Ramesh Chakrapani

“We look before and after, And pine for what is not Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” — P.B. Shelley (1792-1822) The light has gone, but the voice remains. Somewhere in the airwaves, always in our hearts and minds and memories, the sound of S. Janaki’s mellifluous singing will forever tell us of the saddest thought—that she is no longer with us in the mortal sense. But her immortal songs live on. S.

ON January 23, Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), raised the possibility of an intervention by Parliament to address the issues thrown up at the judges’ press conference. Maintaining that the ideal solution would have been a resolution by the judiciary itself, he said that the three pillars of Indian democracy had a collective and interrelated responsibility to resolve the issues raised by the four senior-most judges of the highest court of the land.

On March 9, Tamil social media was awash with messages, audio clips, short videos, and personal testimonies from devoted fans: the verdict was out—Ilaiyaraaja’s first public symphony performance, in London, was a thunderous success. Throughout the day, WhatsApp groups were flooded with congratulatory messages from delirious fans, and it became clear that this was a watershed moment not only for the creator but for millions of his fans who had eagerly awaited this event.