Non-Stop Nonsense

Questions for a newyear :)

2012-01-22T16:39:00.000-06:00

Lately, I have been wondering about the curiosity bug in me. I just can't seem to do simple things. As an example: When am listening to a song, I can't seem to be content with the plain joy it brings upon listening; my mind immediately starts searching for various details. Which other song features a similar melodic line? Is this singer X or Y? And many other streams of related questions. Only upon figuring the answers does my mind rest letting my joy come to me. Only problem being that such wanderings on a tangent is viewed as pointless by many, so one can't discuss about it to many of ones friends or even family. Is this pointless curiosity about all & sundry good?

The next question is regarding what one should do, if he or she ends up hurting their near/dear ones without meaning to do so; say, more out of their misunderstanding of your intentions. At times when it happens, no amount of explanation seems to help. And then there are situations you find yourself in, where you have a 50% chance of hurting the other. These situations are even worse, say like a friend seeking your "honest" opinion or a time when you have to take a final call on a relationship. How does one deal with those? Although in your conscience, your intentions isn't to hurt, but how the other perceives it is beyond your control.

Scenes from a movie...

2012-01-07T15:30:00.001-06:00

In 2011, I think I ended up watching tonnes of movies, some new some old. Its only natural that the title of this post is influenced by a influential movie director (Ingmar Bergman, in this case). Included here are my fav moments from some of those films. I am just adding it in a post, so that down the years I can see if I those movies still remained etched in my memory :)

Melancholia (Lars von Trier):

Mouchette (Robert Bresson):

Drive (Nicholas Winding Refn):

Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami) :
This one is tough to appreciate, if one has not seen the movie.

Tree of Life (Terence Malik):

2 or 3 Things I Know about her (Jean Luc Godard):

Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen) :

The Future (Miranda July):
http://youtu.be/9jiQEku4dYk

Vaagai Sooda Vaa (Sarkunan):

Encounters at the end of the world (Werner Herzog):
I saw this one the end of 2010, but remained strong in my memory and also triggered this post.

the 90's, Anjali, stonewash jeans...bla bla

2011-09-18T19:51:00.002-05:00

Last evening, as I was driving to meet my friend, I had turned on an online tamil radio. The station (lankasri fm) was playing a special program, featuring songs from the movies of Maniratnam. As the program went by, I caught myself remembering interesting anecdotes or memories that ran side-by-side with the timeline of his movies. I guess, if you were the child of the 80's from tamilnadu, it can almost be taken for granted that memories of your life was bookmarked by Maniratnam movie releases. As an instance, when the song Nee oru kaadhal sangeetham from Nayagan came on, I was reminded for the first time being enamored by this thing called movies and the acting of Kamal Hassan. Until that point I was a big Rajnikanth fan mainly for the dishum dishum. Although I didn't know to differentiate b/w good and bad acting, something about the storyline along with the captivating performances made me think that there was something great about this movie, but didn't know what it was. I ended up seeing that movie 5/6 times along with my grown-up cousin. Then the "O papa Lali" song from Geethanjali/Idhayathai Thirudathey played. That was the first time I caught people talking a big deal about the way the cameraman had captured fog wafting into the room and about a term called cinematography. As the song switched to Anjali Anjali....Kanmani Kanmani...I was suddenly in a magical la-la nostalgia land.

I think I was in 5th grade around when Anjali came out. Although I had seen ET & My Dear Kutti chaathaan... before Anjali, Anjali was unique; it was the only tamil movie (and remained that way for a long time) that had kids as its main characters. I don't know about y'all, but as a kid, I was pumped up when I saw the kind of things kids did in that movie. I wanted to run out and do a fight like them, learn some break dance moves, sneak out at midnight and celebrate the start of a new year. Around that time, I had actually moved into a new neighborhood that had a lots of kids. So all of us who saw that movie were impressed and wanted to be like those cool set of kids in the movie :) Parents themselves were impressed by the movie and the way kids were featured and the kinds of dresses they were wearing. In fact that was single-handedly responsible for my mom going and getting the uber-cool stone wash jeans for the Diwali that year. Until then, my folks had always bought me shorts. Getting trousers suddenly made me feel like I was moving into the big league. Until then I had seen jeans in the stores, but none of the kids I knew wore them. Stone-wash was literally unheard of. With Anjali, the market for stone-wash jeans must have gone up. Suddenly, I was even hearing about bullet jeans/glass cut jeans and all sorts of fancy stuff and how expensive those were, making me go awe! Also, it was around then the concept of apartment dwelling was going mainstream in Madras and from the movie, it seemed like living in apartments is the best thing for a kid. My folks were also planning to buy one around that time. Every time, we drove near Sterling road there was this apartment complex called Gangotri (if I rem right) that looked like the one featured in the movie. So my imagination went wild thinking that the one my folks were about to purchase would also look like that. It's a different story that my apt turned out nothing like that. Very little kids and all of them boys (booh :( ). I digress. Anjali will forever remain fresh in my memory mainly for the scandalous (for a kids movie) yet famous mottai maadi song and for the coolest dialogue rendered by a kid in a tamil movie: Poda Sottathalyaannu soolidattaa apppa? ( Loose translation: Mind your own business bald man!).

Anyways, so much for Anjali. Now let me try to quickly recap the other mile markers:

Sundari Kannaal ...(Dhalapathi) - I witnessed my first live Ilayaraaja concert that was organized by school as a fund raiser on the day of release of the movie. Raaja performed Rakkamma song and didn't heed to the request of Kamal fan's request -Guna song (Kanmani anboda..) which was also releasing the same day
Ninnukorreee (Agni Nakshatram) - Amla!, psychadelic lights, captivating songs & one eli, rendu eli, moonu eli.....
Roja, Thiruda Thiruda - The phenomenon of AR Rahman, Kashmiri terrorists, Anu Agarwal, Raaja vs Rahman fights.
Andha Arabic Kadloram.(Bombay)- Manishaaaaa & Sonali Bendre
Dil Se - Freshmen year of college. We went for the first day first show and didn't end up getting tickets. Instead we ended up going to watch for the first time an A-rated movie in a theatre (that was running in the adjacent theatre) :)
Kadhal Sadugu (Alaipayuthey) - Entering the senior year of college, with a job in pocket and also GRE score.
Signore....(Kannathil Muthamittaal) - First movie that I paid for the tickets from my own earning, for both me and my folks (first salary from my new job).
Nejamellam...(Ayutha ezhuthu) - Grad school days and the beginning of the disappointment with Mani movies.

If you stayed with me this long, thanks a tonne! Have a good week ahead and enjoy this song:

(Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXyjCgR0rAc)

The origins of Yogurt?

2011-07-27T19:29:00.003-05:00

ABBA had to say this about music: "What would life be ? without a song ..". I can say the same thing about Yogurt and Indians....more so south Indians. What would us South Indians be without "Thayir Sadam" (curd/yogurt rice)? Among all Indian deserts andh food items, this "thayir sadam" has the best chance to go global and overtake Chicken tikka masala....only if someone would market it well. May be we should get Steve Jobs to market it as I-thayirsadam (sounds very Tamilish too...like the excitement one gets on seeing Thayir sadam ;)).
Jokes apart, the reason for my sudden blabbering on Yogurt arose out of reading this fascinting article on The Hindu. Reading it made me ponder about its origins in India. As, along with honey, yogurt is often touted to be the food of gods, I wonder as to how the first cultures originated in India. Some brave soul must have been bold enough to taste that curdled milk! A little research showed that it could have come from milk being fermented by the bacteria present in the goat skin bags used to transport the milk. If that wasn't the case then how? It also makes me wonder as to how old some of those cultures of bacteria residing in the yogurt, you so love, at your grandma's place must be :) Is it possible to make yogurt if one has no access to cultures? I read in some odd pages on the inter-webs some wild suggestions: use tamarind, green chilli etc ... I wonder if those will work!
Anyways so much for my blabber on yogurt, its time for me to beat this horrible summer with an ice-cold lassi. While I sip on it, you folks leave your thoughts & suggestions on this million dollar question.

Link to the article on The Hindu:http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/article2299567.ece?homepage=true

Ilaiyaraaja & Organ music

2011-06-11T03:25:00.000-05:00

Well, the big fans of Ilaiyaraaja amongst you probably already know that he was a very capable guitarist and organist. Thanks to him, the strange musical instrument -the organ - made its sojourn into popular Tamil film music and that aspect is the focus of this post. Listening to his old songs, I was suddenly mesmerized by his use of the Organ. Having decided to take a break on a Friday evening, I dug thro' my audio collection to see which of his songs featured the organ and found some interesting ones. As they say that joy is doubled when shared, I decided to isolate these uses and make a medley out of it to be shared. You can listen to the medley I created and see if any of these pieces stirs a thought or memory in you. Also, don't forget to share these thoughts. Have a good weekend!

Ilaiyaraaja music sample (organ music) by balajishankar
Link: http://soundcloud.com/balajishankar/ilaiyaraaja-music-sample-organ/s-ljIB2

p.s: I am not musically very savvy to know what kind of organ he uses. It could be a pipe or Hammond or synth organ, but who cares! Pardon me, if some of these pieces aren't music from the organ at all. Music is the only thing that matters, isn't it?

Gitanjali

2011-05-08T15:54:00.000-05:00

On the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, I thought I should atleast revisit a bit of his brilliant work Gitanjali. Reading it amidst the backdrop of James rivers rustling waves I came across this beautiful poem that I thought is worth sharing. Maybe simply as a means to pay my regards to the genius that was Tagore or as a means to keep this space alive.Hope you enjoy it my dear friends.

Today in the paddy field
I see a game of hide-and-seek
caused by the sun and the shade.

Who set adrift
The white cloud-raft
in the blue sky?

Forgetting to eat honey today,
mad bees riot in the light.

Why are the wild geese
holding a fair today
On the dry river bank?

O brother! O sister
I'll not go to my home today;

Today I'll break open the sky
and steal away the outdoors.

Heads of foam
skip happily today
on the wind- swept current.
Today I'll drop my work
and play my flute all day.

Thank you for the music!

2011-02-19T12:16:00.001-06:00

If you were like me, your initiation to western music included a staple dose of the Swedish band "ABBA." One of their popular songs went by the title of this post.

What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music...

How true! This post has got nothing to do with ABBA! It's a small post on the beauty of music and the emotional journey it takes us. On a Saturday morning, in an attempt to remove the boredom of my mom, forced to temporarily inhabit this videshi land, I was digging out for videos of concerts from the recently concluded December Vizha. Y'all know what happens, when you fool around with you-tube :) In no time, mom & me were taking a beautiful journey on this fabulous land called music. We traversed the "carnatic music" mountains, the lush green fields of old-new tamil & hindi film songs nourished by the likes of rivers MSV, RDBurman, Ilayaraja & ARR, occasionally touching upon some western music gems my mom has come to like (because of It playing non-stop during my teen-college days). In no time, the morning had almost vanished to become late afternoon. Cooking, hunger, deadlines & other worries were all forgotten. All trivial/little long-lost memories associated with those songs came gushing forth from the 3 lb jelly mass inside us, leaving behind a wide smile on our faces. Nada Anubhuthi (realisation thro' music) it was indeed! Those moments of joy need to be experienced, but when has it stopped one from trying to bottle up that moment, hoping that it will bring us the same feeling another day. So, I have tried to create a playlist (Raaga.com) out of some of those songs. Give it a spin and see if it churns anything worthwhile :)

Link to playlist

Anomalies and Individualism

2010-12-05T20:02:00.001-06:00

Hello folks! Hope y'all are in good holiday spirit. It's been a while since I caught up thro' this defunct blog medium, but hope everything is fine. As is the norm a quick and small post to keep this space alive.

Over the weekend, I was watching Werner Herzog's documentary on Antartica called "Encounters at the end of the world." It's not one of those usual ones where the focus is on penguins and other usual stuff; it had a more deeper philosophical twist. If you have seen Herzog's films, you know he is kinda different. Nevertheless, there surely was one segment on Penguins as the documentary was funded by NSF. This segement was the one that triggered this post. In this segment, Herzog questioned the scientist studying the penguins, if he had seen any instance of a Penguin showing anarchistic behavior or a behavior that differed substantially from the group? Surely enough, the scientist said he had seem some rare instances when some of the penguins didn't follow what rest of the group did. These didn't necessarily take on the role of a leader and form factions. But their individual traits stood out. One such creature, during the great annual migrations which the Penguins do, refused to follow the group and followed a different route. This route was leading it far away from the ocean and to a certain death, but even if it was forcefully brought back to the group, once again deviated from it and went back to its old route! The reasons behind such behavior is not clear enough, but is quite fascinating. May be such penguins if successful, could bring about a great change in the genetic make-up and a newer species. May be our ancestors eveolved the same way from the earlier primate states, when one group broke away from its tradition. May be this is the way some individualistic traits evolve. All in all a fascinating aspect to ponder about and has kept my mind thinking & reading about it. What is your take on this?

Mann vasanai

2010-09-05T04:22:00.000-05:00

In the last couple of years, the Tamil film industry has witnessed a sort of revival in terms of making movies that have been set in villages and with rural themes, taking us (yes, "us" - the 80's generation) back to the days of Bharathiraaja who made our villages "cool" back in the 80's. Of course, it is also no surprise that many of these films having been made by debutant directors with fresh faces, as many of our established movie makers and actors are stuck in the rear-ends of city-based themes. But the good thing about this whole revival thing is that, more innocent, natural and down-to-earth stories (devoid of any ego-boosting-elements tailored to the demi-god status of heroes) get to be told again. Additionally it provides for many of the facebooking generation that grew up in the metros a wonderful glimpse into the lives and culture of these little villages. It reminds us on nuances like, While we city-dwellers might be celebrating the music of academy/grammy winning Rahman, it is still Ilaiayaraaja who matters to the hearts of rural Tamil Nadu and that "Kollangudi" Karupayee & LR Eswari continue to corner the "thiruvizha" and "amman" song market :) As cliched as it might sound to compare of the evilness of the city-dwellers vs the innocence of rural life, these movies make a point that there is indeed a truth to that. Many of the simplistic elements featured in these films automatically bring a smile to your face, proving the power of simplicity.Not to mention the issues that exist in these places, which might be very trivial to many of the city folks. Even listening to the language in these films is a matter of pleasure.
Why am I suddenly cribbing about this? Well, I was watching one such movie today and it magically brought back memories of my summer vacations spent at my grandparents home near Madurai. I was suddenly reminded of my first experiences with the thuruvizha festivity, hearing & witnessing the concepts of "poo midhithal" (fire-walking), watching movies projected on to plain white cloth erected in the middle of street with audiences sitting on either side of the screen, the voice of Kollangudi Karupayee, pondering on the "hard-to-grasp" concept of MGR movies continuing to be popular in the late 80's and 90's and watching those in a theater with "tharai ticket". Out of nowhere, the brain conjured up faces, places & experiences and even the Mann vasanai. Isn't that what movies are supposed to do: magically transport you to a time and place that meant something to you. Sadly, most of our film makers seem to have forgotten that aspect and seem to be reaching for themes that bear no familiarity to them or their audiences. In contrast some of the biggest movie directors in the global arena, have all set their stories in places and settings that are familiar to them. When stories are told with their natural "mann vasanai" am sure they will speak to more global audience. Hope this new crop of film-makers will go on to do that and the audience will support them in their endeavors.

In case any of you are interested, list of some of these movies that appealed to me are : Paruthiveeran, Subramanyapuram, Kalloori, Kunguma poovum Konjum puravum, Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu, Kalavaani & Vamsam.

What if?

2010-06-05T21:31:00.004-05:00

What if we had no friends, relatives, books, music, TV and all other modern distractions we have built for ourselves. Will we be able to handle the "loneliness" ? Is it possible to live alone and handle the silence? Will it be possible for us to face all the fears we have developed that the mind is now pointing out to us, as it has nothing else to do.

It's nice to have the companion of the friends, family, books and every other sort of companion; it gives us great pleasure. But it looks like we have grown too dependent on it. If all these vanished, we wouldn't know what to do, right? So what are we without our friends, books etc? Are our identities built on inter-dependence? Are all these companions & relationships to which we have given meaning to, simply a manifestation of our selfishness? our selfishness to not face the silence, fear & loneliness?

Friends, don't be alarmed, as to why I suddenly ask these questions. These are some questions that I have been pondering over the last couple of years, whenever I get a chance to. I have had some discussions with some of my friends in regards to this. But, these are not questions to which one can obtain straightforward answers. So I thought that I should post it here, to keep the conversation going and find out more about it.

Celluloid art

2010-05-29T02:21:00.007-05:00

Simply because of being born in the 80's and in Chennai, it was only natural that I grew up as a big fan of film director Mani Ratnam. Although Mahendran's and Balu Mahendra's movies had a reaching effect, their movies were not too easy to comprehend at that age. Mani Ratnam, on the other hand, was just getting into his groove as my generation was set to enter the 90's and his movies somehow seemed more accessible with its city based themes and simple one-liner dialogues. His movie "Nayagan" will always remain my all-time favorite, mainly because I watched it five or six times even as a 3rd/4th std kid :P that it has been deeply ingrained into my system. However this post is not about "Nayagan", but about his movie "Iruvar" that he directed a decade later.

To me "Iruvar" is Mani's best effort to date. In a lot of ways, I would even state that it was a landmark film in the annals of Tamil cinema history (read film critic Baradwaj Rangan's wonderful take on the same here). It was an ode to Tamil cinema and Tamilnadu politics, captured beautifully by ace cameraman Santhosh Sivan accompanied by a mind blowing background score by A.R. Rahman (his best according to me). Although the story itself was in no way new or unique, what elevated the movie to a whole new level of art was the way in which the transitions in period and plot was handled, along with great attention to detail and the power-packed performance of the Prakashraj-Mohanlal duo. Although the movie claims that it has no resemblance to any living character, every Tamilian knows that it is based on the lives of Karunanidhi and MGR. Hence, it is only natural that some amazing dialogues and poetry form an integral part of this movie and remains my primary motivation for revisiting the movie. If I tried deconstructing this piece of celluloid art, I would do it great injustice, so will not attempt it. But then, why this post? As I was revisiting this movie today, it occurred to me that I never made any mention about it in this space here. What provided the additional impetus were however 2 scenes from the movie:

1) A fantastic horse chase sequence that is set as a montage to old films. The sheer manner in which this sequence was captured and the dialogue that accompanies it stirred something inside me. It is more powerful, when seen in the complete context of the movie.

2) The second scene was one were Prakashraj shows Mohanlal the power his celebrity status wields.

I really don't know where to take this post from here, so will stop here. May be you could add your thoughts and further the discussion.

That 30 paise song book

2010-04-21T23:09:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, I was in the mood to listen to good old melodies of Ilaiyaraaja. As I did a time travel thro' his various compositions, I landed at his "Mannil indha kaadal" sung by SPB for "Keladi Kanmani." When that song came out, I was in 5th/6th grade and it had caught the fancy of all kids like me, mainly because SPB had sung it without pausing for breath. Naturally, all of us were trying to emulate that feat failing in various degrees. To sing that song properly, one needed to know the lyrics. Back then, the only way to know the lyrics is if you owned the cassette and played it non-stop or if you were smart enough to make a mental note of it whenever it was played in the radio or in "OLiyum oliyum." Convincing one's parent to buy a cassette was out of the question, as it costed close to Rs 30, which was a big deal. That was when I was exposed to the existence of a third means - a 30 paise lyrics book (printed on a cheap "pazhuppu colour" paper) that could only be bought at certain "Potti kadais." A classmate of mine - a good singer - one day whipped it out of thin air and I was struck with awe. Suddenly there was medium that gave me access to all the words that went into the song and also mentioned details such as who had sung it and who wrote its lyrics etc. If you had grown up in the villages, you were probably aware of it even earlier. But for city bred ones like me, it was a new thing. 5th grade was around the time when my understanding of the nuances of tamil language was picking up and I was also beginning to appreciate film music along with the lyrics. Also it was an age, when you felt the urge to own everything your friend had. So I borrowed 2 Rupees from my mother after great begging and took my cycle to find a store that sold these song books. With help from my friend, I came to know that I could buy these in a place that was a couple of miles from my house. Away I went on my cycle towards that unexplored part of my neighborhood in search of that magical store that sold these books. When I reached the destination, I was surprised to see that it was hardly a store. It was basically a guy selling these lyric books on the side of the road. Nevertheless, it was still magical, as I found among the display, lyrics to songs from old movies that my mom and dad were constantly humming and also those of new movies. I bought all that I could get for the 2 Rs I had, to further my fine taste in literature :) I proudly showed my new purchase to my mom, who gave a slight chuckle at the triviality of it. I spent the next couple of days memorizing every single song in those books , so that I could proudly display my song knowledge to all my friends. What to do? At that time we had no fancy possession like PSP/ Wii to brag about; all we could brag about was trivial things like these. Over the next year or so, I added to my collection lyrics from "Thalapathy", "Guna", "Kizhakku Vaasal" , "Amaran" (remember "vethalai potta sokkula...."?) etc and carefully preserved it. Just like collecting stamps and coins, it was another hobby. Eventually, cassette producers started including printed lyrics in the cassette inlay; my parents started to purchas cassettes of films whose songs were popular and I no more had the urge to buy those things.

As in the past, my quirky mind was reminded of this lyric book on hearing the SPB's song and I decided to blog about it. Did any one of you readers buy these things or have even seen it? Do "potti Kadais" still sell those, atleast in the villages? Or have these things vanished from existence, like paneer soda and "kamarkat" ?

A repost - games we played as kids

2010-02-01T00:44:00.000-06:00

Bored beyond belief, I was revisiting my blog posts over the years, just to see how thoughts and perceptions have changed with time. Doing so, I was reminded of this blog post on games we played as kids -an outcome of a fun discussion I had had with my cousins one evening. Just wanted to remind myself of those silly games, and may be some of you also can past memories and update this discussion.

The post is given below and check here for some interesting comments that accompanied the post :

While I continue to be burried under heavy academic burden, I thought I should take a break and jot down some interesting things that happened over the week. My cousin and his best pal ( almost like a second cousin to me ) were in BHM last weekend. Whenever they show up, we always have some interesting discussions/talk. Continuing on the same tradition ,this time we ended up taking a trip down memory lane , remembering life as a kid and all the games and mischief each one of us did. A friend of mine from the dept had also joined this fun talk, that lasted for 4 hours. Those 4 hours unlocked some fabulous memories that I had almost forgotten. Some gems that came out of the talk included games we played as kid ( in Tamil Nadu, India ) and other things. I have listed these random thoughts in a disconnected fashion. Not a pretty post.But then, I thought I shd put it down, b'cos I know that, years down the line,when I look back at it, I am gonna enjoy the memories it can bring me.Lemme know, if any of it rings a bell in you.

Country - A Game in which every playerd had a small piece of land to begin with ...then the chosen conquerer throws a stick at you....and captures a part of your land by trying to mark a region with in u'r area , while he remains inside his land, by stretching as far as he can.
Archery fights - Bow & arrow made form sticks that are part of cocunut tree leaves( inspired by ramayana serial).
Leg punch : The whole aim of the game was to stamp someone else's leg.
Some weird game that had a song in Tamil like " Biscuit Biscuit Maa biscuit....enna maa ?.....)
Current : All the players formed a circular chain around the catcher....and then sent information ( just a pinch) of by movement of hand. The catcher had to identify who was sending info at a particular moment.
" Dhayam " ( game of dice....metallic ones), "Pallanguzhi" ( I can't explain this one in English)
The art of flying a kite & making " maanja nool " . "Maanja Nool" - the special thread used in flying kites. It had powers to cut other's kite ( " deal" ) and was made from a lot of strange items that included glass powder
The different fire crackers we had fascination for ......the tablet snake (a black tablet that emerged like a snake on igniting) , Parachute rocket, the "redfort" cracker ( 1000 waala...)
Imaginary single man cricket....where u were everything including the commentator.
Creating a whirlpool inside a bucket of water, by rotating the water as fast as u cld with u'r hands.
Racing cars against cars, water droplets agains water droplets.....racing anything against anything else
Lock and Key game
4 cups - A single piece of paper was folded to create 4 cups in to which fingers could slide into. Things were written on each of the cups such as favorite animal...color....etc. Forgot what happens next.

P.S : some more additions> Seven Stones (sometime back, an entire post was dedicated to Seven stones ;)) , Kings, Dog & Bone and of course bursting " Frooty" tetrapacks. I was reminded about the " frooty" stuff....when I had visited the local Asian store along with my Friends and bought "Frooty" to quench our thirsts after a game of cricket :). Thanks Kalyan & Ram for the reminder.

Music, movies recommendations...

2009-12-19T15:34:00.000-06:00

Nov & Dec are always busy in my calendar, hence the lack of updates here. I do, however, want to take a little bit of your time to update you on a couple of movies & music that attracted me in the last month or so.

This being the December season, I want to start with Carnatic music. I recently heard recordings (on Last.fm) of TM Krishna's performance at the Music academy in 2006, that left me spell-bound. The recordings captured the entire concert in addition to being embellished with some superior recording. "Brocevaravarura" in Raga Khamas and "Dasarathi nee" in Todi are my personal favs in this recording.

I have always had this gripe that the regular CD releases don't do justice to carnatic music or the musician performing. The 74 minute duration might have been sufficient for Beethoven's 9th symphony, but for carnatic music, it only allows the musician to complete the wooing and foreplay part. Despite advances in technology, carnatic music is able to reach ears of people like me (those living abroad and earning for attending the sabhas in december) in only a quantized form. When I heard this full recording on Last.fm, I was curious to find who was responsible for it and found that it was an organization named Swathi soft solutions, They have started to record december kutcheris and sell it form of CDs and DVDs, in addition to uploading all of them for some free listening on Last.fm. Kudos to them for their effort!

Continuing on the topic of TM Krishna, some of you might be aware of an unique attempt featuring TM Krishna and Bombay Jayashri, wherein a carnatic concert was presented as a unique visual experience in a movie form under the title "Margazhi Raagam." When the movie was first released in chennai, I had got tickets for my parents to see it and they had wonderful things to say about it. I had to wait for around 6 months, when the DVD was finally released a couple of weeks back and was available for purchase. Thro' a website called "Kalakendra.com" (a subsidary of swathi soft solutions), I was able to get this DVD as well as the previously mentioned concert recording and got it shipped for a very low price. " Margazhi Raagam " is an excellent attempt, and the visual packaging of a carnatic concert augurs well for reaching folks who may not be eager to listen to carnatic music. TM Krishna and Bombay Jayashri, in the company of some wonderful accompanists give a wonderful performance. The DVD itself is packaged very well, something you don't see often with Indian DVD releases. If you like carnatic music or would like to introduce carnatic music to your friends, you should lay your hands on this DVD. Having said this, I wish they had included a brief glossary of terms (carnatic music related -that were utilized in the DVD or the booklet ), as the makers of the movie themselves say that they want to reach a wider audience thro' this DVD. That way it would have been easier to lend this DVD to people like my advisor who are interested in knowing about Indian classical music. For now, I am going to settle for handling this DVD along with my copy of Dr.L.Subramaniam's book on intro to Indian classical music: Euphony.

Moving to movies, I recently saw an Argentinian films called "Intimate stories" on Netflix. A story about three folks from a small town and their modest quests. It was beautifully made movie that evoked a lot of smiles in me. It was nice to see a movie with simple premises. In attempt to catch up with every short film made by Kieslowski, I also " A camera buff." As always Kieslowski left me in awe and wondering. I also caught Bergman's classic "Wild strawberries" & "Fanny & Alexander" that many of you might have seen. If you love movies and haven;t watched any of these, then you should give it a watch.

I don't think I'll post anything else in 2009, so I wish you all a wonderful holiday season and catch you on the other side of 2010. Ciao!

A revisit of KB's classic Sindhu Bhairavi

2009-11-15T21:51:00.000-06:00

Having decided to not do any work on a Sunday evening, I browsed thro' the movies on my hard disk and zeroed up on Balachandar's classic Sindhu Bhairavi. Originally my intention was only to quickly scan thro' some of the songs and scenes etched in my memory.The first 15 minutes however captivated me so much that I ended up watching more than half of it. The manner in which all the characters in the movie was well developed left me spell-bound. Among all the movies I have watched in recent times, none had as many interesting characters as this one. Who could forget the brilliant portrayal of Sulochana as JKB's wife, the "thatha" who promptly went to collect his pension , the Judge Bharathi Kannan or even the thengamoodi kuthcheri mridanga vidwan Charlie. With almost all our movies revolving around central characters, it was very refreshing to see one where every character had well developed and memorable roles. I think this has always been Balachander's movies strongpoint but it just seemed to stand out suddenly to me this time. Over time we did have a bunch of movies, where one or two of the supporting characters stood out, but in terms of sheer number of such characters, KB's movies any day will dominate I guess. That is all I wanted to say here. Y'all have a good week ahead.

Appa's blog

2009-11-15T01:58:00.001-06:00

Growing up, appa used to tell me lots of interesting stories about his childhood, his bachelor days etc. We would also discuss things like astrology, philosophy etc when he accompanied me to the bus stop in the morning, as I waited to catch the bus to school or when I returned home at night along with him on his Rajdoot motorbike from my IIT preparation classes. Over the years, geographical distance has converted these stories /discussions from verbal form into emails. A bunch of cousins, started finding these emails/stories very interesting and are now part of the email list that may dad reaches out to. In an attempt to keep the stories flowing, and have a chance to revisit them, I have encouraged him to write it as part of a blog. That way, these stories could reach more ears. He is still learning the nuts and bolts of blogging. His english has also become rusty and often at times, in trying to keep up with the speed at which his thoughts flow, the grammar takes a toss. So for a brief while, I have taken the role of editing and publishing his posts (my grammar isn't any better ;)). However, until he gets comfortable with blogger and its tools to edit his posts, I will do these duties. He has already posted a whole buch of stuff, but I haven't had the time to edit them yet. Since, it already has a critical mass of 3 posts and 5 in draft stage, I thought I should share the news about its existence with you readers. I am sure that appa will have more thoughts to share and will probably update his blog more frequently than me. So, if you have the time, go give his blog a read and let him know your thoughts. To start off, you could read his favorite memory about Mani, the hero of the lodge at which he spent his bachelor days. You will definitely be entertained.

Thanks!

happiness from little things ...

2009-10-27T01:19:00.002-05:00

A couple of years back, I attended my niece's 2nd birthday party. It was the first time I was seeing her. Being the camera buff I am, my cousin apppointed me as the photographer. I had to make sure that every one who had come to the party appeared in at least one of the pictures sporting the best of their smiles. Tired of this monotonous activity, my eyes drifted off into observing the young and the old. The young lot generally seemed generally happy running around and screaming, while the older ones were also running around with smiles, but you could see that something stirred inside. One particular image, that most of us would have seen sometime or the other, caught my interest. One of the mothers was trying to entertain her kid with a sophisticated toy bought from Toys R us. The thing that brought most joy to that kid was however the colorful cellophane paper, used by the hosts to wrap the return gifts, that drifted into her hand. The wrinkling noise and the color invoked a fascination, that the kid couldn't see in that 50$ toy mommy had brought for her. We have all seen or been through that havent' we? Heck, my mom still teases that as a kid, I was once more excited by a 50 paise water melon piece, that I failed to touch the Rs.5/- worth badam roll she was trying to offer me.

Nothing was wrong in both these situations. Such is the nature of happiness. What to do? Money or value has nothing to do with it. As we grow older we do things that we think will bring joy to us, but all it brings is more worries. We buy fancy cars, but the next moment we are worried that some one would scratch the paint on it; when our neighbors cast their glance on it, we think they are looking with jealousy. Suddenly, the thing that was suppose to create happiness has now turned into something that causes worry and also brings out the worst of our thoughts and opinions. As one grows older, we seem to fail noticing the happiness from little things in life. We are constantly searching for bigger whole-sale ones. In that search, joy from the little beam of sunshine that comes sneaking thro' the blinds on a cold day, the funky circle the bird executes or even the quirky funny thought that's running at the back of mind all goes unnoticed. Even when we do realize it sometimes, we dismiss it as fickle and not of real value. What makes us grow into that, I do not know? Let me know what you think.

In the spirit of a researcher, I would like to supplement this post with an appendix material. This not completely in relevance to this post, but it does capture the changes one sees as one grows from a kid into an adult. A short & swee,t but also a powerful documentary, from one my favorite directors - Krzysztof Kieslowski, that I came across recently. It's simply based on 2 questions: who are you and what you want. Don't miss it.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Happy Deepavali! தீபாவளி நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்!

2009-10-16T15:43:00.000-05:00

Wishing you all a very happy deepavali! May this day bring great joy and happiness to your lives. Spread that joy around!

Decoding people & relationships

2009-10-04T12:06:00.003-05:00

Sitting amongst friends on a sunny evening, the topic of discussion meandered on to the issue of trusting people (friends, relatives and the like) and the need for exercising caution when it comes to the issue of helping. According to me, one can't keep exercising caution when the issue of help comes amongst people you know. Either you offer your help or not. Trying to deconstruct the intentions behind that "call for help" and its outcomes in the long run, doesn't figure in my scheme of things. I do realize it is naive and have faced the brunt of naivety a significant number of times. There could have also been times when I could have also misused the trust and committed a mistake.

So the real questions are , should the occasional back-firing force one to change his/her attitude in dealing with people he/she knows? Should every action and word spoken begin to be scrutinized and deconstructed henceforth, so that we "really" know the people we think we know and also their intentions? That seems like a very unnatural thing. Such a thing will take the joy or freedom that exists in our relationships, as the mind is constantly in a guarded state. In such a state, it is always bringing our past memories and opinions of that person, distorting our view of the present. That way, the unchained careless happiness that we all seek in our relationship can never be experienced. I always feel that one is only responsible for his/her own actions. How others respond to your actions is not in your control. So we can't keep worrying about about it. We are bound to get hurt every now and then, but that is beyond our control and have to deal with it as part of life. As long as your actions or thoughts are done with a clear conscience, things will be okay in the long run, as long a one doesn't start to dwell on why despite how bad things happened despite your good intentions.

May be this attitude will change with time, as life would have more opportunities to leave a bad-taste in our mouth. May be that is why when we see our elders we see so much of guardedness in their behavior and attitude. After all, all of us were born free without prejudices, suspicion and everything else we now categorize as bad qualities in a person. I have many discussion on this with my folks and each time we learn new aspects and answers; but a concrete answer doesn't seem to be in sight. What are your thought on this ?

In a parallel world...

2009-09-11T23:04:00.007-05:00

Seeing the calendar this morning, reminded me about that fatal day 8 years back. 9/11 sure enough changed a whole lot of things for people here and abroad. It changed my life also in its ownway and I was reminded about it suddenly today. Back then, I was in Chennai, India. Just another fresh engineering graduate, like several others at that time, who had a job with a big IT company waiting for him. In fact, I had obtained that job even before I was in my final year of college. That was the way things worked back then. The IT company was the darling of many eyes in India, and the job was considered a big deal back then, as I was actually a mechanical engineer and it had nothing to do with IT! I had only attended the job interview as a back up, in case my plan to pursue grad studies failed. But some how got offered the job. I had taken my GRE already and was about to start applying. Suddenly having this job changed things a bit. My family thought it would be of mutual benefit if I worked for a couple of years and then went to pursue graduate studies. So, I gave up applying to schools, and ended up enjoying my senior year at school knowing that the future path was well laid out. Graduated from college and had a couple of months to fritter around before I was to really start my job. The joining date was somewhere around, mid September and I was to move to a new state. I was excited! Most of my other friends who were also interested in Graduate studies had all joined their respective schools. Then all of a sudden 9/11 happened. The whole world was in shock! The next couple of days I spent catching on all the breaking news...only to have a news broken to me by the postman. Because of 9/11 the indian IT sector was unsure as to how their businesses were going to be affected, so they weren't sure if they would have projects for us noob's. As a result, they were going to defer our joining dates indefinitely. Bam! all of a sudden I don't have a job. Now let us speed up the story.

No job, sitting on my ass at parents place - Parents start worrying - revisit their decisions - worry more! College prof recommends me for another job at a big engineering company- get called for interview- offered the job for a meagre pay and I take it up. Within a month realized how badly the job sucked - everyone else working there also agreed! Revisited Grad school decision - started applying again - continued complaining about the job. Got accepted into Grad school - quit job -here I am several years later, closer to graduation and ready to get back to that real world again.

In a parallel world, 9/11 wouldn't have happened. Lives here and elsewhere wouldn't have been lost. I would have joined that IT company. Made substantial money and enamored by it would have continued working, even if I had hated it. Would have forgotten about grad school and jumped several other companies as they offered a little bit more. After a couple of years, my parents, relatives, postman and everyone else I knew would have advised(pressurized) me to marry. I would have gone on a honey-moon to Europe! Would have had endless fights with my wife and would have probably been a father by now! Only some 10 odd kilos heavier ;) However, I would still be worrying about papers - those green/red ones with pics of Gandhi/ Franklin/ Hamilton and things called stocks, bonds etc. A man can dream, can't he!

Summer of 69 09!

2009-08-16T16:17:00.003-05:00

It's been more than a week since the awesome summer of 2009 as an intern @ NASA ended. Folks I had made acquittances with and whose faces I was seeing regularly, for the past 1o weeks, are now just avatars/icons and names in the various modes of communications technology has given us. As mentioned in my earlier post, Castro St has been replaced by 5 points once again, my loyalty to Starbucks restored (I had to give in when the barista remembered my drink inspite of me being absent for more than 10 weeks) and am back to my usual status as a regular Grad Student, instead of the fancy title " Intern @ NASA" (name can mean a difference ;)) !

Before I left for the internship, I wondered as to what sort of influence the new place might wield on me? Now that I have had time to assess the influence, here's what I feel :

Aparna was right in that I will start loving local bands! Listening to local bands and supporting their cause in my own way. The music I listened to had an earnest feel to it, the kind of feel evoked by music made in those times when it wasn't commercialized. The Bay area presented me plenty of opportunities to listen to such music and am very thankful for it.
Sitting around in a local cafe, I came across avid free-lance programmers & tech geeks-the kind that made the silicon valley - displaying such enthusiasm in their work after work-hours (their pet projects). Seeing the joy in their faces even in simple activities like debugging a small code, reminded me of the joy to be had if you whole -heartedly enjoyed your work. That kind of enthusiasm had kind of waned since my early days as a Grad student. May be I have stayed too long in school ;) Luckily, the new kind of work I did at my internship and meeting other motivated young interns there, managed to kindle that enthusiasm again.
America has always been the melting pot of cultures. However, Birmingham and Alabama have never been a true representation of that ideology. Although I go to a School that has a fair representation from people all over the world, I never got to experience their cultures as much as one can do in some of the bigger cities. The Bay area was a blessing in that regard. I could get a first-hand experience of appreciation, tolerance and acceptance for diversity. The variety of experiences such a diversity can bring was evident in the kind of life people were living there. All of that could influence you in many different ways, subconsciously.
I could once again experience the joy of carelessly walking alone in the steets of a big city amongst people and observing all the uniqueness that surrounds me. Haven't had a chance to do that to the fullest of my satisfaction since my days in Pondicherry. Such walks give me more time to ponder about things and to understand myself.

I could have been influenced in many other ways; but I do know of them as yet. Time will tell.

weeks 6-9

2009-08-01T15:49:00.007-05:00

Here is the next installment of my days in the bay area. All the fun ends this week, as its pack up time. Instead of roaming around in Castro St, I will be heading to 5 point south. Instead of the unique and fun-filled Red Rock coffee, I will be getting my caffeine fixes from Starbucks. However, instead of living out of a suitcase, I will head back to what has been home for the last 7 years. I will definitely miss all the fun I've had, the new friends I have made and the luxury of having a zillion eating options to choose from. I will have another post targeting this specific topic, when the internship actually ends. Now lets move onto what happened in weeks 6-9:

Walk among the redwoods in the company of some good friends in a place called the Big Basin Redwood State park that is a stones throw away from San Jose. It was splendid to see those huge redwoods, of which I had come to know through my middle school geography books,in person. It was a decent 8 or more miles hike that went up and down the hills, with a creek following us almost 3/4th of the way and an occasional waterfall or two.

A couple of visits to the city (San Francisco). One visit dedicated to walking around by the ocean and getting glimpses of the Alcatraz and Golden Gate bridge. During the visit I also got to sit by the ocean amongst the rocks lining the beach and seeing seagulls, surfers swarm around the Golden Gate bridge, while the Sun kept them close company. The second time, I went along with a friend of mine to see the SFMOMA, where two exhibits were happening; one featuring Ansel Adams & Georgia O Keefe's work titled Natual Affinities and the second one featuring Richard Avedon. Both were simply mind blowing to say the least. By the time, we had seen the exhibit, we were exhausted to see anything else, like you feel after a sumptuous meal that you had no space for a little fruit. After the exhibit, I went to see the Vedanta society and buy some material. The resident swami was so nice that, on hearing that I had come from Alabama she opened the already closed bookshop for my perusal. I also spent sometime trying to meditate in the supremely serene meditation hall. It was a wonderful feeling to say the least. On coming out of the Vedanta society you get such a breathtaking view of the ocean and the Golden Gate, making the whole trip even more nice. After this side trip, I rejoined my friend for a small walk around the Japan town enroute to our final destination: Audium. Its a unique place where you are surrounded by around 100 speakers and the performer explores the use of space for music. Confusing? you read more about it from the linked webpage to more about it. It was very very interesting and I am not exaggerating if I said that it induced a dream like state and I was not sleeping :). If you are at anytime around the bay area you should experience this.

A Visit to the Napa Valley, where I got to experience the intoxicating flavors of soil, cool bay breeze, sky, grapes and wine. Not to mention the fun-filled drive along with the other interns and elaborate sing-alongs and stationary dancing (we were packed inside the van!). Did a whole lot of wine-tasting, but wasn't drunk. Among all the wineries we went to, the best experience was at one named Frog's leap, where we didn't spend a dime. As we were a big group, they couldn't accommodate us for the tastings, so they gave us a free drink and let us walk around their vineyards and cellars. A wonderful feeling to be among the farm. We wrapped up the trip with a stop at a Belgian crepes place in the city.

Other notable things include:

Vintage car exhibit on Castro St.
Interesting conversations about languages, CFD and movies with other interns.
More discussions on movies, nostalgia and Jayakanthan with Swami and Avinash.
Trip to Komala Vilas that I discussed in my previous post.
Tennis ball cricket inside NASA ! uber cool!

Music of Lobo+ Indica ad = nostalgia time!

2009-07-23T01:49:00.001-05:00

More nostalgia for the 80's Indian generation. I am sure y'all remember this ad. Thro' this ad I also found some god songs of Lobo, whose music is used as the background music. Not to mention the situation, every boy fantasized :)

Simple pleasures in life

2009-07-21T02:01:00.002-05:00

All statements in this post are made from a South-Indian perspective:

Although you might have access to a plethora of fancy restaurants and also the money power to go anywhere you want, there will be days when all you ache for is a simple curd rice and a small tea-spoon of mango pickle to go with it. On those days the fancy Raviolis filled with 4 exotic cheeses or a platter of falafel with hummus or red pepper farcie served with a drizzle of honey and a dash of arrogance ;) just won't do the trick. When that craving for the simplest of things is satisfied, there arises in your face and mind this priceless happiness that money/Master card can buy.

Given that I have had access to some great food during my stay here, thanks to friends from my Alma Mater - Avinash and Swami - I got to eat at one of the Sunnyvale restaurants, what was not only the simplest of Indian foods, but also the most satisfying meal among all that I have had in the past year. It is the basics of basics among south Indian cuisine that Indian restaurants abroad have ignored to pay dues to. Simple stuff that you would have had growing up - a simple rice + sambar+ rasam + curd along with curry and appalam served in a stainless steel plate. When all those go into the left hand side, what ends up on the right hand side of the equation is = "absolute bliss"

Weeks 4-5

2009-07-06T21:13:00.004-05:00

Looks like people are still monitoring this space, as I have heard from some of my friends regarding the lack updates for weeks 4 & 5. Sorry folks for the delay. Here is a brief update:

Most of week 4 was spent away from Mountain View, CA. I had to head to San Antonio, TX on work. Although, host to my fav NBA team, the whole city sucks! May be it was the heat, may be it was the hype surrounding the river walk, I definitely did not find any charm in the city. May be I didn't head to the right places, but hey, when talk about San Antonio, they only talk about the Alamo and the river walk. To piss me off even more, there wasn't even a Spurs fan store in downtown S.A. All I found was a store for the Dallas Cowboys. Yeah! a store for the cowboys in the home of the Spurs, duh!

On my return from San Antonio, the fabulous interns here had planned for a camping trip to the now dormant Lassen peak (Lassen Volcanic National Park). It was an uber awesome trip. I got to walk around the rim of 2 dormant volcanic mountains. Saw some hot geysers that existed side by side with snow that hadn't melted this deep into the summer season. Witnessed first-hand evidences on how rivers/lakes/waterbody interacted with hot magma and vice-versa shaping our terrain. Trekked around 15 miles in little more than a day. Got to witness a million holes in the black umbrella cloth that unfurls over us at night - it was a sight to behold. To sum it up all in words wouldn't do justice. Now that this post has grown so long, let me put the rest in bulletin form (that is what we Engineers do best)

Ordered an appetizer at a Japanese restaurant that turned out to be a liquid (mildly solid) and had no clue on how to eat/drink it with chopstick. It tasted good though.
More wine-tasting (not grape alone but also ones made from barley and rice)
Watched the mind-blowing Moon -directed by Duncan Jones. That too, in a theatre that was hidden among corporate buildings and looks as old as the art called cinema itself.
Wandered by the side of Stanford and Google campuses.
Got to see up-close and front Mamiya and Hasselblad cameras.
Blew some money in the criterion-collection DVD section at a really cool record store.
Had some interesting conversations on a wide range of topics with new and old friends.
Found that the Spanish Paella is the closest you get to the pudina/coriander/vegetable rice of south India in terms of western cuisine.

Ciao!

why are we always living in the past?

2009-07-02T02:45:00.002-05:00

I keep wondering as to why we are constantly reminded of the past? When we are amongst friends, we constantly revert to topics that discuss things from our past. Are we failing to see any joy in this dynamic and constantly evolving living thing called the present? We seemed locked up in our memories and all our sources of happiness seem to arise from those memories. Isn't it such a drab life if we kept living like that? Things seem interesting only after it has become the past. Why do we fail to recognize it right at the moment its happening? Is it possible to live free from the memories? That way, will all our lives change dramatically, as the way we see things change! Everything is new at every instant, no prejudices, no influences, we will be a fair and neutral witness to every little activity. Now that I have blogged this thought, it has also got locked in the virtual memory space.

Week 2-3

2009-06-20T01:54:00.002-05:00

I am starting to get real comfy with this place. Not sure if its a good thing or a bad thing. Let me clarify it a bit: when you start getting comfortable with something you begin to take it for granted. You stop appreciating and observing all the little things in that place/thing that made it unique when you first saw it/experienced it. Also, once you get comfortable with a certain aspect, when it goes missing, then it causes you pain. On the other hand, with respect to certain regards, it is good to remove discomfort from the zillion variables that goes into the equation called life, as it allows you to narrow down the focus.

Some of the other events in weeks 2 & 3 are, I inched 1 year closer to the magical mark of 30. As my friend Aparna said in the comments to one of my earlier posts on influence of a place, I am loving the indy bands and even bought a couple of their CD's in my small attempt to support growing musicians. Research wise, some positives and more negatives. In the long run, hopefully it will all balance out. However, I am learning some new exciting stuff. Hopefully, I can get over the learning curve fast enough, in order to start doing exciting stuff. Enjoying the company of seniors from my alma mater. In terms of exploring the area, not much done, due to some academic deadlines. That's pretty much it.

Week 1

2009-06-08T01:37:00.003-05:00

Saw a Hare Rama Hare Krishna group take a procession on the street.

Had a taste of Korean Soju.

Found an awesome coffee place where Baristas serve coffee with latte art, Pink Floyd, Beatles are the norm when it comes to music, and the whole place is a not-for-profit one.

Had a taste of great Indo-chinese noodle that triggered a nostalgic trip for the taste buds

Walked into an used book-store that could be a black-hole for my wallet.

Took a walking trek around SFO with other interns.

Caught up with old friends that I have not met in over a decade.

Witnessed people trying to learn bollywood dance to live fusion-sitar music, in front of a bakery.

Does a place influence one's personality?

2009-05-25T01:20:00.005-05:00

Disclaimer: A big blabber; read only if bored beyond death.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lately, I have wondering on a topic, that is the title of this post. As to why, it will become clear soon.

Let us begin with some examples:

(i) Tiruvarur- Tanajavore - This place has always produced great musicians; (ii) Montmartre -Paris in the 1800's and early 1900's that was associated with great artists.

What was special to these places that led to such profuse artistic productivity? Is it just the fact that, by pure chance some great people came to inhibit this place and the exposure to their work in turn influenced the other inhabitants; eventually the place becomes a hotbed of creativity and influence in that particular field. If that is the case, by constant exposure to experts in a particular field, can one imbibe an interest in a person and also make him better? These are questions beyond my reach. May be some sort of research already exists. Even if it is not this kind of influence, could it at least affect/ influence your personality superficially?

All these thought arose in me, because it suddenly occurred to me that the 5 years I stayed in Pondicherry has been some sort of influence in my growing interest in the creative arts. Even as a kid, I was interested in sketching. Nobody taught me painting/sketching. Although at school, we had a compulsory drawing class, it was not inspirational. None among my close friends (at primary & middle school) or my immediate family were into sketching and the like. I just happened to see some sketchbooks & wall paintings in my friends place and that was enough to get the interest kindled. So how come, those simple sketchbooks got me interested, I will never be able to find a comprehensive answer. However, I should add that my parents never discouraged me when I was "wasting away time" sketching, they were interested in music and were a little too liberal compared to many people I have known.

However, all this interest just existed under the surface and never bloomed big time. After entering college, I stumbled up on a few friends and suddenly my interest in sketching & music (restricted to listening) began to grow. I began to understand its nuance more and more. Additionally, the place Pondicherry was a melting point of cultures and kind of caught my attention. You had French artists freely mingling with Bengali old-folks and local Tamil natives. All of it showed in its architecture and life. You could even see art works at random places. The whole setting had a little charm to it. Often, walking thro' the streets of Pondicherry, you wondered what drew such a wide variety of people. I have met some people who had taken a break from their real-life careers and were just roaming about the streets of Pondicherry like a true hippie. May be the simple connection between France and Pondicherry provided the answer. But, that couldn't be the only reason, as there were people from other nationalities living there. By the time I left Pondicherry, and headed here, my interest had spread to other arts like photography and art of movies. The financial independence now also gave the freedom to indulge in some of these. Suddenly, I find that my interests and the level of interest in them, finds no resemblance to any one else in my family. How did this transformation come about? Is it just the freedom of being away from home, is it the influence of the place and the people I met during those "coming to age" years when one's personality gets molded or was there some little genetic code that was embedded inside me or is it a combination of these? I am not able to put a finger on it. Recently, I did read on a noted filmmakers blog a mention of places like Goa, Dharamshala, Leh, and Pondicherry as places that people go to find themselves. I have been to Goa and Pondicherry and Leh is high on my must-visit places. So that at least provides a part of the answer. Although "finding oneself" has a different connotation in some of those places, it was not the reason I was there in those places. As I mentioned earlier, may be these places have some magic that casts a spell on you and influences you. It can also be that, you need to have had that personality trait since birth and these places merely hold the key to unlock that aspect. What do you think?

Over the next 10 weeks, I head to the bay-area in the west coast - the place of hippie culture, a million start-ups, land of the liberals and free wi-fi. How it is going to change me, only time will tell.

NBA play-offs

2009-05-23T01:01:00.002-05:00

To make up for all the disappointment that was the college basketball season, this year's NBA play-offs have provided the best ever entertainment, since I started following NBA 14 years ago. Although my favorites (the Spurs),just like all other teams I have supported in other sports this year, lost early, I am thoroughly enjoying this season. The quality of games have been top notch and with lots of close finishes. Taking in to account that, over the last 1 month , "cricket on dope" - IPL T20- and the champions league final stage was also happening, sports fans couldn't have asked for a better summer!

the unofficial theme song for several love stories

2009-04-19T01:51:00.002-05:00

The treasure trove called youtube reminded me of this ever so popular song amongst the 90's Indian youth. I wouldn't be exaggerating, if this song was unofficially the theme song for several love stories, and sweet-little crushes. I have personally witnessed stories to which this song was an integral part, that night and day this song would be on repeat mode. Apart from the musical aspect, which teenager of the 90's will not remember this one for the sake of Ayesha Jhulka and of course for featuring Pooja Bedi in a Marilyn -Monroesque pose. The remix was also hugely popular because of the video mainly I guess. Ah the magical 90's!

School inspection, brown cover, labels...I wonder why?

2009-04-18T17:12:00.002-05:00

When I was in primary school (state board) , every year, we used to have this ritual of school inspection. Some arbitrary person (guessing from the State's education dept) would go around the school and drop in to some arbitrary class that caught his fancy and start testing on the students on the subject they were being taught. This was such a strenuous day for the school ,for the parents and not to mention the kids - as they were the ones being put to test. Strenuous for the school, because the official issued some sort of report on the school performance I assume; strenuous on the parents, because the school would tell all the kids a week in advance to add new brown cover , labels etc to all the text books and note books, which meant the parents has to spend money and time to do the job. When I moved in to a new Central board school, we no longer had this ritual. I suddenly got reminded of this when I was watching Satyajit Ray's Aparajito, where such a scenario was portrayed. The whole concept seems very funny to me now, as there are always a million ways to fudge the outcome in India. I also remember seeing school inspection portrayed in "Life is Beautiful" (remember the belly button scene?). So I assume, it was procedure not unique to India alone. Was it another one of those protocols handle to us by the West? How exactly does it work? Shouldn't the parents know the outcome, at least for the contribution they put in and more importantly because their wards education depended on the performance of the school? Also can anyone explain to me the concept of brown covers (wrapping papers)? Did the notebooks & texts look too naked without them?

Modern-day musical trinity for the tamil masses

2009-03-26T12:29:00.002-05:00

With all due regards to the musical trinity (Tyagaraja-Mthuswami Dikshithar-Syama sastry), it wouldn't be blasphemy if I called the modern-day trio of Ilayaraja, SPB & Chitra as the musical trinity for the tamil masses. Of course, its not an apple to apple comparison for obvious reasons, but don't these three deserve that comparison after all the joy they have given us thro' tamil film music. In the late 80's and early 90's SPB & Chitra have sung some wonderful duets under Ilayaraja's composition. Straight from the top of my head I can think of songs from Punnagai Mannan, gopura vasalile etc. A couple of days back while watching old episodes of the wildly popular Airtel Supersinger (you can call it the tamil counterpart of American Idol, but they have been doing this sort of shows for a long time in India), I got to revisit the trios classic piece from the movie "unnal mudiyum thambi." A couple of young performers were singing it during the romance round and recreated the entire magic of that song. I had long forgotten that song and it gave me goosebumps to hear it all over again, as if I was listening to it for the first time. It was pure magic. Let me not add anymore to this post and will leave you with this feast for the years. After all, after you have had "payasam," I don't think one's mind can assimilate anything else in that entranced state.

The original:

The airtel super singer performance:

Kanchivaram - The movie

2009-03-19T01:26:00.003-05:00

Kanchivaram - a Tamil film by Priyadarshan - is a wonderfully woven effort. Although I haven't seen any Priyadarshan's Malayalam work, this is miles apart from the other stuff he dishes out. Good that he made this one in Tamil! The tamil industry is churning out quite a bit of quality stuff and they are all coming from unexpected quarters. I leave the review to the experts. Go and see it, if you get a chance. The story, the performance, the cinematography and the background score deserves at least that. Bravo, Priyadarshan!

On another note, I saw this film titled Pierrot le fou (Crazy Pete) by director Jean-Luc Godard on Netflix and absolutely fell in love with it. The movie, half of it doesn't make sense. Most of the scenes are placed may be to prove a point that the Director is a cool dude. But still, I loved every bit of it. I must rate it as one of the "coolest" films I have ever seen. I have already seen his famous breathless aka À bout de souffle and liked it, but this one is special. See if you can get hold of this, especially if you are as crazy as this screwball geek blogger.

P.S. Blood diamond was the first thing to come to my mind after watching Kanchivaram. Do you also see the connection? Is that because of the lecture they gave us, just as the end credits rolled?

Man on Wire

2009-03-01T19:52:00.002-06:00

"Man on Wire" (best documentary future- Academy Awards 2008)

- A man on high

-A man possessed with a dream

- A man who is crazy

- A man who did the impossible

-A feature that is about dreaming high

-A feature about living on the edge

-A feature that is a must watch!

Fascinating question/thought!

2009-02-27T16:44:00.005-06:00

I came across the following fascinating statement (thro' this blog) in a speech by Jill Tarter, the director of SETI, given to TED:

We are the products of a billion years lineage of wandering stardust. We are, what happens when a primordial mixture of Hydrogen & Helium evolves for so long, that it begins to ask where it came from.

Fabulous isn't it? A program that writes a program by itself to understand why it was written in the first place ;) As crazy as it may sound, it still leaves me spellbound.

It only reminded me of another thing I had read from my favorite "Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy." To the H2G2G fans amongst you, isn't it similar to the supercomputer that invents its successor so that it could answer the ultimate question of what is life, universe and everything else ? In the book, the supercomputer says that it can't answer the question by itself, but will be able to design an another one that will be able to do the job and also says that it's successor will be so complex that life will itself form part of the computer! (Earth happens to be that supercomputer in the book :))

Enough craziness to wrap up the work week ;)

Journey from Leo Coffee to Kodak Theatre

2009-02-24T16:13:00.006-06:00

Being such an ardent fan of music, how can this blog go without a post celebrating A.R. Rahman's double win at Oscar's 2009. Moreover, he is from the same neigbourhood as mine (okay! a lil bit of exaggeration here as his house is at least 2 miles away from mine at Chennai). A quick peek at how it all started for this Mozart from Madras.

The ad jingle for Leo Coffee that got him noticed by Maniratnam:

Ad Jingle for Garden sarees (Don't lose focus here, concentrate on the music and not Lisa Ray ;))

The Song that introduced us to AR Rahman

Episode of "Surabhi" featuring the young wizard

His best score ever (in my personal opinion)

Journey westward ho! (used in Inside Man)

Striking the gold!

coffy bite or Eclairs?

2009-02-08T20:06:00.008-06:00

What was your favorite toffee/ chocolate as a kid? Sometime last weekend, amongst friends we were recollecting some of our favorite toffees/ chocolates as kids (back in India). Coffy bite (coffee or toffee) used to be my favorite (probably an early sign to my future addiction to coffee :)). I also did like mango bite and Mr.Pop (a chocolate lollilop that was similar to eclairs , having a monkey as its mascot and came wrapped in a shiny silvery- violet wrapper). Dairy Milk and five star were the only options then, when it came to chocolate bars. I loved the dairy milk bar and of course, Mom always got me only those small thin bars, probably with dental care in mind. However, I was more than happy with these small bars, as they mostly had some sort of cool classic cars embossed on them. The big dairy milk bar and the fruit & nut variations were reserved for one or two special days. However, more than the eating experience, what remains etched in my memory, is going to the departmental store (grocery store) and drooling over the glass box ( with a blue wooden frame - cadbury colors) that is kept in front of the cashier where all the chocolaty goodies rest. And what I also remember is that, by the time, the chocolate reached home.....it was already soggy and melting from chennai heat.

Let me stop here by throwing at you some more toffee names we discussed the other day: Parrys orange toffee (the cheapest kind), eclairs, rola-cola (tasted like thumbs-up), Melody chocolate (a brown wrapping that had only one half of bow tie), pan pasand, cadbury gems, Nutrine gold, naturo bar, parrys caramel (came in red/blue wrappers), lacto king, coconut punch, Campco white, parry's peppermint, and the ubiquitous "balli mittai" (tamil name) (basically sugar coated jeera that came in various colors and was usually packed inside plastic fans, cars, you name it fancy object and costs under 1.00 Rs). In case I missed your favorite one, add it in the comments, cos' we may not see/ hear them in this fancy world of Ferrero Rocher & Toblerones. Also here are some links, that might trigger nostalgia:

Parrys confectionary website (Now Lotte India)

Cadbury's India

Nutrine Confectionary

Revisiting Ilayaraaja

2009-02-03T00:53:00.004-06:00

How could you not like Ilayaraaja after hearing songs like these?

Kodiyile - Kadolara Kavidaigal

Pothi Vecha - Mann Vasanai

Ilaya Nila - Payangal Mudivadhillai

Being an Guitar & organ player himself, these instruments were used in such fabulous ways. Just like old wine, his music and its intricacies seem to stand out even crisper and savory to the tasting ear buds with time. Scintillating stuff!

Thank God for 2009, Rahman, Photography...bla bla

2009-01-17T23:01:00.005-06:00

The second half of 2008 was a forgettable one. Things were really bad in different ways. Am glad that I can put it behind me, now that we are 2 weeks into 2009. At least things look more bright & cheerful now (at least feeling that way).

For this first post of the year, I do have a couple of announcements to make regarding my biggest hobby: photography. one of my photo from my India trip in 2008 (on Pondicherry) has been now published in a reputed art journal from India and also in the book that is an extended form of the articles published in the journal. Another one of my photos on a Temple car ("ther" in tamil), from an earlier trip, is going to be published in an art book (about decorated vehicles) written by a famous professor of art in the US (out sometime in summer). In these times, when, using the digital cameras, we can click 1000 photos and one might turn out to be like a masterpiece, this is not a significant accomplishment. However, it is nice to see some recognition once in a while, as it helps you to continue and improve on the hobby.

I would also like give a shout out to A.R. Rahman for winning the Golden Globe. Hopefully, he gets the Oscar also. Now that we are talking Rahman, "Slumdog Millionaire" became the first digital album I purchased. I always prefer to have the actual CD in my hand along with those awesome paper album artwork. After several weeks of contemplation , I decided to buy the digital version, as movie soundtracks don't have interesting /collectible album art work and the special low rate offered by amazon.com! Rahman seemed to have a fabulous 2008, don't you agree? Most albums released last year were big hits. In 2009, he seems to be continuing from where he left. The Dilli 6 / Delhi 6 album just got released and in the limited sampling of those songs it sounds outstanding. I haven't loved an album in its entirety so much so fast after Iruvar's soundtrack. All songs have something special. By this time, atleast people in India, must be getting familiar with the words "Masakali" that appears in one of the standout songs that is being used in the movie's promos on all channels. The song Masakali's intro piece is enough to get you interested in the whole album. I will reserve my thoughts on the album for a separate post, to do justice to it.

I have blabbered quite a bit here to make up for all the lack of posting in 2008, so will stop here. Hopefully my blogging rate speeds up in 2009.

Ciao!

Remember silkroute?

2008-12-23T17:55:00.004-06:00

Well, I am not asking you about those history lessons. I am talking about silkroute- a musuc band. When it comes to music, one hit wonders are aplenty. Just like the fireflies that hog the lime light in their brief life span, these one-hot wonders leave a deep impression on you in their short-lived careers. One such wonder was this band called Silkroute from India. They shot in to superstardom with their brilliant song " Dooba -Dobba" that was accompanied by an equally fascinating "India's first underwater Video." A 3 member band - Mohit Chauhan, Kem Trivedi, & Kenny Puri- that produced 2 brilliant albums "boondein' & "Pehchaan" before fading into obscurity. Rather than being a star -a mundane permanent fixture in the sky- may be these bands believed that they were better of being a shooting star that could sway heads, although only momentarily. We will never know the real reasons! Now, why did I suddenly think of Silkroute? I happened to listen to a song from a recent Hindi film " jab we met" called "Tum se hi" on radio and thought the voice was vaguely familiar. A search revealed that the singer was Mohit Chauhan and the link to Silkroute was established, triggering this trip down memory lane. If you remembered silkroute, am sure you will enjoy these videos (from the internet tubes ). May be it will also stir up some beautiful memories from the past - at least it did for me, as I was making a transition from high school to college then.

Nizhalgal music

2008-11-30T23:32:00.006-06:00

With so much gloom taking over life (Mumbai bombing incident) in the last couple of days, I decided to end this - overall sad- thanksgiving break in a slightly positive mood. What better way to do that, than to listen to some good music. Sampling the 100s of songs on my itunes playlist, I ended up listening to an yesteryear's classic by Ilayaraaja - songs from the movie Nizhalgal. The songs have been on a repeat mode since this afternoon and has finally ended up overflowing onto this blog post. In contrast to the music, the movie Nizhalgal is quite a sad one (but also very well made). So do not watch it if you are looking for some positive spiriy. In such a scenario, you could however always seek the film's music. Give it a spin, if you have never heard it before. You will not regret it.

Sometimes..

2008-11-09T21:32:00.002-06:00

Sometimes .... I want to create a compilation music CD and give it to all my friends and get them to appreciate gems from Ilayaraja or plain carnatic music (that they hardly know anything about).

Sometimes, I wish I could be sitting in the sands of beach staring into the big blue ocean join hands with the twilight sky

Sometimes, I wish I could be in India sipping "degree" coffee from a "davara tumbler" with hot hot bhajjis in side

Sometimes, all I wanna do is just lie on a straw mat listening to All India Radio.

Sometimes, I wish I could be a traveller wandering about.

Sometimes, I hope these things could be conjured up out of thin air.

Drama that jolted me up from my slumber

2008-11-02T13:00:00.004-06:00

Folks, this space has been inactive for quite a bit now. No reasons can be offered, as there has been plenty of things that has been happening around me. However, lots of it were things It needed some kind of drama to wake me up from this deep hibernation. It's the drama that happened in the formula one race track at Sao Paulo, Brazil. It's no secret that I am a big fan of Formula 1 racing. So its only natural that something that happened on the track has got me so much excited. If you don't follow the sport, just ignore this post. I have a couple of other posts that are on the way.

If last season displayed enough drama, where Raikkonen snatched victory in those last 3 races and the young Hamilton saw his dream fade away in the same races, this years last race took the definition of drama to a whole new strata. Felipe Massa was 7 points behind the leader Hamilton. He needed a victory here and further needed Hamilton to finish in 6th place or below. As for Hamilton, just like last year, it was just a test of nerves. It must have hurt him so much last year that he must have been awaiting such a scenario to prove that he is indeed special and not just a flash in the pan. For Ferrari, things couldn't have started in a better note. Massa was at pole, Hamilton 3 places behind and the unpredicted rain at the start of the race meant, Hamilton was in 6 th place with Massa leading the pack. Midway in the race, Hamilton clawed his way back in to 5th place and he just needed to maintain it there to win the championship. There was nothing more Massa could do. With just 10 laps remaining, it almost seemed a certainty that Hamilton had his grips on that championship and was cruising in 4th place. Sebastien Vettel and Timo Glock were behind him in close range, but not close enough to threaten his hold. He just needed to ensure that he hung on to that position and didn't do anything stupid. That is when the new hero emerged in the name of "weather gods"! Rain clouds started to hang over the track and rain drops once again started to fall on the track. It was one of those rains where, the team managers decision making abilities were put to test. The race was too close to a finish that, a pit stop could alter the whole scenario. However, continuing to drive on dry tires meant too much of a risk (lack of grip) in case the rain intensified. The teams took a call and decided to switch to intermediate tires. All the front runner switched except Glock and Vettel (not too sure about him). After the pit stops, Glock was in 4th place, one place ahead of Hamilton. However, Vettel was closer to Hamilton and him being the new rain master, was chasing Hamilton hard. . With Hamilton having changed tyres, and both Glock and Vettle not changing, Hamilton needed a heavy downpour, to gain the advantage of the tyres and move away from Vettle and gain on Glock. However, it was not to be. Vettel heavily challenged Hamilton, and with 2 laps remaining, Hamilton ran wide, resisting Vettel's challenge. Vettel moved one place up and pushed Hamilton to 6th and away from championship. Hamilton was trying hard to get back to 5th in the last lap. Massa crossed the chequered flag and the whole Ferrari team started celebrating. Hamilton had a few more corners to negotiate and was getting desperate. Lady luck was being cruel to him once again. But then, in the last corner, Glock slowed a bit (Was he on team orders to let Hamilton through? we don't know yet) and Hamilton crossed the chequerd flag in 5th place and the championship was miraculously his! It came as a rude shock to the celebrating Ferrari squad. They couldn't believe their eyes. Tear of joy on Massa's face, all of a sudden morphed into tears of sadness. The Championship was over. Lewis Hamilton went on to become the youngest ever Formula one Champion. He had won that coveted title by a single point, the same number of points by which he had lost it in his debut season (2007). Talk about life becoming a full circle! Such is life, you win some and lose some. The drama remains forever etched in the memories.

Over the last 12 or so years, I have witnessed some great championship races, and this one is right there on top along with the 2007 season (3 way battle b/w Raikkonen ,Hamilton and Massa) and that of 2003 season (battle between Schumacher and Raikkonen, when Schumacher took the championship away from Raikkonen by just 2 points).

Flashback time

2008-09-20T23:51:00.002-05:00

As I was digging for questions for our revival quiz meet, I chanced upon these fabulous memories. Thanks to Internet, youtube and those supreme souls who uploaded these videos. Take a look and put a smile back on u'r face :) Long Live DD!

R.I.P - Richard Wright (Pink Floyd)

2008-09-16T07:32:00.003-05:00

Another member of my fav band, Pink Floyd passed away yesterday.

Richard William Wright (July 28 1943 - 15 September 2008), the keyboardist & pianist for Floyd, died due to Cancer. Two of the founding members (former members) of this great band have died in the last couple of years, leaving a big hole in the world of Psychedelic music.

We will all miss those awesome keyboard sounds. May you RIP.

A very interesting talk

2008-09-07T01:16:00.003-05:00

Check this short talk that I found in the TED website. It is titled:

"Why we don't understand as much as we think we do"

Quizzing @ its best

2008-08-30T15:53:00.005-05:00

For those of you who do know me, you will know about the passion I have for trivia quizzing & related events. A passion that drove me & some others to sustain a quizzing club in this faraway land, even though many a times it was just 2 or 3 people exchanging questions between themselves. Although it comes off as too geekish, it is not so back at home. An evidence for the power of this trivia quizzing is the thousands of members that converge upon the hallways of Music Academy in Chennai, India every August 15 for India's largest open quiz titled the "Landmark Open Quiz." One of the many things, that I miss the most. Come every August 15, I start searching the internet world for questions asked there. This time around, my cousin gave me the best of info; that I could watch the entire quiz sans the written prelims, online. Awesome stuff! If you are vaguely curious about this event, I suggest you head over to this link to witness quizzing at its best. Dr.Navin Jayakumar who conducts the quiz every year is one of the best in the business. Take a look and see if you can get those "basic funda's" right :)

2 movies - a short review

2008-08-07T01:10:00.003-05:00

Just to keep the ripple in my little blog-pond, I keep throwing little stones every now & then. Continuing with that tradition, here is another small post, if you would excuse me :) I will put them in point form, apropos to the nature of this post:

1) I had a wonderful trip to India, during the hot month of June. The high from the trip has long vanished due to the hyperactivity over the last couple of weeks. You can also enjoy (visually, what I enjoyed from my trip to India (Tamilnadu & Pondicherry to be precise), by visiting my flickr stream (ugly self-promotion).

2) As for the two movies, that I happened to mention in the title, they were: Dasavatharam & Subramaniapuram.

Dasavatharam: A hyped up Kamal Hassan movie, which has Kamal donning 10 different roles. Except for his couple of avatars, the movie was a big let down, even for a big Kamal fan like me. His acting was good, but the screenplay could have been a lot better. A much better professional no-nonsense review is here.

Subramaniapuram: A very good debut movie from a unheard of director with a new cast and rural theme, that transports you to those magical 80's and the "as -tamil-you-can-get-town" called Madurai. Just this song & the poster shown here was enough to make me see it. It is a very good movie, like "Kadhal" & "Kalloori" which were also set in/near Madurai. The Magic of Madurai, may be! This great review by Bharadwaj Rangan might give you the needed push to see the film.

if you had only 10 mins

2008-05-02T23:41:00.004-05:00

May be, I should have not misled you. Let me complete the title:
If you had only 10 minutes to tell a most memorable love story and that too in a movie.....How would you do it?

This was the question that came to my mind on watching Karthik's cameo (one of the best cameos in Tamil films) in my fav director Maniratnam's Mouna Ragam. I don't think any one has done a better take in regards to this other than Maniratnam, although more than 80% of the movies being made in the Tamil film industry (I should include hindi also) deals with the same subject. Maniratnam puts all those other 3 hour movies to shame, with his lecture on terseness.

For your viewing pleasure: Courtesy Youtube and some "punya atma" (blessed soul)...who correctly posted just the wanted part :)
Unfortunately, no subtitles. If you need to follow the dialogue, go find a Tamilian living close by. Can't be hard to find :)

pull of the dark side of the moon

2008-05-01T00:44:00.003-05:00

If you love Pink Floyd.....all you need is a faint reminder of one of their songs. It's enough to make you wanna revisit every single one of their songs. Ever since I was introduced to them....I have gone thro' periods where I wantedly don't listen to any of their albums. Then one day you suddenly hear in the distance, what sounds like Floyd and there is this magnetic pull to hear it all over again. Ah! the magic of good music :)

Why did I post this? Because, I saw the making of " The dark side of the moon" album and I am hooked all over again to the music of Floyd, just like a kid listening to it for the first time.

lazy afternoon

2008-04-26T18:18:00.003-05:00

There are days, when you know that you have a lot of stuff to be done and yet you don't want to do anything. Today is one such day for me...the brain simply refuses to focus on anything. Back in my undergrad days....this would be one such day, where I would just take my bike and head to the beach in Pondicherry. I would just sit among the rocks that dotted the coastline , only to observe my mind wander of simultaneously in n-different directions, just like the outcome of the water-droplets after the waves crash against the rocks. Sadly, no beach in Birmingham.

Note to self: I need to head to some place where there is a beach, after graduation for work.

Since, I don't know what to do now, let me at least fill in the details for the "tag", I received from Apple-Bee. I thought that this "tag" stuff on the blogosphere was dead. Looks like some one resurrected it.

Last Movie Seen In A Theatre?
Can' t remember. I guess it was American Gangster.

What Book Are You Reading?
House of Blue Mangoes - David Davidar. I am on a mission to read up as many authors with an Indian connection.

Favourite Board Game?
I guess it has to be Chess for now. As a kid , monopoly.

Favourite Magazine?
Jpg Mag & National Geographic.

Favourite Smells?
Caffeine and that of the beach.

Favourite Sound?
Murmur of the wind.

Worst Feeling In The World?
Regret on some of the indulgences and related thoughts on the under-privileged.

What Is The First Thing You Think Of When You Wake?
I need to wake up much earlier than this ;)

Favourite Fast Food Place?
I simply hate American fast food. Me being a veggie could be one reason for it. I used to love Hot-chips in Chennai, India. They had awesome chat related stuff.

Future Child’s Name?
Haven't thought about it.

Finish This Statement: If I Had A Lot of Money, I’d…
travel places.

Do You Drive Fast?
I don't have a car here. but, hey! I walk fast :)

Do You Sleep With A Stuffed Animal?
Nope.

Storms– cool or scary?
Cool!

Do You Eat The Stems on Broccoli?
I hate Broccoli.

If You Could Dye Your Hair Any Colour, What Would Be Your Choice?
I am happy with the black color.

Name All The Different Cities/Towns You’ve Lived In.
Chennai, Pondicherry: India; Birmingham- Alabama-US.

Favourite Sports To Watch:
Basketball, F-1 .

One Nice Thing About The Person Who Sent This To You:
Very very exuberant and full of energy.

What’s Under Your Bed?
Nothing.

Would You Like To Be Born As Yourself Again?
Yes. It would be better if I could escape the cycle.

Morning Person or Night Owl?
Night Owl.

Over Easy or Sunny Side Up?
I don't eat eggs.

Favourite Place To Relax?
The Beach.

Favourite Pie?
Blue-berry pie- A la mode

Favourite Ice-Cream Flavour?
Butterscotch and the casatta flavor you get in India.

Flashback time

2008-03-26T22:38:00.002-05:00

When I was catching up on one of the more popular comedy program from my home state Tamil Nadu, I stumbled up on this gem that took me back to flashback land. One of the scenes from one of my favorite films directed by one of my favorite director Maniratnam, who is literally an unknown figure to the western world. However, it is hard for anyone to not notice a shining gem ( The ratnam in his name actually refers to a gem in Tamil). The result was that this film "Nayakan" (Hero) was voted to be one of the all-TIME top 100 movies by the Time magazine. "Nayakan" can be easily called as Maniratnam's tribute to the "Godfather." However Mani and the actor Kamal Hassan bring more to the table in this movie that can only be appreciated when you watch it.
The video has no subtitles and I will try to hunt one down with subtitles. This movies is availables at Netflix, if you are interested. For those of you Tamilians....enjoy this gem from Velunayakar.

Caught up in the March madness

2008-03-22T22:45:00.002-05:00

Boy, oh Boy! This March Madness* has truly caught up to me. Last couple of days, there have been too many good games, that I find it too difficult to work on anything, while simultaneously watching TV. Of course, nothing beats watching these games live. But no complaining, as you get to see all the best teams in the country battle it out for pride and that too close to 8 odd games/day. I think, slowly my attraction is shifting away from NBA to college basketball. The primary reason being that, all these college kids are playing for pride, instead of the big money at stake in NBA. Wish that in India, we made college level sports as attractive as this. For the moment though, I am simply loving March. If you would like to get a glimpse of the madness, check some of the highlights for free here.

* March Madness is a term given to the College Basketball National Championship (USA) tournament happening during the month of March.

Blast from the past -Redux

2008-03-06T23:46:00.004-06:00

This is repost of something I had posted way back on Feb 5, 2006. It is about a serial that was telecast in DD, called Giant Robot (actual title is Johny Socko and his flying Robot). Why am I reposting it? That is because, I happened to watch it today on Netflix. I happened to chance up on it by accident on Netflix. They have the whole series for instant viewing and I religiously started with the first in the series. My dinner time entertainment for the next couple of months has been taken care of now :) The title music made me totally nostalgic. Whoa!

If you also want that piece of nostalgia, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Is there anything in this world that can't be found on Google?

Now that we are still talking about the past, how many of you remember this from the good old DD days? The inspiration behind the name of this blog :)

Here is the post from wayback machine:

Some of you might remember by post on serials & programs we watched in DD (aka Doordarshan) as kids. As a continuation to that....here are a couple of images that might create a flutter/two in ya heart. Received this set of magical images as a forward from my friend.

Hail Giant Robot! Hail DD!

songs u fall in love with

2008-03-06T02:18:00.004-06:00

Just like love at first sight, there are songs you fall in love with, the first time you hear them. In this category fall this brilliant instrumental piece by Mandolin U. Srinivas. It's titled "enta muddo" -one of those brilliant compositions by Saint Tyagaraja. Go give it a spin by clicking the link below.

Enta muddo on raaga.com

In case you are interested in the lyrics- here it is, as posted on the carnatic wiki page
The song is in the language of Telugu and the English meaning is given below each line.

enta muddO enta sogasO evari valla varNimpa tagunE
How charming and how pretty is the Lord! Whoever is capable of describing it?
enta vAralaina gAni kAma cint(A)krAntulainAru (enta)

No matter how great people are, they became besieged by thoughts of lust !
atta mIda kanul(A)saku dAsulai satta bhagavata vEsulairi
dutta pAla ruci teliyu sAmyamE dhurINuDau tyAgarAja nutuDu (enta)
People fearing their mother-in-law, becoming slaves to lust, (but) darn the garb of the excellent devotees of the Lord; it is like the pot knowing the taste of its contents – milk; but, how charming and how pretty is the Lord praised by this tyAgarAja – prop of the Universe! Whoever is capable of describing it?

UAB Blazers Vs. Memphis Tigers - 2008- Rnd1

2008-02-19T20:40:00.005-06:00

Well, some of you following my blog and who went to UAB, might remember about the game of basketball played b/w the UAB Blazers and Memphis Tigers, way back in 2006. If not, here is a link to the flashback. This post is about the 2007-08 edition of it, that took place last Saturday (Feb 16).
This was the most eagerly awaited game in conference USA and to an extent in the whole nation, as the Memphis Tigers are the no.1 team in the country and the only team to be undefeated through out the season. Everybody knew that the Tigers were ripe for pickings and UAB was the right team to be able to pull it off. The whole campus was excited and eagerly awaiting the arrival of the game day. On the day before the game, almost 350 odd students (the most die hard fans), including me, camped outside of the stadium to grab the best seats available. Crazy as it may sound, to those unaware about the collegiate athletic scenario here, UAB-Memphis rivalry in basketball (atleast among Conference USA) is almost comparable to India - Pak tussle in cricket. The whole arena was sold out for the first time in 2 years, with the anticipation of seeing the biggest upset of the year. The game lived up to all the hype. I can go on one foot to say that it was the best game (and atmosphere) I have seen in the last 5 years here. The Blazers led the Tigers almost the entire game , except for may be a total of 3-4 minutes (40 mins of total time). The biggest upset was on the cards. Memphis had entered the game with a 24-0 season record and their last defeat in the conference was the defeat they had sustained at our hands way back in 2006. The Memphis bench were nervous, as none of the bigger teams came close to this. Memphis had won against all the top teams in the country and UAB was nowhere close to that reputation this year. Memphis had more NBA level talent, than the Blazers. With one minute to the finish, Blazers were up by 7 points and having the possession of the ball. That is when the referees decided to mess the mojo. They called 3 bone-headed phantom calls on UAB paving the way for the Tigers to take a 1 point lead with 6 seconds remaining on the clock. In fact, they were so bad throught out the game. The ball was inbounded to Robert Vaden - one of the superstars of our team. He dribbled it into the half court, with 2 Memphis players hacking him. Clock was running out and he could not find a way to break free of the 2 players. He had not practiced in almost 2 weeks because of a groin injury and was still playing this game, because of its importance.He had scored 27 huge points until then. Finding no way to break free of the 2 players, he let go an off-balance shot. The whole crowd of 9000 odd people (8000 blazer fans) watched with bated breath. The shot missed the basket and the rebound was collected by one other superstar Lawrence Kinnard, who made a jumper with clock winding down. The ball appeared to leave his hand as the clock ran out and the ball went into the basket. Both the Memphis players and the Blazers rejoiced, each one assuming that they had won. The referees went to their replay monitors and found that the shot had left Kinnard's hand, a fraction of a second too late, resulting in a 79-78 win for Memphis over UAB. The 8000 odd blazer fans couldn't believe their eyes. Just a minute back, they were all getting ready to celebrate their biggest victory of the year and pull of one of the biggest upsets of the year. All that vanished. There was a lot of drama after the game , which I won't go into, as there is more to it than the media portrayed it and is being currently investigated upon.
It's been 3 days since the game has been over, and am still frustrated that the referees denied our win over the no.1 team in the country. It was a game for the ages and that makes it even more worse, as we could not come out of it with a victory.Especially when it was almost safely in our pocket. I will remember that day forever in my life.

Round 2 of the game between blazers and tigers happens on March 8 at the tiger's den in Memphis - Fedex Forum. I want my revenge.

P.S: To see a glimpse of the game, click below. The highlights can't capture the emotional ride you could have had, if you had stood inside Bartow arena, that day.

Kalloori - realistic cinema

2008-01-26T02:56:00.000-06:00

I just finished watching Balaji Sakthivel's Kalloori (Tamil film) and it was one momentous trip back to the good old college days. Although the climax ~~was a little bit dramatic~~ hits at you pretty fast when you least expect it (just like how it came on to the victims of the real-life incident that was being portrayed), overall it was one helluva movie. When I watched Nagesh Kukunoor's Rockford, I was still in school to fully appreciate and enjoy it. Although my college days are fading fast from my memory, this movie brought back some smiles and pleasant memories. The movie had a very down to earth feel (just like Cheran's Autograph) especially at a time when the movie makers are competing with each other on how "big"/"expensive"/"loaded" their movies are. Ironically, the producer of this film, Shankar, is himself obsessed with that idea - when he dons the director role. Films like these go a long way in proving a point that you dont need super stars/ super budgets to make good movies. Balaji Sakthivel's earlier movie "Kadhal" was also a proving point in this case. Kudos to him for making two back-to-back good movies and kudos to Shankar for supporting both ventures. Wish that, every year we at least get to see some 4-5 good tamil films like this. Go watch it and you won't regret it.

Happy Deepavali!

2007-11-08T00:45:00.000-06:00

Wishing you all a very happy Deepavali! Y'all have fun, burst a lot of crackers and gobble up a lot of sweets. As in the last 5 years I continue celebrating it over phone, by making phone calls to my family in India, hearing their joy along with the sound of firecrackers thro' the phone.

If you are also stuck in a far far away land, just like me, go watch this ( and more) on you tube to remind yourself about the fun your family is having back in India.

Ferrari - World Champions!!!!!

2007-10-21T12:34:00.000-05:00

Against all odds, Kimi Raikonnen won the Formula 1 driving championship, by winning the Brazilian Grandprix (along with help from Massa& mainly Hamilton who made a mistake @ the start of the race).

Update 1:
It was a fitting finale with as many as 3 people fighting for the championship. Despite Mclaren having both their drivers competing for the championship, that too with a better probability, Ferrari beat them to it. Kimi deserves everybit of it. He has been so close to winning the championship for several years and is a worthful one. Now the "iceman" can celebrate his 28th B'day, that happened a couple of days earlier, in a big way. As a Ferrari fan , I am happy simply for the reason that they are back to their winning selves after a couple of dry seasons. I do have one cribbing about this season. The spy saga has left me disappointed and I am not liking the bitter fight b/w Mclaren & Ferrari. Despite the big fight for the championship, the tussle b/w Rosberg, Kubica and Heidfield in today's race was equally fascinating. Now that all the drama is over, it's time to rejoice Tifosis!!!!! Goooooooooooooooo Ferarri!

Update 2:
Looks like Mclaren are contesting against an incident against the BMW Sauber and Williams teams. These teams were reported to have delivered fuel at a temperature lower than the presribed range. The stewards had dismissed the case earlier in the day, but Mclaren has decided to contest it again. If they win the case, Rosberg, Kubica & Heidfield would be disqualified moving Hamilton to the 4th place and eventually replacing Kimi as the champion. Let's see how things shape up in what has already been an interesting year for Ferrari-Mclaren battles.

The Sundal Season

2007-10-20T00:21:00.000-05:00

Warning!!!!! LONG LONG POST.

Sundal: A snack (predominantly South-Indian, I assume) made out of steam-cooked lentils which are then spiced up with coconut flakes, salt and dried red peppers.

Why am I suddenly talking about sundal? Because this is the Navarathiri (na-va-raa-thee-ree) season in my home state Tamil Nadu, India. Nava= nine & Rathiri= night, so Navarathiri is the festival of nine nights and 10 days that is celebrated thro'out India in various forms around the months of September/October based on the lunar calendar. It is a hindu festival celebrated to honour the female deities- the different avatars of shakthi. Leaving this importance aside, let's get to main topic: Sundal. In the southern part of India, Navarathiri is celebrated by arranging a Golu/ an exhibition of dolls at most houses. The dolls usually range from various figurines associated with the Hindu mythology and others drawing inspiration from the cultural aspects of the daily life. These dolls are arranged in tiers and kept for display in the living rooms of most houses. All the neighbours are then invited to visit to golu during the evening (and the neighbors also invite you back to check out their golu.) The key is that this celebration is mostly associated with the womenfolk of the house and serves as an outlet to engage in their creativity. So where does the sundal fit in, you may ask? Well, the sundal is prepared as an offering for the dolls and then served as snacks to the visitors. For each of the nine days, a different variety of sundal is prepared and served, so that the repeat visitor doesn't get bored:)

As mentioned earlier, this is mostly associated with the womenfolk of the house. So why am I talking about it? That is because, as kids you were supposed to help your mom with the setup, which all kids eagerly agreed to, even boys! Why so? The reason being that you were allowed to build an elaborate mud-based theme/nature park to go as a side exhibit for the "Golu." Ah! the one time you were given a free reign to bring mud/sand into the house and engage in exploring your creative skills. Although this was a side show, it was a real thrill for the kids, as this dictated the success of your house's golu (as per the kid's verdict) among all your neighbors. With the dolls exhibited in most of the houses being similar (there is only a limited option among the selection of dolls, although recently people have started to get creative by incoporating dolls that signified current news aspects into their golu), the nature of the sand park dictated the "coolness" of your golu. As kids, we let mustard seeds sprout and transplanted the young plantsto serve as vegetation for the park. By the end of 9 days, these mustard plant growth becomes so dense, that the entire park looked like a miniature version of the amazon rain forest. We build miniature rivers, that were navigated by miniature steam boats. In addition, we added fountains, miniature animal dolls, houses, cable cars, trains .....you name it what not. The more details that went to it, the more cooler it looked.

Every evening, during the navarthri the entire band of kids went from one house in the neighbourhood to the other, to check out these parks and doll displays and to of course to see what sundal their house offered. You need some incentive don't you! If you were a boy, you got your sundal straight away as they knew that you were there just for that. Whereas the womenfolk and the little girls sang songs ( your chance to test out your vocal chords)- basically as a showcase of your talent and as an entertainment. The "maamis" or the womenfolk of the house critiqued the girl kids performance (only appreciation...no negative comments) to the kid's mother and would then hand out the sundals to them along with some more goodies/gifts (all the singing deserved more than a sundal!). In the mean time all the boys, not understanding (atleast pretending to hate it) what these people were singing, with a chuckle (that invariably drew a stern look from their mother's) silently discussed among themselves in a whisper what was cool about the park in that particular house. Once the mom (and/or sisters) were done with the singing, it was time to hop to the next sundal destination. At the end of the day, you came back with your pocket filled with sundal and mind filled with ideas to improve the park you built for the golu. It was needless to say that, even as kids we had a sharp pallette, so all the not-so tasty sundals were secretly dumpled along the way :) Today (Oct 20), the sundal season ends for the year 2007. Tomorrow, all the dolls will be removed and packed in to the "good old" wooden box / "marapotti" (tamil) and stowed away only to be opened for the next sundal season. Being far away from home, it brought in all those nice memories, which I thought should go into my space here among the bits and bytes.

Talking to my mom, who still takes great pleasure in setting up the golu in our house (the only one to setup a golu among my several aunts), I found that, no more do the kids go sundal hunting. The parks don't exist anymore (even if they do...they are built by elders...may be in small towns there is the odd kid that still enjoys this ). It's now more of a ritual followed by the old-fashioned or is done more as a fashion statement by the yuppies. The old charm has been lost and the kids lost to the culture of playstations, reality TV's and pizzas.

Before I forget, Sweet Sundal was my favourite!

References (in case you were interested in more details about GOLU):
1) Wiki on Golu
2) Some good articles about Golu/Kolu in "The Hindu":here, here and here.
3) Sundal recipes
4) Colorful Golu pictures: here and here

Australian Juggernaut

2007-10-14T02:04:00.000-05:00

The more and more I see these Australians play cricket, I feel that all the other teams in the world should take a break from playing cricket and just watch and enjoy Australia playing against Australia 'A' . Nothing can stop the Australian juggernaut. The way they play is sure to leave everyone spellbound and of course if you are the die-hard Indian fan, you are sure to be depressed. Hope the ongoing one-day series has brought the Indians and the Indian media that has been gung-ho after the 20-20 victory down to earth. See & Learn from the Aussies, will ya ? Amen!

P.S: Now, let me try beating them atleast in the computer version ;)

3 music CD's

2007-10-10T02:51:00.001-05:00

I recently bought 3 cd's. Among them I had bought 2 immediately after them accidentally. All these 3 are so good that I thought I would mention them here, in case you ( yes, you - the ~~2/3~~ 5/6 of my readers :) ) are interested...

The 2 CD's I accidentally tripped upon ...( I bought these almost after hearing just a bit, which I never do with music CD's)
Breathing under water - Anoushka Shankar & Karsh Kale ( I heard a sampling of it on NPR)
Global Drum Project - Mickey Hart & Zakir Hussain ( bought minutes after the concert I recently attended, at the venue itself!)

The last CD is by one of my fav bands: Shakti and is titled "Natural Elements".

roller-coaster saturday

2007-10-07T00:42:00.000-05:00

Thanks, to my friend Deepak, I managed to hit on a road trip along with another friend priya to Starkville, Mississippi. Why Starkville? Because my beloved UAB Blazers were taking on Miss. State Bulldogs for their homecoming football game. After leading all of 3 quarters....we let Miss. St take 3 touchdowns in the last quarter to end up with another L for the season. With an already thin roster filled with walk-ons and freshmen, in addition to a new coaching staff...3 of our key players missed this game due to injury and other reasons...and that did not help the cause. Nevertheless it was a very entertaining game...for 3 quarters precisely! We cldnt repeat what we did to them 2 years back on another homecoming game....well may be next time :) To Miss. State's credit...this year has been quite good for them. Things are looking up for this SEC team after beating Auburn this year. They ran their running game properly in the last qrtr...realising that their passing game sucked. As for blazers, I am sure that these youngsters will shape into a fine team in a couple of years.

After we watched the game, we hit back on the road to get back to Birmingham as fast as possible, as we had a concert by the Global Drum Project, featuring Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart and the ultimate Ustad Zakir Hussain. Although we were late by 3o mins to the concert...it was mind blowing experience. 4 Percussionists weaving magic with rhythm! We even got to hang around with the artists...take pics, get autographs and talk to them. Reminded me of some great memories from my Undergraduate days when we got to organize Indian classical music concerts by some great stalwarts - Thanks to SPICMACAY. Today reminded me as to how down-to-earth these great musicians are. Ustad... was so friendly with all the Indian students and that is an understatement. That was one helluva Saturday!

Cinema Paradiso -Ah! the magic of movies

2007-09-09T03:35:00.000-05:00

I saw Giuseppe Tornatore's award winning "Cinema Paradiso" yesterday and I should say that it is the best foreign (non-English) film I have seen to date. Over the last couple of months, thanks to Netflix, I have managed to catch up on movies I have been dreaming to see forever. After sampling the Fellinis, Kurosawas etc, I must say that no other movie has fascinated me to this extent.

The movie, originally released in 1988, was very different from what the Director originally intended to show. It was cut from a 185 minute version to a two hour version as it was felt that the original version was too long and unattractive. Eventually the shortened version went on to win the Oscars and several other awards. But it never was the story the director intended to say. Finally the uncut version got released in 2002.

The DVD carries both the version and I am blogging this post after having seen the unabridged version alone. Have read elsewhere, that the shortened version cuts a significant part of the story. Will let you know my thoughts about the shortened version after seeing it, as an update to this post. Can't comment too much about the shortened version.

Without trying to review or analyze the movie, all I say is that if you love movies and enjoyed (or continue to enjoy) watching them on the big screen in theatres, just watch it and you won't regret. The last scene is alone worth the money. I will leave you with something that is sort of a theme music from the movie. The background score is by the "awesome" Ennio Morricone (the genius behind famous Good, Bag & ugly music) and is very very moving.

Bourne Dazzles

2007-08-05T00:44:00.000-05:00

Bourne Ultimatum, I feel, is the best movie of the summer, best among all the sequel no.3's and also easily the best of the Bourne series. I am still dazed and enchanted by the whole movie, that my mind is kinda stunned at the speed at which the movie went by. Spy films are always captivating....but with the way these are taken, you are just left spell bound. Thro' out the movie, you almost feel like you are running along with Jason Bourne, you can almost feel what his mind is thinking and see what he is looking at. Amazing camera work, editing and screenplay. I am not going to talk more about this as I might botch up the crafty work of the director. Just go watch it.

Continuing with movies, I also saw Yimou Zhang's Hero (Ying Xiong) starring Jet Li and the likes. Best cinematography I have ever seen in an action film. Every action sequence is a visual poetry, if I may call it. Although, the action sequences remind you of the Crouching tiger movie, the way the whole thing has been taken and the places where they have been taken, take your breath away. Also, the Rashomon-like story line keeps your interest alive. Two great movies to complete the weekend. Now, I am off to doing some real work :)

Crossroads concert simply rocks!

2007-07-29T12:24:00.000-05:00

I spend nearly 6-7 hours yesterday watching the 11hr long Eric Clapton's annual Crossroads guitar festival being transmitted live by msn.com. It simply blew my mind. I have been meaning to see this concert in while, the last couple of years. I did manage to partly fulfill my wish, when I saw Clapton live in Birmingham last year. Now that I have seen the entire fest live on the internet, makes me want to see it in person even more. Where else can you see such a display of musicians (guitarists) all in one stage? some of the most memorable performances were that by the king himself - BB King, Robert Cray Band, Jeff Beck, Buddy Guy & Clapton. You can relive the action at http://music.msn.com/Crossroads . I am sure you won't regret it, if you like Clapton & the likes.

A rocking PhD that took 30+ years

2007-07-24T23:57:00.000-05:00

After 32 years, the rocker Brian May of the famous band ' Queen' is all set to complete his PhD work in astronomy on inter-planetary dust, a work that he left in 1974 when rock stardom came knocking on his doors! How cool is that? a rockstar with a doctorate in astronomy from the Imperial college, London. Woah! This is what he had to say about the PhD:

But there are times when you really want to give up. There are times when you go, 'Why on earth did I take this on?'"

I guess, no one is exception to that feeling ;)

Kurosawa 101

2007-07-21T02:13:00.000-05:00

I have completed my Kurosawa 101 course ;) by watching Rashomon & Seven Samurai. Waiting for more advanced lessons from Netflix. All I can say is......he is way ahead of his times. Fascinating aspects all around the movie. I don't even think, I should try being a critic of his movies. Am just gonna watch and enjoy them.

Your grocery bag as a fashion statement

2007-07-19T12:27:00.000-05:00

Trust the business people to come up with innovative ways to make money out of the mundane. Recent victim in this regard is the cloth grocery bag - you know, the "jolna" bag types your mom carried for grocery shopping in India. Cashing on the recent trend of carrying your bags to the grocery store ( for reducing the use of plastic bags, thereby saving the environment), according to NYTimes, a popular fashion designer has launched a grocery bag that reads "I'm not a plastic bag." It went on sale in the US, yesterday, with Whole foods selling them at the cost of 15$ each !!!! Going by the kind of response this bag has had in other places, the cash registers of the designer must be filling up pretty fast. Apparently there was a stampede in Tawian at a store where these bags went on sale and some of these bags are already selling in E-Bay for over 150$ . Crazy or what? Commercialization at its best. Only had all the poor jolna bag weavers in India thought of this first!

Moving away from this expensive cloth bag, I have been wondering lately about this BYOB concept. Haven't we been doing it all this while in India. My mom and all others I knew, have always carried a cloth bag / or a knitted wire bag (" wire koodai") for grocery shopping. Our neigborhood sabzi mandi ( grocery vendor) would charge extra money, if we wanted a plastic bag. Only the West seem to have corrupted a lot of our eco-friendly practices in the name of convenience. Otherwise, in the past, our culture already had been designed around eco-friendly ideas - starting from building materials to cooking earthenware. Isn't it? Anyways, all we are now doing is going back in time where we do what we did before the advent of plastic bags. While we are discussing this, it seems that use of paper bags won't give you any advantage over plastic bags, other than of course, we help prevent sea and land animals from choking on swallowing these plastic bags. Otherwise, the paper bag ( being thick) takes as much time as bi0-degradable plastic bag to degrade (in the tune of 10's of years) and infact creating a paper bag takes more energy and trees than the plastic bag. So, no big gain there. So the best option, is what your mom always did. Carry your own bag. If you find that not so fashionable, you might want to get those 15$ ones, that are no different, but carry a label and a tag that would put you among the uber-cool fashionable people :)

British grand prix - Massa's great drive.

2007-07-08T16:01:00.000-05:00

Had it not been for Massa's engine stall at the start, it definitely would have been a Ferrari 1-2 finish like last week. Nevertheless, it was decent week for Scuderia-Ferrari, as nothing was gained or lost in the team championship points. Raikkonen drove a near-to-perfect race again, backed by great strategy, just like last week to win again. This should ease a lot of pressure on Kimi. The media has been too harsh on him. I am kind of fed up of all the talk that Schumi should returnback to Ferrari and things will automatically turn around. I agree that Schumi was superb, but these youngsters are no push over. Any of these could carve as big a image for themselves like Schumi. We shouldn't keep living on past laurels.

Apart from all the action at the front of the grid, the best drive, in my opinion, was by Felipe Massa. From last @ start to finishing 5th -WOW!!! It was a superb fight. Reminded me of the races when Barrichello drove for Ferrari and Kimi drove for McLaren. They, many a times had to start from the back and came in the top points. Another memorable part of the race, was just before Raikkonen took his 2nd pit-stop. The way he tried gaining valuable seconds, as Alonso was stopping for his final pit-stop, was just phenomenal. I just hope this run by Ferrari continues well into this 2nd half of the season. Rejoice Tifosis!

Ratatouille-- Chef Pixar's spl recipe!

2007-07-03T11:23:00.001-05:00

Pixar continues rock the animation world. If "Incredibles" conveyed the notion that animation movies could have "grown-up" themes and still appeal to all ages, "Ratatouille" reinforces it. Among the bigger blockbuster of Hollywood movies released this summer, this is arguably the most memorable one. I will leave the review aspects to the experts. I just wanted to point out the link to this interesting video that discusses the technical aspects of the film. The science behind all the magic is as aromatic as the dish prepared by Chef Gusteau!

wayback the time machine - DD days

2007-06-24T01:03:00.000-05:00

Something to remind you of the good old DD (Doordarshan) days.

Thanks to my cousin for pointing me towards this and ofcourse You Tube!

Gimme 1 time style ...

2007-06-21T11:24:00.000-05:00

Gimme 2 times style!

As some of u might have guessed from the title, this post is indeed abt Sivaji: The boss - the latest flick of superstar Rajinikanth. After having watched it already on Saturday-June 16th (2nd of release) in Atlanta ( a travel of abt 300 miles), now am off to see it second time in my own city. Although, this time, it's going to be the telugu version and I don't know a bit of telugu except for the "ippudu choodu" thalivar uses. I am watching it for the second time for plenty of reasons. Some of which are:

Sivaji is Coooool!
Thalivar Rajinikanth just rocks with his style and I don't think any of the younger bunch of actors can even come near to matching him in that aspect.
Mottae boss character is just too good.
Vivek comedy.
Rahman's music and Athiradee song picturisation.
Shriya (hawt...hawt), Shankar .
It's thalivar's movie! Am watching thalivar's movie in theatre after almost a decade, as I had changed into a bigger Kamal Hassan fan (still am).
The theatre in Atlanta sucked. Those ****** who sold the tickets cheated us, as the theatres A/C's did not work (reasons to believe it was purposely turned off) and it was too small.

As for the movie, it would have definitely flopped if not for superstar. Shankar has to get over themes involving corruption, bureaucracy, politicians etc ( black money in this case). It is getting too boring. Although this one is rajini's movie where we don't look for logic, we wouldn't have complained if the script was a little tighter. Having spent close to 15milllion USD , they could have also spent some time on the script. There was one other aspect in which i was really disappointed with thalivar. This concerns the obession of dark skinned men from the south of India over white skinned women. In the segments where the dark skinned Rajini (his darkness is so famous that there are several songs abt it in tamil cinema - Oru koodai sunlight here) woos Shriya (light color skinned), they needn't have brought in those two girls who were made to appear very dark and the pranks around them. Thalivar should have protested this segment.But, otherwise this has been the most entertaining film I have seen in a long time. There are lot of positive aspects in the film, as mentioned in my reasons for watching it again. U need to watch it to believe it. Sivaji is just cooooool!

P.S: For those of who you who don't understand a thing in this post, this post concerns a Tamil (South Indian language) film involving the bigger than life-demigod-superstar Rajinikanth.

The recipe for a perfect coffee (Indian style)

2007-06-20T19:16:00.000-05:00

Being the coffee lover I am, I have been trying to brew the kind of coffee called as the filter coffee in South India (very similar to the drip coffee, except that in India we drink coffee with sugar & cream). I requested a friend of mine to even get me a coffee filter from India and it still didn't help. So I had just settled for the kind of coffee I was getting using Cafe Du Monde's (New Orleans) Coffee + Chicory powder, Indian filter and Organic milk. However, due to laziness it was Breve Latte @ starbucks on most days and the occasional Capuccino at the nearby Giusseppe's Cafe (the best capuccino I have had in the US!).

Finally, one day, while watching Food network at my cousin's place, I came across this chef using a weird kind of coffee maker from Italy. It was mentioned that it is called as the Bialetti espresso maker (stove top) and that it was a staple item in the Italian household. It's design as shown in TV was very different. The water was the bottom of the pot, the coffee powder in the mid section and the espresso got collected at the top! I immediately looked up on the internet about it and read the rave reviews about it, and finally ordered my own 6 cup moka espresso maker from Amazon.com for just 18$. As the coffee maker, need espresso ground, I re-ground the Cafe Du Monde coffee and used it. With "medium" setting in my electric stove, it took about 6-7 mins for the espresso to collect on the top. Within 4-5 mins you can start smelling the magical aroma of coffee. To the 3/4 cup of boiled organic milk, I added around 1.5 spoons of sugar and quarter cup of espresso to get the perfect color. When I had taken my first sip, I knew that my search for the best coffee had ended. The taste was magical!

P.S: Using the 6 cup coffee maker, you could ideally make Indian coffee for 4 people.

Gooooooo Spurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs!!!!!!!!!!

2007-06-14T23:00:00.001-05:00

Championship no 4 in 9 seasons!!!!
Can it get sweeter than this? I ,don't care if all others consider the Spurs game as a big bore; the team is not arrogant, its very calm and humble, and it all starts from the impeccable Coach Pops. This team is simply awesome in every aspect. I am just glad that I started supporting them after the Jordan era. As I have mentioned elsewhere in my blog, this year has been bad in regards to the teams I have been supporting. Now if only Ferrari can do something like the Spurs :)

P.S: Having said all this, nothing to take the credit away from the Cavs who have had a great run and especially King James. I am sure that he will have more trips to the ultimate stage.

Go Spurrrrrrrrrs!

LeBron James definitely the king

2007-06-01T00:18:00.001-05:00

Am glad that I saw game 5 of the Pistons -Cavaliers playoff game. He shot a total of 48 points in the game and the last 25 points of the Cavaliers.

If somebody is worth every penny of the hype about him, then it is definitely King James. And he is just 22 yrs of age. Can you believe it?! I hope the Pistons lose this series. Am eagerly anticipating my favs - the Spurs taking on James. Tine will tell.

A sad day

2007-04-16T23:28:00.000-05:00

RIP - the victims of Virginia Tech shootout.

What a sad way to start the week. Another sad reminder of the threat we humans are to ourselves. As an international student in this country, it leaves me to wonder as to why this kind of act keeps happening here again and again. School kids shooting at their fellow class mates and teachers. Random shooting at malls and, now at abodes of higher education. Are we to blame the gun laws or should the blame go to the kind of exposure these modern times are providing to the kids in the form of violent video games, movies and TV serials. Are we to blame the upbringing? Are we to blame the freedom? Coming from another so called developing country, many a times I have wondered what makes these places developed? I have come face to face with gun and been mugged before I even completed 2 years of stay here, while back home, such things were uncommon. I keep hearing about different kinds of depression and how kids at a very young age fall victim to depression.

On one end we have, scientists and doctors working on ways to save life and at the other end we have another set of people working on newer ways to kill ourselves. When people ( and the nation in whole, going by the govt's agenda) are protesting against stemcell research, saying that we shouldnt play God, why don't the same set of people fight against gun laws, saying that we are not Gods to take someone else's life. Atleast that way, we wouldn't be handing out weapons (devices that have the power of taking lives- the ultimate power) like toffees. Amidst all this grim....all we can hope is for some peace.

"Svastir manushebhyaha
Oordhvam Jugatu beshajam
Sam no astu dvipathe
Sam chathusthpate
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti".
Meaning:

Let all human beings be blessed with prosperity,
Let all flora and fauna which are life line of all creatures, grow abundantly,
Let there be harmony with all two-legged creations,
Let there be harmony with all four-legged creations,
Let there be peace; peace, peace.
(OM Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.)

Dor - The movie

2007-04-12T10:01:00.000-05:00

When one is thrust upon with pile loads of work, the mind always seeks a distraction, reducing further the time avaiable to complete the work. With several deadlines breathing down my neck, I procastinated my work (following the advice of PhDcomics) and ended up watching a beautiful film titled "Dor" ( which If am right means thread in hindi). Directed by Nagesh Kukunoor, it's a real life story about the lives of two different women, living on the opposite sides of India, and how one incident makestheir lives cross each other. Set amidst beautiful Rajasthan & Himachal pradesh and accompanied by haunting score by Salim Suleimann, this is a great film with a lot of positivity and some superb performances. After seeing the movie, song titled "Yeh Honsla" has been playing non-stop at my house. You need to listen to it to appreciate it. Go give it a try here....and if you get a chance, watch the movie also. You won't regret it.
I will leave you with what is a rough translation of a part of the song.

I cannot...
give up my desire
So what if the journey is tough?
So what if the horizon is hazy?
So what if I feel Ionely?
Even if my paths are laden
with thorns,
I must walk
Even if the evening
hides the sun,
the night must concede to the dawn
Autumn will end,
Spring will paint the garden
A new day will dawn

Mamma Mia!

2007-04-11T01:53:00.000-05:00

For the first time in my life, I saw a broadway production musical, the global hit "Mamma Mia!." It is based on the songs by ABBA and revolves around the story of a girl trying to trace her father among the 3 men that were involved in her mothers life, during her wedding. It was a very entertaining musical ( how could it not be with songs by ABBA!) that featured some nice acting, great singing and choreography. Although the plot was very loose, almost like a sitcom, and was sprinkled with some corny dialogues and scenes, it was very very enjoyable. Great performance all around. May be it was the music that left me captivated especially since I grew up listening to ABBA and the likes. The final outcome is that, I am tempted to see the more bigger musicals by Broadway productions at Broadway itself.

Mclaren pips Ferrari@ Sepang

2007-04-08T03:50:00.000-05:00

The prancing horse was made to work by the Mclarens at the Malaysian Grandprix. The mistake by Massa early on in the race cost him the race, whereas for Kimi...it was just the persisitence of rookie Lewis Hamilton, that denied him a shot at the victory. Hamilton held Kimi just too long at the start of the race, in turn helping Alonso to build a formidable lead that he will carry thro'out the race. Looking at the race, the ferrari's clearly lacked pace in sections of the race. Mclarens seem to be slowly building a lead up-front. Hopefully, Ferrari will do something about this. Overall, I am very disappointed with the performance of ferrari today.

Moving away from Formula one, over the last week, I saw this fabulous movie by a Tamil director Cheran. Titled " Thavamai Thavamirundhu", it is a movie about the struggle of a father in trying to give a good education and future to his kids and how they get carried away by the emotions affecting the youth and lose their ways in the eyes of the father. One of them does make amends and repays his parents for all their struggles. I am doing a horrible job here by trying to spell out the plot. One should watch it to appreciate it. Cheran, impresses me with his directorial touches, his acting skills and in his ability to portray simple things in life in such a realistic fashion and in a manner that we all can relate to. If you saw his film " Autograph" you will know what I mean. But, trust my warning. This movie is a heart-wrenching one, playing on a lot of human emotions. Don't blame me, if you were forced to shed a tear/two.

Before I wrap up another blabber of mine, I wish to say that Wasabi Peas rocks!

The Power of Procrastination

2007-04-04T11:17:00.001-05:00

This was the topic about which Jorge Cham, of Phd comics, spoke, when he visited UAB yesterday. It was a great, fun-filled talk with a lot of meaningful insights. Some key things I remember from his talk are the following.

The national avg for Grad scholarships is just 15 or so dollars. I guess 1/2 $ more than a basic worker at McDonalds :)
Although we know that life as a PhD student is stark opposite to the happy lives your friends who never went to grad school are living, the big mystery/ the most important qn we keep asking ourselves and never get a proper answer is : Why? Why do we subject ourselves to this:)
It is good sometimes to lower one's expectations.
It's ok to procrastinate...and it is not equal to laziness! That's the only solution sometimes.
We learn to put our thoughts in bullet form like this (hee hee), thanks to Grad school.
Along the way we also learn to make cool powerpoints.
Amidst grim days we find motivation in things like, being a faculty could be worse :) and with thoughts of free food!
Grad school makes u dumber ;)

If anything else comes to my mind..will add them here.

As for today..... these two strips sum up the day perfectly. Check it out

1) Today's meeting ( Although the response wasn't quite this :) ) 2) It's Friday!

Is Mike Slackerny, Dr. Slackenerny now?

2007-04-02T23:19:00.000-05:00

Is that it ? Is it the end of Mike Slackenerny's life as a Graduate Student?
Wow! That leaves me with an eerie feeling. Who will I now show as an example for proving that, a Phd degree takes time? Who will be my grad school guru and give me tips like this?

The good thing is that, his wife aka "sugar mama" Jen will have some peace finally in her life and also, things like this won't happen! Thanks, Mike! for all your efforts to give joy to us depressed Grad students. Hope you come back for a second Phd degree :)

P.S. For those of you, who don't know Mike, he is one of the main characters from the comic strip created by Jorge Cham, titled phdcomics, that injects some happiness in to the lives of otherwise miserable, Grad students.

Hats off to the Gators!

2007-04-02T22:47:00.000-05:00

Congratulations, Gators! for pulling off back to back NCAA basketball championships. Can there be anymore joy for a school, that's one the best in academics, than holding championships in both football & basketball? Wow! Having visited the UFL campus, I know that my friends over there and the entire Gainesville, including the gators in lake Alice &lake Warburg (not sure of the spelling) must be partying hard. As for OSU, it's just not their year. Back in December, 06 my beloved blazers gave the gators, a run for their money 37 mins of the game ( leading thro'out that duration). Had they held their heads for the remaining 3 mins there would have atleast been something to celebrate for blazer athletics. Well, there are no ifs and buts in life. So, I will keep my fingers crossed and hope that my blazer basketball team gives me such joy in the coming years, like the gator team.

R.I.P Fortran's father.

2007-03-20T23:10:00.000-05:00

John Backus ( December 31,1924- March 17,2007)

The man who initiated the idea and led the team that developed FORTRAN - the bread & butter of my research and the world of CFD. May his soul rest in peace.

NYT obituary

one crazy *** saturday

2007-03-18T00:16:00.000-05:00

If I was not already depressed by the nearing end of my spring break hols...Team India rubbed more into it, with an utterly disgusting start to their World cup campaign. All the effort that went into waking up at 8 on a Saturday morning and not working, only ended up in making my day more miserable. Here was a fabulous bunch of 20 under somethings from Bangladesh putting on a spectacular display against the likes of Tendulkars and Dravids. What can I say except that I was dismayed, disappointed and depressed. To top their spectacular batting display, some shoddy bowling coupled with lacklustre captaincy and "dropped shoulders" attitude, India did not do much to make life difficult for Bangladesh. Little further away were our friends from across the border, Pakistan, also facing a similar, if not worse situation. But, it was hard to not notice the efforts they were all putting in, during their bowling session, in trying to defend their meager total. Although, the results ended in the same way for Pakistan & India, in my eyes, Pakistan at least went down fighting. Now we are looking at a world cup, where we are not going to see Pakistan and probably one another team from the sub-continent. How strange is it ! However, one needs to pay credit to Bangladesh & Ireland for their spirit and courage. It was fascinating to watch them play. All this only leaves me with a pain so deep in my heart and further, it also took away my time and energy from a work that I should have done today. Triple blow !!!

Atleast some joy was put back into my life late in the evening by the performance of Ferrari , Raikkonen & Massa. Awesome guys! Also, what a debut for Lewis Hamilton! Now, only if India were that exciting in any sports, sigh!

Formula one 2007

2007-03-17T02:09:00.000-05:00

Another season of F1 racing begins this weekend. Despite the bitter sweet start to Ferrari, as described by Jean Todt, I hope Ferrari has a great 2007 season in the post Schumi era. Wishing the very best of luck to Massa & Raikkonen.

As usual, in the US of A, Speed channel seems to be covering the bulk of the races. However, FOX is going to show 4 races on the free to air channel. Here is their schedule :

un 10, 2007	Canadian Grand Prix	Circuit Gilles Villeneuve	1:00 p.m.	FOX
Jun 17, 2007	United States Grand Prix	Indianapolis Motor Speedway	1:00 p.m.	FOX
Jul 1, 2007	French Grand Prix	Magny-Cours	8:00 a.m.	FOX
Jul 8, 2007	British Grand Prix	Silverstone	8:00 a.m.	FOX

Note to self: Need to get subscription to Speed soon.

here and there and nowhere

2007-03-13T23:18:00.000-05:00

Trying to take cues from the quantum mechanics class, I tried being here ( this virtual universe aka blogosphere) and there (the real world which revolves arnd academics for now) and ended up being nowhere. Technically, I shouldn't be saying nowhere, as I have been working quite a bit, with all of those efforts directed towards academics. However, I would still call it nowhere, because my research ( the one that will finally get me 2 intials bfore my name) is still where it was several months back. Hopefully, this fast evaporating spring break is when, I get to kickstart it.

Moving away from the first para, where I basically tried to state that I am learning something as modern as quantum mechanics ( Modern Physics- huge grin) and had to build a story around it- to make it seem not so obvious- nothing much has happened, that needed any documenting here. So what brought me here, all of a sudden? The delicious onion sambar that I had for dinner. Yes the sambar sent electrifying waves thro' the tastebuds that hit the brain, that inturn created an urge for me to head over here and write some trash, as I always do. Since, I am here, I might as well share with you somethings I may have learnt, read or listened or whatever.

Books: I finished reading some more works of authors having Indian origin and loving every bit of it. Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's children" and Kiran Desai's booker winning "Inheritance of loss" being the most recent two. Great works, and are hugely recommended. I am thinking of exploring more such works, basically by Indian authors/works with Indian connection. Until now, I have got a taste of Vikram Seth, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy, RK Narayan and the above mentioned two. Got any more suggestions?

Seen: As some of you may be aware that I sometimes roam with a camera sometimes pretending to be a photographer. I manage to keep that hobby alive and trying to learn a thing or two about it. To keep the interest alive, I have started submitting stuff to the AWESOME JPG magazine. Well, what more motivation than the hope of getting published! (atleast this way, I'll get published, as the ones that are supposed to come out of my academics are nowhere to be seen). However, even that hope has started vanishing, on the seeing the magazine on print. Some phenomenal work all around the magazine. If you have any intererst in photography, you should go take a look. Head over to Jpg mag's website and scan thro' the sample Pdf's they have put up about their recent issues. Truly amazing! On a related note, I recently came across this another amazing photo journalism project that caught me by awe. Documenting and photographing people visiting a photo booth! I will spoil the beauty of the work, if I were to try describing it. So, see it for yourself.

As this post, has already exceeded the number of words posted in the last 2-3 months ;), I'll stop here and leave you with just tid-bits of information that you might be interested in.

Listened: Prasanna's scintillating tribute to Jimi Hendrix- Electric Ganesha Land.

Watched: Babel, City of God, Driving Miss Daisy.

disappointing...

2007-02-09T00:17:00.000-06:00

This year has turned out to be a big disappointment for UAB football & men's basketball. Although this is a rebuilding year in terms of basketball, it is so frustrating as a fan to see your team losing everyother game. I just hope the next year brings in lot of joy so that all this pain gets healed in no time. We know that we have a great team lined up for next year. Till then, I atleast hope the women's teams go on to achieve bigger things this year. The womens volleyball team had a great run, the basketball team is tied for a no.1 posn in the conference & the synchronized swimming team had already started out with a bang.

Go Blazers!

isn't it a pity...

2007-02-03T03:24:00.000-06:00

I was listening to some old songs of the Beatles and Floyd, and it got me wondering as to why did these superbands break. Wouldn't we have got more phenomenal music to cherish, had they been together longer? They all seemed to be having great fun making their music, didn't they? What caused the fissures? Maybe ego, fame, or bitterness? If this is what happens to 4 people who have been together....no wonder there is some serious conflicts globally. All the ethnic and political wars! This thought kept ringing all through my mind...as I was listening to this great number by George titled "Isn't it a pity, Isn't it a shame....". Here, you can watch a version of the song that appeared as part of the tribute concert for George. In the meanwhile, let me see what Wikipedia has to say !

Isn't it a pity
Now, isn't it a shame
How we break each other's hearts
And cause each other pain
How we take each other's love
Without thinking anymore
Forgetting to give back
Isn't it a pity

Some things take so long
But how do I explain
When not too many people
Can see we're all the same
And because of all their tears
Their eyes can't hope to see
The beauty that surrounds them
Isn't it a pity

-George Harrison

Kannathil Muthamittal - a revisit

2007-01-22T02:05:00.000-06:00

Being a big fan of Maniratnam's movies, I decided to watch Kannathil Muthamittal ( A peck on the cheek) again for the 6th/ 7th time (The cinematography by Ravi K Chandran alone, is worth a couple of revisits). Revisiting a movie always provides you with better insights and help notice subtler director touches, that you tend to miss when you watch a movie for the first time. The same applied here. I will not go into details about that. However, I did feel compelled to write my thoughts about the movie.

Mani (Maniratnam) has always been a master at bringing complex tough subjects down to the masses (autism- Anjali, Kashmir issue - Roja, Terrorism - Roja, Dil Se ....etc, ). He does the same here. In one full swoop, he touches some complex issues like war and the effect of it on peoples life -their struggle and displacement of themselves and their family, along with other things such as adoption and the emotional trials attached to it.. All this he does so, in a not so preachy (& not explicit) manner that makes it even more easier to understand and assimilate. Some of the scenes in the movie are so powerful that it jolts you. It is quite a shame, that the Indian film industry (one of the biggest in the world) does not have more directors like Mani to make such beautiful movies and movies that are not just about love stories & families dancing around a wedding, and instead focus on social issues packaged in the right way. I guess, I will stop my lament about the state of indian film industry in general and my praise for the "Gem" Mani. I will just leave you with a list of scenes from the movie that remain etched in my memory:

When Simran asks if Madhavan is thinking about adopting the kid and if his stories are just words without any true intentions.
Keerthana(Amudha) moving away from Simran portrayed thro a sequence of scenes
Displacement of Mangulam village and shelling.
When Keerthana(Amudha) , takes a quite walk thro' the lush green forests only to be interrupted by the sight of young guerilla warriors.
The scene in which Madhavan & Prakashraj talk about wars & how they are all just manipulations of the ammunition industry. (this scene, along with the prev one had strong resemblances to the movie - The thin red line)
The wait at the Subramanyam park for Nandita Das & the following gun battle.
Interrogation of Nandita Das by Keerthana(Amudha) in the final scene

more nonsense

2007-01-17T00:49:00.000-06:00

Here is my first post of 2007. Things are still the way as they were, as I had left them in my prev post.

I did manage to take a brief vacation and took a trip to L.A,Ca. I got to meet a couple of my friends from undergrad, after a long time. Brought back good old memories. California looks like a beautiful place. Beaches, sunshine and mountains. WOW! You can take a visual peek into my trip by visiting my flickr stream, that has a link at the footer of this blog.

Have been reading a lot...ranging from pure fiction to more serious stuff like quantum mechanics and philosophy.

In the movies front, I watched "Children of men" and highly recommend it. Although, it is movie with a dark theme....the visual imagery in the movie is quite stunning. Great cinematography all around. I just got out from watching my favorite director Maniratnam's latest venture "Guru." Maniratnam,AR Rahman & Rajeev Menon have spun a magical web. As in any other mani's movie, the cinematography is outstanding. Every frame in the first 45 mins of a movie could go into making a great coffee table photo book. I saw some similarities b/w this movie and his other films such as "Iruvar" and "Nayagan" in a lot of places. Based on my initial response, this one doesn't rank too high on my list of fav Mani's films.

That's pretty much the junk, my brain can spill out now. Ciao!

December Vizha & M.S.

2006-12-13T02:07:00.000-06:00

As my quest to get myself educated, continues to keep me busy, this space has gone largely negelected. The semester gets over this week....so, I will soon be finding plenty of time to post all the thoughts locked inside me.

In the meanwhile, chennai is abuzz with the December Vizha and the rasikas of music are getting a taste of good music and good SKC (Sweet, Kaaram aka savories & Coffee) that gets served in the sabhas. How I wish, I was in chennai ! Anyways, I decided to break the brief hisiatus here to pay my homage and to remember the "nightingale", M.S.Subbulakshmi, who left us two years back. You can revisit my thoughts about her...here and here.

Catch you soon.

Music to soothe your atma (soul)!

2006-10-25T18:24:00.000-05:00

6 years after its release in 2000, I finally discovered Bombay S. Jayashri's album Atma: Soul, today. 13 beautiful songs of Subramaya Bharathi has been set to some beautiful blend of carnatic and fusion music. The beautiful lyrics of the "Maha kavi" along with the mellifluous voice of Jayashri, is absolute bliss. Go listen to it here...

J.M.Barrie's Neverland

2006-10-23T23:33:00.000-05:00

Finding Neverland (2004)

Absolutely magical! and the score...ah! transports you to neverland itself. Guess, am going to watch this movie over and over again.

I saw Eric Clapton!

2006-10-19T02:19:00.000-05:00

Well! well! Well!...I am just back from BJCC, Birmingham Alabama after watching Eric Clapton's concert! I am kind of lost for words to describe it....the only words that come to my mind is "mind blowing." Watching "Slowhands" at work is a pleasure, I must say. I even got see him play the "kazoo", when he played San Fransico bay!The opening act by the Robert cray band also deserves a big mention, along with EC's band members. I will write more abt this incredible event later....in the meanwhile....lemme just leave u with the list of the songs played:

Pretending
I Shot The Sheriff
Got To Get Better In A Little While
Old Love ( with Robert Cray)
Anyday
Motherless Children
Key To The Highway
San Francisco Bay Blues
Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out
Running On Faith
After Midnight
Little Queen Of Spades
Further On Up The Road
Wonderful Tonight
Layla
Cocaine
Crossroads (with Robert Cray)

( the song names in red were performed on an acoustic guitar)

Yap yap yap

2006-09-19T20:09:00.000-05:00

Things have been hectic recently,hence the silence. May be I'll attribute the silence as a mourning for the death of the "wizard" Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett (January 6, 1946 – July 7, 2006). What a sad loss to all Floyd fans.

Anyways, lots of interesting things happened over the last month, but my thoughts are kind of dried up. So, for memories sake...am gonna put it in a cryptic ( not so mebbe) form.

Long weekend- Vetayaddu - Minerva restaurant - Cheaha State park - camping gone wrong - two doped dudes with a python - scary shit - awesome drive- Oak muntain - camping again - lovely forests - trekking - beach - too much partying - Pulse on the wall - pink floyd - firefighting deadlines - photograph sold for first time - oompaloompas strike again - evening coffee arattais.

Hope to be back with something worthwhile.

first day of school

2006-08-22T23:41:00.000-05:00

Fall 2006 officially began yesterday. After being empty for most part of Summer, the campus was suddenly teeming with life. Lots of new faces...faces full of exuberance (which is sure to vanish by the end of Fall ;)).....crowded cafeteria, sound of the chalk screeching the blackboard...people carrying huge loads of textbooks ....all these suddenly reminded me of the first day of each academic year at primary school.

The days surrounding that opening day had lots of activities and excitement to go along with it. The exercise of going to school and collecting the books & notebooks needed for the new academic year and lugging them back home, mesmerised in the smell of the newly made paper. Opening the new textbooks to see what was in store for that year was one great feeling. I have to agree that, all I did was just browse thro the pages to see what cool pictures and maps were there in the book. Then came the more interesting exercise of wrapping the newly bought books in a brown sheet of paper and pasting labels-featuring the latest craze of the season (spiderman, soccer, cricket stars....wat not)- to establish ownership over the object. The more fun activities were ofcourse, going shopping to buy new backpacks and school supplies, shoes and the visit to the tailor get a new pair of uniforms stitched.

All these excitement culminated on the big day, the day of school re-opening. It was both, a happy and a sad moment. Happy to be meeting all the friends once again, after having vanished from each other's sight for a month. Sad, because the vacation has come to an end and we have to return to the routine of homeworks and tests. When the whole school assembles the first day for prayer, one can smell of newly stitched cloth and leather in the air. One could also see all the happy and shining faces (with the exception of the kindergarten kids, who are unhappy to leave the cozy comforts of home) who just can't wait to share all the fun stories of vacation with their buddies. Another excitement that this day threw was the joy of finding out the new classroom that we would be occupying for the year. Leaving all this aside there was one interesting thing the day brought,that it still brings a smile on my face. It concerned a thing what all of us friends foolishly and religiously did year after year. It was to compare who had grown taller during the vacation. Little did we realise that one month was too short a time for dramatic growth. But then, we had no concept of time then.
I am able to draw parallels with lots of things even now. Only change being now in Grad school, we no longer worry about our heights. We are only comparing how old each one is getting ;) I guess i have talked enuf shit for one day making up for the lack of it in this space. So I will end this nonsense for a moment. Peace!

Happy independence day India!

2006-08-15T00:11:00.000-05:00

Happy Independence day to all you fellow Indians.

Jai Hind!

my unusual company for watching soccer :)

2006-07-13T19:52:00.000-05:00

Last soccer world cup (2002), I had 2 of my friends for company. This time around, with all my friends working in various parts of the globe, I got company from unexpected quarters; it was my maternal grandma! She had come from her town, near Madurai, to visit me during the quarterfinal stages of the world cup. She, at first, started giving me company during the 8.30 PM (IST) games. She used to repeatedly keep commenting about how fast the players run and how they kept falling. I assumed that, she was just looking at those matches, because there was no other way I would let her to watch the usual TV soaps ( serials)! However, in a couple of days, she started grasping rules about the game just by watching. By the end of quarterfinal stage, she was so much into the game, that I briefed her all the intricate details of the game. She, now knew more about the game than my mom! Not being familiar with all the countries...she started talking abt teams in terms of the color of the jersey they wore. So much was her enthusiasm that, she was rooting for Portugal during the Portugal -England game. With me having to leave for the US bfore the semifinals started, my mom told me that my grandma even watched a part of the final (although it was late into the nite) before falling asleep, only to ask about the outcome first thing in the morning! Soccer fever had truly reached her!!