One and a half days in Kerala

We left to Kerala yesterday morning for a show at Quilon/Kollam. Its pretty strange how sometimes, being at the airport can give you an insight of a plethora of human beings. Maybe its best that I really dont digress on this statement to avoid sounding, well,...... snobby? snooty? Either or both. Whatever it is I couldnt stop smiling to myself for a long time therefter and its pretty good for other peopel to see a smiley face than a grumpy face.

Also its strange how people immediately take me for a northi and speak to me in hindi after one look at me. Once I was pulled by a traffic cop for no reason at all. But he told me I jumped the red light. I was like what? and then mom was with me.. And the thing was he instructed me in Hindi to pull over. And when I did speak in tamil, he said I wouldnt have pulled you over had I known.... so what should I make of this? And at the airport yesterday, a guy called Ekambaram instructs em to go "Ekdum peeche" for security check. Yahan jaaiye Vahaan khade ho jaaiye...mom couldnt stop laughing.

Sometimes when I sing Ghazals at a given place, and if the group is not from chennai, there is usually a debate as to whether I am a northi or not. Which happened a few days ago at a concert with the All India Tax Lawyers Meet apparently cos I didnt have a 'southi' accent and my pronounciation was pucca or so they said. I am easily taken for anyone but Tamil. I am not cribbing, not at all... but all of these make for some nice memories.

We flew Air Deccan for the first time. It was by sheer luck that we got tickets as everyone said tickets were not available. But we got them with AD. And surprisingly, contrary to the horror stories some people painted, AD was a comforable flight back and forth, and also no plonk landing :) Maybe it has something to do with the size of the craft?

From Cochin it was a 4 hour drive to Quilon and I made up on all the lost sleep. While mom was left egging the driver to go faster than 40 kmph when we had a concert at 6:00 p.m. We landed at the venue at about 4:40 did a quick rehearsal, went to the hotel, dressed up came back at 6:00 and then started off with the show. Met Mr Biju Narayan for the first time and also sang with him. And Palghat Sriram. He has this way of improvising everything that at the end of each phrase I was left gaping that even if a fly flew in, took a nap and came out, I wouldnt have known. And there was this group of dancers from Bangalore, Ocean Kids or something like that, excellent dancing. I ended up singing KMI, Snehithane, Minsara Kanna, Guruvayoorappa, Iyengar Veetu, If you wanna, out of which minsara kanna was one song which I had not rehearsed as it was a last inute addition. And surprisingly it came out well. Audience was about 2500 strong.

When we got back to the hotel, we found that there was nothing to eat as everything was closed by 10:00 or so as Sriram anna said. The people at the hotel could offer only water. But thankfully the organizers got us some stuff to eat. Next morning took the car and it was a mad rush to the airport and to find that the flight was almost an hour late. And the guy who drove us down said he had never driven so fast and he was hardly averaging at 80 kmph.. :)

Back home, back to work, and it was good that I caught up on some sleep. Mom as usual got none. She hardly ever gets any rest. While I am languishing by the comp she has to do all the crap work. I am not at all domesticated and sometimes I fell I am pretty spoilt or that my mom has too large a heart. She doesnt get any house work done from me. At any time.

And I got some good reviews about the "Symphony" show on Kairali which was telecast last saturday. The second part of which will be shown in about 2 weeks. And this show will also be telecast on Kairali TV on the 31st.

Also I am back to being confused consumer as I got told not to get the Mac Powerbook and 'waste' money and also the Intel - Apple tie up .... God knows.. but there is absolutely no info forthcoming as to whether a windows platform is stable enough for audio/video recording/editing. Any way that's that..

Have been reading Tintin and Asterix and slowly adding to my collection of Amar Chitra Katha, reading a book on manners nd etiquette, Life of Pi, The Divine Romance by Paramahamsa Yogananda and something on the lines of improving English. :)

I have been pretty active in Orkut lately, and found that one community was started some time back in my name and another a coupleof days ago sayign "we love chinmayi" ... phew sometimes I dont know how to react .. and some times overwhelmed, some times embarassed.. but it feels nice as well...that I am liked ..........

Programme on Kairali tomorrow

I will be featuring on Kairali TV on the programme "symphony" on a Christmas and New Year special, tomorrow 9:00 p.m. IST and on next saturday which turns out to be the new year special as well.

Its a one hour programme presented in two parts. IMHO its one of the best programmes that I have had, with excellent audio, and music supports.

I also have a concert tomorrow here and hope to be back by then to catch the show :)

Sil Vous Plait...

As I have been told that I should wait until June or later to invest in a Powerbook because they are going to have something to do with Intel? At this hour my brain refuses to remember what exactly.

So Please Advvise ...Should I wait or should I not?

And..........

One of the things that kept me busy through August and September were the preparations for the All India Radio competitions. And I have won the Silver Medal.

I wished I would get a repeat for the All India First for Ghazals 5 years back. But that was not to be. That was the time when they refused to believe that I was a South Indian as I had nil accent to betray that I was.

One was that my throat was sooooo wound up that I couldnt sing anything decent on the day of the final competitions. And I was dead sure that I would not make it. But I have. But I guess its human nature to want more. The Universe and the green-eye conspired against me that day, and maybe the Universe decided to throw in a piece just for some happiness.

This automatically makes me a graded artiste with the AIR, with a B-grade, which I found was strange that they awarded B grade to both first and second prize winners. Anyway henceforth, all that I have to do is work my way through to the A-top grade.

And all this while I was vehement that I wouldnt learn under anyone but Mom, either until I got some sort of recognition like this from a governing body or something to that effect, or give my first 'legal' Hindustani Classical Concert. And thankfuly this has come through.

This was also to emphasized that I have learnt from Mom alone, a lot of people around me didnt know that I learnt my Hindustani Classical from her. Or refused to believe. Mom also was for the doctrine of having a 'stamp' of a popular and well known musician, and also tried unsuccessfully, desperately to put me under gurus outside of her for better experience. I could never sustain any where, more than four classes, with due reverence to all of them. After three futile attempts, she gave up. Because as far as I am concerned mom is the best and whatever I am, and whatever I have learnt in music is from her. She picked up this piece of rock, gave it shape, chiseled it, gave color and breathed life in it. Giving it the power to breathe its own wisps into music.

And, yes its all true that children take advantage of their parents when they are the Guru. And has been the case with me.

Also if I did get these recognitions after I went to another Guru, then all the years of toil, all the work mom had put in would just be passed on, just because he/she is more famous. Again with all due respect to them. But I was not willing to let mom's work go without any credit like that. And So I will continue.....

To do whatever is in my power to get ahead and be a success with music for there can be no better reward to my mom who allowed herself to melt as a candle for me to shine bright. She put her career away, to see me grow, and bring me to what I am today.

And this time round the Universe better conspire against anything else that even thinks to deter me and work with me :) Like they say, If you want something so bad, then the whole Universe works for you to make it a reality.. so time to get to work Universe.. :)

Anbulla Snehidiye

I have finally got my hands on the title track of Anbulla Snehidhiye, thanks to Mr. Harish for sending it to me. Eventhough I had sung this one, it was impossible for me to get a copy despite repeated requests so far. I remember a lot of people asking me for this one. so here goes.. You can listen to it here.

After Ages...........

I have caught up with movies playing.. So caught up with Kanda Naal Mudhal, Navarasa, Hanuman, Aaru and Thavamai Thavamirundhu. Over two days thanks to a friend who had come down from abroad on holiday and also because I surprisingly had an unexpected 3 days off. Funny how one other person can get you to do some stuff.. So off we went gallivanting about the city.

Have been singing a lot as well. So I had my hands full, Thanks God and touche.

I sometimes feel that freedom of speech or expression doesn't exist in reality. It is only in writing. It is my personal opinion, it can be subject to change, that the blog is one's own views on the various things they come across in life and the benifit of doubt should if not must, be given. Because each person has had their individual experiences to a given.... anything. Be it people, clothes, colours or whatever. Just because someone says that something is crappy, it gives no free rein to another to pounce on him and give rise to online brawls and slander.

I have been witness to a so much of this in the past few months that after a point in time I was disgusted. The absense of desire to blog and the lack of inclination resulted in me to the extent ofnot checking my own blog for weeks now.

Most of the Blog-brawls I think basically stem from the instinct to oppress another, to keep insisting that he alone is right and everyone else has dropped down from Hell. It is quite clear that tolerance has drastically reduced, to reasons which I intend to find out. And then there are groups and anti-group groups...

True that when something is on a public space like this, it restricts your style, and one must expect a lot of opinions to a said view. But what I would call for is a decent and polished manner of reacting in general. We have been taught to be polite and nice even when we disagree with someone or something, but where has all that gone? The first thing that I hear on the roads are a hell of a lot of beeped out words, which is now another addition to dictionaries. Road Rage. And another 'deviation from normal behaviour' for psychiatrists or psychologists to treat. And I guess there will be one, if not more 'deviations' which will arise from behaviour while blogging.

I just got plain sick of things and more than anything else I started dreading comments. Its crazy how just ONE comment can turn the face of everything around!

Anyway, that said, my newest songs are in Kalaba Kadhalan and Sandakkozhi.
And I have also recorded two very interesting programmes for Vijay TV - Sangamam and one for Kairali, it focuses on me alone and runs on the same lines of Sangamam.

I have sung a whole variety of songs in these shows which I havent had a chance to do previously. Both of them showcase most of what I can do in a nutshell. So we were extremely happy to do them both. Its seldom that a singer in the movies get a chance to sing anything else than what he/she is famous for.

But then this is the case with everyone and in everything. If more of this happened then may be there is a wonderful artiste dormant in a corporate honcho....

It was distress without rains till now and it is disaster with the kind of rains TN had. Anyway it rained in so much in Tamilnadu that we dont have to worry about water for quite some time to come.

And it also seems to be the season where a lot of my close friends are getting married in the next couple of months. Great times ahead!

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An Invitation

I will be performing at the Kamaraj Memorial Hall on the 2nd of December, 2005, at 7:00 p.m.

I will be singing Bhajans and Ghazals.

Please make it to the concert if interested.

As I have come to know, the show at Hyderabad will be telecast this weekend in the Sun Network channels I guess.

Other than that I am preparing for a concert at Kamaraj Arangam on the 2nd and 3rd of December.

what more? Have been reading, working, singing, watching a few DVD's at intervals, snatching time to sleep, irritating mom with eating... frankly I think eating is one of the most time consuming and boring things to do. And before someone is hitting the comment section without reading through to direct some not so kind words, read me out! :)) I love food. But find the exercise of eating boring. Wish there was some device under which you could stand and you could be instantly energised with the necessary nutrients to lead a healthy life. And you could eat if and when you want to. Not because your stomach protests and you have to go refill. I dont know what kinda girl I am gonna end up to be. But frankly, for the amount of chocolates I consume, generally fatty food, I should have been a samurai wrestler's sister. But thank God for small mercies. Actually this is a huge mercy. I love salads, soups .. and I comfortable with those almost all the time. Its rice and this and that, which bore me. Of course there are days when I crave for Vathakuzhambu and rasam. And if there is one culinary expert who must be pissed off most of the time, that must be mom. She makes great stuff, serves in style, .........To have such a disinterested person in the house, her interest is usually dampened thanks to me. But also she has trained my tongue so well, that I usually dont flinch, ahem flinching at food that is moderately made.

This state of mind has been around for a few months for God knows what reason. Hope this will pass.. thats something to chew on

All over again!

Now next in line, my mother's blog has had some posts removed, by a another devilish mind apparently. And as I see this seems to the be the beginning of super malice in blog world.

As I perceive it, this shoul be happening only because some nitwit/s feel threatened.

And this is no 'harmless prank' which happened in mine and in Priya's blog. In her case her blog was deleted. As so far, only women's blogs have been hacked, I daresay the next one should be another woman.

It is possible that this is some who is sooooo anti- women who blog. So keep rolling whoever-you-are, you are bound to get pulled into quicksand soon.

Also...

Has anyone wondered about 'Try'?

The etymology is this: Anglo-French trier to choose, sort, ascertain, examine judicially, from Old French, to choose, sort.

Also its more or less the intention to do something, or the lack of it. When try comes in, one has to be prepared for the eventuality of the task not happening as well. Or it also means an attempt, endeavour, effort..

But like maybe some more verbs, this is something which will not have a physical activity/action to demonstrate 'try'. This would be a toughie in Dumb Charades. Will you be able to convey " I am trying to read" Or "I am trying to give you the key".

Moral of the Story: Dont try, Do. If you can't do it, say that you can't. :)

The strange case of.....

"Can be able" and "cannot be able".

The more I hear the usage of this phrase, the more I am scared that it will become an adage. Whoever gave the idea of "I can be able to do it" or "Can you be able to do it?"

Worse... "I had went".. Gosh. There are a few things that I have a low tolerance to. This is one of them. Mutilating any language. Mispronouncing a language, and horrors, make a grammatical mistake.

Way back in school I was taught that cousin brother and cousin sister are grammatically wrong. Then there is 'No other alternative', 'Overspeeding'... yikes... The more and more I see them, even I start getting used to them and think they are right.

There was once that I said "I cant ascertain what you are saying" and then that's it. I was ragged completely by the Producer. This was during the recording of an ad jingle. The producer said the guy was wondering whether you said something good or bad. Cant help it you know, after so much translation, you tend to use words like that. Now I am in a very diff mode. I use unctuous instead of oily, cognizant instead of aware, and I was surprised when people didn't know what quirk, resplendent, embossing.. and some more, meant. Should I be surprised?

During some recordings, I am asked to change the "spelling of my humming" which means please time your inflections to the rhythm. And the best is "Idhu oru Gallop-aana song". God knows what that meant. Actually most conversations are in Tamil and the people who do speak English are good enough with it. A lot of it is because I guess people have lost out on perfection, and finer qualities. Also a usual tlip of the songue.. sorry, slip of the tongue, sedation and seduction. When I heard that first, I burst out laughing much to consternation of the girl. I apologized immediately though. At this point, let me tell you somethings that not many know about me. Ok I changed my mind. Its becoming too long. I will put another post on that.

Even if you point out to some, that hey change that buddy, gosh they are soo irritated. And the trend that I have seen a lot especially in the south, is when you tell someone, please don't do something, the more they do it, just to irritate you and unfortunately for them (and for us)it becomes a sickening habit that they cant get rid of even if they want to. This is the way I am if it irritates you, I will do it some more so that you can be more irritated. And seeing you angry makes me so happy like I have won an Oscar. And then you correct grammatical errors in English, you are done for. Immediately you are a "Peter" or a "Jane" who is from a high funda school. Sometimes turns out that they would have come from a more up-market school.. but everything else is sooo "heylloo, houe aaaarrr yuuuu dowing?" And anything ending with -ve is immediately -we. Like 'lowe', "positiwe" also the 't' is non existent so 'id eees pohsidiwe". Everytime I hear a "Lowe story" I am almost hopping mad. Its -ve for God's sake. Well what do you expect when people say vaalkai instead of vaazhkai, "aNaithu vagai" instead of "anaithu...." and like "Ippodhu virpaNaiyil" and there are a lot of news readers, some actors in TV serials, who seem to have a confusion between the different 'n' 'l' of Tamil. Now also its hurts mom's ears when she has to hear "SaTTRu" "KuTTram" ... There is no damn 'T' there... The stronger R is devoid of T. Thanks to a lot of people writing in English and reading Tamil. Now who is going to correct that?

Also one of the reasons I was taught not to imitate someone too much, (I am pretty good at that ;))with some words, and they way people talk and move or something, was because when you do it too much, it becomes your habit as well. And how so wonderful would that be, that sometimes you mimic someone cos its, you know quirky, or mad, and then it becomes part of you as well.

Anyway coming back this would not be if we read worthy books. If this is the way it will go, we can put language, pronounciation and grammar, in the list of things long-gone, sooner or later.

And also this was the post that Blogger ate up a few daya back. More or less. I like the older one though

Of the old and new..

To start off, have heard a lot of people making fun about older people. Right from school days. He is a thatha, she is a paati. And any kid who talks a lot is a paati. And then recently I met someone who said, the moment you know that someone has started talking a lot, that means he/she has mentally retired.. especially when they start with "in my days".......

Actually at my age, even I feel like saying during my childhood, and during school, and those were more or less my days. Older days. Nicer days. Happier days.

The times spent with grandparents and older members of the family was wonderful. I learnt to play stuf like 'Chozhi', Pallankuzhi, and something with tamarind seeds, I forget the name, where in you throw a seed in the air, and while it is airborne, you grasp one more from the ground and so it goes. I seriously doubt how many people my age know about stuff like this. Actually how many can pronounce the slokas properly, the Sanskrit way, instead of...a common example, my mom has always been called Bathma, for her name is unfortunately Padma. Anything starting with P, T, and in my case, C, you are done for. P becomes B, T becomes D, and C becomes S. So there is Badma, and Nadarajan, Sinmai so on and so forth. And my best friend. Yasaswini. I remember the way she used to cringe when someone mispronounced her name, which was almost always> Yasaaawini. yasasasaswini, hundred more variants, and this was when we use to be on stage and some guy wil annouce our names, and the next name to mutilate will be mine. And I used to end up giggling must to the iration of my teachers.

A lot of this has come to pass because we fail to respect the older generation. Just because we are younger, we have to tsk tsk away anyone who is older by a minimum 15 years.

Children nowadays dont know how to treat a Guru during Vijayadasami, when during school, I remember mom used to buy small mementoes and give them to teachers and take their blessings. And why dont children know about it? Thanks to their parents. mm maybe this is off topic a bit, but I had to put it down as well....

How much do we know of history from our grandparents? Of how life was? and like their view of why we had to bathe after a solar eclipse, and in almost all brahman houses, the concept of "patthu". Not many know the answer, and of the few who do, its guesswork, something that has been imagined on their own, or sometimes, they have logically thought of it and come to the right conclusion, and a handful know it from the horse's mouth. Talking of super imagination, I once knew someone who thought, Holi was celebrated with Turmeric and Chilli powder and then they came about doing it with artificial colours. And this numbskull went on arguing how he is right. Hm.... better not say anything more than that. How many of us know why we celebrate some festivals a certain way, the rituals, daily life?

How about simple stories like, for example, if you dont keep your peppercorns in place, and lose them, they will roll away and tell stories about you, dont eat too much raw rice or it will rain during your wedding, so many small beautiful things. Now I wish I could get back in time, or wish my grandparents were with me to unravel more about their lives. But its not to be.

My grandfather did all there was to do, owned mom's native village worked in the army, went to Jail during the freedom movement, starting a printing press or a newspaper I am not so sure, even made a movie, I found to my surprise, everything .. his must have been some life. And then my Grandmom. She was not as smart as Thatha. But she would just talk about so many things. And tell me stories, tell me not to draw the blanket over my head while sleeping, teach me the " Urugaadha Vennaiyum Or Adaiyum naan tharuven, ennaalum en kanavan ennai vittu piriyaamal irukka", and tie the nombu charadu on my wrist while I used to think, why I had to say this when I dont have a husband, and the best of all, she used to peel the skin off seedless grapes for me to eat.. check that out.. !! Of course to my mom's horror. Paati couldnt speak a stich of English except saying Chemistry and she was awfully proud of it, and later she could say "seedoaun" for sit down. It was great fun. I can almost imagine her reacting to stuff if I had to put down every thing that she said here.

And present gen children dont have the luxury of listening to stories from their grandparents. Most times its the clash of egos. The elders feel they are not respected and the youngsters feel that they must stay in their 'place' and not interfere. So much of wisdom and knowledge being lost. So much is already lost anyway. Most of us dont even have the time or patience or inclination to talk to our parents, forget the grandparents.

I decided to write this because my best friend's Grandmom has started blogging. And this may well be a missing link. I wish all older people start blogging to share their world from the days of yore, the world through their mind's eye and as they perceive it now. I only wish all grandparents of the world are introduced to this. No better way to preserve culture, at least as far as my small brain goes. At least for all those disinterested people, there will be hundreds like me who want to know of them, know them.....

And for all those who keep calling people mama, thata, oldie, you know, to generally poke fun at older people, I think its such a sad state of mind. Come on, how much longer will it take to be at the same age as they are. And I bet that we ll be a more miserable lot than the present older generation. Because our children are a 100 times better or worse than we are. And what goes will come round a 100 times better or worse.

Yes this is also saying in other words what I learnt, I guess all of us would have learnt in Std. 1. Respect your elders. I sincerely believe that their wishes prayers and goodwill, is the greatest protection and I guess there is always space in our skulls for more knowledge, even if it is trivial.

Happy Deepavali!!

Thanks to the rains and the corresponding Power cuts and also problems with our internet, I have been on and off connectivity. And when I did, just had enough time to catch up on work. The television has not been switched on in our house for ages, and anyone asking me what's on TV, it will be more "Duh". And its good that it has not been raining the past couple of days.

Had to give a sound byte to All India Radio and talk about my most memorable Deepavali. Did that.

This festival, to celebrate the triumph of Good over Evil. With the blasts happening in one of the places I love the most and to sickeningly plan it during a festival, that is close to the hearts of millions, I really hope and pray that all the evil minds are removed without a trace. And to also celebrate the fighting and living spirit, for the good of course, well I really hope this year on and from this moment, Evil everywhere is vanquished, the good rejoice and the others who have not been so good are modified to be good.

"Deepa - aavali" - Garland/Chain of lights... Sincerely I hope and pray that this festival should warm each heart and every home, bring happiness, togetherness, good hope, excellent fortune, good thoughts, and eventually put us on the path to get at least a step closer to Godliness.

Happy Deepavali and Godspeed Good People!

Two more...

Have to search where I am .. but doable :)

This is a pretty vague picture of the show. I am looking god knows where and for what.

A lot that I cant forget........

To start off, yes its Gachibowli, but spelt wrong owing to hurry to get out of the business centre.

Day 2, we went to the stadium, did the customary sound check, took some pictures. Mrs. Usha Uthup, Vasundhara Das, Suresh Peters, Sunitha Sarathy, Mahathi and I were there. Mrs. Malathi was also slated to perform but she hadnt landed yet.

Once that was done we left to the hotel to have lunch. Met Mr. Kamal Hasan, Mrs. Revathi and Mr. Jayaram. It was a great lunch time, what with Mr. Kamal sharing anecdotes about service in IA flights in earlier times and also discussing the cuisines of the world.

Also met Mr. Sudeep, the famous Kannada actor. Post lunch we were asked to go back to the stadium to learn the song composed by Raja sir and we went back there. And we had no clue about it. I was also slightly worried. More so, because they handed me 5 sheets of lyrics in different languages. Thankfully the tune was the same for Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. We started off in English and ended with English. Mr. Kamal Hasan, Mr. Jayaram, Mr. Karthik Raaja, who had come down for this purpose, Mrs. Usha Uthup, Vasundhara Das, Mrs. Malathi, Mahathi and I, and must add, Richard Gere, and most of the stars came up on stage to sing along.

Mrs. Malathi sang a telugu song and Manmadha rasa, and the whole audience was up on its feet:) Mahathi sang a song of hers in Telugu. Ms. Vasundhara sang a song called "Erimalai Naane" and Dating, Mrs. Uthup was singing her own Medley and so did Sunitha Sarathy, Mr. Peters sang a malayalam and a kannada number.

There was a major star cast which turned up, starting from Mr. Chiranjeevi, Mrs. Radhika and Mr.Sarathkumar, Sada, Shriya, Sangeetha, Mr.Vikram, Mr.Madhavan, Mr.Silambarasan, Mr.Mohan Babu, Mr and Mrs.Nagarajuna, Mrs. Revathi Menon, Genelia, Sania Mirza, Ms.Sumalatha, Dr. Rajashekar and his wife, Navya Nair, Sandhya, Tarun, Ramya, and some more actors and actresses, and of course, Parameshwar Godrej and Richard Gere. Mr. Gere was lauded for the efforts he had taken and basically this show was called "A time for heroes" to spread AIDS awareness in our country.

And though I didnt shake hands with Mr Gere we exchanged a few smiles. Anyway he is not going to remember me!!

After the concert there was a party at Mr. Chiranjeevi's residence that we were invited to, which we skipped.

In the hotel lobby, made friends with Sandhya and Navya Nair and their parents, who said they loved my song. BTW I sang KMI. And the show shoul be telecast in Sun TV.

This morning we woke to a pretty rude shock to realize that our Gold jewellery had been stolen from the stadium. We had kept it, just in case we decide to go to the party. And with that 80k down the drain. So this charity show has been something to remember. Sometimes I wonder why is it that good people are the ones who have to go through trials and tribulations, only to be happy 'in the end'. Who cares, really, when for someone life has been full of struggles, and when people who dont seem to have any ethics or values are happier, have lived more succesful lives. The more good people want to rise, the more God wants to 'test' them and knock them down so that they may rise higher, and sometimes to be knocked down again. Nice way of doing things. Its disturbing when I wonder what I have done to deserve this. Just that I go to some show, something gets stolen.

Mom went to the Police station and lodged a complaint and mom said that they are cracking down on who could have taken it. If someone from the audience flicked the bag, then there is no hope, but if its those guys, who place the chairs, maybe. That is, if they havent already sold the stuff. Bottom line is the Police are really cooperating. Only wish we had remembered that the jewels were missing last night when we left.

For now we are just waiting for light at the end of the tunnel.

To have a better detail about the show, check out Kamal's post on the same. We usually dont get to see much detail, since we are backstage. We lose out on the show as such.

In Hyderabad for a charity show, taking place at the Gachiblowli Stadium tomorrow.

We travelled with Air Sahara, and one look at it, thought it was some kinda private jet.

And sure enough it wouldnt have seated more than 75 people. The seats would have just been 1 inch x 1 inch x 1 inch. By the end of the 50 minute flight, I decided its better to walk down to any destination than take the Air Sahara.
The fact that they are relatively new shows in their inflight service. The crew, or at least the guy who served us looked like he could use some more training. The worst thing, was when he ran out of in-flight snacks, and he handed over one to my mom, and asked us to share it!! Wahhhaaaw.. enough to sue the airlines and be richer ;)
But then he decided against it and handed me one of the packs intended for the crew. Thing was it has different contents than the usual packs handed to the passengers... special treatment for them I guess.
The feeling of wellness inside the Cabin was worse.

And I now at the Business Centre at the Hotel, where they charge Rs 300/- only for half an hour of usage. Wonder why they need to charge such a whopping amount for a facility which is almost being offered free all around. But guess its one of the hazards, if you dont have the dumb laptop with you.
And Since I am no millionaire, I better scoot from here, before they slap a HUGE bill on us :)
Will update with pics and news about the event here. Its giong to be a magnificient one and please pray for me so that I perform well :)

Ciaoooo

Uploading the audio on audioblog just takes forever. A few songs down and a few songs to go, sometimes I think I must check the uploading overnight, and when I wake up one file will be done!

And also when I am uploading something, impossible to do something else. Maybe my system needs to be changed. Inspite of 512 MB ram and all the blah blah.

I need to get all my songs uploaded so that I could sort them in their order of appearance.

I have not been able to find some 10 or more songs of mine, since I guess, they have not really banged into the scene. Anyway this should do good for now. :)

As I have been putting the songs up I realize that I have been given some superb songs which failed to reach the listeners, mainly because the movie didnt do well. Now I wonder why should they be intertwined? One example is the Kangalal Kaidhu Sei album, I feel its mind-blowing. But the aam-junta doesnt no about it because the movie didnt do well. Also a song called 'Eppadi Solavadhu' by Bharadwaj Sir, vanished into a movie called "Oru Murai Sollividu". There are a few more like that and hundreds of such albums.

Like Bose - the Forgotten Hero. If I, a singer, feel upset about the whole thing, I wonder how it is for the creator of the album, when it is not projected well, since he/she gives his/her all to each nuance and note and everything that goes into a song and an album as a whole.. sigh...and double sigh

Whats with the Audioblog?

Have been trying to upload audio, and its just taking forever to upload. Then I get fed up and close the window and try again.

This has been happening from yesterday.

So whats happening?

And also decided the config for my laptop and this is how it is:

80GB Hard Drive
NVIDIA GeForce FX
Go5200 (64MB DDR)
WiFi Enabled
FireWire
Digital/analog audio
DVI & S-Video out
Dual link DVI
1 GB RAM
Bluetooth
DVD Writer

And the other thing that I am alo doing, is to get the entire collection of Amar Chitra Katha. I think Mr. Anant Pai, who started this movement, must be given a HUGE award. For instilling our culture into young minds.

For now the site offers only about 300 titles. The rest are not with them. I actually had about a 100, ten bound volumes of ten titles each, and as time went, I misplaced a couple and therest were flicked by God knows who. I have only 2 or maybe 3 volumes of that left. I guess it will be a long wait, to get all that they have ever published. So if there is anyone out there who has ACKs and doesnt want them, send it across to me :)