Welcome 2011 !!!

So... 2011 is here! :) A brand new year, a new decade, and a "fresh" beginning!

This calls for a quick recap of 2010, which undoubtedly was one of the most memorable years for me. A grand Pongal festival with family, an "eventful" Women's day celebration at office (okay, the quotes expand to this - I wore a pale white saree to the office, and while returning home in the darkness, I ran like crazy at the sight of a dog that came barking, only to go screaming onto the middle of the road), a cute birthday bash, a music based TV show, an out-of-the-world vacation to the Kashmir, an adventurous outing to Manchinbelle with colleagues, heart warming news of most of my paintings getting auctioned in the US for a noble cause, a few new friends to count on, being blessed with an angel like niece and finally, loads of shopping on the last week of the year! :D

Recap over, now marching forward. 2011...Wah! 'New year Resolutions' are those that are generally made to be broken. But this time around, I have strictly decided to make a few and NOT break them! Well, just append a try in the beginning. Here goes my list...


1. Ever since I started working, I wished to learn to drive a car and before that, to ride a two wheeler :( but huh! Yeah, so that's on top spot! Get enrolled for driving classes. Buying a car from my money, we'll talk about it probably next year! ;)

2. Software job and you become couch potato ! Quite true :( So.. next resolution.. Hit the GYM and stay fit ( yeah I can hear a few giggles ) But come on yar! Unless I sweat it out at the gym, how can I get rid of that slight hesitation when I eye gol guppas and pizzas and chocolates?!?!
PS: I have made sure that a few of my friends join me, so that I can draw, whats called 'inspiration' ;)

3. And a mandatory spot for the 'Riyaz/Sadhagam' ie singing. Need to practice more and more and more! And since I live for it, I am not cribbing :)

4. It would be unfair if I did not take up sketching and painting more regularly! I have promptly got my paints, brushes, sheets and pencils from home, but they still haven't got out of the kit bag. Grrr...lazy me!

5. My wallet has suffered enough holes and of late, quite often and biigg ones. Its high time I kept a check on my expenses :-| I know.. it mite sound a little strange and impossible, coming from a woman, but I am going to be a wise and sensible spender henceforth! You can read that as, go shopping not more than once a month ;)

6. The next one, might not qualify as a resolution per say, because, its something that I pledge by, almost every Sunday evening and break the following morning. Yes, waking up on time, at least if not early. No matter how many alarm clocks I might need, I am going become an early riser!

Its already 6... and that's a hhuuggeee number for me! Just one last thing to conclude, I wish to control my anger and try to kick off the impatience in me and spread love! Haha!

Here's wishing everyone a healthy, wealthy and beautiful year 2011. :) Live life King/Queen size!

Rahman...and his recent music!

"Time is what we want most, but... what we use worst"

Yeah.. so that quote is sure a lifted one. But seriously, its that point in my life when I can afford to say that the twenty four hours in a day is just not sufficient for me. Managing my home, work, music, people and of course me! My hands are full now, though I would want more. Yeah, more :) Because, its fun too, its racing and demanding but busy life has its own delights and sorrow! Ok, enough of the justification attempted for not having blogged for long! :D And this post, with all respect and admiration, is solely dedicated to the God of music, (err..ok Cine music) the Rahman.

This year has been labeled lull for Rahman, by many reviewers, critics and fans. Being a fair critic on Indian music, in addition to being a Rahman fan, I do not take that. The rude comments and remarks made against his few not-so-brilliant compositions compel me to assume that its all jealousy, in its purest but disguised form! I do not come to defend Rahman for his countable
and forgettable duds. Every musician tries to give good music, which sometimes mightn't be his best! :)

So, the year began with the much hyped Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya, aka VTV. I am not going to comment much on this album, because, in spite of being ARR's fan, something kept me from listening to the songs for quite few months. Reason... well Trisha, not really! But frankly, I don't know! :) I did finally hear to some of the tracks, but did not find any of them to be mind blowing, except for maybe, Omana Penne. Benny was good and so was Bilahari :) I believe, it was a treat to the other fans of ARR.

Raavan was an album much awaited and much bashed up too, for totally unknown reasons. I found Raavan, and not Raavanan, fabulous. The tone of the album was definitely fresh, with the much needed rural touch. My pick from the album is Ranjha ranjha! Beautiful beginning, a rustic rendition by Rekha and good job by Javed. I loved it, though the tamil version let me down. Kata kata was again, very impressive, not to forget Ila's part :) and Thok de gilli, Beera and Khili re were good, enjoyable and typical ARR songs. I did not quite understand, why this album was included in the dud-list. The two things this album missed were perhaps Sonu and Asha ji! :)

And the 'Endhiran' :D ha ha! Good music, techy feel, apt to the title. Thoroughly enjoyed 'Irumbile oru irudhayam' and 'Kilimanjaro'. Other songs were good, though never stayed in my play list for long. Kaadhal anukkal was supposedly an awesome number, which I did not feel. Hariharan was wasted, SPB and YogiB were passable. Chinmayee was good. And Shreya once again displayed her sincere efforts! :) The album will anyway rock for a few months at least, given the terror combo of ARR Shankar and Superstar.

"Jhootha hi sahi"... re-establishing the Rahman, more or less! ;) But yes, arguably an album with honest and simple but catchy music. Kudos to Vijay Yesudas to have pulled off the song "I ll be waiting" brilliantly. My favorite from the album. Though the "south Indian singers' way of conscious pronunciation of hindi words" was obvious in this, its ignorable! :) Maiyya Yashoda reminded me of the Lagaan and Kisna music. The vocalists' renditions were excellent and so was the flute. Cry cry cry,Pam para and Call me dil did not much appeal to me. Again, the good ones.
Karthik, I believe, needs to stop sounding monotonic. Sonu slightly disappointed me with a passable 'Do Nishaaniyaan'. Definitely a wonderful composition, but history has seen the duo come up with classics like, 'Do kadam aur sahi', 'Satrangi re' and 'Saathiya', so this one fell a little short of my expectations. Nevertheless, a beautiful album and simple ARR music. :)

I would love to see likes of Roja or Taal or Meenaxi or a Lagaan in the future. All said, Rahman will always rule my heart! :)

Paradise On Earth...!

Kashmir... A name synonymous with beauty and serenity was my first choice, when dad asked me to plan for a vacation. Dad, mom and me charted out a short trip, to this lovely place. It was Sunday afternoon, when we stepped out of the Airport, into the sunny Srinagar! Yeah, it was, but the winds were chilly and refreshing!

We checked in to this elegant hotel, where we had our bookings made, that welcomed us with bright red carpets, into a warm and comfortable room. I drew the curtains, only to fall in love with the sight that unfolded in front of me...the other side of the hotel, where the balconies of every room were lined with colourful roses, an open space with a few coffee tables and to cover them all, the backdrop of lovely mountains! The three of us looked at each other and smiled... :)

We did not waste time and after a cup of hot tea, we set out to explore that beautiful land. Kashmir, especially Srinagar, a place dreaded by people, thanks to terrorism, did not really scare us much. In fact the day we landed, we were told that people were on a strike against the police who had shot a young guy dead, a few days back. But fortunately, we did not get into any kind of trouble.

That evening was dedicated to the enchanting 'Dal' lake, so we hired a 'Shikara', the traditional long boat that houses people, merchants, weavers and what not! Two and a half hours on the silent, cool waters of the lake, occasionally being approached by the jhumka-seller, the photographer, the fruit-chat-seller...! And of course, mountains surrounding the lake! 'Picturesque' is too small a word to describe what we saw.

Gulmarg, a place that is located at a higher altitude, about 80 kilometers away from Srinagar, boasts of the world's highest cable-car system, locally known as the 'Gondolas'. How could we miss it?! The three of us, rushed to the ticket counters, pushed and pulled and managed to get the tickets to take the Gondola! In about 2 hours time, we were on top (4000m ASL) of a snow-clad mountain, shivering in cold, but still managed to smile and have fun! :) The triumphant look on all our faces, made our day!

Pehalgam, another similar destination, again too beautiful to describe. The route from Srinagar to Pehalgam was lined by Apple, Walnut, Almond trees and saffron fields, not to forget the fierce Lidder river that accompanied us throughout! We proceeded to 'Chandanwari', considered as the starting point for pilgrims to the Amarnath shrine. It was again a rocky, snow-clad place, where we were given walking sticks for support! But the most surprising thing was to see chai-wallas and chat-wallas on those hills, sincerely preparing hot tea and tasty chats :) Ah! One has to earn his living, you see!

And then the gardens in Srinagar, I must say, even a normal road-side park proudly showed off colorful flowers and roses and were neat! The Shalimar, Nishat, Chashmashahi, Botanical gardens, were just treat to the eyes. The Shankaracharya temple, was another noted place, that was built on top of, again a hill. Steep steps were the only means of reaching the temple that housed Lord Shiva's sanctum. All the way, I was wondering what made Shankaracharya go up to such a difficult place and do penance. Did he not feel comfortable doing it at a lesser altitude?! :|

We did not miss the Lal Chowk, which was the market-centre of Srinagar where I could find hand-loom shops to desinger-label showrooms! This place was apparently, the most targeted location for activists and kind to stage attacks. Most tourists avoid this place, but we risked it and in fact shopped too!

Well, those were the tourism tales. Now, the people, the city and the foood! :D ha! I was pleasantly surprised to spot at least three 'Vaishno Dhabas' in every street of Srinagar, busily serving authentic punjabi khana. We made the most-famous and most-crowded dhaba, the 'Krishna Vaishno Dhaba' our food joint and visited it atleast once a day to grab some tasty food.

I fell in love with not just the city, but its people too. Polite and smiling, they never showed even traces of fear or the uncertainness of their life, on their faces. I admired each of them, from the shikara and auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers to the dhaba servers to the police and military men on the roads to our very own, hotel staff! And yeah, I have heard that kashmiri women are very very beautiful, but unfortunately, I came across no such strikingly beautiful woman. They were fair and very few were good-looking. On the other hand, I found real handsome men ;) fair and tall and well-built!

It was really hard to believe that under this sheet of beauty and tranquility, lied fear, violence, firing and blood-shed. I got talking to a restaurant guy, about the recent strikes and how they managed to survive it and he answered with a smile, "Are memsaab, yeh koi nayi baat thodhi hai. hamein toh in sab ki aadat ho gayee hai. agar aisa kuch naa ho, toh yeh Kashmir nahin kehlaati", which translates to, "Madam, this is nothing new to us. We have got used to all this. If such things didn't happen, this wouldn't be called Kashmir". All I could do was smile back with moist eyes!

That was Kashmir... I just hope and pray that this paradise should see no more violence in future! It has had its fair part of suffering. People there, deserve peace and prosperity!

Finally... A weekend for myself...!

For the past 3 weekends, I was working a bit harder for my passion, ( yeah... singing ) that a few other things, other than office work, took a backseat. Shuttling between Chennai and Bangalore. Sigh! Chennai's heat beat me down and drove me crazy. But then, bliss comes with a price :) and it was nothing, for the happiness me n my mom n dad felt.

Well... all that apart, this weekend too I had made plans of coming down to Chennai, but for one of my closest friend's wedding. :) And so... Costume? check! Accessories? Check! Plan with friends? check! :) Tickets? errr... Health? duh... :( Yeah.. will not be able to make it! This did make me a bit sad, but then, considering the biigger vacation that I have planned for next week, I thought, I needed this break from traveling.

So... this saturday has been dedicated sincerely to sleep, TV and now the internet ;) My stars were soo merciful that there were no, NO worthy films today. My 'singing' show was going to be telecasted tonight and I of course was excited! :) That again fell cold when I realized that the particular channel was not provided by the cable connection! Aarrgghh! :) Nevertheless, I got good reviews for it, :) Thank god..!

I am signing off with the hope that I wake up tomorrow to a bright and happy day... all for myself... :)

Okie... Here goes my first post!

Actually, the idea of starting a blog, hit my mind quite long back, thanks to my friends, Srivatsan and Karthick, but it did take a few months before this page took shape!

I spent atleast 45 minutes, thinking what name I could give it, and this one struck... To those that have spent a few seconds contemplating the title, and to others who did not bother to, the intention of this blog is to share my thoughts about everything that crosses my mind, ofcourse with a bias towards art and music... and so strokes... and strings... :)

I chose this day to start off, because..err..nothing special! Wait, its my parents' wedding anniversary and... majorly because, something in me tells that things will look up bright and big from now on... :) and I wanted to capture that spirit somewhere!

As I write this post, I smile... with a sense of excitement, achievement and positivity! :) I would love it, if you too smiled...atleast now ;)