9.12.2010 O.S.Arun Kutcheri

So far, in this year’s Kunnakudi music festival we have attended only one kutcheri, so far. The festival was inaugurated on 7.12.2010 and on the 8th, Rajesh Vaidhya’s kutcheri was on prime time. But as we had to unconsciously follow the routine, we could only go on the 9th. But we got a bonus! We got to listen to O.S.Arun, the man who works magic with music!







The program was scheduled for 7.p.m. But when we reached exactly at 7 after being caught in the traffic and talking to the organizer’s daughter and wife and fumbling with the elevator, Serugudi sisters Rama and Geetha were in the end of their very brilliant performance. The thani avarthanams of the accompanists was excellent.






O.S.Arun sat finally at 7.30. (Does he have back pain? Why does he sit on that high cushion?) He was sweating profusely. He was accompanied by Madurai Balasubramanium on the violin (awesome performer), Venkatasubramanium on the mridangam and Adambakkam Shankar on ghatam. Arun had a stack of notebooks at his side apart from the folders that lay open in front of him. To be honest, I used to think that singers should be able to perform without help. But now, I do accept it’s more convenient for them to have their songs in front. They’re doing more kutcheris these days and shuttling from place to place in a very short time. Infact, Arun was in Thumkur that noon when he called up the organizers saying that he didn’t know how he was going to make it by 7.






He started the concert vibrantly with Vatapi ganapathim. Balasubramanium gave an equally vibrant performance with his violin. When Kunnakudi V.Srinivasan, the organizer mentioned his name after Rama and Geetha left the dais, there was a loud applause from a relatively small crowd. Arun showed once again he deserved that and a lot more. The evening got better with his second song, Meru samana. I was like, “wow”. He started the third one with a violin-vocal duet which was way better than anything I’ve ever heard, which was not much. It was Theruvil Varano. His expressions too were good and strangely, he reminded me of Sanjay Subramanium.






The best piece though, was Thunai purindarul which he started with an extraordinary piece of kalapanaswaram and a violin solo. Well the thani was good overall but I loved the violin and this particular piece of swaras that went ma dha, ma ni dha, sad ha ni, ni dha ni made us laugh. Get it? Madha manidha! Sadha ni nidhani. (Mad man be calm always)






Only one rasika sent a request, so Arun sang Swagatham krsna for them. I’ve heard that song by Unni Krishnan and Nithashree Mahadevan and Aruna Sairam, but Arun’s was a little different, nevertheless, good. He concluded with Beemaka maruthi. I went home in a better mood but unfortunately for me we could not attend the other kutcheris. I do hope to catch some at other sabhas this season and I might post my descriptions here.

Random thoughts triggered by leaks of govt secrets recently

Today i was simply browsing around the web for WikiLeaks sites. Well, its true its none of my business. I'm in no way connected to any of the controversies and the people around them. I'm just a stupid, jobless, half crazy, good for nothing house wife who has been addicted to the internet for a couple of years now. But I do believe in democracy and the betterment of humanity. Why else would i be bothered of what our politicians do to our government and what our governments do to us? Whatever happens to people in far off places, like Julian Assange and the RTI activists who are being murdered, that try to bring out truth might not affect me directly but they have a major influence on the way I think and try to plan for my future. I am who I am because of what I think, right?

I even wonder why they risk everything to bring out the truth when no one cares. Not even the common man they're trying to help. Look what happened to Tehelka for exposing high level corruption in the Defence ministry. No one cared. And the recent Radia Radio and cablegate issues? We're just gossiping about them, just like we gossiped about Sneha-Srikanth, Shilpa Shetty-Richard Gere, Sourav Ganguly-nagma.

From what I've seen here in the state or the nation in general, people seem to not think, not because they can't. they don't want to. The corruption of this DMK government can't be that invisible and I know we are not that blind. But how come some people still seem to believe the old man is a selfless saviour of the Tamils? How can they be so dumb to believe Karunanidhi when he speaks of his love for the Srilankan Tamils? Everyone seems to enjoy the exclusive, first on tv, breaking news culture of unethical journalism just for the sensationalist propaganda. No one's really interested in the issues. Culprits are let off the hook openly and no one asks. They - corporates, officers, politicians, even defence personnael - continue to be corrupt with the whole world watching but no one questions.

Maybe that's how human civilization has been working since the dawn of, well, civilisation. People stopped questioning and sticking to a priciple and standing by it. Had they been any different, there might not have been mass killings of free thinking women, wars and deaths in the name of religion, and so many other conflicts that were covered up which led to many myths and legends in this age.

Isn't it hypocrisy to talk of democracy and freedom of speech and human rights and other such stuff when people who claim to endorse them, fail to protect them and end up murdering the same. Especially, the West. They push their chest up every time thay say 'western civilisation' but their history has the most number of 'silencings', the latest being Julian Assange's silencing. I was always drawn to the so called conspiracy theories about the Holy Grail, UFO sightings, Atharvana veda that endorses Tantrika, Freemasonry and so much more. I thought that was because of the amount of history, conspiracy and art and philosophy these stories contain. That belief of mine was strenghtened by Dan Brown's books. Now, I think I knid of see the truth of how the human civilisation actually works. We are still animals that blindly follow the people in command. No, not blindly but brainlessly. Because that's easier to do than join the other side, where the biggest pillars of modern human civilisation, reveal themselves to be nothing more than cat poop.

I'm one of these ignorant people I hate. i can't do anything, not even to atleast satisfy my yearning to do something great even if it goes invisible. I don't have the brains or the talent. But I guess I'll be silently suffering everytime I see such ignorant idiocy and that's everyday, and do nothing to change it.

And I've got to say this too.
My dear family, its not true that ours is the best culture with the best ways to live. People of every other culture believe theirs is best too. And that doesn't mean anything, honestly. And to answer that frequent question of the one person among you, yes, sometimes I do wish I was never born, but at other times, I also believe I'm a tiny bit better than you in a few no so important things. 

My experience with the story that's writing itself

Okay so I was writing Smitten when one day the Anjana Aaron story formed completely. When i started Smitten i first discovered that a story really writes itself, like many writers have said. In this story that does not have a title yet, I see how it works and am enjoying every bit of it. Apart from the fact that my in laws have hidden my papers now, I've never stopped writing. I do not know what a writer's block is, yet. Because every time I finish a scene and wonder what happens I notice I continue writing another one without realising it. My poems might have deserted me and I'm taking it for good. Because if not, I would not have started writing stories or wanted to publish. I'm so deep into Anjana's life now, I know I'm not going to stop.

The Romantic Who Thought She Hated Romance Part II

Well, I loved Pride and Prejudice and Little Women - if they could be called romance novellas. I loved Medieval European customs and costumes and everything so I liked romances set in that period. I loved romance movies too, but I simply thought that was because of the colors, dresses and music (think Jeans). After I moved to Chennai, I kind of realised that I can't judge people by their likes and dislikes because every individual is unique in a unique way. So I accepted that romance is not a bad thing though I still could not believe in love at first sight. Life continued with me falling in love with one movie or the other, all of them invariably romances, like Jab We Met and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. Post marriage, my few ambitions came down to buying a full set of Harry Potter, seriously. Shakthi and her friends were deep into Forks,WA. Yeah, Twilight. I never read them so I was like, 'uh?' when they, especially Shakthi, went, 'aaaahh, Edward'.  A year after college, I happened to see Vinnaithandi Varuvaya. I was not very keen about that movie because I kind of hated Trisha and Simbu (I'm NOT calling him STR, tell him to go break his head somewhere) and Minnale was the only Gautham Menon movie I had liked. But how could I possibly miss the chance of listening to A.R.Rahman once again in all his glory? 

After watching VTV which was not your typical feel good romance with a happy ending, I totally fell in love with the movie - no pun intended - and the genre beyond hope. By luck or the lack of it, I happened to watch the television premiere of Twilight. I never found the Pattinson kid or the Stewart kid that, you know, hot like many people seem to think but that movie got me thinking whether I really hated romance. I was still postponing the confrontation with myself in that matter though, till I laid my hands on a copy of the first book in the neigbourhood library. And yeah, I fell in love with the story too, so much for rolling my eyes at Stephenie Meyer fans. I don't remember how many days I was secretly crying before I controlled myself to read the remaining three. And the I read New Moon and my envy for Bella grew more than I'd've liked. Well, I did want to hang out at the Leaky Cauldron and shop at Diagon Alley but jealousy, for a fictional character! My pretense of hatred for romance was lost within the first few chapters of Twilight and guess what genre I'm writing now? Romance! Yeah, I only wrote stories inspired by my dreams and nightmares but I was never serious about my writings. Now I'm in deep into Smitten, fighting writers' block, lazyness and lack of information. Rereading the finished parts of the story and the notes, I tell myself, 'And I thought I hated romance?' 

If ever I manage to get this five part novel published, I'm thinking of hiding in the closet on the launching till atleast a year is over. So thus ends the story of the romantic who thought she hated romance. Alright, go sleep and forget I ever wrote this.

The Romantic Who Thought She Hated Romance Part 1

Yeah, that's me all right. In the town I come from, what we call child marriage and bigotry are very common. When i say common, i mean that they are part of life that no one thinks of them as wrong or illegal. More often than not, the girl's consent or opinion is never asked. The parents decide and she marries. Thirteen year old mothers, Twelve year old marrying a fifty year old man, widower remarrying a girl who is two-three years older/younger to his oldest grandchild are very common. Well, things are changing for good now, though people say that the girls have gone mad. Why am I giving this intro? Oh yeah.

Now to the story. So in that town like in any other place in this world girls dream of marrying and having children. I have no idea what influenced me, but i was dead against marriages. Those days i was one of the brilliant students in class (mother promise), so the girls who failed would tell me that i was lucky to be a genius (not true, i never mugged, i learnt what i understood and my english was exceptionally good, compared to them) and i haughtily would tell my friends that devouting some time to studying instead of dreaming of marrying rich men would be good for them. After puberty, people invariably asked when i was getting married. My mind was fully in poetry, music, drawing, flying.... you know the kind of things we can only dream about. And when my classmates discussed about their dreams of most fashionable weddings i would bore them by narrating my dream of living in a beautiful island away from civilisation. Slowly i decided that i hated romance and no such thing as love at first sight and soul mate ever existed in real life. Yes, i enjoyed that kind of stuff in books but waiting for my prince charming was insane i thought. I was so sure that i was a non romantic. Boy, did i think wrong!

Hero Worship

Posted on: Aug 16, '07

[ EDIT ] [ X ]

Hero Worship!

I was one of the cricket freaks who worshipped Tendulkar and Zaheer.I was one of those who cried their lives out when Kalpana Chawla died.I was one of those who screamed with joy when Sunita Williams went to space. Then I sobered up last week and thought 'OMYGOSH! What's the matter with me?' And after observing people for a week now I think 'OMYGOSH! What's the matter with the nation?' Because I found a billion people hero worship almost everybody in random.Excusing our cricketers (coz that can't be helped) lets move on to the other two people I've mentioned above(just like examples and illustrations in our text books?Sorry can't help it).

Well, Kalpana Chawla-Harrison was an American citizen who worked in 'her' country's most important institution.I wonder what that has to do with India's pride.I don't find the fact that she was Indian-born amazing. Of course, the loss of seven unsuspecting lives is pathetic but it is equally disgusting to find people, even the government, making one of them a hero because they died the way they did.

As for Sunita's case I felt more irritated.Atleast Kalpana was born and brought-up in India. But Sunita is completely American.Ethnicaly she is part Slovenian.She was not too desi.Her mother says that RAM was the only hindi word Sunita could ever write. Sunita was a patriotic American child. She worked in the Defense as she had dreamed. She married a patriotic collegue.What among these made India proud? Nothing, right? So what is the point of "Hail-all-sunita-the-pride-of-india"-ing?

Er...I'm exhausted and forgot all my points so this is it.An incomplete blog.

This also is from fropper

Examz

Posted on: Aug 01, '07

[ EDIT ] [ X ]

Examz

It is drizzling here in Chennai and its a really cool climate, except the fact that internal exams are starting tomorrow. I can't understand how things change so drastically. We had just celebrated the Ethnic Day of our college - and had a lot of fun (obviously) - and now when we had just settled down to concentrate on the 'stuff' our lecturers had taught - which we didn't care to concetrate on, (again obviously) - we were told that our internals are on August 2. My God! How can such things happen? Though I'm a second year, I feel like an innocent fresher who finds out that fun is not the only thing in college when she is shocked with the announcement of internal exams. I wonder, when we have only'' three years to enjoy the status of a grown-up adult,why are exams there? They spoil the fun!

This post is from my blog in fropper