Featured in Indian Express

Mentioned in the article covering the launch of the Tamilnadu Issue of Filmfare

And featured in Youth Express as a personality.

Feels nice :)

Filmfare - Launch of Tamilnadu Issue

With Ilayathalapathi Vijay On the the first Issue.
Was a great evening, and I happened to host it. Was also pretty kicked about it and had a lot of fun.

I was slightly nervous as it was a live event and there are no retakes. But hey, there is always a first time. And probably there can no better place to try it out for the first time than an event like this huh?

The team I work with at Vijay TV Super Singer Junior was also present, and after the short ceremony was over, I was back on the job as the host of SSJ. Not that it was planned of course. As long as SSJ is concerned, nothing is planned. All goes on the lines of reality and goes impromptu :D

I went about asking the celebrities present to say a few good words to the contestants. Mrs Khushboo came in a little later, and I waylaid her even before she could enter the ballroom for the actual event. She was damn sweet to oblige and once she was inside, there was a makeshift dance floor, and she was immediately asked to hit it. And once she was there, no one even wanted to bat an eyelid. In a super sari, I was awed by the way she moved. I joined her after a while, and given the choice, I 'd dance with her any day :D
Short evening but a great one. Would be super to have Filmfare in Chennai...

Sahana - Post Script

The last few seconds of ending in 'Sahana' was completely Rahman anna's idea.. It took me a few takes to get in to the raga 'Sahana' and out of the song 'Sahana'.

I got several plaudits for this one too and there were people telling me that the end is one of the best portions in the song, and also asked me on how that short bit came into being.

Like ever, I guess Rahman anna conjured it out from where, God knows. He said, end it in Sahana, he sang the bit and all that I had to do is repeat :)

Gain some, lose some.. but what exactly

is my question..
At any given point in time, several different sets of people have one thing to say. You have gained weight and paradoxically, You have lost weight as well.
So here I go about wondering whether I should hit the gym and generally tone up and put some strength into my legs in the whole bargain, and then people say you have lost weight. I think I have gained, so do some nice people. Thats actually good news to me. That I have added some pounds. And bad news is of course, that I have lost some. The past couple of weeks I have heard so much about that, I have gained, I have lost, at the same time. Seriously, how come??
The point is I have to explain how I go about this weighty issue. Explaining why I have been losing pounds is far tougher than explaining how I gained.. Its usually stuff like, have you been working too hard? Are you doing ok? Did you fall sick? After a point, I am at a loss on how to go about the explanations and counter explanations. Also the problem is when people think there is a hidden agenda that you are not telling them, and all I can do is give a mental sigh, smile, (yeah it comes out in a bubble to the side of my head and goes *sigh*) and of course not say anything. And now this post is looking pointless to me.. But then I am hitting the orange button anyway.. you win some, you lose some!

Some April fool!!!!!

Verrrrrry neat trick by Google. GMail Paper indeed.
I was wondering how privacy is not compromised when the mails are printed and delivered to you. And then the 'paper' is made of "96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum"... Sputum?? Gives me vivid pictures of a highly gooey and yucky and blleaarrrrrgh-y material.

And to think all your mails from everybody is printed in sputum. Picture this. A love letter, or in my case, an EMail coming from an award committee somewhere to say Hey Chinmayi, you have won so so and so for singing such and such, is printed in sputum.. I am going nuts now. I am giggling uncontrollably at my lack of ability at translating my mirth into writing.

And then one of the testimonials are given by an 'Armchair Futurist'. I have absolutely no clue what that is supposed to mean. But what springs to my mind's eye, is lazing on an arm chair, (or can I make it a recliner, the type that comes in Friends??), sipping lemon tea, and thinking about the future, for other people, and being paid to do think about that. Actually our parents have been doing that, of course they were probably driving around, or in some other mode of transport or eating between hectic schedules, thinking about how to give us the best future beyond their means.

Anyway I thought the concept was weird. But I can't say that I didn't totally buy it.

But hey, nothing like a neat trick. :D

Sivaji - Sahana

It definitely does, as long as I am concerned. Sahana gives me a soft drizzle, And the Sahara now has a valley of flowers.
Though the songs of Sivaji were released by some nitwit on the internet, and there were comments to my earlier blogs asking if I had sung the song, I resolutely kept them unanswered and refrained from publishing the comments as well. It has always been a practice not to mention the songs I have recorded, until they release.
Several changes from the time a song is probably recorded for the first time. Lyrics change, singers change, expressions change, and in some cases the song is entirely removed, as has been the case with a few songs that I have sung before for other Music composers. Sometimes, it might hamper the flow of the movie, or it may be scrapped for reasons best known to the main people behind the movie.
It is pretty tough to explain to people that I don't want to talk about what I am working on, but then can't blame those who want to know.

The songs from Sivaji have been getting non stop airtime, thanks to all the FM Stations here, and a lot of people seem to have heard and have nice things to say about 'Sahana'.

I am told, I sound way different in this one as well, and all credits, as ever shall go to Rahman Anna.

And hope your best wishes and blessings will be with me.

I am free. I am the meaning of being free. I go wherever I want to. I can be wherever I want to. At will. I am a superpower. I am willful, I am tempestuous, I just am.
Once I was made to enter a territory I had never known before, which was quite strange because, there is almost nothing that I have not seen in the world around me. I entered and exited. I played around. I played hide and seek with myself. Nothing new here as well. Sigh. What is it like to know everything, be everywhere, having seen everything, there seems to be nothing to know. I know what it is like. I have nothing much to do. And I am my own master. No one tells me what to do. No one has even tried.
So I checked out my new playground a couple of more times on my own. Same old thing.
Then one day, it became someone else's possession. But then, when has that ever deterred me? No one can prosecute me for going wherever I want to. Pffftt.
And there I was back to my playground to see if something was new. Nothing really seemed different. And suddenly I saw that I couldn't go out the way I wanted to. It seemed like someone was doing it. I pushed. I heaved. Nothing. But then hey, where I am, there is always a way. I came out another passage. And it seemed to make a difference. I went back, one door closed, another opened, several closed at the same time, a few opened at the time. Pretty weird I thought. Someone was playing a game with me. Well two can play, I thought. And thus it went. And finally my contender seemed to leave my playground and go. And then all the doors were open. I checked quite a few times. But nah, quite the same. I went my way again. Whistling away here and there. And then I saw that the owner had returned. I felt thrilled. I have someone to play with now. So off I went. And it was the same game, and I had to keep guessing which door would open when. The object was not my winning or losing. It was something new, and it felt great. And I had created something new. And so had he. And both of us felt great at what we had done. He smiled, I smiled as well. I hadn't felt this great in ages.
I had been doing quite the same thing for ages. And the thrill of discovering something new, which I seemed to have altogether forgotten, washed over me anew. I marveled the seashore sometimes. Where the waves wash away all the time. She must be a happier person I thought, because every wave that washed over her was different. She knew. I knew as well. No two waves are the same. And here I am, I used to ponder, everything is the damn same. Nothing is new. But not anymore. I know I can be new, create something new and find myself anew if I wanted to, and not just on my own. I had someone to direct me for a change.
For I had made music.
For I am the air that passed through a flute, and felt liberated by not being free to do as I wished.