International Translators Day

Today is International Translators Day and check this...

September 30 is International Translators' Day, and the International Federation of Translators has chosen to make "Rights of the Translator" its theme for the day. They write: "The right to express oneself in one’s language. The right to be served in one’s language. The right to information. The right to culture. The right to knowledge. The right to a fair trial. The right to legal aid. These rights, now known as human rights, could not be respected if no translator was present."

So one more day to the numerous International Days. I was just wished by a fellow translator in far Bulgaria. Goodie... Happy Translator's Day, me. :)

The NAME!!

Well I finally came up with the name. Its nothing like anyone imagined. Actually I didn t come up with the name, someone else came up with a few dozen, and I had to choose. It has absolutely nothing to do with the work that I do.

The reason given: Monster.com is the most popular jobsite, Java was named after coffee, Apple was named after, well apple....

So I was advised to take this name,so that people will remember it, maybe just because it has nothing do with the work:)

Let me leave it here.... Keep guessing till then!

I shall come back to posting more regularly, answer questions about my recording experiences, which I think Vijay has been asking for a long time, and more, once I finish the urgent matters at hand.

Mr. Narayan, I really appreciate the trouble you have taken. I have no words to thank you. And Also an Anonymous, Viji, Rajesh, Shankar, and Magnus.

BTW, the name was given by WOC - The Ad Agency which has done ads for Chennai Silks, Prime Roaster, Sting Shirts, Textile India, Indira, Veneta Cucine, and some thousand more, I guess.

Ahh... for a NAME!!

As I see, coming up with the name is one of the toughest exercises, as something you choose is instantly pooh-poohed by someone or the other.

Now after so many 'brain storms' from others and a few myself, my own brains have stormed out and they refuse to work on the same exercise again. !!!

The reasons I have been given as to why keep Chinmayi Inc., is because, though it doesnt have anything to do with the work I am going to offer for now, first off I was given parallels, Ogilvy and Mather, Tata, Godrej, and not to discount the names of all the designers in the word, and so many 'who is who'.

Another one - if tomorrow, for example, we start desiging our own clothes, publish our own books, start a Hotel Chain, anything, it can go under the same name. And not go through the rigmarole of finding the name again.

Of course some have also said that its immature to name a company after you. As usual there are pros and cons.

Though I love TransGlyph, now I see that having Chin Inc makes some sense, but I have asked the brains behind designing my brochure to give me some alternates.

And in this case, after you have read through this post, please open the comments section and type away what springs in your mind, regarding this post :)

And I must thank everyone's individual brain storm sessions that they have done for me, like so many Anonymous-es, who came up with their own list/names. Highhhllllly appreciated :)

Vote for the best please

Tell me which one of this is appealing to you as my company's name?

TransGlyph or Chinmayi Incorporated.

Vote for the one you like please. The majority wins.

Suggestions.........

One of the first things I should have done when naming the company was to Google the name, which I didn't. Now I find that there is a 'Bhashantar', just short of one letter of what we names our company, Bhashantara.

Result? Now the biggest prob seems to be the naming.. There are some in the list though, Lingua Verbatim, being on the top.

Pro Lingua, Lingua Franca, Word by Word and some more have already been taken.

So now I am requesting for brainwaves. Please suggest a name :)

What else am I doing? Ahem ahem...nursing a very sore throat!

Dont fill Petrol on 22/9??

My photo blog is finally up. Though it needs some edits.

And I received a mail to not fill petrol on the 22 September. Anyone have an idea as to what this is all about?

Lifted From Aditi's Blog

Written In High School Essays

Hey everyone. Here's a foward a got. Some stuff thats actually been written in high school essays. Its damn funny. Take a look.

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
8. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
9. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
10. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
11. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
12. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19p.m. at a speed of 35mph.
13. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
14. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
15. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
16. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
17. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
18. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
19. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
20. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
21. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
22. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.
23. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs

Copied from Aditi's Blog.... was too good to resist. Aditi is ONE of a kind! ROTFL

I came across this article on Yasaswini's blog and she also has her say on that..was an interesting read.

Today was hectic with a lot of work to be done, catching up on stuff to be done back in the city.
Jet landed beautifully today. Not the plonk-on-the-runway repeat. Food was not great though.

It seems to be true according to the comment in my blog as to how the breeze in CBE makes someone sluggish and wanting to sleep the whole day. Thats what I feel like doing there!! Cuddle up inside the covers.. Bliss!!

And this seems to be the month of birthdays and weddings and wedding anniversaries to which we are invited to!!!! Almost about 10-15 different occasions.. juggling time is going to be difficult.. Wish there was a way to shorten the travel time in the city. As vehicles increase and roads become arterial its getting more riding on the clutch and the brake than stepping on the accelerator. End result is back ache, tiresomeness, weak legs.. Gosh.... the problem of traffic seems to be all round.. there must be a way to get this streamlined. If only someone can teach two wheelers to maintain a lane, and not keep zigzagging, and make sure they pay upto 1000 bucks each time they jump the lane, and not to forget the auto guys.

I read the Jet Wings magazine, in which there was this article about internet on the go... Internet 'cards' provided by Tata Indicom, Reliance and Airtel. These are more or less the size of credit cards, which can be plugged into your laptop. And you have a roaming internet account. Reliance and Tata Indicom cards are proced at less than 10,000 and Airtel cards are priced at around 12k. Now how advisable is it to go in for this?

A New Year.....and New Dreams

This is the first time I spent my birthday outside of my city. In coimbatore, great weather, amongst some lovely people, practising a little bit, working, sleeping a lot :D.. it was good.

I happened to to go the 50th B'Day party of a gentleman here, and it was also another person's bday, another couple's wedding anniversary..

Went to a temple a few kilometres away from Coimbatore today morning. The car stalled a few times and then we asked uncle to come and then he brought the other car and we all went together. He was refusing to come with us in the morning because he wanted to play golf and then he had to end up coming.. hee hee ... he is good fun! I got him him to start blogging the last time I was here. And so he did.

We had lunch on the way back and then I came back and crashed. Slept off and even refused to see a Ganesh Chaturthi procession!

We might watch 'A.. Aaa' tonight.. have been intending to watch that one. I also watched Thotti Jaya and I liked the movie a lot. Mr. Silambarasan has shown a very different perspective about his acting capabilities and my mom and I loved the movie.

I am thinking I will have separate blogs for my pictures and audio blogs, so that its not necessary to go looking for pictures and audio blogs.

Really dont have an idea of what to key in for now so me the signing off...... :)

Fresh and Dewy

Its a wonderful morning here in Coimbatore.. cool and dewy!

I went yesterday to PSGR Krishnammal college and the reception I got there was none less than amazing. I went there to be the 'Chief Guest' at their veldictory function. I must add there is excellent talent here in these parts and unfortunately they dont get as much exposure as we living in metropolitan cities do. There was one event that was interesting. It was called 'Best of Karishma' since their event was called Karishma. There was this kinda stress round where the judges shoot different questions to the contestants, with idea of well, stressing them out, and the one who shines out is the winner. It looked very interesting and I expressed a wish to take part also. He he... it was a lot of fun. But then the judges maybe were taken off guard and they really didnt know what to ask me. I expected some more.. but it was fun nonetheless. I was not competing with the others though!!!
Finally a law student won, small wonder! This is her second time of winning this award in succession..I sang for sometime, and then I had to deliver the valedictory address.. it was slightly funny, everytime they called me on stage it was like "we now request the chief guest to do this, do that, receive this, receive that..." But it was awesome fun and I have always had the feeling that I have not sung the usual fast paced peppy numbers, and have always wondered whether people like what I sing. But yesterday they named almost all my songs and it felt nice that a singer like me is also recognised. And then its a very emotional experience in toto when they cheer. I least expected it.

All the flights that Jet Airways was plying were delayed and I met a friend of mine from Salsa class.. sometimes the wait is irritating. And in the aircraft, like I mentioned before I was given the same stinky bedsheet to cover myself. God knows how the gut - churning stink happens. But beggars cant be choosers and even after a full sleeve shirt and trousers, I was freeezing in the near sub-zero temperatures in the cabin. Food was so - so. And the landing wow..... he landed like damaal.. These Jet people must have mastered the art of plonking into the runway.

Later in the evening we went to party hosted by Mr. Jaishankar who has received the Arjuna Award for Adventure Sports.. He also apparently organises them and it was a fun party only that I was very tired. There was a lot of dancing and merry making. And of course I had to sing, and though I protested, I eventually sang Dhoom.

I have got a lot of mails from different people who have had told me about my singing but there is this one mail that I got today from someone in Finland. He apparently does not understand what I sing and has heard only two Indian songs in his entire life and one of them are mine. And he says it gives him nice feelings when he hears my singing.. One of the best gifts I have ever received.. and it proves time and again that music is sans barriers.

So far very good.

Vinayaka Chaturthi was good. I went for a shoot for a Television Channel this morning, the details of which I shall reveal shortly. This was a singer's special. And the studio where we recorded has excellent acoustics and I daresay that in all my interviews so far, I am the happiest in this one with my singing. :D

Our Puja thus happened late.. around afternoon and Ganesha put up with us until then, the darling that he is!

I went to the Mehandi ceremony of my Mom's student, Amrita who is more like a family member now. After an initial half hour of my giving a concert, I got into having fun, applying mehandi, eating and generally mingling around! And I drove back with mehandi on my hands, though mom lined the steering wheel with newspaper! My mehandi was almost dry and it now has a good imprint on my hands.. the trick for getting a great colour on your hands is not to let water touch your hands for at least 12 hours after you scrape the mehandi off.

The wedding is tomorrow and it will be a good mix of Bengali, Iyengar and Nair styles.. must be good fun! Some of her Super IQ friends from the UK have come down and they seem very excited about the whole thing... it was good talking to them too..

And I have not been going to salsa class at all, for sheer want of time.. I got some tapes from the UK though, learning from them should be a cakewalk now since I have the basics good now.

Yesterday evening there was another show, with Gangaiamaran sir's orchestra, with Manicka Vinayagam sir, Mr. Malaysia Vasudevan, Malathi Lakshman and Venkat Prabhu. Good fun.

Should be putting up an audio blog and some pictures in a couple of days... hopefully!!

Today was good. I went to All India Radio and gave a One - hour concert in Ghazals which will be broadcast in FM Gold on the 15th at 10.05 p.m.

And now let me tell you the reason why I asked for linguists. Mom and I have now started a Company to provide language services. Through this Blog and through a lot of friends abroad, I have a circle of good linguists. The company is called Bhaashaantara, which literally means translation. Why so many 'a's? Because I dont want someone to mispronounce the name :D. And no its not numerologically named!!!

We have been busy trying to manage the legal formalities of the company, which is now done and the work that I handle and now handling people and their work has also come in. But I am glad. I think this was needed.

I shall soon be posting the AIR concert on the blog.

I also sang the title song of a serial called Kurai Onrum Illai which will soon be telecast in Doordarshan. It is a serial based on disabilities.

One of the most important things that I wanted to type in here, maybe a lot of people dont know, but Ashutosh Gowariker, the director of Lagaan and Swades has now taken up the task of bringing electricity to 60,000 villages. This will be done in the procedure as shown in his movie Swades. I also happened to meet and converse with him briefly when I had gone to record for Mangal Pandey. So this is one person who is bringing about a change in our country. This is also a fitting reply, if I may say, to my independance day blog which attracted a lot of flak also. All we in India have to do is to sms to 7827 to contribute Rs. 10 towards this project. And it is now the time to dig deep into our pockets. Kudos to you Mr. Gowariker. Wish there were thousands like you, who not only make movies to give a message to the masses, but also take up the torch themselves.

And as for me I am associating myself with an Eye Donation campaign in Chennai, which will be spear headed by Dr. Mohan Rajan and Dr. Sujatha Mohan. When I went to their clinic a couple of days ago, I created a blog for them so that they could start blogging. :D But only God knows when they will!

They also have their websites www.rajaneyecare.com and www.lasikpavilion.com.

And in response to a query, you can donate your eyes online. Though I havent checked out how myself.

And I just tried the web call through Yahoo messenger. Though my friend could hear me, I could not hear her. But then we spoke over GTalk. And MY MY the clarity is just AWESOME.. thanks god for technology, and for the brains behind that! The world is such a small place!

And I am posting a picture that I took of an ancient mike which I saw at AIR and they claim that even the high tech microphones of today cannot hold a candle to it. And I also recorded with that mike.. Not too sure about the quality of the picture since I captured it on P900. check it out!!

And also I am not sure if I can post the jingle of Vivaha in here.. will have to ask permission first!!

And one query : I recently download demo version of the Trados 7 Freelance. Does anyone have an idea as to how it works? Its a translation software. And it doesnt seem to work though I have gone through the tutorial. Anyone having an idea about what I am talking about, please help.

Have you donated your eyes?

This is the eye donation fortnight. Mom and I donated out eyes three years ago to Rajan Eye Care, headed ably my Dr. Mohan Rajan and Dr. Sujatha Mohan Rajan. One cool couple, whom I met 5 years back at a party at the Race Club. Dr. Mohan has a superb sense of humour, and when I said that I was going to study Psychology, he immediately said he would provide me with a lot of patients, most of them friends, who were also present at the party that day. And when someone introduced him to me, and also added that he is a workaholic, he quickyl added that he is a workaholic by day and an alcoholic by night... of course all this was in jest. That was one evening I wont forget soon. And ever since, Mom and I have been part of all their important activities, and whenever there was any singing involved with inagurating his various facilities at his hospital, I was usually there. Mr. Amitabh Bacchan happened to come to his clinic, as they had to shoot for a forthcoming Hindi Movie. :D I mentioned only Mr. Bacchan because I am so in awe of him.. ! Of course there were so many super people who have been involved right from Mr. Surjit Singh Barnala and many names in the international arena.

And with time our friendship has grown stronger, though we hardly meet, except to check our eyes and mom's. And a few of our friends who have gone there have succesfully given their contact lenses and spectacle a decent burial, after the laser surgery... they are one dynamic couple... :)

And there was also a walk for Dyslexia (A learning disorder marked by impairment of the ability to recognize and comprehend written words) which happened at the Marina Beach today, organized by V Excel (headed by Vasudha aunty) and MOP Vaishnav College.

As for me, I am still hunting or the linguists, and mom and I are working on something too. work is great. And I have a few concerts lined up for the first week of september! Looks like its going to be a great month!

Lots more interesting things to come.... thou shalt wait with bated breath !!!

Do you know a Linguist?

If you know anyone who knows any foreign language, (native speakers are great) please let me know.

I am not looking at Indian Languages.

If the person is not a native speaker of the language, he/she must at least have sufficient mastery. If they have experience translating, better still. But thats not a definite criterion.

Do let me know... leave a comment or mail me :)

And I am getting the look and feel of my website changed.. so lots up and coming!

Check out the Indian Express dated 18-08-2005.. City express to be precise.. was interviewed by Liffy Thomas, The New Indian Express. I met her at the Bloggers Meet at the Boat Club organized by Kribs :)

Vivaha-The Chennai Silks

Well people you can now listen to me in the new Chennai Silks Ad. The Vivaha collection of the Chennai Silks.. And also on the Textile India Ad.
Both ads have been set to music by Mr. Suresh Peters and the ads have been made by WOC (or Winds of Change)

Amma and I are back. And I am happy and joyful. Must say I have missed her, and the time i went to Coimbatore to meet her, three days, out of which I am sure I would slept at least 40 hours. For once, I didnt have any deadlines. Nothing to worry about. And I could sleep without the fear that something was hanging just above my head. Not that I am complaining. I like being busy.Great weather, great just lolling around doing nothing. But I cant do that for long though!!
We went to Shivanjali at Coimbatore, to visit the Samadhi of Swami Shantanand Saraswati. He was our Guru. He passed away on the 27th of June. And I was asked to sing, and I sang one of his Bhajans. He was a divine singer. I guess I will miss him, though the past few years we have not had much contact with him.

Anyway, point is it is great to have amma back and I also missed Aditi for these three days.. :)
I had been camping at Aditi's place when amma was not there.

As long as my laptop is concerned, I have been advised to buy it in India, because a friend of our's has two laptops that have gone waste because she could not find the persons to service it. So me again in a dilemma. And also some questions about why do I need the Powerbook? Why not something else? Since I am not going to be some high end designer. But I am going to working with sound and audio files. So I guess I am back to Square 1.

I also went to Vasudha aunty's school and saw her Independence Day celebrations. Jayam Ravi had come to be the Chief Guest. I was also formally introduced to him today though we have known of each other.

And finally two cents about Independence Day. I think we are God damn lucky to have this freedom. Thanks to all this freedom, we have collectively made India to be known as a a poor country. We are responsible if it is over populated, and if any thing is wrong with the present politics and if the place around is polluted and dirty. Maybe high time we did something about all that. As my friend Manoj wrote in one of his earlier blogs, that if we came together, spent some money to make the street we live in look in cleaner.... and imagine if everyone started doing that, India would be a great place to look at in no time. And of course a lot more has to be cleaned out. Though the foreign influence have supposedly left us 58 years ago, the Generation Now is under a totally different and sometimes alarming way of western thinking and views. Though I agree and admit that the Americans have definitely given a lot of positive things to the world, it is also responsible for more of our elders living in old age homes, marriages breaking, more and more people, youngsters especially indulging in illicit sexual relationships, our core cultures lost, and a lot of our art dying.... a lot more but these are top most on my mind. Right now. We have not learnt their civic sense, while we have eagerly embraced the openness to sexuality. Most westerners are turning extremely strict vegetarians, and we turn the other way round.

Its upto us, to make our country better as much as we can. And over time, I have come to realise, that 1 is a very strong and a powerful number.

And that one person can make a huge difference.
Jai Hind!

So I am back... reason I have been away... some rigorous classical practise was necessary. And it took all my time along with my usual work.

Have been running like mad, trying to handle my classical music on my own, which is next to impossible when mom is not around. Result = I just cant handle it.

For now I am relatively free for some three four days, after which I have to begin another round of classical practise...

So far so good...

"Hari said...

I surfed into your blog through an nice post from another blog at http://spaces.msn.com/members/topoftheword/
Interestingly, that blog provided a list of celebrities and corporate leaders who blog. Guess what, you mingle there with the likes of Barbara Streisand, Melanie Griffith, Pamela Anderson, Bruce Willis and Anna Kournikova. You are the only Indian celebrity listed there. That was a surprise. I thought there must be more celebrities in India who blog. Any clues?"

Reacting to this comment on the previous post... first reaction .. wah ha ha ha ha ttttt ??

whoaaaah listed with the who is who..! I guess at least I have reached a list with some reallly famous people for something I least expected... Blogging!!!

Hope, from here, that the path is only upwards....... in my life and career that is!

And I must also thank Mr. Joslin for putting some good words about me!

Must Read - Article on Autism

Please read this article on Aditi's blog. A research conducted by Robert F Kennedy Jr. , regarding a particular goverment, that conceals (or rushed to conceal, as quoted) the data conducted by a study, that revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids....
What do you think ???