Instant Inspiration

The days I scare me....

2008-07-23T21:24:00.001-07:00

I have recently noticed that I have grown increasingly brazen in my statements these days. I gave an extremely pathetic rendition( read "trying to ape my teacher") of Pantuvarali today. Sad part is I didnt even know it was Pantuvarali till we started to sing " Siva siva siva". Thought on my head - " Great! Another great day to cry through my nose. Wonder which new disaster he is teaching me now". He taught me Pantuvarali months ago and I managed to deliberately forget it!Since childhood, I could identify ragams like Kalyani, Sankarabharanm and Mohanam and every other ragam in the likes of Revathi, Mayamalava gowla and Pantuvarali was identified as "sad ragam". I had always managed to steer clear of "Sad ragams" that is, until now.

Conversation between my music teacher and me today after a reasonably good "aping" of Reethigowla:
Shyam sir: So you do listen to Reethigowla- no wonder you are good at it.
Me: Oh well I hate Pantuvarali..who has the time to listen to something that depressing?

I was shocked. I wished I could take it back. That too even after knowing very well that my teacher thrived on ragams like this one.Thankfully he didnt react.

" But I will start from now". Moment salvaged- or so I thought.

Conversation at the end of class:
Me: "Sir, do you know the song, Varugalamo in Maanji?"
Shyam Sir: "No. Never heard of it. Did Krishna( TMK) sing it"
Me: " Yeah he did but stay away from it. Krishna sucks in rendering emotional ragams like maanji and reethigowla or anything close.You have to listen to KVN's rendition on sangeethapriya"

I closed my eyes and wished I vanished. I wish I kept my opinions to myself.....

How to isolate unread mail in gmail

2008-07-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

This might seem silly to a lot of people but I have always wanted to have all my unread mail in one place once in a while and unlike some others, gmail doesnt have it categorized that way on the side. Just discovered that if you type is:unread in the search box and hit search now - ta da! all unread mail in one place! If you enable "Quick Links" from the "Labs" tab, you can add a Quick link at this point and name it "Unread mail".

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na - tragic humor

2008-07-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: This is a personal rant of a person appalled at the insensitivity of the movie. I am no movie critic and this post is just to show a perspective if it werent obvious already.

The movie was predictable as a clock from scene A-Z..no surprises and I could count the genuine jokes on my fingers- in fact there are 3. The star of the movie is neither Genilia nor Imran Khan but a rather unlikely Ratna Pathak Shah. The freshness of her presence deserves an applaud. Even Naseeruddin doesnt measure upto her- probably not his fault that his humor was too slapstick to digest.A.R.Rahman seems to have been either bored or disinterested in composing for the movie which is surprisingly uninspiring- not too sure if it was uninspired though. The incomprehensibly sung Kabhi kabhi aditi song does strongly resemble "appudo ippudo" sung by Sid in Bommarillu.Sid did do a great job on the song come to think of it.The kabhi kabhi song was supposed to cheer Aditi who was mourning the death of her "dear" cat whom she seemed to forget the moment she saw another one!FYI its unimaginable for any person to find any person/creature one truly loves to be replaced- so easily! It probably would have sufficed if Aditi did just smile as requested in the song instead of leaping and hopping for joy.

It is also apparently very funny for someone(Savitri) to be mad at a ruthless brute of a police officer and also for guys who simply cant get into a jail despite committing one crime after another because ahem..ahem....their parents got elected to the parliament. Is this supposed to be funny in any sense? At all?? Jai was adequately adorable till the moment he sneaked out of jail cos his uncle "got elected to the parliament".Probably this is some kind of an acquired sense of humor rubbed on by repeatedly watching of senseless "bollywood" flicks- I honestly dont know.

Anuradha Patel looked beautiful as ever and it was interesting to see Kitu Gidwani and Jayant Kriplani after a while. The movie did have a hip feel to it although scenes like going "shopping" for a girlfriend in a pub were seriously lame.The girlfriend by the way was a really goodlooking one and perhaps with more screen presence than the lead actress herself.

Overall, a very passable movie...I probably wont remember watching it until I visit this blog again!

composer's day and beyond

2008-02-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

So I finally performed for Composer's day this year.It was the first time I had a violinist accompany me and although that threw me off the line a few times, I think I did a decent job trying not to listen to it while singing.Still, it feels great to sing with a full fledged accompaniment.And hence, Maakelara vicharamu?( Why would I worry?)

Newfound heaven!

2008-01-11T20:46:00.000-08:00

Just discovered a completely addictive dessert that passes off as a breakfast item- the yogurt parfait! Tried it twice at Starbucks and I am hooked..creamy vanilla yogurt, strawberries, blueberries and toasted granola- can it get any better??

diet diet diet

2007-05-07T20:02:00.000-07:00

For the past few months( or was it years??) I have been trying hard to lose some weight and thanks to a colleague of mine, I had gained a lot of insight into health and nutrition. He recommended a diet called the Fat Flush Plan by Ann Louise Gittleman. I was extremely impressed by the principles of the diet but could never follow it real close as it was designed for meat eaters and I am a vegetarian.The diet targets the liver as the fat burning device in the body and aims at detoxifying the body to take off the detoxing load off the liver and direct it's efforts to fat burning.

Diet, anyway, was never my thing. I always lost weight when I stuck to a frugal diet and indulged in frequent and satisfying workouts.Although I loved working out, the hard fact, as my personal trainer put it, was that losing weight was 75% diet and 25% exercise.

After many months of trying this and that I have come to a conclusion- losing weight was all in the mind. Not in a diet or exericse forced on you, but the simple, real simple task of really really wanting it and let your body and mind work together to tell you what you exactly need to do to achieve your goal.Once you have set your mind on it, its amazing how things work your way.

Its ironic when people say I want to lose weight but feel like eating all the wrong foods. Do you really want to? The problem at its root is not losing weight, not looking good but is all about the ability to control your senses.Its not about losing weight its about gaining control. And thats what everything hinges on- thats should be the focus.

amazing salad

2006-10-08T13:07:00.000-07:00

I am a typical rice and sambar type south-indian who used to dismiss uncooked raw food as food for people from the stone age but had to change my opinion after being influenced by a lot of American company."Nutrients are lost after frying and cooking and are best preserved raw or after cooking once they are sprouted.Baking under 300F is the closest to eating raw vegetables heath-wise", a colleague of mine at work strongly believes.After a couple of salad trials at restaurants trusting his wisdom, I have finally turned a salad-fan and have just made the most amazingly tasty self inspired salad I think I could make.It has cabbage(cos I didnt have lettuce) ,cucmber,onion,tomato,marinated olives,garlic and cherry peppers with parmesan cheese, lemon juice,olive oil, zesty italian dressing, salt and freshly ground pepper for dressing.Tastes and looks amazing..try it all ye hitherto salad haters!

Funny-not so much ad

2006-09-07T14:43:00.000-07:00

Chanced upon this ad on sulekha.com

"I'm a married & educated man (early 30s) Seeking friendship with a married female. Are you the one that is destined to meet me ?

Please email me and we can chat further. For good or worse, I'm a mature adult and I'm placing this ad in my "full" senses, so please no "advise" email. Email me if you would like "us" to get to know each other, and see where it leads."

Interestingly, this person is exclusive on the lookout for a married female, which I believe means a woman as marriage is not really performed among other species of the planet as far I know.Is that because the other party would feel just as guilty and there would be an equal partake of sin if any if at all he finds one? Something to muse upon I guess....

A bomb of another kind

2006-08-24T15:29:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I received a mail from a friend which asked me to type in the word "failure" in google and see the first result.Interestingly, it was the president's website.Amused as I was, I wasnt convinced why and how the president would use that word in his website but the word didnt appear anywhere on the site.So google doesnt entirely rely on a keyword search huh? A few of my other friends who received the same mail were quick to enlighten me on what was actually a prank which exploited the pagerank algorithm of google, called a google bomb!

The trick was that google gave a higher rank to a website that was linked by many websites that had a consistent text and needless to say, in this context, it was "failure".Apparently, it didnt even need a lot of websites to accomplish the task.Now howzzat for a neat trick?

How to make a day unworthy of living

2006-08-17T15:48:00.000-07:00

I just had the most unproductive day yesterday.All the circuits I designed screwed themselves at the same point and none of them gave me as much as a clue as to why.People who were most unwelcome at my "cubicle" visited me making me just wait for the clock to tick so I could make my way home.The only entertainment for the day was that I met a whole bunch of "colleagues" from my age group from our sister company at a training session.

So what could possibly bum a person who has a boring day at work and a even more boring Janmashtami thanks to nature? Yes, the answer is, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.I could have read a book, studied for an upcoming exam, spent more time brooding on why my circuit develops that kink at the exact "bitter spot" but no! I had to spend a precious three and a half hours of my time watching a disgraceful saga of infidelity of characters who had no reason whatsoever to resort to adultery and utter irresponsibility i mighht add, as a solution to their marital problems.

The only major contribution made by the "I cannot be more bored" Rani Mukherjee and "I cannot be more stereotyped and irritating" Shahrukh Khan to the movie was to add more respect to the characters played by Preity Zinta and Abhishek Bacchan.The only rush of excitement I got while watching the movie was a mometary glance at an extremely hot looking John Abraham Djing away to the extremely hummable tunes of Shankar, Ehsaan,Loy-the silver lining on the dark clouds of KANK.Boy, Karan Johar seems to know quite a bit about the sanctity of marriage-just when I thought he would come up with something to convince the world that he wasnt gay......

nostalgic moments

2006-07-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

On the Friday night at Monrovia, I decided to attend the old town monrovia family festival and farmer's market.It was a precise miniature copy the "exhibition" or mela in India with stalls ranging from food, vegetables and small rides to clothes, jewellery and live music.I was especially touched by a certain person's renditions of music that was reminiscent of the Eagles ' style of music.A night for a heartwarming nostalgia indeed!

Princess of Monrovia

2006-07-13T21:16:00.000-07:00

Per my friend's request(read threat..he..he..just kidding) to document my trip to Monrovia, I hereby touch the long forgotten (for more than 6 months) world of blogging.

When my colleague came up to me and told me that we were scheduled to have our training for a tool we would be working on to Monrovia, I felt that place kind of rung a bell in my head.Wait..wasnt that a country near France or something mentioned in the Princess Diaries movie? Was I all set to make a trip to wonderland?? Well, no. It turned out to be a small city in southern california near LA with a history I didnt really care about(but of course I really find the term "history" in the context of America quite amusing).

So after an uneventful hour's flight from San Jose I reached the airport at Burbank...22 miles of LA commute hour traffic away from my destination in Monrovia but the closest one .Despite my fears of exploding in mid-air and pile-ups on highways spurred by my recent movie experience of final destination and its sequel, I reached the training center pretty much in one piece.

After a long day at training, my colleague drove us to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner but it was closed for Tuesday so he drove next towards a famous dumplings restaurant he was recommended to go by a friend of his but nearly came to a screeching halt at the sight of a Dave and Busters in a Mall we were passing by. "Screw dumplings .lets go there", he said excitedly after he saw the quizzical look that I shot at him- he just had to educate me on one of America's most cherished passions...Arcade video games.So after we ate, he insisted I play with him.Being a video game virgin, I protested vehemently against exposing my pathetically absent knowledge of virtual games but he wouldnt take no for an answer.I gave a shot at a DDR(Dance Dance Revolution) station but was so slow at taking instructions that the game was over even before I realised it had begun! "Show me how to play it!", I pleaded with him but he said he was too full for that.So , gathering all my guts I played a few rounds of random shooting games and driving games with him and realised how much fun it was inspite of how much I sucked at them! We even played pool after that and my friend taught me a few techniques at the game . I did end up having a good time that day- the American way!

the new timepass

2005-12-28T12:19:00.000-08:00

What do I do when I feel blue these days? Get a life with Calvin and Hobbes
http://www.decreation.com/other/calvin/

Pretty neat and pretty complete.But of course, this is strictly the last resort after numerous attempts to make life worse of the people around you, friends, family and prowling on unsuspecting users online on yahoo messenger!

Halloween creeps

2005-11-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

I was suddenly reminded of Halloween when this conversation flashed across my mind which took place next to me after I came back from Mill Avenue where people were sporting their costumes at their horrific best.The conversation was on the phone and this girl next to me goes on and on cribbing about how pathetic her life was now that she broke up with her boyfriend."DId you know even Catherine broke up with her boyfriend? Looks like everyone is breaking up at the same time.Like the time, do you remember, everybody got pregnant at the same time???"(Whoa???!!!!)That sure was a relief to hear cos I was wondering why I havent seen or heard anything spooky or scary or strange and the break from listening to "normal" conversation was welcome!

I returned home to try on an all-white dress which I was planning to wear for my birthday.As I didnt have a full-length mirror,I was hoping my friend might have a suggestion and so I called her.She wasnt home and I was idly moving across the apartment talking to her and clad in white.Quite casually, I moved the curtain of a window beneath with a tubelight was glowing strong and the sight which caught my eye blew my mind away!There was someone peering right at me exuding a blinding light.A scream escaped from me before I realized that the person was none other than my reflection on the glass window!So the only real scare I got for Halloween was from none other than me!

Excitement rules

2005-11-12T05:10:00.000-08:00

I have been pondering quite for a while why I havent been able to sleep early of late.My heartbeat is racing when I get to bed and its impossible to catch sleep when its that way.After many experiments , I have finally found out why.Its cos I have been getting to do things that I have a passion for with people who share that passion, especially in music.

Jammed for quite a while with a friend who was a mridangam/kanjira artiste and another tabla expert.It was fun although percussion gives me the creeps while singing because of the pressure of having to maintain the rhythm in a song in addition to melody and pitch.Nevertheless, it was fun singing various film songs and krithis in classical carnatic with a mridangam accompaniment until late in the night.Its a rare privilege to have an opportunity as such is the routine for only professionals.I was glad we shared almost the same taste in our choice of ragas and our craze for T.M.Krishna!

Cant sleep today either cos today saw me at the Eagles' live concert and they started with take it easy, which is quite expected (for the lines "I was standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona,which had the audience erupt in cheer).Was quite thankful for playing "Love will keep us alive" as it my favorite number from Hell Freezes Over(The album was named that cos when they were interviewed after their breakup, one of the guys stated that they would come together only when "Hell Freezes Over".I dont know what that means but it looks like it sure did!).I either didnt stay long enough or probably they didnt play my favorite "New York Minute" and "Last Resort" but I did have a hell of a good time anyways so no regrets :-)

mindless chatter of a sleepless mind

2005-11-08T00:14:00.000-08:00

I cant sleep.Whether I should attribute it to the double shot espresso I had to keep myself awake till the exam is over or to the excitement of the spirit of being done with the last of midterms for the semester , notwithstanding my standing in the exam whatsoever, I really dont know.Maybe, I'll contemplate this for a while..that might get me drowsy.Or maybe its the vibes of the energy in the living room of a bunch of students(friends of my roommate) cramming for their exam thats keeping me alive and kicking at a half hour past 1 after a sleepless night the previous day dedicated to the preparation for my exam.

I could have been more productive all this while.Instead of downloading and reminiscing through a number of song downloads , mostly varnams I had previously learnt years ago and thillana and keertanas in surati.Did I forget to mention that this can so totally be attributed to the influence of a mesmerising violin concert by the duo Kumaresh and Ganesh on Friday that had held me captivated over the weekend ?Or I could have done without adding a few more 'vetti' communities and scrapping ppl like crazy on Orkut.Well, put in a very strange perspective, I did save time by reading and entertaining myself reading orkutters favorite lines from the comedies of Vivek in a community of fans.Not that I wouldnt watch those movies now, I certainly will but will wait for now.

Now for a plan...maybe I'll work on an assignment or project...aah that outta get me to bed...looks like we have a plan here folks!

Halloween sports

2005-10-31T10:23:00.000-08:00

Was browsing through the internet when I came across this compilation of the Ten Most Feared People in the world of sport by FoxSports http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/5013876?GT1=7127

The number one on the list came as no surprise.It just had to be..Tyson!Like how the author of the article says..who would take even a million bucks to be in a ring with him after knowing what his favorite snack on the ring was?Inzy came third although I was under the impression Shoab Akhtar deserved it better but what the hell do I know about cricket!It was also quite interesting to see a woman (Jeanette Lee aka the Black widow), a pool player strike terror , or rather devour her opponents in her game

But the one player I adore and equally hate at the same time is a competitive eater,Takeru Kobayashi who has a record of eating 59 hot dogs in merely 12 minutes!!And guess what he weighs.. a paltry 131 pounds.Holy cow! I had always been jealous of Jughead Jones of Archies comics for being skinny inspite of a voracious apetite but was under the consolation that he was just a comic character and here he is, the too good to believe personality all alive and in flesh and blood.Drat...this is sooooooo not fair.So where does all the food he devours head towards??? Beats me!

And God said....guess what I did?

2005-10-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

A T-shirt I bought at MIT said this and what a converstaion-starter has it been!
People at the registers at every store I went to would go agog with questions...so what do they mean? Can produce light if I used them?Looks like it was tailor-made for you(so I look like a nerd now???) So whats your major...theatre(with a wink)..yeah right, exactly!

I love T-shirts with wisecracks...but I almost never seem to find one for myself.Some of them which I would have loved to have are:

Procrastinate- now!
I am out of my mind..please leave a message
Stop reading my T-shirt!!!!
Your life depends on your dreams....so go to sleep...zzzzzz

and the ones I surely detest but which are very much in vogue are:
My boyfriend's outta town
Too hot to handle

and sadly those are the ones I keep coming across at the Mall.....

And its back to yellow again

2005-10-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

Boring yellow is the color of the 'A' on the mountain again....unless I plan to do something really crazy this Friday night....hmmm...I better stop get ideas with midterms around the corner again!

BTW, did anyone check out Suriya on Ghajini? Well I did recently, and boy does he look good! Anybody knows if he is an Iyer-brahmin just in case.....?

thoughts on a manic Monday

2005-10-28T03:39:00.000-07:00

I have quite a picturesque view from the window in my office.Right down below my window is the parking lot beyond which is a hustling eating joint, Daisy and Duke's set across the background of a landmark of ASU, the A mountain. The 'A' on the mountain is usually yellow, gold to be technically right which is one of the colors of ASU, maroon and gold except during the first week of classes when its painted white to mark the beginning of the semester.That day, however ,someone had decided to grace the 'A' with maroon spots and sure, it did brighten up the A. It was a prank by someone who probably did it for the kick of doing something taboo.But what I really didnt understand was who would actually bother to do something like that just for the heck of it?

It reminded me of 'Hack', a group of students in MIT whose identity is sworn to secrecy and whose primary goal was to play pranks with baffling ingenuity.Some of the noted 'achievements' of the group that dates back to the early 1930s were

- Hanging down a truck and a dummy cow from a dome that had no straight entrance of any sort...its one thing to imagine how they even got up there let alone manage to dangle a truck from there!

-Hiding the President's office completely with posters and announcements

-Turning every chair in a class( which was in an auditorium) away from the professor

-Handing out instructions on how to make paper planes among freshmen and passing it off as assignments.It had them make it and instructed them to aim it at their professor at 11:15 am sharp .And surely enough, the next day the professor was bombarded with planes from all directions and he had no clue why!

-Changing traffic signs "walk " and "dont walk" to "chew"(whoa...???)

-Changing ancient inscriptions on the domes of the buildings to garbage.

Sounds like nerds can be fun huh?

a colorful digression

2005-10-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

Landing in Philadelphia was biting through a giant sandwich of fog.It was bright and sunny up high in the sky and down below was a thick blanket of clouds and as we hit the vapour, kept encountering layers and layers of it.At that moment , I simply wished I had this giant broom with which I could sweep all the clouds away and let the sun shine through.I just couldn't help thinking of the sun far beyond the clouds after I landed- I knew it was out there when it was lashing and pouring rain on the streets of boston when I was out there to have a good time..and I did nevertheless.

I was always under the impression that Boston, New Jersey, New York and the sort, ie most of the East Coast in general carried a certain coldness and callousness as a remisnisence of their English past.So I kinda assumed no-one would actually notice that I was the only girl in sight who was in a skirt and a pink one at that!The stares I got were definitely noticable, one to the extent that a girl refused to take her eyes off me inspite of my trying my time-tested technique of staring back..it was supposed to make her uncomfortable!Throughout my trip, I had continued to dress in vibrant colors so reminscent of the Arizona sun and its colors and not to mention, continued to get those looks from people so much so that I got so used to them that they were banal.On a flowing long yellow skirt I wore, my cousin commented that the papers the next day morning would carry news about a UFO (Unidentified Floating Object) - so much for being a contrast.....

Glad to be back in Arizona where summer colors are still welcome .....and thank God for that!

A chaotic morning....

2005-10-13T22:18:00.000-07:00

It was one of those days ( not so much of a rarity in my case) wherein things just didnt go the way I planned. I had to catch a flight to Philadelphia at 9:14 am and calculated that the best time to be at the airport would be 8:30 since I already printed out my boarding pass via Web check-in.But what an overly indulging experience of "coffee meditation" ( the art of savoring the aroma, taste and cherishing coffee as part of a meditation routine) could do to me is this-I overran my time estimate and had to wake up my roomie,who thankfully, is a friend to pack my lunch and rushed to the bus-stand which was amazingly closer than my estimate( again-utterly bad planning in action) and caught the earlier bus than the one I intended which was running late!( Now that had nothing to do with my plans)

The sight which met my eyes at the airport made the web-checkin one of the most intelligent decisions I had taken in my recent memory-God Bless America-West! The airport was teeming with chaotic confusion with never ending lines of passengers waiting for their boarding passes.My early arrival to the airport had not affected my schedule in anyway as I inched along the long lines through the security point which was clearing at a furious pace and surprisingly enough, there were no tags with security stamps on the baggages of the passengers.Perplexed, I reached my gate to board my plane and was more surprised to see people already boarding in full swing.

Once inside the aircraft, an announcement by the hostess made this confusion comprehendable.Due to bad weather conditions in Philadelphia, our aircraft will have to wait for 4 hours in Phoenix if it doesnt take off in the next 10 minutes! What ensued after the announcement was part excitement and partly hilarious.I joined the passengers next to my seat and the nearby aisles in vehemently pleading "Please sit down" to every passenger who boarded in the last few minutes left to avoid the imminent fate of having to wait for 4 hours as I just had a few hours in Philadelphia before I had to catch a train to Boston.Towards the last minute, the steward made a call for a certain Marcus to show himself up and since there was no immediate response from anybody, a guy behind me went " Everybody show their hands up, we gotta get this plane moving".I burst out into a nervous laughter.Thankfully, the plane took off soon after despite the prediction of the lady next to me that we were not going to make it.

An early landing in Philadelphia was nevertheless in vain as the weather had progressively degressed and it was pouring rain.Although I couldn't see much of Philadelphia more so because of the weather my period of stay, I enjoyed the change from a never-say-die summer heat of Arizona.Its the magic of the East Coast I guess!So much so that I didnt even wear a sweatshirt until late in the evening just to feel what it was to be cold!

The girl who went up the hill and came down the sky

2005-10-13T21:46:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was pretty amazing.I had attended a percussion concert by the ensemble "Heartbeat" headed by Karthick, a talented disciple of the famous ghatam artiste Vikku Vinayakaram.But the highlight of the weekend was my long(read an year long!)-awaited trip to the A mountain, one of the landmarks at ASU.All that I needed to get to the top was 20 minutes but I never did so in a whole year because of lack of company.The only time I had tried to get onto the top was when I real real upset and wanted to get "high" but didnt do so as I was getting lost in the trail and didnt like the idea of rattlesnakes and scorpions( which is quite likely in Arizona) lurking among those lonely trails at sunset.

I finally found company last weekend and boy, did I have fun! Its amazing how easily one could turn the "big bad world" to a teeny weeny colony with specks of light scattered all across the floor much like the plethora of stars and galaxies that shine above us.It felt like we were between two blankets of stars leaving me undecided as to which one was more breathtaking...I had none left.As I gaped at the wonders of creation in awe, my friend showed me all the other mountains he has "conquered" and famous haunts in Arizona including a strip club I had never heard of.At the moment, everything else had turned magically insignificant and dreams of trip to a faraway land with enchanting beauty began weaving inside my head.Although the trip didnt work out due to mundane worldly issues which I do not wish to recollect at the moment which are the "lows" that are not worthy of my contempation, it still is amazing how imagination can transform the seemingly banal to a whirlwind of excitement...

Tiffin Dibba

2005-10-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

I read a word yesterday I had forgotten for sometime now since I came to the US- tiffin dibba. It was on a sign outside my door and read "Tiffin dibba" totally awesome desi food delivered hot and fresh to your office in the university! Couldnt help laughing.....

Musings...

2005-08-29T11:25:00.000-07:00

My friend gave me some weekend reading.."It's not about the bike" - the biography of Lance Armstrong by Sally Jenkins.As one can guess, its main focus is on how he overcame cancer to become a world champion.I couldnt finish the book at one go and am still reading it because I kept recollecting my encounters with a cancer patient who was very close to me- my aunt Shantha.

Periamma, as I fondly call her was almost like a mother to me.It 's quite natural to be so close to a relative whose family was in such close proximity that practically our houses were never more than a few miles apart, ever.She was a rather shy person and so wasnt diagnosed with cancer until it reached an advanced stage.Reading Lance's book reminded me of everything about her- the nauseating chemos, loss of hair, the pain, the quite desperation and hope.Suddenly, everything else in life seemed trivial and insignificant.I loved her dearly and even when she passed away in January this year, I have not come to terms with the fact that she is no more. To me, she still lives. She lives in my memories and thoughts, she lives everywhere I see unconditional love and compassion.I am consoled by the thought that she will no more have to go through the pain and depression caused by endless chemo and radiation routines, the fear and uncertainty of the unknown....

I believe that to mourn the dead beyond a point is selfishness, because death knows no pain and is free from the trials, tribulations and bondages of the world.Wanting them to live in this stifling world full of strife would be cruelty.I am of the opinion that a person can live only as long as she/he wants to live. Its hope that keeps us alive..how much ever we try to deny that.Periamma was going through excellent treatments at Hyderabad at Apollo.She was loved and taken care of by us.We were there for her and did everything we could do possibly to keep her in the best of her spirits. But when her family moved to Trivandrum, Periappa was of the impression that since most of our relatives live there, she would be taken care of..but what matters most is not the number of people but the people who care.The thought that Periamma might have passed away because she lost hope and that she might have thought she had no one to live for and to love sometimes tears me apart.Both her sons were abroad but I havent been more regretful for being away from her after she moved to Kerala.

Counting my blessings, I should feel fortunate for having known and been with a person as warm and caring as her- and I shall feel that warmth in my heart for as long as it beats....

to write or not to write.....

2005-08-16T18:10:00.000-07:00

writer's block...thats what I have been having these days..or not...cos to have that I need to be a writer in the first place! I have logged in many a times,to log smart quotes, the thrills, the disappointments, the thoughts and all the rigmarole that has been buzzing in my head and try to get it off the top of my head but all I see is blank..everytime but this time I have decided to write out the blank sheet on my head..the apparently blank sheet.Apparently because by blank, I think of white and isnt white the color that reflects everything? Hmm..now thats quite a thought.
Speaking of thought, a recent incident reminds me of a fact that looks so simple upfront but so complicated and intricate within the layers of the mind.There is a way one can be happy ever after.And that is too let go ..of every wish , every attachment and yet, we are trapped..trapped in a vicious circle for, we attach ourselves to things which we think will lead us to happiness but what we are leading ourselves to may not be the destination that we seek
As an aside, I just remembered an argument I had with a staunch supporter of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata who claimed the victory of the pandavas was the victory of dharma.Although I did this just to irritate my friend who could be easily irked, I told him, that the Duryodhana was the rightful heir to the throne since his father lost it only due to a physical disability which was not inherited by him and that administration-wise as well, Duryodhana was par excellence. The only reason the pandavas won the war was because Krishna was on their side which proves one point- even if one is a loser, being on the side of God can make all the difference to one in life.I dont know where that came from..but pretty smart huh??

dancing fiascos et al...

2005-07-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

The other day at the Latin/Salsa club, I was dancing with this gentleman when all of a sudden my otherwise very right foot turned into another left one! Quite strange, this guy just got his Salsa wrong, I thought. Imagine my embarrasment when my dance teacher went through the same sequence of steps the next day and called it Merengue! No wonder the guy told me"I'm gonna teach you Merengue the next time your are here, lady!" and I was thinking"Huh, right! First get your Salsa right Mr.Geek!" So much for Merengue ignorance!

an awesome weekend

2005-07-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

I had one of the most splendid weekends in my recent recollection.Friday saw me gorging on icecream from the coldstone creamery at Mill Ave., drenching in the rain which is one of the most cherished of one's experiences in Tempe, especially in Summer which returns to its undescending glorious heat almost instantly regardless of the rain. The night culminated with a late show of "Wedding Crashers" at the Harkins Theatres .I had never been to a show with more people around and have so many laughs in the US. It rained on Saturday too, and a nice walk around Scottsdale couldn't have been more pleasant.And as a great finish to a memorable weekend, I went clubbing for the first time to a Latin/Salsa club at Scottsdale, Club Tropicana, where I took a few lessons and had a few dances before I returned home.In my excitement to look classy for the night, I attempted to straighten my hair which ended in a pathetic fiasco but nevertheless, curls rule and curls rock!Let my hair down anyways and how!

Avada Kedavra...Rowling!

2005-07-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

After the much hyped release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, I finished reading the book nearly after one week later.Sad to say, it was the worst investment in my life.Even after i had expected much lesser after the Order of the Phoenix, it has turned out to be a shocker.Nothing much happens in the book until the end and it carries on a disgustingly dark feeling throughout the book.More or less, it had been a Cruciatus curse to have been through it.I am sorry, dear Rowling but you need to have a heart.I can never forgive you for letting two of my dearest characters die..

Pakistani rock

2005-07-17T23:36:00.000-07:00

The first time I got to know that Pakistanis ever had musical talent was when I heard the phenomenal singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, whom I , needless to say, miss dearly.But the first time I ever got to know they had talent for rock was when I heard "Junoon".Armed with a really good sense of music, they pretty much bashed it up but what I never really understood was why would every band have to compose music which relied heavily on classical hindustani when they did not have singers who had the potential to deliver it.A classic example was the song "Durr" by Strings.Atrocious singer..simply atricious ..but with due respect to my friend who believed it to be an all-time classic, I do agree with him to the extent that it was composed well.Even the recent hit from "zeher" goes to prove my point.The singer(Atif)'s voice seemed to swing every which way...was he singing at gun point?

Of multiple personality disorders and the fight against injustice

2005-07-13T12:10:00.000-07:00

Of late, I had been on a spree of movies with the theme of schizophrenia, each one shadier than the other.Probably I should have seen Me, myself and Irene for some comic relief.The Tamil concept is far too unbelievable (confusing actually)for me.

For starters, I watched(re-watched actually) the malayalam classic "Manichitrathazhu" , a Fazil movie released in 1993 which won Shobhana the national award for best actress.A very well directed movie with excellent casting and a narration which was precise, it did seem preposterous in a few scenes but was far-far more realistic than the tamil version of it.Chandramukhi, the Tamil version of the movie, was flashy and strayed away from the plot quite often to display the "histronics" (antics would have been a better word but I dare not insult the superstar of TamilNadu for whom even I have a lot of respect) of Rajnikanth.There were too many incongrous scenes which made me wonder if the director of the movie even understood the plot himself or not(What's the deal with that giant Anaconda for Pete's sake!)Nevertheless, I had fun watching it although I had to freeze my grey cells for a coupla hours to avoid any severe damage.My sister and I did have our share of fun screaming each time Rajni made an outlandish entry which gave me a high.Its something that I dearly miss in the US theatres.The audience never exhibits any kind of mania for any star or movie barring the release of Starwars for which I heard people actually camp outside the theatres for tickets!

Anniyan on the other hand was quite a weirdly directed movie.The hero's clothes kept changing as if it were magic each time a different person possessed him.So much to the point where the audience didnt even understand the plot of the movie. Even the message it gives out is ridiculous. One man trying to judge other people and taking law into his own hands is not in any way an example to follow."Change must come from within" as the Zen saying goes.Plus, the music score wasn't complementing the plot either.Rumor has it that Shankar had an ego clash with Rehman as he was taking away all the credit for his movies with his music although thats a point I cannot agree with.Anyways, I would give the movie credit for a novel concept of a mixture of a multiple personality disorder and the "Indian" concept of the fight for justice.Way to go, Shankar..and of course Vikram for a brilliant potrayal of a seriously messed up character of Ambi!

Movie review time

2005-07-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

I was never a crazy fan of the movies( think I can attribute that partially to my genes..My Mom's head starts splitting at the mere mention of Television!) but I have appreciated any movie which had a good story artistically told. And of course, original comedy.

I watched "Batman Begins" a few days ago after hearing rave reviews about it and sorry to say, it was a huge disappointment for me. I guess I was partially prejudiced though, or probably I went in with high expectations hoping it would turn out to be a bit like Spiderman.It was a dark and shady movie and the plot was actually funny, objectively speaking!I would rather have had a mutant bat bite him and give him superpowers which would save mankind from injustice for eternity!The the part where Liam Neeson makes a statement about the League of Shadows "whenever the world has reached the peak in corruption, we descend to restore peace and justice" aka Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita totally cracked me up(do u catch my drift..eh..eh? lol!)!!

Yet, there were parts that I really admired..like the part where Batman uses his fear as his power and where Michael Caine always replies to Bruce's question " You haven't given up on me yet" as "never" in a very Britty accent.And Bruce's line in the opening of the movie when an Asian hunk says " I am the devil" , "No, you are practice!"..boy that was a sure winner.

On the contrary, "War of the Worlds", of which I got to see just the first hour seemed quite thrilling.It may not have had a plot or anything serious but I did think the visual and sound effects were exemplary and the potrayal of human fear was quite realistic at times...and like a critic of the movie said, with which I agree, directors like Steven Speilberg are simply incapable of bad film-making(wah-wah kya baat kahi hai!).

For the love of language!

2005-07-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

For quite some time now, I have been hooked on to the language bug, it being one of the many passions I had no clue about until a few months ago( to be honest I get hooked on to the weirdest of things for no reason whatsoever quite often!) I don't know how this one started but of many things, I think the reason could be my fascination for the varied forms of beauty in literature that's akin to each language which cannot be tapped from the other.

I discovered this when I actually started to make an effort to learn the meanings of the many verses and songs that I used to/still sing in varied languages. Being a Tamil by birth whose mother was born and brought up in Kerala and being brought up in Andhra myself, I grew up learning songs in Telugu,Tamil, Malayalam and Sanskrit but I never cared much to know what they meant until I attended one of Prema Pandurang's Narayaneeyam discourses conducted by Kshetropasana and discovered the immense poetic prowess of the 1034 verses condensed from the Bhagavata. My belief until then, which was that English was the one and only language capable of rendering every form of literature most rapturously, was challenged.Never had I come across such beauty in literature , never in the hundreds of books I had ever read(all in English..thats the only language i am completely comfortable reading!) That's when I decided to discover the beauty in the literature of every language I was even faintly familiar with.Although it's too late for me to go deep down and absorb everything, I have begun to understand the beauty of Tamil through the compositions of Ootukadu Venkata Subbaier and Papanasam Sivam, thanks to the help from family and friends.

Telugu and Malayalam are derived from Sanskrit and follow it quite closely.My only exposure to Telugu was from compositions of Tyagaraja, a few lessons from my Telugu classes( which did manage to create a sort of "mania" for a very brief span of time) and a few random Telugu movie songs.My mother swears by the beauty of Malayalam literature but nothing attracted me more about Malayalam than the outrageously funny array of movies of the nineties which had incomparably original themes in comedy which used to tickle me to death!

I do not think my latest fad to learn French has been spurred by a similar interest though. More probably because of the 'jour -ish posh accent in the language that makes it sound....gorgeous! A mere effort to speak in French magically transports me to the delightful city of Paris I wish to see someday!

But probably, I feel, deep down literature boils down to just one thing- the beauty of the mind.I never have been able to assess the practical value my current fad and where its taking me but as long as its not costing me something better, i think I'll enjoy it for as long as it lasts!

My first blog!

2005-07-11T12:57:00.000-07:00

Eh bien! I have finally set my foot into the world of blogging! What I have to offer to it, I do not know but atleast I have attempted to give my braincells some incentive to start working I guess