Days 2 and 3 didn’t necessarily go as planned. Several plans were made and then tossed in the air. But it didn’t matter as I had a great time hanging out with my sisters just like old times

Remember this? 25 Things to do before the silver jubilee

11. Watch Alarmel Valli dance live.

Done golden! I was a couple of months late, but that is ok! Though the concert was actually quite disappointing. Valli was her brilliant self as usual, and the jathi swaram she did at the end was brilliant and had us all wanting more..But the Bharath Kalachar auditorium sucks! It is basically a stage and chairs strewn in front. There is no elevation and hence, beyond the first 3 rows, the dancer’s feet are totally invisible! And to charge 200Rs for seats like this is pagal kollai! Hopefully there will be a better time and a better place for me to watch her live again.

Sunday morning had me standing in a queue outside the academy for tickets to TMK’s concert. But apparently one hour before gates open is not early enough for those coveted seats. There were people there who had been waiting in line since 3:30 in the morning! I was shocked and amazed at the same time. I wasn’t terribly disappointed though, as I had a 4 hour concert of TMK’s to look forward to in the home sabha (Kalarasana). But apparently the higher power is really looking out for me, as when I had resigned and decided to go to the day’s concert at Kalarasana, D’s mom called saying she had an extra ticket and I  jumped on the offer like a tiger pouncing on prey! The concert was very nice. I was a little disappointed with the Nattaikurinji RTP, but the Brindavana Saranga main was out of the world! Krishna scaled all three octaves so melodiously, and the raga itself was so beautifully presented.. Really goose bump inducing! I was so happy when he sang Soundararajam instead of the usual Rangapuravihara. The amruta behag GNB tribute piece was very joyful. D’s mom made my day! Of course I didn’t get to go watch D and Avigna dance yesterday. But you win some and you lose some right?

It is 5:45 in the morning as I type this..Amma and Patti have gone to the koil and I am already in anticipation of the ghee dripping pongal they will bring back! There is a slight nip in the air, and the neem tree  is swaying with full gusto outside my window bringing in the wonderful smells that can mean only one thing. Appa is snoring in the background. Ramanna Maami next door has completed her “flour on tar” masterpiece. Dogs bark in the background. The kaakas are waking up. And there is this happiness burning inside me ever since I touched down on Anna International. My vocabulary totally fails me now. Let’s just say it feels like being home

Day I in Madras was brilliant. A perfect start to my Margazhi. I managed to sleep on my flight longer than the sum total of all the times I have in a plane ever before! So that obviously meant I was buzzing with adrenalin at 2:30 AM when we got home. After some begging and then mutinous responses, I let the folks sleep. I needed help figuring out how to turn on the TV! 2 remotes and some button pushing later, I was blissfully enjoying Thenisai thendral Deva hits My mom finally succumbed to my nagging and woke up and watched the Vijay TV morning routine with me. After that there was an avalanche of Thiruppavai talks, with some Dikshithar or the other spewing wisdom in practically every tamil channel on TV! And crisp dosas with the Friday Review are a deadly combo!

Both sides of my family made my job extremely easy by assembling at two events respectively. So it was rendu kallula multiple mangas and I ended up meeting everyone I wanted to , except one set of grandparents in one day!

My Margazhi began with Sanjay at KGS and what a way to start! What a Kharaharapriya! It was mind blowingly brilliant!I think KP has slightly edged Thodi for the moment in my Ghana raga favorites list! There was a joyous Kedaram too and a really fun (for the lack of a better word) RTP.  The Nalinakanti swaras in the end of the RTP were awesome! The stage side seats were awsome, though I have really lost my ability to sit on the floor for extended periods..Needed to stand for a bit during the RTP. I hope this is just the start to more brilliant concerts for me. Hope to hear Sanjay again a few more times.

Madras is awesome as ever now! Though crossing roads and weaving through traffic gives me the shudders, and I had to practically hold on to people while attempting to get out of Griffith Road after the concert! The humidity is not really helping my hair, but the weather is awesome! Almost like it was custom ordered for me Man I love being home. Oh, and Gangotree pani puri is also just as brilliant as always!

Lovely way to start my Margazhi!

This is what results when laziness takes over and nuggets and ideas don’t turn into whole posts..

First off, one of my very good friends got married and it sucked that I couldn’t make it to the wedding. Congrats Mads…you were last on everyone’s list but true love and all that right I know how happy you are and hope you stay this way forever!

In other news, I feel like a hibernating bear! People asked me what I did over Thanksgiving break and all I can remember is sleep and waking up for meals..But it kind of sucks as it is high time I get back my focus and move on with the finishing and writing. I have promised my advisor a couple of paper drafts in exchange for an India vacation, and so I better work! And oh yeah, that’s the other news..*drumroll* I am going home for 3 weeks! Margazhi in Madras and everything fun. Kindu will be there too, there’s all the kutcheris and all the new places to eat at and the girls gang together after 5 years! I have already planned my kutcheri hopping schedule. And D has been asked to make “the plan”!

S is an IR fanatic (well I don’t think he is passionate about anything other than tennis and Federer. But I guess as fanatic as someone as equanimous as him can get ) who likes ARR. If you guys have been reading this blog long enough you will know that I am an Rahmaniac who likes 80s Raja. So Youtube jockeying sessions with him are always fun and we end up unearthing a lot of our forgotten favorites. Like this and this.

The past few weeks have been very good reading weeks though. I finished the Salma book, and went on to read the second Millenium series book as well as Agassi’s autobiography. Agassi’s book was a fantastic, honest, funny and yet heart wrenching read! I was never a big fan of his tennis, but man can he write! The book was soo engaging that I even forgave him for all the vitriol he spewed on Becker!  The “Stephanie” Graf bit was such a charming princess-y love story! Totally recommend the book.

Dec 3 went by, and our AID chapter had a couple of special campaigning/ information sessions on Bhopal. It was sad that, that day Sehwag was more prominent on the newspaper front pages than the 25th anniversary of one of the world’s worst industrial tragedies, and what till day remains a truly horrific and apathetic treatment of the victims and a bureaucratic and legal mess! As a journalist in The Hindu said, 3/12 doesn’t figure in the algebra of disaster! Which brings me to one of my many frustrations..The apathy among all of us to things like this. There are these terrible atrocities happening all around us and a majority of us empathize with it but seldom do we do anything more about it. I feel helpless anger whenever I read about the terrible and hopeless situation in Chattisgargh or the NE, but I do nothing about it. I sign petitions when people ask me to, nod my head in AID meetings and impart gyan to my sister. But can’t we as a collective do more about this? It is sad that while #Sehwag trends on twitter #Bhopal doesn’t. When someone starts to poke fun at Chetan Bhagat, an entire bandwagon joins with him, making news on the next day. Where is the bandwagon of people for issues like this and where is the mainstream media and 24/7 news when we need them. 26/11 a big tragedy in itself gets huge coverage, but something like the terrible fate of already marginalized people, caught in a Catch -22 situation between Naxals and state sponsered Militia never gets the coverage it deserves. I don’t know what the solution to this is. I will write this blog post and go back to my state of apathy.. But,the next time someone complains to me about red tape and bureaucracy in India I want to have a more fitting reply than a nod of the head and the unsaid acknowledgment that things will never change!

Ok that was a long rant. End of post!

Today is my grandfather’s 10th death anniversary. The day he died was the saddest day of my life. And I still carry the guilt for not having spoken to him properly few weeks before he died feigning homework when he called home. I still the carry the anger that my mother never took me to see him in the hospital when he was sick! But today is the day for happy memories.

Memories of the man who thought his grandchildren were the center of his life! Of the man who used to walk all the way to Gopalpuram from Mandaveli to meet his daughter and grandaughter. Of the man who would take an auto home, despite his strong middle class values against it, because the spoilt brat of a granddaughter refused to get into a bus! I have heard of his quick temper from my mom and even seen him get mad at my paati. But never once has he ever raised his voice against me or any of my cousins. I was the first grandchild on my maternal side. I was the adored child who could do no wrong. Thatha used to take pride in every little prize I won and every small achievement of mine. He used to come all the way to Egmore Sanskrit School just to see me and Bgav win top honors in the annual Bhagavath Gita competition, always with a Cadbury’s bar for each of us; no matter the end result we’ll always have a gift from him!  The happiness he derived from our night stays in the house was so evident on his face. Today I think of his yearly diaries where he made entries of every visit and also the incurred expenses I have the diary entry marking my birth with me and it is one of my cherished possesions. This post is for the man who bought me my first set of books and also gave my mom money every year to get me a book at the annual book fair. For the man who showered love on his grandchildren.  I remember the identical bags,raincoats and activity books he got B and me when we were living in Mandaveli for 3 months when amma and perimma were pregnant with the younger ones at the same time. He was one of the most proactive and helpful people I know. He has touched several lives with his kindness. Even after two fatal strokes and being nearly paralysed on a side, his will to be active and his determination to never miss a single event in our lives was touching! I am sure he would be proud of us today. Proud of the i-banker B ,and me and ofcourse the 3 A’s! Even if we weren’t doing anything special he would always be proud of us, for in his eyes we could do no wrong! I sometimes pity the three A’s as they didn’t get enough time with him. Because basking in his unconditional love is the single greatest thing I cherish. He is one of my heroes and someday I hope to be as principled as him. I see him in all of us. B, R mama and Aks all have a striking resemblence to him and Madi has her left hand habit..We are all living his dreams..Thanks Thatha for all the love! I miss you!

Inspired by Aparna, I am going to get this blog back up from slumber mode, and try to post more regularly! The past weekend was simply amazing and I won’t say more than that my friends rock and that we all defy the space-time continuum. I am going through a very interesting phase in my research, where the deadlines keep hitting me like the waves on the rocky Mangalore shore in “Uyire”.  But I guess busy is good.

I am going to revive the Carnatic music series. As an experimentalist, I like random distribution, and so am going to decide on my letter of the day by randomly jabbing at my keyboard! Today’s letter turned out to be “M” and hence the title. M is for :

mAyammA : I have said everything I can about Mayamma and Ahiri in this blog before. This is one of my favoritest songs ever!

mOkshamu galada : Thyagaraja ’s anguish, in MDR’s beseeching voice – this song is a tear jerker for me. The recording I have of it, is so evocative and MDR creates a truly gut wrenching effect. sAramati in all its glory. I wonder why Illayaraja had to retune mari mari ninne for his sAramti in the movie Sindhubhairavi. But then again, I am glad Suhaasini didn’t get a chance to criticize this masterpiece with her Padariyen!

meenAkshi memudam dehi : Dikshithar’s special krithi in gamakakriyA/ purvikalyAni. On any other day, this would have been number one on my list. But I heard MDR’S mokshamu last night, and am still haunted by it. purvikalyani is one of my favorite ragas. It has such an eerie and surreal feel to it. meenAkshi is especially special, as Dikshithar chose this as the composition he wanted to listen to as he attained samAdhi.  My favorite rendition is an hour and 17 min long rendition of TMK that I have, with the song in all it’s chauka kala glory, complete with a alapana, neraval and swarAs  at meenalochani pAsamochani. This is a good sample of it.

mAyE tvam – This is such a delightful song where Dikshithar shows great playfullness with the lyrics and the raga itself is charming! I heard a rendition of TMK’s where he sings it the way it is notated in the SSP, but  I found that version more spooky. I like the MSS’ rendition best.

mAthey – Harikesanallur Muthiah Bhagavathar’s dAru varnam in a lilting Khamas that makes a double left footed me want to spring into dance! Favorite rendition again is a Krishna version I have, but the Morning Raga version is pretty good too.

M is really a gold mine. I have several other songs that I like a lot including manavyalakin, mAkElarA, mA janaki, muralidharA gOpAlA and so many more that I am probably not thinking of right now. The favorite M is raga is definitely mAnji filled with all the pathos, closely followed by mAnd and malahari. I will leave you with varugalAmo and an ARR mAnd (pathetic video though!) which is dedicated to Uths!

P.S : Thumbs up to The Hindu! http://beta.thehindu.com/arts/music/article42675.ece

Surfacing for a short breather.  How have you all been? I feel like I am running on rollerblades and I don’t know how to break and I think this is how it is going to be till the finish (I think the header image is rather apt). Of course, it is also Shramdaan season which has meant that several Saturdays have been spent very profitably at the stadium We seem to have completely skipped Fall here, in my part of the world. Brrr and stress don’t get along well at all. Ofcourse if I spent enough time at home, I could make use of the lovely sauna my realtor has arranged for me. The thermostat read 85 yesterday when I had set it to 70. Dry heat is not warmth.  I moved up one floor this past month. If you are thinking it would have been an easy one, I will make you climb the same set of stairs 57 times with a laundary basket load of stuff and ask you what you think after that!

Research and writing has been good for my music though. Long hours at the lab means getting to listen to MDR’s legendary Giripai recording for 45 mins in  uninterrupted Sahana bliss. I wonder if I can listen to anybody else sing Sahana anymore.  Thanks my benefactor J, I also got hold of tons of Brinda Muktha recordings . Listening to them sing Payyada is so heart-wrenchingly beautiful..such goosepimple inducing music! Semmangudi’s Airport concert is another favorite listen. I still chuckle everytime he says “Vandutaan asuran!”.  I had to forego a TV Sankarnarayanan concert due to a deadline. But am really looking forward to an upcoming lecture and concert of Ravikiran in 2 weeks!

I am dreadfully behind in my Orbis Terrarum updates. Have a couple of books I have to write about. I am currently reading the English translation of Salma’s Tamil novel, and it is a lovely read so far. My mother didn’t like it as much and I wonder if her religious prejudice affected her response. She denies it and says she only didn’t like the way it ended. Will let you know how I feel soon. Also, I have been writing a story in my head. Will sit down and type it out soon as I get a chance! Till then,  tata!

P.S : The title is opening lines of my favorite Javali and reflects my current state of mind wonderfully. I feel like just running away from it all but dandilsa is not a quitter and I love my research as mush as I hate doing it

p.p.s : The link I have for the song is definitely not my favorite version. Krishna as usual pours his soul into it, but the mridangam player ruins it with his noisy playing. My favorite version is when Arun Prakash accompanies with his subtle touches and the way he ends on the samam for each line.

Can’t stop listening to it!  Extermely catchy tune..ARR sounds delicious!

I love the first few weeks after a new Rahman release. Listening to the songs continuously on loop, internalizing and picking new favorites everyday..it is such an exciting time! Fiqrana was the track that caught my attention last, but it is totally love forever till we part types now..I love the male vocals..brilliant!!! The second time I listened to the song, the voice rang a bell, neurons connected and I thought it sounded like the guy who sang Manmohini from Yuvraj; sure enough on checking it turned out to be Vijay Prakash. I have this obsession about identifying the singers in songs, my cousin Utts will corroborate that with much frustration! Anyway, once I figured that out, I remembered  that Vijya Prakash’s name was on the credit list for Jai Ho also. Now this is a guy who has sung three songs in a row for Rahman..I obviously HAD to put a face to the name. Promptly googled him and what followed was a truly awesome eureka moment! I have actually heard this guy at 3 different points in time and loved his voice each time. But somehow never made the simple linear connection..

Flashback 1- Ten years back, Sa Re Ga Ma 1999 finals..This favorite contestant who actually sang a Lalgudi Thillana in Sa Re Ga Ma!

Flashback 2- Year 2003- Anbe Sivam – Poo Vasam and the goose-pimply male vocals..Again Vijay Prakash..I remember wanting to find out who he was..But I hadn’t joined the Cult of the Google-swamy yet and I doubt I would have found my answer as easily as I can now!

Flashback 3 – 2008 -The torrent of Bhimplas in Manmohini Morey. I was hooked to it from the word go!

Three wonderful  musical experiences. And one awesome moment when the pieces came together and fell in place into the wonderful soundscape that is Vijay Prakash’s voice!

Following Ra’s cue

The audio is horrible in the video but it’s the only version I could find. Listen to it here. The album itself is one of Rahman’s finest IMO!