Anger is a feeling, an expression. It has become a very common expression I can say. Lot of factors contributing to this could be – loneliness, frustration about not getting something you desired, ego, irritation, desire to please others but not being successful, low trust factor, low confidence, insecurities, all these things are very common in today’s life. Some people feel very proud to tell that they have a very bad temper and some men especially find it very manly to be hotheaded.
Lot of people including myself are moving towards spirituality, trying to get rid of stress and anger. I have a friend in the U.S and she says that every night she sleeps listening to some philosophical talks of a Swamiji and it helps her get a sound sleep. Another friend uses blogs to let free her stress. Each one is desperately finding ways to let out their inner self coz they don’t have anybody to listen to them.
Life is always hectic for most of us and the Rat Race syndrome has got on to us. As a child and even till today, one thing that shakes me is when someone expresses anger or raises voice. Being brought up in a very calm atmosphere, disturbances did not have much scope and were very few. And today if I look at myself, I am listening / facing these nuances almost everyday. Why? Is God making up for all these days? I really wonder. Sometimes I don’t know how to handle this, how to react to this, and I feel numb. Does this happen to you as well? I am not requesting for an Anger Management talk here, but just want to know if this is as common as what I am assuming it to be?
Handling temper is very important. Not many people realize that every action has an impact. If one does several good things but has a very bad temper, all the good things take a second stand and only the bad things stay afresh and take time to heal. If one does not know how to have self control over his/her own actions, then what have you achieved in life? There are ways to control anger, self-introspection, good hobbies, music especially to relax your soul, good disciplined routine, etc.
It is not good to be too impulsive and express anger always. We need to think before reacting coz there are people who may depend on us or who look up to us. Feeling more responsible and aware of our own self will help to make us mature I guess.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Your time starts NOW!
Here's a quiz. These are some of my favorite romantic one liners from some of my favorite tamil movies. If you can guess the movie names, hats off to you :)
Start!
- A genuine movie buff ^_^
Start!
- Kaiyaale aditcha adi valikkile, nee kannaale aditcha adi valikkidhu di
- What are you doing to me maaya? (easy one? :))
- Indha nimishathilendhu nee yennoda sotthu
- Nooru jenma yen kooda, podhuma?
- Nee azhagha irkuren nu nenakkile, aana yedho aayida poghuthu nu bayamma irku
- A genuine movie buff ^_^
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Deciphering Janani Ninnuvina
Janani Ninnuvina is a famous beautiful madhyama kaala keerthane in Reethigowla raga, Mishra Chaapu taala, composed by Sri Subbaraya Shastri.
The first time I heard MSS sing this; I fell flat on the ground. What a beautiful krithi and what a voice!
I wanted to sing this one too. All I had is the windows media file. I needed the script. I did not want to look at the English versions available on the internet. I wanted to do this on my own in my mother tongue. :)
So I first listened to the song several times to check if I can do this. Since I have never learnt a krithi this way, meaning, I normally learn from a teacher and only film songs/light music and some devaranamas through tapes or any media, this was my first experience with respect to a full fledged krithi coming from MS Amma. Normally I copy krithis from my music teachers’ book and all I have to do is just plain copy every note and sing it correctly. But now I had to do everything my own!
Thanks to Adiya for giving me the mp3.
Here it started.
First I thought, I know reethigowla and this should not be tough. Then I turned on the song in my ipod, opened my book and started penning down the saahithya in my mother tongue. I just realized that learning this way was equally exciting, though I missed my Meera aunty. Then after a few lines I realized I should mark the taala also now! And to top it all, it was Mishra Chaapu! Though I have learnt a madhyama kaala krithis in Mishra Chaapu (Maamava Pattabhirama(Manirangu), Kamakshi (Bhairavi)), when I started marking the taalas for this on my own, I realized how tough it was! Every note fell out of one complete cycle and I had to do it very carefully. I would’ve listened to each line 20 times to get the taala markings right! Phew that was one helluva job!
I sailed through Pallavi and Anupallavi.
Now came the chitteswara. I was in a maze now. Almost felt like Abhimanyu caught in Chakravyooha, unable to escape! How do I decipher this now, the taala went haywire when I sang the swaras and the swaras went haywire when I put the taala! I just knocked my head and realized that all I had to do is, split the beats into Thriputa taala pattern what we learnt in Alankaarams! Wow! I felt like a hacker hacking some password! So I wrote down the swaras in Thriputa taala style and it exactly fitted the bill! Wow! I wrote the charanam with ease after this and here I was! Ready with my dream script!
I am now learning the song part by part, directly from MS Amma! Let me tell you one superb advantage of learning this way (from ipod) – you can rewind and repeat the lines as many a times as you want till you get it right! Can you do this with your music teacher? Never right?
Take advantage of technology and do learn music. Never give up. :)
The first time I heard MSS sing this; I fell flat on the ground. What a beautiful krithi and what a voice!
I wanted to sing this one too. All I had is the windows media file. I needed the script. I did not want to look at the English versions available on the internet. I wanted to do this on my own in my mother tongue. :)
So I first listened to the song several times to check if I can do this. Since I have never learnt a krithi this way, meaning, I normally learn from a teacher and only film songs/light music and some devaranamas through tapes or any media, this was my first experience with respect to a full fledged krithi coming from MS Amma. Normally I copy krithis from my music teachers’ book and all I have to do is just plain copy every note and sing it correctly. But now I had to do everything my own!
Thanks to Adiya for giving me the mp3.
Here it started.
First I thought, I know reethigowla and this should not be tough. Then I turned on the song in my ipod, opened my book and started penning down the saahithya in my mother tongue. I just realized that learning this way was equally exciting, though I missed my Meera aunty. Then after a few lines I realized I should mark the taala also now! And to top it all, it was Mishra Chaapu! Though I have learnt a madhyama kaala krithis in Mishra Chaapu (Maamava Pattabhirama(Manirangu), Kamakshi (Bhairavi)), when I started marking the taalas for this on my own, I realized how tough it was! Every note fell out of one complete cycle and I had to do it very carefully. I would’ve listened to each line 20 times to get the taala markings right! Phew that was one helluva job!
I sailed through Pallavi and Anupallavi.
Now came the chitteswara. I was in a maze now. Almost felt like Abhimanyu caught in Chakravyooha, unable to escape! How do I decipher this now, the taala went haywire when I sang the swaras and the swaras went haywire when I put the taala! I just knocked my head and realized that all I had to do is, split the beats into Thriputa taala pattern what we learnt in Alankaarams! Wow! I felt like a hacker hacking some password! So I wrote down the swaras in Thriputa taala style and it exactly fitted the bill! Wow! I wrote the charanam with ease after this and here I was! Ready with my dream script!
I am now learning the song part by part, directly from MS Amma! Let me tell you one superb advantage of learning this way (from ipod) – you can rewind and repeat the lines as many a times as you want till you get it right! Can you do this with your music teacher? Never right?
Take advantage of technology and do learn music. Never give up. :)
Flat culture
Whenever I think back about my childhood and my grandparents house and summer vacations in their house, I remember lush green plants, trees, awesome fresh environment, muddy floor outside the house cleaned with cow’s dung and fresh rangoli, a cow shed with lots of cattle inside, walk a few steps from the house, we see beautiful amazing huge green paddy fields, we would walk through the plants, purposely walk on wet muddy puddles, play in the fields, wash our feet in the clean kutti streams that ran through the fields and it used to be so awesome and so close to nature.
Today most of us are adapting to the environment, hectic life, lifestyle, hi-tech science, and what not and if not all, most of us are ending up living in flats/apartments. We hardly have any greenery in our houses and the only green we can boast of would be some few pots that we have planted – just to give us a natural feeling of being close to nature. If at all we have some greenery or trees around the flat, then that can be considered as a blessing or boon these days. I sometimes wonder when we have kids and grand kids, what kind of memories will we be able to give them? Of our congested flats that look like mere match boxes, the congested roads the minute we step out of the house, the few green plants in our houses which may or may not have survived till then and what about the place to play? On the cemented ground / artificial man made commercial parks? Ofcourse practically speaking, everything has its own reasons of growing population, survival of the fittest context.
Sometimes I pity the upcoming generations, they will definitely miss a lot of things in life what we saw and would want to give them. But how far can we succeed in this? Is the Flat culture really creating a FLAT culture? I wonder…
Today most of us are adapting to the environment, hectic life, lifestyle, hi-tech science, and what not and if not all, most of us are ending up living in flats/apartments. We hardly have any greenery in our houses and the only green we can boast of would be some few pots that we have planted – just to give us a natural feeling of being close to nature. If at all we have some greenery or trees around the flat, then that can be considered as a blessing or boon these days. I sometimes wonder when we have kids and grand kids, what kind of memories will we be able to give them? Of our congested flats that look like mere match boxes, the congested roads the minute we step out of the house, the few green plants in our houses which may or may not have survived till then and what about the place to play? On the cemented ground / artificial man made commercial parks? Ofcourse practically speaking, everything has its own reasons of growing population, survival of the fittest context.
Sometimes I pity the upcoming generations, they will definitely miss a lot of things in life what we saw and would want to give them. But how far can we succeed in this? Is the Flat culture really creating a FLAT culture? I wonder…
Monday, April 16, 2007
What turns me on?
The three notes sa pa sa' that emerge like magic when I run my fingers on the strings of the thamboori.
What does it do?
Allows me to identify my inner self instantly, imbibes seriousness and devotion (bhakthi) towards an unknown power, calms me down immediately, makes me think, makes me feel positive, works like magic on me!
I am sure it happens to a lot of people who know music and who respect and love music. The power of music is amazing.
Thanks to my Amma for all her efforts and patience to identify my interest at an early age and giving me the love of my life, thanks to Meera aunty for her belief in me that I could sing, and all her support so far which I know for sure no other music teacher would have had putting up with all my tantrums, thanks to Paramasivam sir for those encouraging words when I used to learn from him, and thanks to Memoirs for re-loading the magic on me and for tolerating me always.
I hope I never let these people down ever.
What does it do?
Allows me to identify my inner self instantly, imbibes seriousness and devotion (bhakthi) towards an unknown power, calms me down immediately, makes me think, makes me feel positive, works like magic on me!
I am sure it happens to a lot of people who know music and who respect and love music. The power of music is amazing.
Thanks to my Amma for all her efforts and patience to identify my interest at an early age and giving me the love of my life, thanks to Meera aunty for her belief in me that I could sing, and all her support so far which I know for sure no other music teacher would have had putting up with all my tantrums, thanks to Paramasivam sir for those encouraging words when I used to learn from him, and thanks to Memoirs for re-loading the magic on me and for tolerating me always.
I hope I never let these people down ever.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
My career and how did it start?
No not actually in the IT industry after my graduation. It started way back after I completed my standard 11. I was on holidays then and suddenly I got a call from my school teacher, Miss Rani. She needed help. She had to go on an urgent vacation and hence wanted me to supervise class 10 kids in their Final Exams. I openly agreed and I was excited! It was a week’s job, morning 9 – 4 PM. It was a great experience to be back in school and meet all my teachers again and share some good memories of school days. My Subbu Sir (Maths cum Class Teacher in High School) was so glad to see me back and also told fellow teachers that I had scored 100 in Maths in 10th. I used to be a strict teacher and move around, it was fun to see students and bully them. But trust me being a teacher is a very responsible job. It is not easy. To tell you the truth, I love it.
Then after Miss Rani got back, she called me up and asked me to meet her. I said okay. When I met her, she asked me if I enjoyed the experience, I said, yes very much. She offered me Rs.500. I refused, but she said, this is for your work. I had to accept. That’s my first salary. The most memorable one. Felt great that time.
Then after that, I finished my graduation and was loitering around, taking up GRE and TOEFL. Those days I was so jobless. And one fine day I met a friend who offered me a job again as a teacher for NIE – Newspaper In Education, a programme run by Times Of India wherein teachers (usually trained ones) conduct various workshops for school children and visit different schools. She told me that I had to take up Math Workshop and they would pay me Rs.250 per class, for 50 minutes and I may have 4 to 6 classes per week in different schools. But traveling was at my cost. I again agreed instantly and took some tips on how to plan. I surfed the internet to analyze the maths level of middle school kids, 5th – 7th standard and prepared math puzzles on charts – using K.G. Cardboard and Sketch Pens. I used lot of drawings since that attracts kids and I used to carry them to those schools. It used to be so much fun. Initial one or two classes I was little scared since I did not know how kids can cross question. Some classes used to be so noisy to handle. But I did manage to get their attention. Once I got used to their questioning it was fun. Kids are brilliant these days and they ask very good questions and teaching helps you learn so much. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I made around 1000 rupees per week then, worked for around 3 months and dragged another friend from college into this. He took Vedic Mathematics workshops. He also got addicted to this, not because of money but because of the good experience with children. We would share a lot of incidents and it was so much fun. The funniest was when kids ask you for autograph in the end of the class.
Sometimes I still wonder if I should take up teaching as a profession. In my music classes also I used to love teaching and writing notes for kids. Probably comes more naturally for girls. But the kind of satisfaction you get is different and nice. May be one day when I get really fed up with this IT industry I will switch to teaching.
Then after Miss Rani got back, she called me up and asked me to meet her. I said okay. When I met her, she asked me if I enjoyed the experience, I said, yes very much. She offered me Rs.500. I refused, but she said, this is for your work. I had to accept. That’s my first salary. The most memorable one. Felt great that time.
Then after that, I finished my graduation and was loitering around, taking up GRE and TOEFL. Those days I was so jobless. And one fine day I met a friend who offered me a job again as a teacher for NIE – Newspaper In Education, a programme run by Times Of India wherein teachers (usually trained ones) conduct various workshops for school children and visit different schools. She told me that I had to take up Math Workshop and they would pay me Rs.250 per class, for 50 minutes and I may have 4 to 6 classes per week in different schools. But traveling was at my cost. I again agreed instantly and took some tips on how to plan. I surfed the internet to analyze the maths level of middle school kids, 5th – 7th standard and prepared math puzzles on charts – using K.G. Cardboard and Sketch Pens. I used lot of drawings since that attracts kids and I used to carry them to those schools. It used to be so much fun. Initial one or two classes I was little scared since I did not know how kids can cross question. Some classes used to be so noisy to handle. But I did manage to get their attention. Once I got used to their questioning it was fun. Kids are brilliant these days and they ask very good questions and teaching helps you learn so much. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I made around 1000 rupees per week then, worked for around 3 months and dragged another friend from college into this. He took Vedic Mathematics workshops. He also got addicted to this, not because of money but because of the good experience with children. We would share a lot of incidents and it was so much fun. The funniest was when kids ask you for autograph in the end of the class.
Sometimes I still wonder if I should take up teaching as a profession. In my music classes also I used to love teaching and writing notes for kids. Probably comes more naturally for girls. But the kind of satisfaction you get is different and nice. May be one day when I get really fed up with this IT industry I will switch to teaching.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Handsome cops, perfect packages
They are strong, they are powerful, they are sensitive, they beat up all the bad guys who trouble girls, they have style, suave, they say the right things at the right time, they are just so perfect, and to top it all so good looking that you forget the fact that they are cops and start fantasising like your ever wanted super heroes.
Their characters are so well packaged with all expected qualities we look for in men, that we literally fall in love with them! why do directors do this? :(
I am taking about Surya - in Kaaka kaaka and Vikram in Saami. Hehehe!
Their characters are so well packaged with all expected qualities we look for in men, that we literally fall in love with them! why do directors do this? :(
I am taking about Surya - in Kaaka kaaka and Vikram in Saami. Hehehe!
Monday, April 09, 2007
Read this somewhere
Some lessons we learn only through pain and failure. It's likely
that as a child your parents told you not to touch a hot stove.
But you probably learned by being burned. Sometimes we only learn
the value of something... health, money, a relationship. .. by
losing it.
But why? :(
No one knows.
Accept and move on...
that as a child your parents told you not to touch a hot stove.
But you probably learned by being burned. Sometimes we only learn
the value of something... health, money, a relationship. .. by
losing it.
But why? :(
No one knows.
Accept and move on...
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Cooking with MSS
Last night I did a wonderful thing (which I realized after doing :)) - turning on MSS melodies on my ipod while cooking! As the krithis proceded one after the other, I felt so ecstatic and I cooked with complete energy, passion, like as if I was high on music. Cooking never felt so good - as much as listening to krithis - identifying raagas in between - adding chilli powder to the dish - linking similar ragas - forming swara combinations - singing loudly - probably even cooking loudly since I could not hear the sounds of the vessels or plates or anything except MSS's voice - imitating some aavarthas - imagining MSS's dedication - adding salt to the dish - tasting the dish - evoking Rama in between - was fantastic! Try it.
To quote once again - there's no life without music. There's so much to hear!
To quote once again - there's no life without music. There's so much to hear!
Love Birds in my house
My little kitchen has an opening for exhaust fan, yet to be installed :) However, it is currently the lovers joint for two pigeons that always sit there together. Initially I loved watching them. Although at times I used to find all the jars fallen on the shelf coz of these love birds flying in and out of kitchen, I thought its okay...But guess what! Yesterday I went back home after work and at the door itself while entering the house, I could hear water flowing out from a tap. I rushed inside thinking that there's something bad that has happened. I ran inside and saw that the kitchen tap was open and water was flowing out nonstop. The water filter was tilted on it, probably that was due to wind I thought. While I closed the tap and as usual trying to keep the jars in place (assuming that the love birds would have come in again), suddenly something popped from behind that jars and just flew past my head! I screamed in horror like as if some murderer came to attack me! I was so petrified and numb for a few minutes, my eyes filled with tears not knowing what to do I just stood there to see that one pigeon that was sitting inside the kitchen just flew out. I cooled down a bit and I was so angry at them.
I slowly got back to arranging the jars while I found something white behind a masala dabba, guess what, it was an EGG!!! A pigeon's EGG!!! I was astonished! I was happy. The birds kept looking inside the kitchen from the exhaust outlet like as if they were so helpless. I felt so much for the mother pigeon and then I thought let me wait and see what they will do. I just turned off the light and quietly stood behind the wall and watched. Slowly the mother pigeon entered the kitchen and tried to move the egg, while the father pigeon kept a watch at the door. Its amazing to see the behaviour of birds, so human like. Then the pigeon could not carry the egg and it still lies in the kitchen. They waited at the exhaust till it became dawn and flew away. I have left the kitchen open so they can take away the egg today and will close the outlet in the evening.
That's the story of love birds in my kitchen!!! :)
I slowly got back to arranging the jars while I found something white behind a masala dabba, guess what, it was an EGG!!! A pigeon's EGG!!! I was astonished! I was happy. The birds kept looking inside the kitchen from the exhaust outlet like as if they were so helpless. I felt so much for the mother pigeon and then I thought let me wait and see what they will do. I just turned off the light and quietly stood behind the wall and watched. Slowly the mother pigeon entered the kitchen and tried to move the egg, while the father pigeon kept a watch at the door. Its amazing to see the behaviour of birds, so human like. Then the pigeon could not carry the egg and it still lies in the kitchen. They waited at the exhaust till it became dawn and flew away. I have left the kitchen open so they can take away the egg today and will close the outlet in the evening.
That's the story of love birds in my kitchen!!! :)
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