Double Ecstasy...

I first did it in the late Fall of '99 and was panned by a certain lady in The Indian Express for "showering encomiums" on the MRF man, who had just then added his first 2T to his overflowing, back-breaking kitty.

Cut to seven falls and as many summers later, I can't help but recall this and there we go, I am tempted again...
I shall follow Lord Krishna's sermons and forget the "phala" and focus on the "karma" here. In the final stages of this "karma" the MRF man settled once and for all, why few men are entitled to those precious three letters on their willows.

Steve and Brian would nod in agreement.


How often has one seen a cover drive being converted into a maximum over the ropes? Atleast for me, a first... and not once, not twice but thrice in a short span...If the janta had gone ga ga over the slash cut of Johannesburg '03, they had better watch this one...


I am also tempted to draw a parallel by bringing in another maestro from the deccan who has more or less matched his counterpart across the Vindhyas in terms of popularity... Both lads burst into the scene with a bam, and took the term "whizkid" to new levels; and by not dying early deaths, thank god, they have been sources of pleasure to their audiences... The flashes in the pan, for a change, were here to stay...

Both have been accused of being too text-bookish, too straight, repetitive and what not, over years.. and yet they have retorted only with sober silences... Both were under the tutelage of their godfathers, and yet they escaped being in their awe forever...

One has had disturbances in the form of lads and clones from the north of the Ganges- high on testosterone, gel-haired, long flowy locks, less diplomatic mouths, and very high on the typical Aryan aggro... The other had nasal waves threatening to wash away his serene houses by the shore, with crooners wailing away to glory what with their "wet lips" and "thirsty hearts" .

The two were low on their TRPs and recall factor and yet they bounced back and how! While the soundtrack of Jan '06 was simply put KICKASS, yesterday's climax act was class, a denouement of sorts... One had an array of shots within an innings and the other, a spectrum of tracks in a single album. talk of versatility!!

I wonder how difficult it would be for stars to keep shining always when a few luminous freaks seem to come with a dazzle and hog the limelight. When the high priests of two religions in India decide to take the centrestage, it's a pleasure being at the receiving end.

My error of '99 seems justified now.



Sanjay Manjrekar! go take a walk...

Fiddler par excellence...

In an enormous ocean called music of seemingly endless boundaries, a tide came, a low one at that and literally swept me away with its aural grandeur... I was witness to one of the more exhilarating and amazing experiences in recent times and for some time to come... If a novice could consume it in all its glory in such a short span, I can imagine the joy of purists...

Age, form, stage and just about nothing seemed to come in the way of this magician who connected to the audience in a remarkable way. He was akin to the dude from Hamelin, with a bow for the pipe and was eminently successful in guiding the folks on a journey on which they didn't mind submitting themselves totally...

His amazing repertoire had the novice in me glued so much so that double stops, vibratos assumed a totally different nuance... The remarkable ease with which he used the bow made me wonder if it was actually a magician waving his wand... mind blowing...

Words fail me at describing what I went through when the fiddler performed "Himagiri Thanaye Hemalathe" and when I realised that he had packed five different gems of compositions into that single gem and every single time he cut into Himagiri, I couldn't help but be left agape...


The child-like enthusiasm and the sheer energy in him bore no proof of his age... the facial muscle contortions and the tweaking of his contours had the crowd guffawing, while I smiled... I also wondered if such acts could be mistaken for the lack of seriousness by the more orthodox... but then that was the mark of a genius who was playing to the purists and the galleries alike, all while making sure he wasn't diluting the art or insulting it in anyway...

Vatapi Ganapatim Bhaje, Raghuvamsha Sudha, Nagumomu Ganaleni sounded extremely dulcet and his accomplices' remarkable support on mridangam, ghatam and tabla only compounded the effect... ... the considerable amount spent on the extremely difficult lower octaves and even before you had settled on it, the shift to the higher ones left me spellbound... the best part was that this transition was made look a child's play and totally effortless... well, it was not...

Kora kagaz tha yeh man mera of Aradhana had its roots in namma Bilahari, so said the genius... Aaja re pardesi of Madhumati assumed new levels of pathos on his weapon...

His rendition of Oothukkadu Subbaiyer's Alaipayuthey Kanna had me smiling, albeit for altogether different reasons... The final mellifluous English notes had me asking for more... all this surely warranted an encore...

I have forever justified the eccentricities of the geniuses in my own mind saying that if we liked them, adored them we had better like their eccentricities as well... but suprisingly the readiness with which he acceded to some of the requests, would have endeared him to a few tag-alongs also...

For an evening that was truly enthralling and magical, many thanks to you... Dr.Kunnakudi Ramaswamy Vaidyanathan





I am still wondering how could anyone, I mean anyone, migrate from Raghuvamsha Sudha to Sare Jahan se Achha and then effortlessly get back to Himagiri Thanaye which he had started off with...

I dread...

It wasn't long ago when I would like something or take to something immensely, it would be extolled, by my own admission, to the point of absurdity... If I liked something it wouldn't be too late before that liking translated into that something being the the ...est in its category. Well its coming down now. I better brace myself to it; my idols are shattering. Nothing or no one is as they seem. It appears as all that I saw was a response to that moment or those set of circumstances and well, it continues... the highest, the BEST, the worst, the fastest, the most, the slowest, the darkest, the costliest and such superlatives do not seem to make sense to me any longer...thankfully comparitive never existed in my life, for I consider it a sin comparing two unique creations of that man with the blue umbrella... while I would enjoy it while it lasts, i had better be prudent to realise the futility in expecting it to last longer...to borrow a cliche, "change is the only permanent thing"...
I know I also run the risk of not looking upto anyone or idolise , adore any great creation in times to come... so till I pick up my next God or idol, things shall occur to me only in positive...

an apple a day keeps the peers at bay...

Uncluttered, simple and straight forward, and yet so very effective... I am referring to the Jobs' wonder that is apparently so free from the jazz that the others abound in...the lethal combo of earthy ergonomics and the heavenly aesthetics is surely a clincher, I should add... be it the products themselves or the paraphernalia that come along... and while setting up the Pod, for once I felt really happy and was at ease...


As for the others, they would do well to take a leaf out of Jobs' book if they harbor any dreams of endearing themselves to the masses and attain a cult status, moreso...


Did I hear premium?


Well, lest the aspirational level come down, nice things in life come at a price...

...Elvis has left the building

alas! he has

The Motorcycle Diaries

from Stem Cells to Quantum Computers, from biodiesel to eco-architecture, from Maggi noodles to Mercedes Benz


If things fall in place, if Saturn decides to smile on me, if the right planets are in the right houses, if Rahu and Kethu are aligned at the right angles to one another, I shall embark on a month-long trip, spanning the length and possibly, the breadth of India on a Bullet in some time to come...




and NO, I shall not turn a Marxist at the end of it...

Salaam Bombay?

Wonder what it is about Bombay that it gets reported about and is in the public glare more often than not?

"bombay sneezes makes for a good breaking news. bombay burps makes for a good piece".

Reams and sufficient bandwith are dedicated to the mumbaikar's indomitable spirit... indomitable spirit??

No life, no matter which part it belongs to, can be an object of ridicule... due respect to all those innocent souls who fell prey to the blasts...

Now how less important or how less valuable are the hoi polloi of a Srinagar or a Baramulla? what about those who have been living there for aeons despite the eternal fear of death lurking somewhere in the corner; who go to beds not sure if they would wake up to the sun shining on them the next morning? Has the lack of any glitterati in these regions made these lives insulated from our concern and thought?


I wonder if the regularity of such occurences out there has made people take it for granted that it's ok... this is the norm, yeh sab hota hai... nothing much can be done there...

Often I have asked. just why dont they leave the place and relocate?... and yes, I have been met with silences whenever I have asked... I should have known.

Can nothing much be done there? nothing?

For the fervour with which they go about with their daily grind, claymores or no claymores, and for the stubbornness shown in adhering to their roots, the little that I can do is doff my hats to their spirit...


Srinagar's indomitable spirit...

Zoom barabar Zoom...

"You will want to read this mail", said she.

"What", cried he.


Photography Brownbag session Nalanda 3.30-4.30... From:Param
To: @HEALTH HCIITS Acute Care Eng India...
Hi all,On popular demand (!), here's a session where I'll talk about the basics of photography, including... blah blah blah...
Pls feel free to fwd this meeting request to anybody else in other teams who may be interested in this session.
Cheers,Param

Happy as he felt, he reverted to his desk swivelling in his chair with a sense of dejection written on his face. Dejected because he never took to bulk mails and chain mails. Impersonal they are, he always thought.

Ctrl-Alt-Del got punched in in no time almost mechanically and the Outlook was there as if almost silently chortling at him and never looked so villainous.

Inbox(1) declared the dutiful dead monitor.


Double-clicks would never have been so quicker and faster and only the keys themselves would have been the proof of the weight and the force when pounded upon.

Photography Brownbag session Nalanda 3.30-4.30... From:Param
To: @HEALTH HCIITS Acute Care Eng India...
Hi all,On popular demand (!), here's a session where I'll talk about the basics of photography, including... blah blah blah...
Pls feel free to fwd this meeting request to anybody else in other teams who may be interested in this session.
Cheers,Param

"Yeah, what's new? The shitty server had to bring this to me and that too this late", he was left thinking to himself.

Little did he realise that this one was different... Indeed it was...

Amidst all the familiarity of the content, courtesy the previous reading, lied an interesting line that put a glow on his face and boy was he happy?



Required attendee: Santosh Kumar T K

maudlin? ...like i care

In this world where every relation, at the risk of sounding cynical, has turned into "you-give-i-take-i-give-you-take", one connect that has remained pristine and shall remain so, is the parent-filial one;between the mother and the child,moreso. In this perennial breeding ground revolving around the Sun, where people are finding it increasingly difficult to relate to anything and anyone, what tells a mother to nurture her young one to good health, what tells her to caress, fondle the baby in good times and against ALL odds? All this when she might not even have the faintest of an idea about the reciprocation of the same love in her withering days? Where there is only an unconditional give and no iota of expectation or a take. Yesterday came an answer from a source who I have started looking upto of late and to whom I shall remain indebted for furnishing those little yet pregnant words and making it easy for me when answering the sceptics and the like. He said it is God. For those ever-ready to sneer and scoff at this I only have to add that God lies in that indescribable, intangible feeling and not in those stones and shrines that we seem to have built. Godliness is a feeling and not a theory to be dismissed.

Point to ponder, a thought to mull over...

... nee evide?

she symbolised that stereotypical lady to me...

of a small town naivete... of a small town boldness that serves as a defense mechanism... of small town timidness... of small town "i-see-world-as-chess-squares" nature... of a small town heart-on-your sleeves nature... of small town love- of small town display of love... of small town frailty... of small town insecurities... of small town desires and dreams...

of small town brashness, of small town crudeness... of small town refinement...

of small town ways... of small town rant... of small town gab...

of small town vision... of small town lack of vision... of small town like for Raj and Simran... of small town hatred for men...
of small town readiness to cocoon... of small town need to be cocooned...

of small town love for thenga chutney and appam... of small town like for pazham ... and of small town love for pachha pazham chips...

of small town glint in the eyes... of small town fire in the eyes... of small town moist eyes...

of small town desire to break free... of small town resoluteness...

of small town thing to cling to the roots...


remya, where art thou?

Mr.Goody-Two-Shoes

wonder why it is so goddamn difficult to get a decent pair these days? last evening i would have traversed most of, if not all, the commercial districts (that scream "happening") of the city i live in,and yet i found none satiated my need for simple, well cut, no frills, classy leg-gear... all the places that i went to abounded in what i would mercilessly term junk and that wouldn't demand a second glance from me... ... what boggles me is they are obsecenely expensive and you had better watch out...


why is it so difficult to embrace simplicity? why has junk and crap come to symbolise fashion, of late? why do comfort and feel-good factor take a back seat and almost get eclipsed by the need to fit in? why is there so much weight in the theory that the taste of the youth of today is all the janitor box variety?


... can this be extrapolated to other phenomena as well? of cars, of bikes, of movies, of sports, of accessories or looking at the bigger picture our tastes, our lifestyles and our ideologies woven around them? or is it the mass factor that has come to influence us big time... which is what probably explains the immense craze for Dhonis over immensely talented, a zillion times more, Laxmans...



is it too much asking for that oasis called old-world charm?

FEET OF CLAY?

wonder what is it about the red mud that proves a constant thorn in the flesh for the greats so much so that a genius gets Rogered himself... ... ... quite ironically

Paint it Yellow

My tastes are getting Yellow...
i hate Yellow... Yellow journalism...


i hope this is a passing phase... i seek recourse to meaningful and fulfilling stuff...


craving it, would be an understatement...

solitarius...

"seethamma andaalu ramayya gothraalu
raghu ramayya vainalu seethamma suthraalu

ekam avvalante enni aathralu ekam avvalante enni aathraaalu ekamaina chota veda mantraalu"

ekamaina sotaa veda mantraaa......

the smile on his face and the naughtiness in his voice is something to watch out for... music to my ears, for years ...




SRAVANAANANDAM

Exit Wounds

...O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead...

they said the off-side could be his, if money could buy it; many reckoned it was already his,... they deified him... when he danced down the pitch to hoist the ball out of the park, and with it the opposition's hopes ... as fate would have had it, he was shown the door...

what was his crime? was it that he chose not to succumb to the demon of double standards and speak his mind out.. or was his fine balance between on-field aggro and off-field genteelness at fault? did he err on his effort in infusing that requisite dose of self-respect, honor into the boys, something the doctor had ordered for? whatever, we seem to have meted out to him a treatment no self-respecting athlete would dream of...

quoting Lord's'96, Dhaka'98, Taunton'99, Lord's'02 would do no justice when quantifying this majestic Prince...

Walt Whitman... thank you...

...My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead...

A FEW GOOD MEN...

bush has them... manmohan has them... G-8, the UN... ... and so do jacques chirac, blair ... mush not far behind...

dapper in their look and the move, and hidden behind those shades, they bow to none... with a no-nonsense, stoic look, their body language screams alacrity and business...

atleast for me, they bring life to any visual on air,otherwise mundane...

adding their own element to the Safaris, the Chevys and the Lincolns they are aboard, their arrival marks the entry of the power they are out to protect... and in it lies their power...

In all a frame, a treat to watch.

... and maino has them more

...bhatt for him

its a nice sight watching him debate on anything this side of atlantic and if he had age on his side, the other side as well... the felicity with which he shares his two cents on anything under the sun or the readiness with which he takes up the cause for his fraternity, something your folks warned you about as the resort of jobless and ever so bad, endears him to a lot of people who dont even know him and earns the wrath of his own...


the filmdom sneezes, he is up there... he is up there at the first signs of the movieland catching cold... the phone starts ringing, he is there... fingers are pointed at, he is awake... all this while he is being parodied on some channel or pilloried in his own circles, quite ironically, by the same people he takes up the cudgel for...


it requires nerves of steel and balls to stand up for something others wouldnt even want to be remotely associated with... yet the conviction with which he does all this, just shows there are people who believe there's a life beyond their creative and professional domains... a life that is defined by their set of beliefs and principles they value...


is there a subtle hint out here for others? bhatt naturally...


a perennial object of ridicule, will he go on?... bhatt of course

...never say.... never again

i wonder... it baffles me, yet i let it disturb me... for i realise its the ULTIMATE truth we cant run away from...it would be naive of us to do so... the truth that seems to have taken a backseat, pretty unfortunately, courtesy some commonplace elements that we seem have to been obsessed with or that have come to define our lives... thats really a tragedy...



its the question of our existence, of why we are here, what are we we here for, where are we heading and WHO is controlling us? a conundrum of sorts... i have always wondered and made it explicit in various forms and across endless sessions of yapping, as to how we have taken so much for granted regarding what we see around us... how we seem to have an answer for everything... how we rationalise everything... of how we attribute reasons for everything that seems "scientific" and start pigeon-holing everything that can come in the purview of this "scientific"... of how we can never be in absolute awe of anything... seem to reason everything and when we dont have any, term them as "anomalies" or "exceptions"... this attitude applies to a whole lot of theories that we seem to abound in...


of God, of universe, of existence, of Time...


my simple, naive,yet very clear argument is... when we arent the creators of anything around us, how do we even seem to define the rules ?? when we are just here to enact the roles assigned to us in the huge scheme of things that have come and gone by and that are yet to unfurl... what do we mean when we say " there is no god.. god is all sham... there has never been a proof for his existence"... then what is this all about?! what are we seeing around us??... may be there are no Gods sitting up there in the skies aboard their vehicles and ensconced in their thrones... but then there has to be some force driving everything... we seem to be satisfied with everything that falls in our limits of understanding or field of view... we forvever seem to be ignorant of the devil in the darkness that seems to be ever so lurking... is it because we do not believe in something just because we cant see it? blame it on limited and minuscule human comprehension...



The idea is not about atheism or belief... the idea is not at all about atheism or belief...its about the accepting the reality of the force that is driving all this and that aspect of openness to anything... i repeat, whatever has happened so far neednot happen in the future, whatever hasnt happened in the past, might find its way out... perhaps not even in limited lifetimes that seem like specks on the humongous Timeline...


its about uncertainty, thats the truth... we are forever comfortably satisfying ourselves by doling out rational theories and trying to exemplify to corroborate those theories... the universe is so and so many years old... if the universe was our BIGGEST entity we could ever fathom and think of, something all inclusive, what was there before say a month before that time limit... whatever existed, was it outside universe? what was that "what" made of? the questions could go on and on...


we also seem to be defining boundaries for everything celestial... barring some relatively smaller entities, how on this earth can we define the outer boundaries for the extreme things??!!! what exists beyond, say a kilometre, beyond the mentioned boundary???!!!



there are questions and then there are questions... while for some we have answers and thats truly all our hallmark, i should say, and that's something has defined our superiority compared to the other beings and touchwood, that will continue to be so,,, We had better be in awe, enjoy it while it lasts and not fall prey to some stupid theories, and lose out on fun... there can never be a better teacher than Nature herself and lets submit ourselves to her, in toto...


as for the others , there will NEVER be answers... our scant grey matter wouldnt suffice here, and there shall never be answers...

for your eyes only...

nothing beats the sight of watching him in action... naturally bestowed with a frame most would die for, he is a visual treat... neither short and stump nor lanky and gawky, just perfect... this perfection translates into magic when he pulls the cherry from outside the off-stump and dispatches it to that distant corner of the park... his frame lends itself to a lot of ethereal stuff... watch him drive into the covers and in the course, me crazy... the silken grace which underlines and defines his cuts in the square is unparalleled...the straight drives down the park will do any geometry faculty proud... the wrist-mechanics could be analysed and dissected across tables and over cuppas...


Reinforces my belief in the game best played in the old-fashioned manner... loads of grace, style, white clothes and nonchalance ...


Ask the nawab of hyderabad, who he has allegedly modelled himself on, or.... better go down under and check out with the mates whose apple he turned into, in the Garden of Eden...

past imperfect... future tense

looking at him gives confidence... there's much brewing around him on all fronts one could think of, yet he goes on undeterred, undaunted with a smile plastered on his face... without an iota of artifice... because i reckon he realises these are times which he would smile at, yet again characteristically, when he reflects on later... till then the count of beneficiaries of his smile refuses to stagnate... its scary at times