TEDxChennai on October 10 2010

Less than two weeks and I have been looking forward to this since last year to be honest, the minute TEDxChennai Edition 1 wrapped up and everyone posed for pictures.
I went to a couple of the organizers meetings this time whenever I could and hope to be of help to the committee as much as I can.
Being a part of that event was a full day of positive energy and to you, I would suggest, or rather urge you to be a part of the audience. Its a day well invested.
Book your tickets here at http://www.TEDxChennai.com

Jhootha Hi Sahi

Have sung Maiyya Yashoda (The Jamuna Mix and The Thames mix) in this album with Javed Ali and this recording session was one that I would never forget. I met Mr Tyrewala for the second time and it was a wonderful experience to be a part of this recording. Javed Ali recorded this song while his mother was getting a surgery done in Delhi so it was quite hectic for him.

Rahman sir told me to sing and sound the way I do in this song. Like a really young girl, not that I am a hag now, but still, to bring in the chirpiness of a younger girl. 

Meeting Mr Tyrewala was like meeting a really wonderful professor and listening to a wonderful address. Not sure if he would take it as a compliment but in the conversation that I had with him, I had a great time listening to him on philosophy and his interpretation of some of the myths and legends of India to the best way to eat waffles. He is most definitely a food aficionados and remember him mentioning about a really wonderful Chinese restaurant in Shimla, if I am not mistaken. Like Vir Sanghvi, he also said that the Chinese food that we eat in India is not Chinese.

Needless to say some of the best conversations that I have had are with the creative people, the wonderful people that are part of the process of making the films that we love to watch. I have not met too many people in the literary and art world yet but hopefully that will lead me to some wonderful learning as well. 

Like this time I met Mr Iqbal Patni, the poet and heard him speak, albeit briefly on cars, which one to buy and which one not to. 

To me, singing for and working under Rahman sir is like being in a Himalayan ashram with a Guru. There is tranquility and somehow even if I have had a really terrible day, everything just vanishes, as far as I am concerned, as soon as I meet him. His hours of rigorous spiritual practice and communion with the Almighty has this effect on other people I would daresay. Someday, I hope to have the same sort of a positive effect on the people that I meet.

Enjoy the album and you can listen to it on http://www.saregama.com and when you do want to download, please make it legal.

Thanks and God Bless.

Each of us has a gift I feel. Someone told me that music is the language of the Gods and to be able to speak it is a blessing in itself. And also that same someone told me that I am here to amuse the Gods. Though there are times when I look skywards, because eventhough the Supreme Being is all pervading and everywhere, thoonilum-thurumbilum types and all that, it just is instinctive to look skywards for some reason whenever I feel like conversing with this person who thinks I am for his amusement and tell him (and please, "How do you know its a 'HIM'" is cliched), that maybe while its good he is being amused, I actually do not find all the goings on funny. And maybe he can work on my amusement once in a while. 

At a time when there is mostly silence all around me but for this amazing composition that I choose to play that wafts, entwines through every cell in the air around me, seeping it with a flavour, a fragrance that when I look at this curtain rippling near me by the window, I wonder if it is the breeze or the notes. Ah well, that's just me being romantic. 

The past couple of days I have been a part of an amazingly beautiful creative process. Attempted singing a song that is quite drenched in Carnatic classical expression. And learnt so much through it all. We meet so many people, are drained through some meetings, exhilarated by some, tired of some, some affect us and some do not even have the effect like maybe a baby's breath may have on a lock of hair. The past couple of days, has left me grateful for being born as me. Thankful for the people I meet. Especially for the songs I get to sing. And this amazing veteran composer and a gentleman that I have met and have got to know. 

God does exist around us. He is someone with a piquant sense of humour. He exists in the people that we meet. And there are times when he comes through. And for the agnostics and atheists, look at it as some sort of a magic. Inexplicable, enigmatic and lovely. 

At times that I sing, its almost like something reaches out to me and a sense of peace and serenity settles in me.  I felt like that the past couple of days. When the time is right, I shall tell you which song I am talking about.

At this time, I feel like diving into deep blue sky. 

For you, I wish that you go through this enough number of times, revel in it, get drenched in it to the  very nucleus of every cell of your being.  Enough number of times. Like you closing your eyes and smiling a smile that magnifies a million times in your mind's eye. To feel the love, peace and beauty of this thing called life. For you, I wish that you find your gift that is a part of you. Become one with it and let it find expression in you. Love yourself, love and give freely.

Tathaastu and God bless.

Vinayaka Chaturthi special on Isaiaruvi

For those of you that asked me for the link.
Hope you all had a wonderful Ganesh Chaturthi. Ganpati Bappa Morya!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u10Qj9y5ruw&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CuWjwjNRvI&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThnNiGpWA5I&feature=player_embedded#!

Meera

I am the voice of this new sitcom on Vijay TV which shall telecast Monday through Thursday at 20:00. I guess this would be the first title song that I have sung in Vijay TV
Hope you guys enjoy the show as well. 

Have been listening to some music from Pakistan and Punjab. And am blown away by the beauty of the lyrics. 

And the more I listen to some notes that come from some musicians the more I see the musician and his song are so entwined with each other that maybe after a point, for me, I do not see the two different entities. The song becomes the songster. The songster becomes the song. 

The beauty of the words that have been strung together by fingers holding a pen or, if I may be dreamy, a quill perhaps, with fingers stained dark from the ink. Maybe like the delicate fingers that play on a stringed instrument, where long after the notes have ceased to resonate, the strings have left a mark  on the fingers that played them out. I also wonder how did the poets who were men understand the sentiment of a woman, especially the wedding songs of Punjab, so much that he goes to describe how she would feel when she leaves her father's home.

I, was thinking today that I am blessed to be born a musician more than anything else. And so thankful that I was not born a Gandu who did not understand notes or tones. Or music at all. 

The Sufi, it is said, pehle hi sab kucch haar ke aata hai. That he has already lost everything. He has lost his people, his home, his wealth, his mind even, in search of the Ultimate One. In search of the One with whom he could be one with for eternity. For the One whom he pines for. The same way Meera pined. Or how Aandal pined.

(At this point I remember how there are times that I pine for a good monitor on stage. That's a different sort of pining altogether, anyway :) )

I wish today, that some day I'll sing like the Sufi. Or I be like Meera or Aandal.

And to you, the reader (not sure if you can sing or play or an instrument), I wish for you that you experience the pure emotion of your eyes welling up as an expression of that which wells up within you. Like maybe, a beautiful flowery creeper that twines around your soul and squeezes it enough to make you shed tears but leaves you with a fragrance that you could get a whiff of, every time you close your eyes. Its a wonderful feeling. May you also pine for something but I won't wish that for too long for you though, and may you get what you pine for, if that makes you happy. May you be joyous.

May you be blessed, on this Krishna Jayanti. May Lord Krishna bless you.

Tathaaastu.