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Apparently there has been a sudden surge in the visitors and their comments to one of my earlier posts on ‘Chidamabara Ragasiyam’ series on Sun TV. Whatever I had written about 7 months ago still holds absolutely true (This is still the only one that we watch in Sun TV!) about this thriller series. Except for a couple of weeks, we haven’t missed a wednesday night. Its only getting better as the final episodes are beginning untie the knots of a ‘obsessed’ killer(s?).

Thanks to one of the visitors, kalaa, who pointed out to me that there is an online forum to discuss about the series and to catch up the story line if I happen to miss any. This is wonderful.

Chidambara Rahasiyam – TV Serial – Updates and Discussion.

One of the recent insider info post for the last episode reads…“when that guy tells somu that mahadevan and the other guy comes and they probably killed the boy. Somu thinks back to the incident where Mahadevan’s girlfriend’s dad dies. You know when Somu and the guy are eating, and he suddenly dies. Then Somu runs to the middle of the house, and the girl says “appa I am coming”. You should notice at htis point that the whole scene is B&W, but in teh back of teh house they show the violin in color. This was an indication that mahadevan was there. “. This is cool man, I wasn’t smart enough to catch that violin piece, I do remember wondering why Somu is thinking about something…

Infact, after spending a few minutes reading thru some of the observations, insider info and tit bits in the forum, I am simply more psyched to watch every episode even more closely and carefully! If you have been following the series at least for a few weeks now, you will know exactly what I am talking about…others, you better skip this post!

Perhaps, Nagaa should start thinking about a community portal for his productions and build a dedicated fan website. Though I don’t watch his other series, ‘Idhu Mattum Ragasiyam’, I hear from folks I know that its equally captivating.

One thing common between me and Batman is we both like the color
Black. Aptly so, that color rules every screen of the new and much
expected comic-book flick – “Batman Begins”. We made a crude decision
to sacrifice our weekday evening ( and my fav ‘Chidambara Ragasiyam’
in Sun TV, which I have only missed twice!) for an exploration of how
batman is beginning his saga. As the name implies, the movie focus is
more about how the boy by name, Bruce Wayne, the heir of the stinking
rich Wayne empire, became a dark knight ‘Batman’. Since I went in with
a bit of expectation on hi-end action, I had wait for almost an hour
or so until the real batman comes into life and action. Besides the
movie runs for a full Bollywood style two and half hours, so that
still left us with hour and half of true batman adventure in the city
of Gotham.

Christian Bale, who plays the black hero, lives up. Dressed up on the
Batman gear, he looked stunning and ferocious. He was just as normal
and handsome as he could be without the gear. The story is shot in the
comic-book city of Gotham, which you can imagine to resemble close to
Manhattan or Chicago. The action sequences were not that great as one
would expect from a 2005 movie but were good enough considering they
intentionally wanted to keep it as close to the comic-book reality as
possible. Batman’s car, also referred in the movie as, Tank, is
ridiculously cool. No model, mo make, no color, no mirrors, no wind
shields but does everything you can imagine in a mobile toy.

For a beginning, Batman makes a big splash and its worth a trip to
your local theater or better yet, watch it in IMAX. I don’t have to
tell you to scout the web (aka Google) for batman begins pictures or
at batmanbegins.com.

Tthe day has finally come, rather earlier than we were expecting. I got the official admission offer letter from NYU Sterntoday 🙂 I was holding my breath until I read the first word of the letter…’Congratulations!…’. I knew what was going to follow. Incidentally I was talking to Harini on the phone as I opened the letter and as soon as I read the first word I shouted to her “Huh! I got it!!!” She had no clue.

After all, I have been waiting for this day for the past 6 months for it has been a tough ride for the past six months to work on 2 GMATs, 2 gruelling application processes(NYU & Rutgers), 3 demanding essays, several recommendation letters, a whole lot of visits to the local bookstore and a delightful experience at the Indian consulate in manhattan to get my graduate certificates authenticated. I must also add the broken promise to not watch movies! But the fruits of the efforts have paid off and I am really excited to have come this far. It is a whole new beginning from now onwards but truly a significant turn in my life that I am hoping to make the best of it.

Quite a few people stood by me during the whole process for all of whom I send my heartfelt thanks and gratitude.

We saw Erin Brochovich yesterday. It is an old one though, but glad we had seen now rather than never. It is a compelling story of a real woman who literally betted her life and family for the sake of a californica community and chemical company’s villanism. Surprisingly, the movie is so wonderfully crafted ( directed ) that one would be surprised that such a story is still captivating and engaging. Not for a second we felt boring or taking a break. When I watched real Erin talk on the DVD’s Bonus section, it was a moving experience. The real Erin in fact shows up in the movie as a waitress serving Julia Roberts (Erin in the movie) and the kids dinner where real Erin finds it hard to believe a trivial experience from her life being casted to the details right infront of her eyes! Kudos to Julia, she excels. Another interesting DVD waiting at my living room : Run Lola Run (german).

The last two days has been HEAT days, brewing at 87F. Not wanting to waste the Sun, we wandered around the town of Chester for their Craft Show. All hand-made arts and crafts, beautiful and tempting. We escaped the temptation to fall into the American trap of ‘buying things that you absolutely don’t need!’. But life here is trying to escape out of these shopping nets anyway…everyday.

As I am sitting here on the 3rd floor of our house and it feels like all the heat in the house is rounding up next to me blowing at my face. I feel the stuffiness, but I have to admit we enjoy this lot more than the freezing sub-zero killers of Jan and Feb. Heard that its hitting 110s in parts of India and people are dying ( someone said Sunil Dutt himself was a victim of sun stroke!)…Lets pray for some mercy from the God of Light.

In this internet era, a good habit or not, I am yet to figure out, I don’t spend time online during the weekends. I know countries get erased but then I have grown to like staying away from computers at least two days a week.

This week was truly a long weekend with lots of activities and am glad we stayed home to do all that. Lots of drama in the world of basketball. A few seconds ago, Phoenix came back from being 3 down to keep the series alive. A splendid effort, especially the fourth quarter and the final minute. Yesterday, my alma mater team, detroit pistons played a pathetic game to lose two in a row only to expose their vulnerability. I have begun to doubt them; Reminds me of Indian cricket team.

Lots of physical activities around the house from cleaning up the garage to fixing up some of dying indoor plants. In that process I learnt about Miracle Gro and how it is supposed to do wonders to our indoor plants. Man, this country is indeed great. Think of anything, there is a solution, a tool, an expert and a local shop to deal with it. As I was wondering what I should do if I really find a problem with no solution out there, I realized that I should invent the solution, manufacture it, market it myself and become a millionare overnight after reading this intriguing article from the current issue of business20. [need subscription or use this newstand buyer access code B2JUN9420 and login as a new stand buyer with your email id and this code]

I swiftly read two books for free spending few hours this afternoon at our next door Borders store. I could speed-read “Blog : Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World” in an hour or so since most of what is being said was what I already knew. A few tit bits were worth it, otherwise, its NOT a book for someone who have read a blog before least not for someone already bloggin!. The other little book ‘The Present’ from the famous ‘Who moved my Cheese’ crew was a nice read though the essence of the book was worth 1/2 a page.

Live in the present. Now. Focus on what is happening now.
Learn from the past and let it go. Make the present more effective with lessons from the past.
Plan for the future. Act now so you can get what you want in future.
Live with a purpose which will connect your past to present to future.

The book runs less than 100 pages, I would not recommend buying it (unless you cant remember those four things) but an hour, a coffee, a quite bookstore, and a sunday afternoon would do it for anyone.

In between all this, I was able to wrap up my app for Rutgers with an essay on an ethical dilemma faced in life. I thoroughly enjoy this process of applying to business schools that I would honestly recommend any curious one to give it a honest shot, even if you are not really planning to do anything with it. It puts you into a retrospective mode to inspect your own life and goals that you wouldn’t, I certainly wouldn’t, do otherwise.

Came across Jikku Blog by Ammani in UK. Crisp but provoking. I wish I could write so succinctly without making my blogs as big as this one is!

“In the end, we are all the sum total of our actions. Character cannot be counterfeited, nor can it be put on and cast off as if it were a garment to meet the whim of the moment. Like the markings on wood which are ingrained in the very heart of the tree, character requires time and nurture for growth and development.

…day by day, we write our own destiny; for inexorably we become what we do. This, I believe, is the supreme logic and law of life. “ – Madame Chiang Kai-Shek

In retrospect, the above statement isn’t totally new. But the statement, “Character requires time and nurture for growth and development” means so much in so little words.

Think about it from another dimension.

Eat juicing oily food and lays chips, ice creams, drink gallons of caffenie & alchohol, gulp kilos of butter sweets every day; the end result is inevitable. Junk In; We will make a junk out of ourselves. Choose to eat carefully, we will make a healthy human out of ourselves.

The world is full of junk today. We breath, see, hear, talk, feel and fully live in more junk than ever before. It has come to a point where we are completely lost that it is virtually impossible to identify what is not a junk. If parents are in the state of plight, imagine children and their future. Without writing a story out of it : ( which a million others have already! ) :

Choose what you see, read and most importantly, how you understand and react to what you see & read.
Choose very carefully what you say & hear. Even before the rest of world listens to us, our subconscious is. Like it or not, we are giving hints to our subconscious mind about our future by our words and actions.
Choose how you spend your time and how you feel about those actions. Fly a kite, Take a swim in a lake, Walk up a hill, Talk about colors to a blind child, Write a peom and read it to none, Escape from the mechanics of the modern world….Laugh as much as you can and love yourself piously.

Just being yourself, being happy and being a human intself is an accompolishment. Anything else we might do beyond that is more needed for the rest of the world than ourselves.

[ – My interpretation of the inspirations I got from the audio-version of the book : “Seeds of Greatness” by Denis Waitley – which I highly recommend to everyone (Most libraries in US will have a audio copy). ]

Dr.Kulandaiswamy, writes a blatantly open op-ed in yesterday’s Hindu about the current state of affairs in India’s higher education system, specifically private colleges and the university affiliate system.

“…because universities alone have a continuous flow of young and fresh minds and an atmosphere highly conducive to talent and creative effort. “

Unfortunately, India’s colleges and universities are a far cry from this. The government, general public and the younger student community have the least awareness and understanding of how and why universities play a major role in ‘creation’ and ‘innovation’ aspects of a society. Isn’t that what our Indus valley ancestors envisioned? “The world’s first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.” Yet, as an unexpected cosequence of a copy-cat modernization, the value of higher education is lost in a few thousand years of transformations. Prof.Kandaswamy rightly points out that India’s university system sorely lacks the research backing, both in terms of the funds, skilled teachers as well as the professional and industry support.

However, I do believe there is an inordinate amount of talent in college-going youth of India. Given the right amount tutorship, mentoring and guidance, wonderful things can be achieved. One of my ambitions in life is to cater to this. I also know a lot of people who feel the same. I think it is time to get into some kind action and just do it. I need to remember, ‘Now, is the best time for a baby step’.

I know it not, but for us, this past weekend was. We still have tendon muscles all around my thighs and spinal cord sending painful singnals all over the body: We laboured to install ceramic tiles in our front porch. If you had told me last weekend that I would do this, I would have simply admired your sense of humour. Surprisingly, something in me ignited and here i am, talking about a do-it-yourself ceramic tile installation!

Harini resents how life would have been if we had been in India. But here in America, there is only two options -: find a do-it-yourself manual for literally anything: from delivering a baby at home to building a nuclear bomb! or engage obnoxiously priced contractors, again, for everything : to blow your leaves in fall to move your ass from the living room to dining!

And thats how we ripped off a 70 Square feet carpet and installed about 70 ceramic tiles. Let me tell you a secret : Go and pay a cheap damn contractors and get it done! unless, you crave for the honour of being I-can-do-anything homeowner.

If you had read my earlier posts, you might have guessed that we would have shown up at one of the Kadri’s live shows here in new york city. And we did and as expected, it was enthralling. We were there last evening, the second of the three nights in a row fusion Jazz-Carnatic Sax performance by Rudresh Mahanthapa and Kadri Gopalnath at the Asia Society on the east side of Manhattan. The troupe moves to Philedelphia on Sunday.

[We were told that cameras were strictly prohibited. We managed to escape from this felnoy!]

The performance is composed jointly by Rudresh and Kadri and they named it Svajanam-Kinsmen, aptly so, since Rudresh is an American Indian with roots somewhere in South India. Apparently, Rudresh is an ardent fan of Kadri and that it was his life’s dream to do a stage-show with Kadri. That said, Rudresh is no less a star, his latest CD, ‘Mother Tongue’ is being voted as ‘One of the top 10 Jazz CDs of 2004″ and I promptly grabbed one from the AsiaStore!

The theme was not necessarily a fusion performance, Rudresh made it clear before the start of the show. Kadri & co performed what they were good at, Classical Carnatic while Rudresh & co engulfed us with some alto Jazz. There were occasions when they performed some pieces from the other side but the innovation in the show was to have every person on stage perform a 1-1 sequence with every other performer on stage.

A.Kanyakumari on Violin was cool and ruthless and she showed no signs of strain or uncomfort even in the fastest of the notes. Rez Abbasi, another new york-based musician of Indian sub-continent origin, was equally good in electric guitar getting applause from Kadri himself on occasions. Elliot Humberto on drums was very isolated at the back of the stage, but took no time to capture the attention of audience with his expressions and body language. When his turn came to do a solo run, he made sure that we remember his name for few more months at least. Carlo deRosa on Acoustic Bass didn’t get a chance to show his talents but it felt that he was key to the whole music ambience in the hall. Gautam Sriram accomponied Kadri with Mridangam and had a real challenge from Elliot.

The King of the stage, Kadri, was flamboyant. I should say an equivalent of a master blaster. I can vouch that he had no notes infront of him but knew exactly every second of the music by heart. His body language was agile and passionate. He was perhaps saying to everyone that he was playing it more for himself than for our pleasure. He stole the audience on his very first piece. It was rightly chosen fast-pace, head-nodding, foot-tapping, adernaline-pumping one. Everytime he was done with his portion of music, he removed his mouth piece and retired his hands on the floor behind him and was relaxing. But what drove me nuts was, after a few minutes, he would pick up his mouth piece, clean it up, assemble it back into his garlanded Sax, tune it and then….he plays…it was absolute timing for his next piece in the sequence. I really went nuts after watching him do this almost everytime. Perhaps, this is how great musicians are. I was happy I had a glimpse of him playing live for all I knew of him was only from the CDs I have heard. Rudresh carried himself thru very elegantly, playing his Jazz pieces with a natural style of a african-american Jazz player. He ensured that he stands next and clearly watches Kadri make love with his sax for he must have wanted to do this so badly. But both Kadri and Rudresh appreciated each other frequently. The respect they had on each other was pretty evident whenever audience applauded Kadri would point to Rudresh. At the end of the show, after introducing everyone, Rudresh introduced Kadri, ‘Let me introduce to you all, The Emporer of the Stage, Kadri Gopalnath…’, the literally packed audience were already standing up for an ovation.

I thought for a second if I should go down to say hello to Kadri, I very well know another chance so close wouldn’t come soon. He was already swamped with fans and perhaps, other local friends and families that I figured it will be too late. We were as such very happy that we could make it and on top of that, the music was truly a joy to be part of.

If you are fan of music and fan of Kadri Gopalnath [ Check http://www.kadrigopalnath.com/], do listen to this wnyc interview of kadri before he goes live tonight in manhattan. A must listen. A genius he is, but really naive the way he speaks. Rudresh jumps in to help with American english and explain what kadri is saying in his south indianized adorable english.

[Kadri with Rudresh innovating for this weekend’s show. Src:AsiaSociety.org]

I was about switch away from WNYC FM when I thought I heard a familiar saxaphone scream. I was right. It was Kadri Gopalnath. It was nice to hear something totally different from the war in iraq and drug lords of columbia. Kadri is in new york city for the next few days for a world premiere performance at the Asia society with Rudresh Mahanthappa, who I read is a relatively popular american indian jazz pro. Kadri is also scheduled to air live on WNYC’s SoundCheck tomorrow at 2 PM EST. You can hear him chat live with John Schaefer on the web.

This show is part of a broader 3 month long Indian heritage and vision series at the Asia Society, New York City, co-sponsored by the obscure India Brand Equity Foundation.

We are in Akron, Ohio, a small deserted town 30 miles south of Cleveland, Ohio. Since this is our second three-day weekend trip in the last two months, atleast a few of my friends/colleagues have assumed that we are just travelling all the time!

We are here to celebrate the first birthday of Sruthi, my friend’s sweet little playful daughter.

The last time we were here we spent the nights playing board game, Risk. We enjoyed it so well that we made sure we play it this time as well. It wasn’t as much fun as last time ( there were more poeple lastime) but we still had a good time last night. This morning Ganesh took us to LaserQuest, a high-tech laser gun hunting indoor game. Though its an indoor activity for middle-aged kids, we enjoyed it very well. A lot of things specific to kids or teens is America is equally or more fascinating for us ( and I suppose for most of the first generation Indians) since we never grew up seeing/doing any of this.

On our way back, I couldn’t stop dragging Ganesh & Harini into a store when the sign outside read ‘Giant Book Sale’, ‘80% off’…who wouldn’t? They were distinterested, but i persisted. After a half-hour soul search for the books : ‘That I will buy, will try to read someday’, I got two good ones from the biography sections, ‘leadership’ by Guliani and ‘Yanni in words’ by Yanni. ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ by Mitch Albom is already on its way to our home from Amazon marketplace while I am right now in my second but much more revealing reading of ‘7 Habits of highly effective people’ by Stephen Covey.