The ground beneath their feet

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p>A desi conductor is organizing a classical music concert in Manhattan later this month to raise money for the Pakistan earthquake. On the program is Beethoven’s 9th:

Beethoven’s 9th for South Asia Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

… In the aftermath of the tragedy, an exceptional and unparalleled group of musicians have joined forces and donated their services to help the survivors. All proceeds from the concert will go directly to Doctors Without Borders.

Performers to include principal players of the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra… as well as a chorus of 150-200 assembled from the major choral ensembles in New York City.

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p>George Mathew, a friend of my cousin’s, is conducting.

Earthquakes, I point out, have always made men eager to placate the gods. After the great Lisbon earthquake of November 1, 1755… the locals decided on a propitiatory auto-da-fé… Herr Candide of Thunder-ten-tronckh, a name like an occult incantation, likely to provoke earthquakes where none had previously occurred, was flogged rhythmically and for a long while upon his bloodied buttocks. Immediately after this auto-da-fé there was an even bigger earthquake, and that part of the city which remained standing instantly fell down. That’s the trouble with human sacrifice, the heroin of the gods. It’s highly addictive. And who will save us from deities with major habits to feed?

So god’s a junkie now, Vina says.

The gods, I correct her. Monotheism sucks, like all despotisms…

… In my last photograph of Vina the ground beneath her feet is cracked like a crazy paving and there’s liquid everywhere, She’s standing on a slab of street that’s tilting to the right; she’s bending left to compensate. Her arms are spread wide, her hair’s flying, the expression on her face is somewhere between anger and fear. Behind her the world is out of focus. There is a sense of eruptions all around her lurching body: great releases of water, terror, fire, tequila, dust…

Then the ground simply opens and eats her, like a mouth.

A great sweep of Pacific coastline is similarly, simultaneously, devoured. The slip of the earthquake is eleven metres: huge. The ocean boils in and fills the gash in the earth, the tear in reality. Water, earth, fire belch high into the sky. The deaths, the disappearances, are measured in the tens, the hundreds of thousands.

The earth closes over her body, bites, chews, swallows, and she’s gone …

… The scale of the emergency dwarfs individual tragedies. So many dead, so much damage both structural and infrastructural, such a hammer blow to the country’s soul, and more: to the human race’s sense of ease upon the earth. Roads, bridges, airstrips, whole mountains lie in ruin, or beneath the encroaching sea…

I am looking at scenes out of Bosch – the decapitated heads of children hanging from the branches of broken trees, women’s naked legs sticking vertically upwards like twin swords, out of ‘solid’ rock – scenes that trouble even a war photographer’s stomach. [Link]

Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, Monday, January 23, 2006, 7:30pm; buy tickets or call 212-247-7800

One thought on “The ground beneath their feet”

  1. It made my day to hear about this, and better yet, to know that Mr. Mathew is conducting.

    George was kind enough to allow me to sit in the back row of the second violin section (I was a lousy violinist but found squeaking out a few notes with an orchestra a sublime experience) back in the late 90s when he served a short stint as conductor of the Tufts University Orchestra. He’s a Christian Malayali who grew up in Singapore and followed a most unconventional career path, so G seriously represents, in all the ways that one might employ the word. Big up yoself, George Mathew!

    Back then I remember him trying to organize another kind of orchestra in the parking lot near the main campus auditorium – one made up entirely of cars. I think perhaps some logistical difficulty with the university police (TUPD – we didn’t call them ‘tupid for nothin’) prevented it from happening, but the idea was that these cars would be arrayed in the parking lot like an orchestra, with George conducting them through some easily recognizable classical piece. The idea alone was a touch of brilliance. Glad to hear that he’s still in the classical music scene, doing even cooler things at that.