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Queen Mary 2, She was indeed humongous, but strikingly beautiful. We were fortunate enough to see her this past weekend, twice when we drove past her when she resting in the docks and then last night when she departed to england, accompanied by Queen Elizabeth 2. We were even more lucky to have witnessed these two gorgeous queens paying tribute to Statue of Liberty, along-side each other, colored with fire works garlanded by newyork downtown night skyline. It was feast to our eyes and ears. Our first glimpse of a modern day titanic. Hard to believe how man could build such a huge machine and make it crawl like a baby. A memorable event.

Shame on me! Not once before I attempted to find out if there are any blogs in tamil written/read in tamil. Thanks to our friend Sathya, who took the pain to let us know some blogs in tamil. Its great that tamilians, wherever they may be, are not far behind. Here is a list for you, get ready to be touched.

There are good number of tamil websites and blogs with great content to keep you busy until you find the end of the internet.

NRISpot.com/tamil gives you an easy to way to browse through and track good tamil online content. They also have english, hindi, telugu, and other useful content for Indians.

Below, some of my picks:

This young lady is doing a great service to tamil and deserves a sure mention in the tamil onine world. I am sure you will agree after you spend a while reading her stuff. Isnt this what I should also be doing? even if it is a short step towards giving back to my native community.
http://meenaks.rediffblogs.com/

Whats in a name! No, This is the name that represents us, no matter how much our american life puts us far from this idly-vadai, this is really what we are!
http://idlyvadai.blogspot.com/

Just another blog, it gives me a flavor of writing in tamil. As I think about it, I feel like I have lost my real ability to write in tamil, thanks I could still read it. Shame on me again.
http://arunviews.blogspot.com/

An entire list, if you are not clean bowled yet!
http://tamilblogs.blogspot.com/

More than his writing, which are all very good, his tagline stuck me hard. It would have been just another tag line if said in english ‘saving my thoughts’, but read that in tamil ‘Sindhiththadhai Ellam Semiththu Vaikkiren’ on top corner on his site, its just honey to ears!
http://writerpara.blogspot.com/

A couple of ezines in tamil…

http://www.thinnai.com/

http://www.tamiloviam.com/

My closeness to tamil has largely become conversational only. I read very few tamil website or books, though thanks to deep longings, I bought a few tamil books when I was in toronto last year and religiously read them in full soon. So I think my reading hasnt been that bad, though I doubt if I can read as fast. My writing…I honestly dont know, its been almost a decade since i have written a line in tamil. Trust me, I feel everything but happy about this.

The world of blog continues to amaze me everyday. It appears like another revolution to me. Especially for countries like India, it can play a major role in free speech and open media. I am totally impressed with the number of people from India who religiously write their own blogs.

I was here today http://a4avaiz.blogdrive.com/ I think it is she, has a good blog, but even better are the art works, what she calls blogos! Would to be nice to see how and what she uses to creates them.

blogging, essentially writing our random unedited thoughts, is indeed a great way to let ourself out on digital world(would have said paper few years ago!). At the very least, it makes us think better, more and different the next time. For me, It gives me a sense of seeing myself through it. I make it a point to go back and read my old blogs often, atleast once a couple of months. I try hard to see if I have changed or improved, but it hardly is apparent to me.

True, what we use is less than 1 percentage of our brain, but I am just tired of information in this eWorld. Its exacerbated by the damn google tool bar inviting every word that I can think of, to fire a search into the eWorld. Hard to imagine what I would turn out to be if i process the google results with 100% of my brain! Sometimes I feel the pain, right on the core of the brain blob and sense the nerves pumping more blood, perhaps hoping there is way out of the head to get out and see who the heck is google blowing everyone’s brain!

I feel sorry for being addicted to google search. Its become a alternative to even ‘thinking’. Shame on me and google, It has actually made be more dumb and stupid than I used to be before eWorld was a simple world in pre-google era. Its like relativity theory, it out-lived its purpose and now starts to threaten the very world that it created. As it looks today, perhaps humans 100 years from now would have tiny google plugins affixed in back of their brain, doing auto-thinking and auto-searching for them. We might very well need another big-bang to erase this mistake!

Why should filing taxes be such a pain? I spent the entire day today trying to understand my w2s(wage sheets) and the different forms I have to fill out for each state. To add to that sorrow is my total wages represented in more than one state! (I bet the system is screwed up and nobody cares!)

we went out for a long walk along the shore line around the liberty state park. We havent been there before and realized how much we have been missing. A long scenic walking trail, bordering the meadow park, overlooking the statue, just infront of our doorsteps. We made an incidental exit off the highway and ended up here. I made the best of the oppurtunity and got into my roller skates, had a good time skating (and walking) for 2 hours. Harini spent another hour or so taking her first driving lessons from me. She was pretty good for her first day, driving in circles!

Its taxes day tomorrow! My last chance before april 15th deadline.

In these modern days, peace and solace for me is roaming around the web. And blogging has become a way of life. The more I read the more I want to write (pity that i dont!) and that drives me into more reading and viscious circle. Another Indian rambler on the web

His recent posting describes life exactly as It appears to me today. He says ‘Life gets tough. Life gets hard. You fail tests. Your heart breaks. You lose friends. You sprain your ankle. You oversleep’ but I agree with him, ‘Goddamnit, I love life’

I guess the spirit of blogging (writing these notes) has been at the lowest for the past 10 days. I was only doing two things after-work on weekdays, one: Prepare for GMAT, two: Worry about GMAT! It sounds ridiculous, but the more I read it, the more I feel I suck!

I was reading an article online yesterday that put two words at the very top of the list of things to concentrate on during GMAT preparation, it is “Don’t Worry”. Almost everyone who has taken it insists not to worry about low scores and unsolvable questions. I am feeling much better.

This past monday, we had been to Bombay Dreams, the broadway musical show, with music by world famous and our own AR Rahman. It was the very first show, a preview for the upcoming season. We were totally taken by surprise to see the turn out, when we reached the theater in Times Square. I didn’t think so many people cared about an Indian musical to show up on the first day. Even more interesting was, there weren’t too many Indians in the crowd. While standing in the line to collect the tickets, we overheard two guys behind us, talking in Tamil. They were talking about some guy who just left them to pick up ARR. They might have thought we wouldn’t know Tamil or ARR, but I knew both. Harini and I were just nodding at the each other as if we meant ‘Woh Woh! They know ARR’…I was already feeling like a celebrity(or may be they meant some dumb ass A. Raja Ramamurthy who was lost finding Times Square!). Inside, It was totally packed, at least from where I was sitting I couldn’t see any empty seats, though I wasn’t sure about the lower level. We were on the upper level, the cheapest of the seats, but even that was $60. The show was just resplendent(very much worth the low preview price). The cast, again surprising to me, was mostly American Indians(so called ABCDs, apologize if it hurts anyone) around New York area. I didnt know the performers would sing the songs on the stage in their voice. I was little skeptical at the beginning, trying to search for the “real” singers around the stage area, but I soon realized the people on stage were indeed singing, with the music played by the orchestra right in front of the stage. The Vocals were definitely not as good as the original singers in the movie, but were close enough and melodious indeed. The lead male and female cast, were apparently professional musicians, with a bunch of US stage performances to their credit. The guy is an expert Sax player trained with the famous Kadri Gopalnath and the young lady seems to be an accomplished pianist, both incidentally from pittsburgh, whose parents knew each other thru their visits to Indian Temple. In fact, All the actors did a wonderful job with flawless dialogues and singing. Sriram Ganesh, who played a half (male & female) was unbelievable. His body movements were close to natural(After the show I couldnt believe when I saw him walking out from the backstage in a slick jean and winter cap). Ayesha Dharker was outright sexy and gorgeous in those few scenes that she made a guest appearence. It was bit confusing as to who was actually Ayesha(and I was specifically confused as to who actually was gorgeous!) as another look-alike played the same character in rest of the scenes. The English accent was fittingly more Indian, perhaps not that difficult for a crew with Indian origin, but made some laughter come long after us. Rahman’s music added the cozy ambience to the sentiments in the story and couple of solo pathos, though sounded more like in Opera, drew roaring applause. It can be debated if Rahman’s music is truly Indian in its purest sense, but nobody but him could feed the newyorker’s music appetite with a collage of Indian rhythms with a subtle western touch. The song lyrics were, as in most of Rahman music, unrecognizable. Apparently for reasons I can only guess, the guy who wrote the English lyric for songs chose to stay off from ‘Chaiyya Chaiyya’ and the song was left with original Hindi script. Though the theme was the usual Indian movie story line, the screen play(or should I say sceneplay?) was well arranged and spiced with catch songs that it didnt feel like dragging at any point. The choreography was excellent more so because one of the two dance directors is Farah Khan. The crew (assembled just for this show) performed well in synchrony as if they were professional troupe from Bollywood. Two sardrajis surrounded with Indian percussion instruments were stationed on either side of the stage, with blue lights underneath them, to accompany the orchestra with real base effects. I was surprised their timing with the scenes were perfect, without the conductor, who was with the orchestra below the stage. The stage sets for all the scenes were breathtaking. The water fountain for the wet sari song(that was must i say!) just blew me away and Whoever it was, most likely a high profile new york stage designer, did an awesome job of blending the scenes from clumsy slum to the gorgeous Bombay night skyline. On one of the scenes, I was feeling bad that they spent a million dollars to recreate a typical Mumbai slum (I could write another blog on this thought!). The make-up and constuem design didnt grab my attention until the very last scene, when the marriage ceremony takes place. The main characters were in a fabulous, bright, colorful and traditional Indian attire just stood out catching everyone’s awe. The upclass new york audience enjoyed it thoroughly. An old African American lady in the front row was totally into it that she started dancing and screaming towards the last few songs. Harini who was sitting right behind her seat was happy noticing this lady’s excitement and totally ignored the fact that the lady was too big and blocking Harini’s view of the stage. In all, It was a perfect team work, as has always been in most broadway shows. Both of us were screaming at our highest pitch, with everyone else when the whole crew came on stage to give their salutations. Before the show, I was more excited about Rehman than the show itself, but I soon realized his music wasnt everything in the show. The show didnt miss any chance to compare New York City with Bombay, but its probably New York and Hollywood combined and much more. I came out feeling proud about everything from bombay to bollywoord to Indian music. It was an enjoyable evening and well worth the time.

Until next…

I haven’t written anything for almost a week now. I have started to spend serious time on preparing for GMAT. The math part is easier and thankfully I could recollect most of my memory, from the great school era, when I used to score a centum in virtually every math test (or feel terribly sorry for scoring one less). The verbal part, as I was suspecting all along, is truly testing my weakness. But I am determined to beat it over, atleast by learning the tricks. I doubt if I will have the patience to start on grammar now, though I think I should, I know I am not good. The crooked minds in ETS (which creates GMAT) have mastered the art of playing with our patience and ego through their worth-for-nothing-beyond-this-test questions. I am on the losing side so far on verbal sections, especially the Reading Comprehension, where almost all the time, after patiently reading the question, I feel like blowing up the writers brain!, but I am slowly learning to beat my emotions and the questions. So most of the weeknights and this weekend, is into prep work. I took a few minutes off one of those drill tests now.

We had a good time last night at my friend Suresh’s place, celeberating Sree’s(his daughter) first birthday. I will leave the detailed log to Harini. She is pretty good at it, in case you didnt know. Check out Harini’s Log

I showed up this morning in Greenwich Village to attend Stern Business School’s information sesion for fall admissions. Though I knew most of what they said, I was surprised to see the hall fill up with atleast 300+ prospective students. While its good to know that a lot of people are looking at Stern, It also makes me anxious for obvious reasons…I havent taken my GMAT yet, I havent written a single word for my essays(though I jogged down few great points and ideas this morning). I hope to make the best out of myself to pull this off, in the next few weeks.

If Harini finds a spot in FIT Designand myself in NYU, thats the best thing that could happen to us…though it will drain our wealth a LOT!. I have a feeling we will.

cant believe I end up writing so much out of literally nothing! not bad isnt it?

We live in a high raised (25 floors) building, Portside Towers, right on the south-west shores of the hudson river, overlooking the magnificient Manahattan Skyline. Our 9th floor apartment has gorgeous view of ‘Statue of Liberty’. If I try to measure the distance from our building to the statue, it would be less than 600 yards. The buillding is located on a corner with water on two sides. One of the sides also borders a huge parking lot for private yachts. Its a great view from our bedroom. In front of our building lies the Liberty State Park, a lush open greenery serving the joggers and kids. The view of downtown Manhattan, right on the edge of the park, is breathtaking. On a sunny morning, it feels like as if those buildings have come out rising from the water beneath. The wind is always little harsh around this place; we feel its true roar only when we try to open the windows a bit to let some fresh air.

Sudhar Harini Photos :: Our Home

Every day as I drive back home, I turn into warren street, greeted by the huge liberty statue, surprisingly huge and visibly close, right in the center of the street view ahead, between the buildings on either side of the street. As I drive closer to the water front leaving the other buildings behind, to my astonishment, the statue gets smaller and feels farther than I thought. It makes me wonder as to what kind of visual treat that would be.

This is the view from the window from where I am sitting now. Its really wonderful. On a sunny day, the yacht parking lot is empty and you can see them cruising into the hudson.

Yeah, It feels like my mind is empty when I sit and try to write a note. If I look away from the screen and gaze at the window and see the beautiful Liberty Harbour, a string of thoughts comes that says, lets write about the book iam reading now; lets describe my life after marriage; write about our life in USA; our vacation in new mexico; how it feels to live in new york city and the list continues…and I take a big breathe and stare back at the screen, the cursor eagerly waiting in the title box, waiting for me to type a title and i feel like everything is empty!

It was rightly named as ‘Writers Block’. I was happy when I read somewhere that even the greatest of writers encountered it often. That said, I also read that there should be nothing called a writer’s block for someone like me. Did I sit down to write the ‘Greatest novel ever written’…Damn no, Its just a daily note that means nothing to even myself, lest anyone else. So I guess, the fear that what i write isnt worth anything is a meaningless argument. Natalie Goldberg, in her book ‘Writing down the bones’ rightly said, If we try to filter our thoughts as right and wrong, we will be dead soon. Its just that we express it out only those things that we think may be right and just submit everything else. It is just impossible to only have good thoughts. It can only emerge for a cluster of good and bad and everything inbetween. It is the same for a good writing, it can only emerge from a pile of forbidden scribbles of every kind: good, bad, well-written, absurd, ridiculous, meaningless, thoughtful etc. Hence I am scribbling now, with a justification.

OK, enough of by blabber. Our weekend so far has been in-house. We didnt step outside the 700 Sq.fT land space even for a second. Harini with little fun, tied karadayan nombu kayaru last night. I was talking to appa yesterday and he was seriously asking me a question. He goes, ‘So, are you all celeberating karadayan nombu tomorrow?’ I thought, ‘What celeberate? Karadayan Nombu? here?…I exclaimed ‘Amam pa, we have a rally tomorrow in Times Square!’…Harin standing next to me bursted out laughing. Poor appa, didnt get me it so we evaded into something else. Harini also made delicious salted kozhukattai and sweet one too. I liked the salted one better so hijacked a few of them!

Oops! she is just reminding me that I promised to cook today! Its already little late for lunch…bye.

We uploaded some of the best works of harini. check out Harini Art Gallery. It has some cute soft toys and glass paintings. doggie, jumbo and dolphie…aren’t they adorable? Most of them are unfortunately were left back in India. We are in the process of collecting these pictures (thanks to her mom) to present her portfolio at FIT. There is quite a few that she generously gifted to friends that we missed to capture a digital shot.

The Jumbo is her hot new creation completed just about an hour ago and he looks as if he had done something fishy, begging for a hug.

Wait for more to come, this is just the beginning…