27 May 2010

A summer wedding in Kerala

I have never been to any of the cities in Kerala. It has always been the mountains, and once a while, a stop over or a transit in one of the cities, and that too in an odd hour.

So, when a colleague of mine invited me for his wedding to Vadakara, I jumped at the chance. I was warned by another colleague of mine, a native of calicut, that it is not the Kerala I have seen till now.

I was surprised. How different could it be from Madras ? Boy, I was proven wrong on all counts.

So, A Belgian friend of mine, Peter Van Geit (Yeah, the founder/whatever of Chennai Trekkers), another friend, and myself reached Vadakara on a nice Friday morning.

Here are some notes.

1. Cheap and tasty food.
2. Extremely hot and humid summers. When a true blue Madrasi says that, you better sit up and take notice. I then realized what my friend from calicut was trying to warn me about -- the extremely hot and searing heat and a humidity that puts Madras to shame. I actually like it when it is humid, it reduces the body heat and keeps your body cool. But, this one was quite above anything else I had expected to be. I then realized the magic of sea breeze that comes up here in Madras. At-least there is a nice breeze in the evenings if you move out to a terrace. In Vadakara, there were none. Absolutely none. We then realized that the dothi is the best attire in that kind of weather.
3. The people looked sad and glum all the time, no matter the town or village. Peter was quite depressed by that.
4. Extremely laid back and lazy folks. In fact, we were saying that the time never seems to move there. As another friend of mine put it, even the clocks seem to be lazy in this town and hence, the time never seems to move. ;-)
5. Terrorists as bus drivers. Boy, were they fast or what. In fact, the bus in which we were traveling in, collided head on with a maruthi swift carrying a family of five. It is to their good fortune that nothing untoward happened to those passengers. Needless to say, the bus driver ran away prompting Peter to remark that sometimes, the people there do not seem to be lazy !!
6. Drive-in beaches !! I have never seen anything like that before. People claimed that there is a drive in beach, where they drive their cars, motorbikes and everything else, on the beach. Crazies.
7. Crazy accent. The auto driver said polvo. I thought it is the name of a place. Turns out, it was Pearl View, the name of a hotel !

Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 9:17 PM 0 comments

24 May 2010

Another one



I heard this song on my way to work today morning on the radio. What an amazing voice modulation (gamakham) by S.P.Balasubramaniam. Check out when he says "Vanna vanna valavi pottu". Karaharapriya is what I think it is. The purists may correct me, of course.

Now, if this is not an amazing song by King Illayaraja, what else is ?

Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 12:21 PM 0 comments

19 May 2010

Miles Ahead

Speaking of people being miles ahead, can there be any other fitting example other than this song ?

Amazing backing vocals (S.Janaki ??), guitar and drum arrangement.




Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 12:30 PM 0 comments

No other better way

Can there be any better way to announce a return to regular blogging rhythm, other than a fantastic rhythm from King Illayaraja ?

What a rhythm, trumpet and beats.





Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 12:23 PM 0 comments

Mr.Karunanidhi, Chief Minister of TamilNadu, please stop being stupid

Mr.Karunanidhi, we all know your affinity for Tamil. We also know your absolute hatred towards anything North, i.e., Sanskrit, or even its derivative, Hindi.

You are also blowing your trumpet, or rather, your daughter is blowing her trumpet, organizing a comedy festival called Tamil conference.

All fine.

Why is it that the dates for the conference have been transliterated into சூன்(soon) instead of June ? Don't you know that there is an alternate tamil calendar ? Why couldn't you have picked up the equivalent date from that calendar ? Oh wait, is that calendar prescribed using the Sanskrit year calculations ?

Stop being silly and stupid.

Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 12:12 PM 2 comments

13 May 2010

Dhoni is correct

Amidst all the brouhaha about India's early round exit from the T-20 world cup, let us pause for a minute and think about it.

There is no doubt that this is deeply linked to IPL. Absolutely. When the first IPL was held, there were none of these late night parties, heavy endorsements and all that jazz.

Cut to this year's IPL, apart from playing the matches, the players have to appear for all the post match parties too. Note the use of the word "have". I am quite sure that no player would have had an option to rebel against it.

One agrees that at this level of competition, one needs to be physically fit and should be able to do as is demanded of him. The wise men amongst us would jump to the attack of the players, arguing that if you see the football league, it is equally taxing. But hey, even there, during the previous world cup, most players were unable to play well due to fatigue.

I think the BCCI should step in and first strip the IPL of all the glamor and glitz. It is after all a sport. It does not need extra glamor and jazz.

Match practice is good. But, one should also be careful not to kill the goose that lays golden eggs.

Shyam

Posted by Unknown at 8:55 AM 0 comments