Happy Birthday!

She loves you for what you are.
She loves you without expecting anything in return.
She supports you even when you are wrong.
She is the only soul who is with you ever.


Happy birthday mom!! :) :)

Rendezvous with Balamuralikrishna

There's no doubt about my passion towards music. And that too after I got an Ipod, it has literally become a part of me! (I can hardly sleep without my dose of ARR and Hariharan!)
But carnatic music was never my cup of tea. I did listen to it but never enjoyed as much as other forms of music. Moreover, I had many conditions to listen to it like I should listen to one particular song a few times before I could decide whether I like that song or not. And I listened only to veterans, and that too a very few of them like MS, Balamuralikrishna etc. But one incident is enough to change my attitude towards something. That was my meeting with Sri. Balamurali Krishna.

It was sometime in 2005 when I met this legend. I was traveling alone by air from Hyderabad to Chennai when I met him in the Hyderabad airport. I was in the counter where the boarding passes were being issued. I never realized he was right behind me until my cousin yelled from outside as she had come to send me off. She yelled on top of her voice that Sri. Balamuralikrishna himself turned around to see who that person was! It was soooo funny that time.

I had booked the flight ticket online and so my ticket was just a sheet of paper. As soon as I got the boarding pass and quick good byes to my cousin, I went around the airport lounge in search of him to get his autograph. Finally I found him and got his autograph in my ticket! We started conversing as he asked my residence and what I was doing and my future plans and stuff. I casually asked him if he could sing for me (That was a bit tooo much... I know... Still I asked him :D) He was just about to sing a line (for me :D) when one idiot suddenly intruded from nowhere! He didn't even realize that I was there talking to Sri. Balamurali, and never had the sense that already a human being was there talking to him! I couldn't bear it and left the scene after bidding Bon Voyage to Sri. Balamurali.

But apparently Sri.Balamurali was also traveling in the same flight to Chennai! I sat right behind him in the flight (It was Air Deccan by the way... anybody can sit anywhere!). And that idiot was sitting beside him... sigh. After a safe (?) landing in Chennai airport, I rushed to my mom and with full excitement, told her "I spoke to Sri. BalamuraliKrishna!!!!!!!" just for others to give me a nasty stare. (I did squeal a bit :D)

After that one incident, my total attitude towards carnatic music has changed. I, now, put in effort to know what a song means, its raaga and other related things. I still don't know why, but it has changed. There’s no special reason, this rendezvous is not such a great thing after all. It was just a 10 minute talk to a singer to say the least. Still it has made a difference in me.

Some meetings do change the approach towards certain aspects of life!

Fumble?

Whenever I see either NDTV or CNN, the news reader either stares at me wildly or says something like Jayalalitha, the current chief minister of bihar or something like that.

Does this happen every time????

Who is to be blamed??

I recently had to give my bike for service. There was a small boy who cleaned my bike before the person in charge could hand over the keys to me. As usual I couldn't keep my mouth shut and asked the boy whether he goes to school. And he answered me that he had finished his twelfth standard! He hardly looked twelve years old! And the person in charge also affirmed his statement. I was totally shocked. And helpless!

Such kids exist everywhere. Not just in my area. And everyone knows about it.
Is there anything to help these kids?? They deserve more attention... They should not be working at this tender age! Something has to be done...

Global Rhythms

Global Rhythms performed at IIT on the first day of Saarang 2007. After all the hype that A.R.Rahman is making a special appearance, I was left totally disappointed. The very purpose of me going to that concert was to get a glimpse of "The Guru of Music". Of course, it was my fault to have believed in those rumours. But Airtel was the sponsor. This made me believe. There was an article confirming the same in one of the newspapers too. So imagine my excitement and the level of disappointment!

Apart from that, the show was good. A lot of effort has been into it. The love of Music was evident from the way they performed. Be it "Ecstasy" or their tribute to mridangam where percussionists, mridangam players and table players played together, they were extra ordinary. Mind blowing actually.

There was one percussionist who was doing an amazing piece (solo) and suddenly, his stick fell. The crowd remained silent for a second when he bent down, took his stick, kissed it and continued. It was really good to see that. They were a bunch of people who were performing at IIT just for the love of music and nothing else. Way to go people!

Of course the show was scheduled at 7.30 but started only at 8 and continued till around 10.( A friend of mine even exclaimed that only the friday 8 show and classes start at time in IIT :D ) But it was worth it. I did enjoy a lot until Rehana entered the stage. She started off with her trademark chaiyya chaiyya with Sriram. I didn't like that piece actually. I really wished someone to stop them and Sriram seemed never ending!

Finally their tribute to ARR - Dol Dol. It was really good. Good effort. On the whole it was a nice evening, after a long time. But still something was missing. Maybe ARR ;)

Pokiri

I saw this movie last night... just to sleep off in the theatre!

This post will not contain any spoilers(as if anything can spoil the whole "experience" of watching that movie)

There is nothing called a story line in this movie.. just a rowdy who just does anything for money but later turns out to be someone great. blah!
Lets see what is there in this movie...

Vijay= imitating prabhudeva.. so artificial.

Asin=4 songs+3 fights+2 senti-scenes=waste of time

Vadivelu=Irritating, but a relief at times[ poor surya though :( ]

Ragasiya=yuck!

Nasser & PrakashRaj=awesome acting, but a total waste.

THIS IS THE BEST PART

punch dialogue:naan oru mudivu pannita aprom en pecha naane ketka matten- what crap? idhu punch dialogue a?? kashtam..

BTW why the hell does he look at the camera like that?? i really thought it was a psycho movie or something.. Gosh
P.S: Indha padathai preview theatre vera poi paathen.. kodumai..

Road Safety Week

The road safety week is atlast over. I guess this kind of a hype will sustain for not more than a week! Since almost all are talking something or the other about road safety and stuff, i need to declare a few very important issues.
On 13th December,2006 i attended a seminar on road safety organised by the rotary club, chennai. I was compelled to go there, so naturally i had no choice. As usual there were a couple of verry boring lectures by few people from the Police Department, Insurance companies and a few others. But I was a bit shocked soon after i reached there. The “eminent” personalities had actually made the whole seminar thing as a platform to shift the blame on the student community for whatever traffic problems public facein chennai. Sadly, there was a Radio jockey from Big FM who had to conduct a group discussion among a panel consisting of the “eminent” personalities and a few students, and i was a part of it. Due to the so called time constraint, he had to stop the whole discussion abruptly. Well, let me complete:
1. Why don’t someone come to the Luz signal near Mylapore at around 6 in the evening and see how the police cars cross the road to park it? Does the RED,YELLOW and GREEN apply only to the public and not to the policemen? Are they colour blind?
2. What am i supposed to do if a signal shows all the 3 colours and there’s no policeman to guide us through? (This happens often in the Nilgiries signal, near Chola)
3. Why don’t one of the policemen come and snatch the license of the stupid autodriver who stops after the zebra crossing at a signal?
4. Most traffic snarls start only because there’s one Extra careful driver who doesn’t want the speedometer to cross 10! Why don’t anyone understand that? I’m not here to propagate the youth to go at 85-90.. But a decent speed will help.
I completely agree that there are a few creatures of my age who consider their bikes as aircrafts and scare the fellow riders to death! But not all. Make sure you have that in your mind.

Happy New Year!

twelve hours from now, a new year will be born..
New hopes, New dreams and..new resolutions :D
Wish you all a verrry happy new year!!

A Matter Of Minutes..

Why do people do this??

Happy Kaarthigai Deepam

Prof's Profiles

Yet another depressing semester has begun. And this time, it is even more irritating. We've a very interesting mix of subjects and lecturers ( if i can call them as one). The first being our accounts ma'am. I really wonder how she managed to get her graduationg from ICWA. She onve asked us what Goodwill was ( its an asset which appears in the Balance Sheet.. commerce students will understand it better). We gave her a variety of answers, all of which were correct. But the answer she gave really made me say, " excuse me?!?! ". She said Goodwill was a fictitious asset!! The first lesson taught to us in school was that Goodwill is not a fictitious asset but an intabgible one.. oh my god..!! i could not stand it anymore. But then.. I could not do anything.. "autonomous" was the word in my mind.

And one totally absurd subject is entrepreneurship development. We've profs who are incapable of pronouncing it properly. They say anterprenoor or something of that sort. And yeah i said "they" cuz we've two people "teaching" the subject. One prof actually taught us economics in the second sem, known for her shoshi-ability!! The other one is a total comedy, except the way she calls me! (she says maadhangee.. how sick!!) No one can distinguish the way she says 3 and 7.. all are the same in her world.

The best is Management, be it the subject or the teacher, both rock ( I really mean it). The first day itself impressed me a lot, when she asked for negative feedbacks (she taught us auditing last sem.. and did make our lives hell!). She definitely rocks.. I mean it in the real sense.. no sarcasm!

And...How can I ever forget vaa!!.. This sem, we've an Inter Disciplinary Elective (IDE), where we're allowed to take a subject apart from our regular course.It was the dumbest thing to have chosen Game theory and strategies.. not because of the subject but the teacher. She has the tendancy to say vaa every two words! If you still dont understand what vaa means, well.. it means WHAT!! :D

Ahh.. well, only one thing is the same this time.. the number projects and assignments are the same :D, one in each subject (including IDE). Lets wait and see whats there in store for us!!
God is Great:D

AIDS?!? Cha!!!

the first, introductory paragraphs are so stupid..

SCENE: a family of four(lets say H,W,S,D for Husband, Wife, Son and Daughter) are all set to watch "alive coffee with anu" on vijay tv (The special guests being Mrs & Mr.Vishwanath Anand). but as usual H and S watch the stupid cricket match on set max.

a snippet of their discussion:

(W and D are furious)

W: andha coffe with anu podungalen.. indha loose match la enna iruku nu ipdi rendu perum paakareenga?

D (to H) : appa adha vei pa.. indha mandhira bedi a unakku paakanuma??

W: adhula vishwanath anandh varaan, naa paakanum. andha ad laye avan nanna irundhan. avan shirt kooda amazing.

H: konja neram rendu perum vaaya moodrela. we want to see this match. adhula ad potundu irukaan.. paaru!

( H switches the channel to Vijay tv and sees anu talking to vishwanath anandh.. H and S ku ore bulb)

W: evlo chinna paiyan madhri irukkan paaru

(in tv..)

anu: neenga ippo UNAIDS ku ambassador a vera irukinga, so can you just explain us about your role in this moble cause? neenga paatheenga na eppo lam tv la AIDS pathi sonnalum, channel a change panniduvaanga....

anandh: definitely, i think its important to talk about it with your family.....

( H switches the channel to that stupid match again)

W: yen adha maathinel? adha vaingo..

D: vai appa...

( S as usual remains silent)

W: unga appa eppavum ipdi dhaan pannuva..

H ( furiously) : avan AIDS pathi solraan.. unakku adha paakanuma??

W: aama.. enakku paakanum..
H: naa vekka maaten..

( and the discussion goes on..)

SCENE ENDS

well.. this may be an inspiration from he-she of ferrari, but i'm sure this kind of incidents do happen in everyday life.

what do you think about H.. male chauvinism, ignorance, shyness?.... I call it stupidity.

I really appreciated the move by Vijay tv for inviting anandh and to talk about this social cause.

i feel it is very important for people to talk about it. Especially with the growing HIV+ people in this country.. why don't people grow up?

Famous personalities are roped in as ambassadors for people to listen to them on important issues. But if this is the kind of attitude among people, then all the efforts taken up by these organisations are an absolute waste..

I've had enough!

new york nagaram lyrics - for those who kill the lyrics!
please learn the song before you sing..

new york nagaram urangum neram
thanimai adardhadhu paniyum padarndhadhu
kappal irangiye katrum karaiyil nadandhadhu
naangu kannadi chuvargalukkulle naanum mezhuguvathiyum
thanimai thanimaiyokodumai kodumaiyo

pechellam thaalatu pola ennai uranga vaika nee illai
dhinamum oru mutham thandhu kaalai coffee kodukka nee illai
vizhiyil vizhum dhoosi thannai naaval edukka nee ingu illai
manadhil ezhum kuzhappam thannai theerka nee inge illai
naan inge neeyum ange
indha thanimaiyil nimishangal varusham aanadheno
vaan inge neelam ange
indha uvamaiku iruvarum vilakkamaan dheno(new york)
natkurippil nooru tharavai undhan peyarai ezhudhum en pena
ezhudhiyadhum erumbu moika peyarum aanadhenna thena
jill endru boomi irndhum indha tharunathil kulir kaalam kodai aanadheno
vaa anbe neeyum vandhal
sendhanal kooda pani katti pole maarum yeno(new york)

the best part of the song according to me is the humming at the beginning.. arr rocks!!
well.. about the picturisation.. i'm pity arr! :)

THE college.. "M.O.P"

I don't think any other college can get as crazy as mine..
The M.O.P.College for Women.
It definitely gives an extra ordinary exposure to each and every student, but the co ordination among the staff is pathetic. today(think on 7th of october), we were supposed to get our law marks and ended up waiting for 3 whole hours for a small clarification!!
apparently, our law sir had lost around half of our assignments and surusuppa gave the job of marking to another lecturer. And that ma'am had marked the missing ones as zero on ten.And therefore our marks were drastically reduced. And unfortunately I was one among them :(
The best part was how our law sir marked each of us for those 10 marks. He initially said he would conduct a viva and then mark us based on our performance in the viva.. the what!!!!!!! was our reaction (obviously!.. none of us knew a bit of our syllabus)
After much pleading by other section, he finally agreed to mark us based on our face(?)... yeah i am right.. based on our face!!!
He saw each of our's face and marked us for those ten marks..but later changed his mind and marked us based on our internal marks.. (phew!!)anyways, finally i got 9 on 10 :))
heights of nonsense!!!!! i just hope that the same doesn't happen with my semester exam!!
who knows how'll he mark us if he lost our sem papers. Keeping my fingers crossed

Dinner at Vasantha Bhavan

Mylaporeans will be in a position to understand the last two words, i hope.
Last night i, along with my dad, had dinner at that very place.
and everything turned out just like i expected on a holiday ( being the 137th birthday of the Mahatma)

nothing can be more intersting than watching the fellow mylaporeans storming into
a long, rectangular building(well, thats vasantha bhavan precisely).
watching people and the way they are in public has been one of my favourite pass times for long. and come navarathri, i got to see such unique people making me wonder why at all i know such "things"

well, coming back to my "experience" in Vasantha Bhavan, i did see some usual and
unusual stuff happening there. Being a national holiday, obviously there was a
mad rush of mad people.
the most interesting person there was the manager who in his desperate attempt to satisfy his customers, had a tiff with my dad ( the usual stuff that happens everytime i have dinner with my dad!!). But the worst part was that, there were atleast 3 people taking orders from us. reminds me of the principle of unity of command!! :p

some of the "interesting" things that happened there:
1. a drunkard sat next to my table and had his.. err.. dinner
2. an old couple had "idlis" with tearful eyes.
3. a newly wed couple sporting why-the-hell-we-came-here look on their faces.
4. a group of college students made a hell of a noise and a mylai maami frowning
at them each time they made some noise.
5. a family of 8(?!) on a look out for an empty table to seat themselves and
their HUGE bags. (probably they just finished their "shopping")
6. and as usual, i didn't eat what i wanted to and had to depend on the suggestions by the waiter, which as usual was idly and dosa.
well, i still dunno why i put such a post today.
maybe it was just a humble attempt to explore the REAL mylapore!! :p

Meetings.. blah!

i dont find a point in organising welfare meets. especially on a serious day like "world literacy day".
a panel of 6 jobless people sit on the dias and keep pestering the audience to adopt 5 kids and educate them..
just one question to them.. don't u think its a waste fo time talking such nonsense and giving stupid statistics as part of your "speech"? instead try to teach few kids abcd in that time!!
i can understand that you people are ardent fans of vijaykanth and his movies.. still please.. just a humble request to stop using so many statistics!!
it makes the audience fall asleep..

its such an irony that the day i start my blog, there's a bomb blast in malegaon!!
to be a bit optimistic, yesterday was apparently "world literacy day" and i've started my own blog that very day!! wow!!
well.. anyways there had been a constant urge in me to express my inner feelings and vent out my emotions. and so here i am atlast, stepping into the "blog world"!!
hmm..i just hope i put some sensible stuff in here.. anyways at your own risk!!