Ghazal Maestro..

I managed to get almost the entire collection of Jagjit Singh's ghazals finally! Been listening to it since the last 3 weeks and I am so mesmerized by his music .. I have no words to put across. Had heard a few famous ghazals of his but never really listened to the whole set... now I'm an even bigger admirer of him. He is undoubtedly one of the most well known ghazal singers in the world today. Found these lines on some website while reading about him..

"His voice, a true gift of God, has the pain that an "Ashiq" feels after loosing his beloved, the love that a mother seeks for her child, the tranquility that a "Saaqi" delivers, the willing fear that a boy has when she walks in the room. There is absolutely no doubt that Jagjit Singh with his unique composing and singing style is the torchbearer of the survival of Ghazals in India."

The kind of intoxication that he gets in his voice (whatever may be the reason!) is AWESOME... it's mystical and it just takes me into a state of trance. A bad day.. quirky mood.. whatever be it.. listening to a couple of his ghazals just gets me back to feeling good... Well thats what music does... whatever kind it may be.. but this works wonders for me! Missed his live concert twice... once in b'lore and hyd.. Hoping that I get one more chance...

Few of his MUST HEAR songs...

• Tum itna jo muskurarahe ho... (Arth)
• Jhuki jhuki si nazar.. (Arth)
• Tumko dekha to yeh khayal aaya.. (Saath Saath)
• Hoshwalon ko khabar kya.. (Sarfarosh)
• Hoton se choolo tum.. (Prem Geet)
• Tera chehra kitna suhana hai..
• Koi fariyaad.. (Tum Bin)
• Badi Nazuk hai.. (Jogger's Park)

Sudoku...

This has been my latest craze ... picked up solving sudoku puzzles about 3-4 weeks back and have been hooked on to it since then. It's been a couple of years since I've been seeing people around me play this game... and I used to wonder why these ppl are so crazy about it.... and what pleasure they derive out of this ?! So finally I decided to give it a shot myself and now I know "why"! You just need to learn the tips'n tricks of the trade and trust me it's very addictive! I need a daily dose of it now :) I initially started solving it by taking prints and using pencil .... but now I play it online... I feel this is tougher than writing things down... needs a lot of concentration to keep mental notes.. but still.. its fun..... and of course a great exercise for the brain.. which usually doesnt get much out of my typical BA job :)

Here's a link that says "how to solve sudoku without thinking".. found this today while generally browsing.. didnt quite like this strategy.. as the whole point of thinking and solving is lost...

Chak diya!

This post has been lying in my draft for 2 days.. finally found time to finish it..

India-Pak T20 world cup finals on monday... what an awesome match it was! The fact that it was a match b/w India and Pak itself made it exciting... and that it was a world cup .. made it a bigger deal.. It's been one of the most electrifying matches i've seen lately. The match was running in favor of both the teams, till the last ball nearly.. Not very often do we get to see such matches; where you sit at the edge of your seat till the last ball/over is bowled... It was a great game.. and luck was defnitely on our side that day..and prayers of millions of Indians.... else for some of the glaring mistakes that we made.. like Sreeshanth's 2nd over of ~22 runs and a couple of more costly overs towards the end.. we would have almost lost the world cup! Joginder sharma's magic worked again.. he bowling the last over seemed to be like a lucky charm :) I was glad that Irfan Pathan was declared the man of the match... i think he really deserved it.. He being from a very small town, had so much dedication towards the game... the way he bowled in a controlled manner was awesome.. and few of those wickets were turning points in the match...

Towards the end of the match.. the camera was being focused more on Shahrukh khan who was present there to see the game, than on the game itself! Anyways, thats our country.. we crazy about bollywood .. we crazy about cricket! It's just amazing to see how the whole country celebrates the win... including myself.. like it is some joyous event of my life :) That's the kind of impact that cricket has on us! Thoroughly enjoyed watching every bit of it...

Chak de India!

Well, this time its not the movie but the Twenty 20 world cup that I am referring to. India-Australia semi finals yesterday - what an awesome match it was!! I had lost interest in cricket over the last few years.. but since I started watching this new young team play the series, I am back to the same old craze of getting glued to the TV so that I don't miss a single ball of the game.. After India won 2 consecutive matches, against England and South Africa, like everyone else, even I had thought that India cannot repeat their victory.. I was not wrong in thinking so.. coz thats the kind of reputation the team had built up... But yesterday's match really changed a lot of perceptions am sure!

I have never seen Indian players fight so hard till the last ball... in all aspects - batting, bowling and fielding. Even though the match seemed to have favored aussies at many points, these people just kept fighting and it finally paid off... I really admire the way Dhoni has performed as a captain especially... Even though J.Sharma gave away a lot of runs in his first couple of overs and proved to be very costly to the team... Dhoni still gave him a chance to bowl the last over... which was very crucial... Aussies could have easily managed the 22 runs in 6 balls.. it wasnt a big deal for them.. But sharma got a chance to prove himself and cover up for all the bad bowling he had done ...... he really managed to do it and lead india to victory. I don't have to say anything about Yuvraj... we all know he played classy and professional cricket... We need more batsmen like him, who can play so well under immense pressure and not just keep swinging their bats hoping to connect the ball...

Anyways, I am back to watching cricket all over again.. I guess we don't need tendulkar, ganguly and dravid till this new team continues to play with the same 'josh' :) It was a treat to watch the Indian's play and am really looking forward for the India-Pak finals. Doesn't matter who wins... it's not necessary that we have to win all the matches... 'coz thats not the only thing which proves the team's potential.. what matters more is that they fight till the end and play their best game....

article...

Here’s a nice article by Gurucharan Das about the education system in India. I felt that the example he has used to put his point across is very intriguing....

Link to the article

100th post...

This marks my 100th post since I created my blog! When I started writing, I had never thought I would continue to write for so long.. but am glad I did and hope to keep it more frequent in the future :)

I had a lot of things in mind to blog about, over the past 2 weeks but the lack of internet access at home kept me out of the blogging world. (Yeah, my office blocks even blogger sites!) Yet another instance which made me realize how dependent I have become, on technology..... Cell phone and internet - two things which I feel I cannot live without :)

I watched this movie 'Ratatouille' over the weekend. Felt good watching an animation movie after a long time. A fun movie, which keeps you entertained thru out. The movie is all about a rat named Remy which dreams of becoming a great chef despite being a "Rat" and also his family's disapproval. But fate does give him a chance... at one of the finest restaurants in Paris... and thats where the story is all about... Overall a very hilarious movie.. but I felt it could have been cut short by at least 20-30 mins.. the last bit seemed to be very dragging and I lost interest in the story at some point... It was the animation part that kept me hooked on till the end...

Another good part about the weekend was this english play that i watched at Rangashankara, called 'Flame of the Forest', directed by Gowri Ramanarayan. It was something totally different from all the plays that I had seen so far.... it was a combination of dance, music and drama. The carnatic music and bharatnatyam were the best part of the play.. it suited the context really well. The story is adapted from Kalki's immortal classic 'Sivakamiyin Shapatam' and set in the medieval period.. during the time of Pallavas and Chalukyas. One of the drawbacks according to me was the length of the play. I felt it could have been cut short by half an hour and it would still remain equally impactful. The story started off by focusing on 'Paranjyoti', the general in the Pallava army.. but only at the end I realized that it was all about the court dancer Sivakami, in Mahendra Pallava's kingdom, Kanchi. This was another confusing aspect. That apart, the acting was brilliant, well carried out by the dancer and the vocalist..

Overall a really good play and I would highly recommend it...

Blog Action Day!

"What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day? One issue. One day. Thousands of voices."

"On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future."

For more details visit http://blogactionday.org/

Got to know about this thru a few other blogger friends of mine. I found this to be pretty interesting! If you do too, go ahead and promote blog action day! 49 days to go :)

Mani Ratnam...Movies...

After some music and books, now it's time for movies.

Mani Ratnam needs no introduction... most of us will agree that he is one of the finest directors of indian cinema. I have been a great fan of Mani Ratnam and always had this desire to own the entire collection of his movies with me, especially the tamil movies. Now am glad that I have about 10 of them :) About 3 weeks back I watched these 2 tamil movies - "Mouna Ragam" and "Kannathil Muthamittal".... now I am an even bigger fan of his!

Mouna Ragam - means 'silent music' or 'silent symphony'. It can be regarded as one of his best movies ever - featuring Revathi, Mohan and Karthik.. all classy actors. Music by Illayaraja is brilliant. (for those who haven't heard...the title song of Cheeni Kum has the same music as that of the title song of Mouna Ragam.. ) The story is a simple one... which is probably told many times in lots of movies... about a woman is forced into an arranged marriage and lives with her husband in delhi... but is still in love with her boyfriend, a gangster who was shot dead in front of her at the registrar office on the day they were supposed to get married. The screenplay, direction and cinematography are AWESOME ... no wonder that it won a lot of awards. Supposedly this movie is also his first commercially success one. If you are a fan of south indian movies and mani ratnam especially, then this is a must watch..

Kannathil Muthamittal - means 'A peck on the cheek'. A recent movie featuring Madhavan, Nandita Das and Simran... again all classy actors.. I felt it's a very different story... deals with the emotions of an adopted child (i guess she is around 10 yrs) , who feels betrayed and goes in search of her biological mother. The story is set in the backdrop of the riots and militancy in SriLanka. The theme of the movie is very thought provoking.... There is no need for me to say anythign about the direction, cinematography etc... he won the "Swarna Kamal" award for this film, from the President APJ Abdul Kalam...

The best part is that each of his movies has a unique theme... and each one is different in its own way..... He is also known to extract best and natural performances from child actors... Shamili in Anjali and Keerthana in Kannathil Muthamittal both won National awards. It's also intersting to note that he has a kid in almost all of his movies... not necessarily as the main character...

His movies that I've seen so far and admired...

• Anjali (nominated to the Oscars..... always tops my list)
• Roja
• Alai Payuthe
• Bombay
• Uyirae (Dil Se in hindi)
• Kannathil Muthamittal
• Mouna Ragam
• Yuva (Aayitha Ezuthu)
• Guru

The ones in the pipeline.. that I am soon going to watch...

• Iruvar
• Agni Nakshatram
• Nayagan
• Pallavi Anupallavi (Kannada movie starring Anil kapoor)
• Thiruda Thiruda
• Dumm Dumm Dumm
• Geethanjali

I guess there is no movie of his that I may 'not like'... probably like it a little less than few of his others... truly a versatile and a brilliant director!!

My Feudal Lord....

.... a book that I read over the last few days. It brought in some sleepless nights and still leaves me a bit disturbed. This was the first time I read such a book, about women abuse and traumatic experiences... there were points where I just kept the book down and couldn't read further.. coz I felt so disgusted abt things described in it. Authored by Tehmina Durrani, a Pakistani woman, the book is a real life story about her life... her traumatic experience in her marriage with Ghulam Mustafa Khar, the former chief minister of Punjab and a famous pakistani politician during the time of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Mustafa was also known as the 'Lion-of-Punjab' and came from the Feudal background ..... There's also a lot of info on the political scenario in Pakistan between 1950-1980...

If you look at the book as a literary critic, then you will be quite disappointed... becoz Tehmina is not a writer by profession. The chapters are not well organized, and the paragraphs are quite unstructured. If I left a chapter unread and had to get back to it in the middle, then there was no way I wud remember the context of the story. Anyways... she says that her aim of writing the book was more to break the silence and let the world know about the male dominated pakistani society, the plight and misery of the women, where they had to constantly go thru a lot of mental and physical abuse.. ......and... expose the hypocrisy of the elite ruling class in pakistan...

What really surprised me was the fact that Tehmina always went back to her husband even after going thru all those violent abuses, sometimes nearing her to death. She reasons that this was becoz a female divorcee in the muslim society was treated with no respect... and her life wud have been made hell... But still, would someone go thru so much, just coz of the societal pressure?!?! Well, I guess even these days there are women who do not raise a concern when they are physically abused by their husbands, for the sole reason of protecting their marriage... I guess it is easier said than done.... But hats off to her that she did not give up till the end, and finally managed to get out of the living hell and got a divorce from her husband...

I admire her courage for writing this book 'coz am sure it wud have been a difficult task for her to have exposed all those big names in the political domain and the finer details of her personal life... The book, when released, received a lot of negative criticism ... She says she had to even go thru some investigations and trials in the court becoz of some info that she revealed in her book...

All in all... it's definitely worth a read... a heavy book.... might put u into lot of introspection and trigger some 'deep thinking' about various aspects of life... especially about personal relationships

Soulful music...

Last few posts of mine have been about music.... that's what I've been doing off late.. listening to more and more songs.. of different genres... and now I have one more to add to it.

I'm sure most of us would have heard of Kailash Kher, one of the most popular singers of sufi music.. of the "Allah ke bandhe" fame, who also features in the league of singers like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Rabbi Shergill. I just happened to listen to one of his songs, on TV, from his recent album and I was so touched by it. This made me download a lot of his songs and when I heard them I was just mesmerized by his voice. Ifelt, till now, I was really missing out on some good piece of music! His raw, high-pitched voice coupled with meaningful lyrics makes his songs so unique and literally "soulful". It's amazing to see the kind of energy and the vibes that are generated when u sing his songs... really wonderful!

If u haven't heard him yet, then here are some of the songs that u ought to hear..

• Teri deewani ... (his best song so far..)
• Allah ke bandhe..
• Chak de phatte..
• Piya re piya re..
• Kinna sona...

Old is gold...

I listened to Mohd.Rafi today after a long time... there seems to be some kind of a magic in his voice that makes me keep listening to his songs .. Sometimes they wud be on my playlist for months! Undoubtedly, Rafi and Kishore Kumar have a golden voice and are among the best singers that Bollywood has ever seen...

I wanted to pick 10 songs of Rafi that I love... but I found it extremely tough to shortlist just 10 ... everything seems to be so good. Anyways, here are my favorite top 10 Rafi songs...

1. Kaun hai jo sapno mein aaya ... (Jhuk gaya aasman)
2. Deewana hua baadal.. (Kashmir ki kali)
3. Gun guna rahe hai bhawrein.. (Aaradhana)
4. Khoya khoya chand... (Kala bazar)
5. Pukarta chala hu mein... ( Mere Sanam)
6. Aankhon hi aankhon mein... (CID)
7. Gulabi aankhein jo teri dekhi... (cant remember the movie name)
8. Tumse accha kaun hai.. (Jaanwar)
9. Teri bindiya re.. (Abhimaan)
10.O haseena... (Teesri manzil)

If u haven't heard any of these.. I suggest u listen to them ...... am sure u will see the magic that I am talking about :)

New look...

It's been a long time since I changed the look 'n feel of my blog... so thought of giving it a makeover...

Liked this new coffee cup template... for its simplicity....

Music that grows....

All of us wud have experienced at some point, the kind of music which when heard for the first time may not sound good, but it just grows on us as we keep listening to it. The music from the movie 'Life in a Metro' is one such good example. Here are the songs that I am talking about

• Alvida (the best song in the movie)
• Rishtey..
• Baatein kuch ankahee si...
• In dino..
• O meri jaan

The first time I heard these songs was when I watched the movie in the theater. I just found it to be very boring and all the songs seemed quite similarly composed. But I started listening to it about 2-3 weeks back and I've fallen in love with each and every song. It seems to create a magical effect on my mood everytime I listen to them, even today!

One unique thing is that the movie has "all male" singers. KK has done an awesome job again. The guitar work in "Alvida..." is superb... and I am falling short of words to appreciate the lyrics of this song apart from the lovely music..

Highly recommended, if u still haven't heard them... If u dont like them in the first shot, keep listening and u might start loving them, just like I did :)

DD Ads..

A couple of days back, me and my colleagues were discussing about how Ads/TV commercials aid in capturing the mind-space of the end users and also help in creating brand value. .. we talked about a lot of TV commercials that used to be featured on Doordarshan (that was the only TV channel at that time!) decades ago... but still they are so fresh in our memories... isn't it surprising to see how simple these Ads were (unlike the present ones where every other Ad has a celebrity to capture attention!) yet they have left a permanent mark in our minds!

Some of the Ads that we all could remember very vividly, along with the jingle/song :) A couple of them also send across a strong message in a subtle way...

Hamara Bajaj



Gold spot



Ek Anek (one of the cutest ad/commercial i have seen!)




Mile sur mera tumhara
(I have heard this a zillion times but yet I am not able to map all the lines to their corresponding languages!)

Etiquette(s)...

I just realized that my frequency of blogging has gone down drastically! When I used to be twice as busy at ISB, I could still find enough time to blog every other day and now it's just once a fortnight or so... unbelievable! I would say this is more of a lack of motivation than time... It's not that I am lazy, but most of the days I just dont have anything to write about. Life can get very monotonous once you start working.. It was different at ISB; there was something happening every day! Anyways, one of my colleagues sent this piece of msg yesterday and it got me thinking... very subtle and so true!

"In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia, until ultimately we become enslaved by it"

Coming to what I wanted to write today....

As we grow up all of us are taught some kind of personal etiquette or we just pick it up as we observe the people around us. We dont give this up once we become adults.. it remaines ingrained in us. Once we start working, we learn some professional etiquette too... Why am I saying all this? Well, I have been observing things at my work place for about 2 months now and I find a lot of it very weird and sometimes frustrating. First thing that surprises (and irritates) me is that people keep their cell phone ringers on full volume in office. With all the hi-fi phones these days, the ringtones are obviously some mp3 songs..and they keep ringing as if there is no end to it.. This is not it.. the phones are just left on the desk and people disappear.. so then u get to hear the whole damn song as long as the phone rings! many times the song just gets stuck in my head for 2-3 days! It's impossible for me to concentrate on something and I have to resort to wearing headphones.

Next comes the desk phones. There is no concept of going to a conference room to take meetings. People just switch on phones (speaker) on their desk for hours. So I get to hear the entire meeting's conversation (both sides) of which I am not a part of. If one person in the bay has a meeting then you can imagine the plight of the remaining 3 people! (disadvantage of not having personal cubicles). This is not it. Some people have their personal conversations on speaker phones!!!So I get to know who has a problem with his credit card bill, car servicing, water problems at home etc... ridiculous!!!! I just cant understand this.. why wud i want the whole world to know about my personal issues!!!!!!!

The story doesnt end here.. Even during meetings people dont put their phones on silent mode... irrespective of whether the manager, director or whosoever is present in the room. So every few mins u are bound to be distracted by different ringtones... and the worst part is that people dont cancel calls.. they pick it up and talk inside the meeting room.. without caring about stares that they get. Even the person running the meeting or giving the presentation answers a call.. so the rest of the people have to hold their train of thought till he finishes the conversation ...

I am sure we all see these problems everwhere..in movie theaters, plays, gatherings etc.. Even when specific instructions are given to "turn off the phone" people dont..I've really wondered Why?! for a long time and now I have just given up trying to find an answer to this.

I can go on and on about this. But the point is that no one can possibly do anything abt this when the company culture itself is the way it is. Someone like me who has been used to a different environmnet for 2-3 yrs may find it difficult and weird............ but I guess soon even I will get used to it!!!

What kind of intelligence do you have?

Came across this link somewhere ... It says my dominant intelligence is "Interpersonal".. Well, though a lot of what it says may not be true...it was fun to try this out :) Click on the link below to access the site...

Your Dominant Intelligence is Interpersonal Intelligence

You shine in your ability to realate to and understand others. Good at seeing others' points of view, you get how people think and feel. You have an uncanny ability to sense true feelings, intentions, and motivations. A natural born leader, you are great at teaching and mediating conflict. You would make a good counselor, salesperson, politician, or business person.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Does it make sense?!

I have been pondering over this for over a month now, since I joined this new organization. Like a lot of other organizations that I know of, even the company that I work for, restricts the use of internet at office. This means, we employees get to access only the "useful" websites such as google search, wikipedia and a few other news related sites. Even webmails like gmail, yahoo etc are restricted... need I say anything about orkut and instant messengers??!! Thats a definite NO NO! I cant even get to watch the stock market coz the site is blocked, theres no way I can do any tradings, I cant get to book movie tickets online, pay my bills or view a lot of photopages like flickr....and the list goes on. Downloads are restricted too... even attachments from emails are filtered to a great extent.......... If you need access to some websites for project reasons, you need PM's approval and you get access only for that duration of the project..... (???!!!!)

The first couple of days this really shocked me. I felt like I was pushed into a place where I lost contact with the world... I might be exaggerating here, but for a person like me, coming from Intel (where there was absolutely no restriction on surfing the net except for a few sites blocked due to security reasons and code of conduct), this was a big deal. When I enquired around, my colleagues said that surfing is restricted mainly to increase employee productivity.... coz this ensures that people dont spend most of their time chatting or surfing non-work-related-info!! .... Whaaaaat!!!!!!! that was my immediate reaction..... Does this mean people are not productive at Intel?!!

I wonder... Does this really work? Does it make ANY sense? I dont think so. I understand the blocking of sites which stream music, coz that can possibly eat on the bandwidth and reduce the speed.... but blocking every other site????? I dont get it! Anyways, rules are meant to be broken....I see every other person (including me) trying to figure out some proxy in order to get those websites working and login to gtalk/yahoo etc... and each time we figure out something, in a couple of weeks that will be blocked too.. so the search continues!! Well.... according to me, this is eating away more precious work-time of ours. If I had access to everything, I think I would have been more productive and not have wasted my time in all this nonsense!!!!!! People spend at least 8-10hrs a day at office and it's ridiculous to expect that everyone devotes all of this time only to work and nothing else... we need breaks.. we need some fun... some distractions... so that we can keep coming back to handle the stressful work! Most of us at office feel the same, but I just dont see a solution to it........ Why don't companies understand this... I really wonder.....

After a long break....

I am back to blogging after a long break! Off late lotsa people have asked me why I stopped blogging. Well... there has been no particular reason. My new job had kept me occupied enough in addition to a whole lot of other things happening in life.... and now I am back! :)

One thing I would definitely want to write about is my new 30gb video iPod ! When I was planning on buying this, lots of friends suggested that I go for other brands like Creative, which comes with the same set of features or more, for a lower price. I was almost convinced till someone said that iPod is one of its kind - you cant get the look and feel of it with anything else and now I am glad I bought it! Some of the good and bad things about it.. according to me..

Positives - It has an amazing sleek design (you'll feel great operating it!), good battery life, bright screen with great clarity, lots of accessories that can be bought , and overall truly value for money.

Negatives - No FM radio, recording, wireless, a different USB cable (cant use the generic cables used to connect other USB devices), very specific video formats (converting is a pain) and the screen, though clear, is too smalll to make movie viewing a good experience.

Chronic chaos..

I guess there can't be better words than this to describe the current bangalore traffic state! This is probably the first time that I have been driving down to work every single day and have been able to experience what bangalore traffic is - at the peak hour or otherwise!! Frustration, exhaustion, a lot of abusing, anger, ear deafening honking and raising adrenalin levels...one hell of an experience in the last 10 days! Not to forget the state of many roads, driving on which can most likely injure one or more of your body parts!

Whether we like it or not... the chaotic, disorganized traffic in this city has ruined most of our social lives. I leave home much earlier than required just to avoid the nuisance...and leave office much later- again to beat the peak hour traffic... with hardly any time left to do other things! People alter work hours to beat the crazy traffic...shift residence to shorten the commute time...go to a restaurant somewhere unplanned coz you may not find that parking space at your favorite joint...well I guess everything in this city is getting planned based on the traffic!

A new phase...

It's been a week for today since I joined work... a new phase that began with a lot of mixed feelings! I hated it the first few days (I love my new role though!). It sure is a drastic change from a product to a services company. Now I understand why people are usually apprehensive in taking this leap. Though I had read and discussed many times with friends as to how a company's culture can influence our work, I hadn't experienced it until last week when I joined this new organization. Gosh! I must say it does have a lot of impact... on employee morale :-) I'm not saying this one is bad but its different... VERY different and I guess my benchmark was of a high standard :-) I can for sure say now that Intel's culture is one among the best... especially with the kind of openness that it offeres between an employee and his/her manager and the flexibilty to achieve work life balance. Wish to go back there sometime again!!