu religion and philosophy. In fact, many of his songs and raps are bhajans, or Hindu devotional songs. Giacomini began rapping at 13 and, while living in home for at-risk children at age 17, he became a practitioner of yoga after his father took it up. Sharon Gannon is a yogina (female yoga master), animal rights activist, musician, dancer, choreographer and painter who co-founded the Jivamukti Yoga Method that fueled the popularity of yoga in the west in the late 20th century. As such she has taught yoga to high profile celebrities such as Sting and Madonna, and as musician she has collaborated with Run-DMC's Rev. Run and the Beastie Boys' Mike D, as well as founding the influential Seattle music collective Audio Letter. Krishna Dub can be found as a bonus track on MC Yogi's 2008 album Elephant Power.

Paving the Way into the Sacred Treasure: MC Yogi and "Elephant Power"

A few years ago, Megan and I watched a little movie called Sita Sings the Blues. It is an animated film that told the story of a woman whose relationship fell apart after her husband was transferred to India. She began to imagine herself as Sita from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and so she presents the story of the Ramayana and the relationship between Rama and Sita. Sita is presented in the Ramayana as the ideal woman who supports her husband. Even when there is a misunderstanding, and Rama believes that Sita has betrayed him, Sita sacrifices herself to convince her husband that she remained true to him. The protagonist of the film changes the ending slightly, however, by showing a celestial Rama catering to Sita's wishes. (By the way, if you wish to see the movie, it is downloadable for free at the website. It is cute and funny and has good music.).

 Before I had seen that movie, I had paid little attention to Hindu mythology. However, the way the Ramayana was presented in the movie, I began to eventually read it. It's a long book, and I take it up in fits and starts. I am through about a third of the book, and so far it's a tale that upholds all the Hindu morality. Rama is an enlightened man, heir to the throne, who becomes the victim of a plot by his half-brother's mother to put her son on the throne. As a result, he is exiled for fourteen years, and his loyal wife Sita follows him into exile. The moral crises in the book come when the characters step outside of their roles in society. While the characters and the morals are interesting, I find the gods of Hinduism even more fascinating, partly because they incarnate themselves into new characters. Take for instance Vishnu, the supreme god of one of the three main sects of Hinduism, who is the essence of all beings and the holder of the past, present and future. He is the creator and the destroyer of the existence and the god who governs the universe. Yet Vishnu also has ten avatars, or incarnations, of himself. Rama is one incarnation of Vishnu. Krishna,the hero, prankster, and great lover is another. Or take Hanuman, the monkey god who is the devotee of Rama. Or Ganesh, the son of the gods Shiva and Parvati, whose head was lopped off by Shiva by mistake and then replaced with the proffered head of a wise old elephant. He is a remover of obstacles and represents intellect and wisdom. While there are elements of the strange, to Western ears, in Hinduism there are also parallels to Christianity. After all, Jesus could be seen as an avatar of God, and the disciples, his devoted servants, could be elements of Hanuman if you stretch it a little. So, there is a lot to explore in Hinduism that's just plain interesting.

Which brings us to MC Yogi and the point of this foray into Hinduism. MC Yogi is the stage name of Nicholas Giacomino, a yogi (yoga practitioner) and instructor who is based out of Point Reyes, California. As a hip-hop artist, he focuses his music around the tenets, philosophy and spirituality of Hinduism. His songs are often bhajans, or devotional songs, celebrating one or another of the Hindu deities. At other times, he provides interesting history lessons on the lives of important historical figures within Hinduism, such as Gandhi. At times, even when he is doing nothing but beatboxing, his songs can sound like mantras or prayers. Currently, MC Yogi has two released albums, Elephant Power (2008) and Pilgrimage (2012) and there is also a remix album called Elephant Powered Remixes (2010). This song, Elephant Power, is off of his first album of the same name, and provides some insight into the Hindu god Ganesh. The song features Bhagavan Das, a bhakti yogi who is also a singer and teacher and who was the guide for Ram Dass in his spiritual journey in India.