Prez Kalam & Ilaiyaraja - Inspirations for the future

Wishes for everyone on a happy republic day.Thank GOD, I am not working in a Call centre or BPO where you are denied even national holidays!

A special note of thanks to Rajdeep Sardesai and his TV18 team for the program "All the president's Children". It was a program where Kalam our President interacted with children from various parts of India. And Kalam transformed himself into a doting grandfather and patiently answered all the questions, some of them dicey like how much of a politician he has become. There were some cute little kids from Assam who called up Kalam to say that they don't have computers or sports equipment.Asked as to whether he has been successful in his "Presidential Mission", Kalam answered that selling "India 20-20" was his mission and he has met with some success there and as far as the second part of his mission is concerned it was to meet children from all corners of this country and he felt verysatisfied at the success here too. There was so much positive feeling about the whole interview. The response of the children of India to this Prez also is something magical. In one word he has been a true "People's President". Comparisons are odious, however one cannot help but recollect Jawaharlal Nehru's refusal to visit the funeral of Babu Rajendra Prasad, a proud son of Bihar, trusted aide of Gandhiji and of course first president of the Republic of India. Truly Kalam is the first among politicians of today who has not alienated himself from his people after assuming office. Sometime back there was a discussion in forumhub about impact of Kalam and his real mission. I had pitched in for Kalam and said that his mission is not cinematic like reforming corrupt and power hungry Geriatrics of this country. His is the mission to meet the children of this country and "ignite" theirminds for "India - 2020". And his interview today confirmed my assessment. His idea to fight corruption was that the kids of India should ask their corrupt parents dificult questions. He also recalled fondly of his lab accidents and how his team stood by and innovated to achieve almost impossible solutions.Truly inspiring person and sad thing is that this might be his last term as "scholarly duties of teaching" are beckoning him and of course Sonia and Co, might have some servile sycophant or a self proclaimed secular leftee to be honoured with the seat of Presidency.

10-30 AM, JayaTV showcased a program called "IsaiGnaniyudan" where playback singers SPB, Karthik and Thipu and Actress Suhasini showered eloquent praises on Isaignani or Ilaiyaraja, the music director par excellence and legend. Of course it was nothing new for a fan of Ilaiyaraja like me. I am not going to bore you with details of the programme. However there is something I must share. In the afternoon, there was Raj DigitalPlus telecasting "Nayagan" one of my all time favourites. The best moments of the movie looked still fresh thanks to everlasting quality of Ilaiyaraja's music. That one theme for Velu Nayakkar(played brilliantly by Kamal) and his love and later his wife (played superbly by Saranya) is something that goes beyond just ears. I happened to later watch finishing segments of "Apollo 13"(by this time I know you must be getting jealous).Particularly the scene where Ed Harris feels relieved when the space craft carrying the three astronauts landed safely. Had there been Ilaiyaraaja as music director for that movie, I thought. Nayagan had a dozen themes like the one earlier mentioned and all of them are as fresh as they were heard first time in Abhirami theatre for me. Though many composers have come and gone since then, most of them have only stopped where my auditory nerves end while Ilaiyaraja's music still traverses through the secret path from there to the deepercorners of my heart.
I am waiting with my ears open, will some one send a note ?

Photo blogging pongal

Hi all !!
It was pongal last weekend. Pongal celebrated as "Pongal" in Tamizh Nadu and as Sankaranthi in rest of India. I had purchased a LG camera mobile exchanging the Panasonic A-200 and put it to good use this pongal. Actually my wife Vidhya put it to good use and took a lot of pictures in it, which I was able to transfer to my office desktop. I am posting those pictures below. The size is small , and I guess that cannot be helped as the resolution is just 65 K pixels and memory also being on the lower side. coming back to Pongal, it is a that time of the year when the farmers reap their harvest and pay obeisance to the all enlivening light of the Sun. The media coverage by CNN-IBN, a new news channel launched by Rajdeep Sardesai who recently quit the NDTV family was the best as he managed to squeeze in Sabarimala, Bangalore's Gavipuram temple, where Sun's rays unfailingly pass through the nandi(bull headed GOD, vehicle of Shiva) to hit the shiva lingam unfailingly only on Sankaranthi day of every year and the Ahmedabad Kite festival astutely. Great job Rajdeep!!
Now take a look at the pics... Pongal at Bangalore by Jaiganesh and Vidhyalakshmi....

Making Filter Coffee and 'Main Gandhi Ko Nahin Maaraa'

What has the one got to do with the other? Well, of course nothing. Anyways, its a blog and that gives me the freedom to relate them together. I was making my daily filter coffee every day and that set my thoughts on to my very first trysts with the south indian "filter coffee" and the very first times I saw a "Coffee Filter". As a kid in typical south indian families, initiation to the intoxicating and ethereal filter coffee is unavoidable. The taste of "filter coffee" is something that is different for different homes. However one thing that is constant is the effect of a filter coffee. It always woke me up (or should I say 'shook me up') from the stupor of the transient effect of a night's sleep.It was the ideal jump start for an active day in my childhood and any mishap with the milk or the coffee powder is bound to destroy the happiness of the day for all the family members alike.For all elders in the family, it still is the first medicine for headaches, stress and tension. At the core of any good filter coffee are... of course you guessed it right, an instrument called 'filter', the coffee powder and good milk preferably that of a buffalo. Among the three the most key ingredient is the powder and this is very every person who makes coffee fircely identify their "kai pakkuvam" as they say in thamizh, or hand taste, their unique flavour. Ultimately it is those supremely sweet smelling but hot and humid coffee stores in corners of every street in Chennai and Bangalore that hold the jugular of coffee connoisseurs. A switch from one shop to another is not only unimaginable, but also highly intolerable and an act that is just a whisker short of heresy. The filters used are no high tech gadgets as one tends to find in the premises of modern offices, but a utilitarian combination of two matching tumblers assembled one top of another with the top one having perculations for the coffee essence, a solute of the coffee powder in super heated water. Now the delicate physics and chemistry involved in coffee making cannot get any more complex with hot water playing a very crucial role. Ask anyone from chennai they will swear on the good rainy season in chennai also as the bad coffee season as the drinking water comes with a generous dose of chlorine. So much for the "filter coffee"... The art of making a good coffee is also such a good clearing exercise of mind and from my personal experience, I can say it rivals the tea making seen in Japan, process for process, move for move and totally experience for experience.

What can I say about the movie "Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Maara", which i guiltily watched in the local cable TV of Bangalore "in-Movies". I must say I badly missed watching it on a larger screen with no ads scrolling around in the bottom. Anupam Kher came up with a "Sethu" like performancefor a story which is so close to "Sethu". Easily it is one of the performances of the year. The beauty of the movie was the way it worked on many levels of my intellect without making an obvious statement that it has a clever screenplay, like those Quentin Tarentino's movies and its clone concepts used by Manirathnam. One example. Prof. Uttam Choudhary , an eminent hindi professor walks into a Chemistry class and starts a lecture only to realize that faux passe. The next scene one gets to see Prof.Chaudhary getting ready to go to he college and his daughter Trisha discouraging from doing so as he is retired. Prof. Choudhary refuses to beleive and says that he is only contemplating retirement due to the chemistry class faux passe. Trisha says that the chemistry class incident happened three years ago. An interesting way to tell the viewer the passage of time without adding a caption 'Three years later...". The movie will definitely remind one of "A Beautiful Mind" and 'Kudaikkul Mazhai'. However where it scores is the clever use of external events as sub-texts to pass a comment on the sad tale of an old man caught up in a cob-web of forgetfulness and turmoil of a childhood memory that emerges again due to the loss of memory associated with personality. I felt really bad on not having tuned into the channel earlier and also the feeling of letting the opportunity of viewing this movie in a theatre when I had the oportunity a few weeks earlier go. Special mention must be made about Urmila Matondkar's performance which unfortunately will be compared with that of Jenifer Connelly in "A Beautiful Mind" and to put it down for that reason will be an injustice.
Coming back to the first line, Making a good filter coffee and the process of viewing a beautiful movie like "Main Gandhiji ko Nahin Maara" definitely have a connection in that both these processes involve and engross.