Maradhi Manni

I Am Going To Miss These Things...I

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:26:00 +0000

It is always human nature...when we have things, we will not give too much importance to them. Once we know that we are going to get away from them, then the nagging ache starts in our heart...slowly!

I had already written about our plans of shifting from our independent house to a flat here. I have done a couple of posts on the flowers in my garden here. The day is nearing and I have started getting the 'missing/leaving anguish' now. I will miss plucking the flowers in the morning with my cats following me around and watering the plants in the evening. We have a gardener coming once a week to clean the area from dry leaves and water the plants properly...washing the plants/leaves from dust and do other gardening jobs. I was very particular about planting mostly plants of flowers with fragrance. We are in the outskirts, so we don't have drainage facilities, yet. The storm water drain is used by all, as a drainage for waste water from houses. I will post a picture in the end. It is too dirty. It stinks. So to contain that stink, the flowers help a lot. And one more thing, we get lots of butterflies and some small birds visiting us because of the blooming flowers, which is great to watch throughout the day!

This sudden attack of nostalgia was triggered by this article in 'The Hindu' about a book review on Madurai Mallippoo by Mrs. Uma Kannan. I have got many varieties of mallippoo/jasmine flowers, but the fragrance of madurai mallippoo is exceptional. Just 2 small flowers are enough to give fragrance, not only to the pooja room but to the entire hall in our house. I have got some 4 plants of these flowers on all sides of our house. The petals are unique...they are broad unlike the other types of mallippoo and look very beautiful at night...like lights with the dark background of the green leaves.

Now, let me quote some information from Mrs. Uma Kannan's book:

One of the oldest flowers cultivated by man and believed to have aphrodisiac qualities, the jasmine, is the subject of this first-ever full-length speciality book. There are several books on other flowers as they make perfect gift books but none on jasmine. And particularly, the Madurai jasmine, which is world famous and gave the Temple town the epithet of jasmine capital of India.

When marriage brought her to Madurai four decades ago, she saw how the city revelled in an abundance of jasmine. Even the lone Indian Airlines flight to Chennai from Madurai in the 1970s was known as “Malli Special” and carried more jasmine baskets than passengers.

Every year in Madurai alone, 9,557 tonnes of malligai are produced annually from 1,220 hectares. It is also cultivated in Virudhunagar, Theni, Dindiul and Sivaganga. What makes the Madurai malligai extra special? Its fragrance lasts for 36 hours as it is grown on laterite and reddish soils. Its petals are thicker and help the flower to retain moisture and delay withering. It blooms only after 6 p.m. and stays fresh longer and leaves no odour once it withers. It is greenish white in colour when it is manually plucked from the plant early morning. After a few hours it turns milky white and then a shiny creamy white during the evening.

It is a charming tribute to the sacred ‘satwik’ flower that has a unique link with Madurai dating back to 300 B.C., or even earlier.

Madurai malli is protected by Geographical Indication mark.

I am proud to have this flower at home...I hope the plants survive for more years! My pooja room will have its fragrance forever.

One more special flower is the Paarijaatha flower. I had planted this plant nearly 15 years back in my backyard. But 8 years back, when we painted our house, the painter washed the paint bucket and poured it near the roots of this plant. I tried my best to remove it but no, within two days, the plant died. I myself dug two feet mud from that place, put fresh red mud with coconut coirs etc. and planted again and again, but no, nothing survived. After 8 years, a lone plant, grew in some other inconvenient place to pluck them, started growing and blooming! I am very happy to see the flowers and again its fragrance is spreading in the front yard of our garden. This is Lord Krishna's favourite flower. The story is here. This flower and other parts of the plants are used in Ayurvedic medicine.

These fragrant flowers helped me live in this house, in spite of the stench of the ditch, just in front of our gate, all these years. But, on second thought, I don't want to spoil the beauty of this page with lovely flowers by posting the dirty picture! This and the road dust are the main reason which have pushed us away from this beautiful house and garden.

.

A Day Of Positive News!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Thu, 09 May 2013 23:12:00 +0000

.
Whenever we open a newspaper, we are used to reading news about murders, accidents, RAPE, burglary etc. We are so used to it that we just give just a glance to them. We have become very insensitive to the misery of other people. We never think that these types of news hurt the affected individuals...for us, they are just 'other people'. As far as nothing hurts us or our relatives or close friends personally, they are just news. Even the rape of 5-6 year olds have become just 'news' because they have started pouring out every day from some part of our country. Somehow I felt happy to read this paper of 9th May, '13, with so many positive news! Thought of celebrating it with you!

BJP loses southern foothold to congress!

I am not a fan of any of our political parties at present. As I keep on saying all the time, we don't have a good leader, at least a reasonably good leader in any party, at present! 'The defeat of the BJP in the only South Indian State where it had managed to establish a solid presence marks a stunning reversal for a party that has tried hard to grow beyond the Hindi-speaking areas of the country'! I don't think that Congress has won because people think that they are better politicians but because they are fed up with the infighting and corrupt politicians of the BJP!

One lakh Mangroves in Adyar Creek soon!

Chennai, even South Chennai is losing age old trees for broadening roads, building bridges AND for building flats in a dangerously fast pace. I am happy to know that some area of our city is going to be green in the future!

Nochi Plants along river banks to check mosquito menace!

Until 15 days back, I used to sit here, in front of my laptop with a 'hunter bat' (electronic mosquito hitting bat) while typing posts! Now, the heat is 'affecting them' I think. They don't bother us...this will last for another month, maximum. Once the temperature comes down, their battalion will get active! Our Corporation is taking some positive step without using chemicals which will be harmful to us also, to curb mosquito menace!

Click and cultivate - the internet shows the way!

This sounds like a good idea! Internet has occupied in so many areas. This news might help the farmers to be happy in their business...we might get more food to eat...the speed at which the farmers are moving to the cities because of the difficulties they face because of natural calamities and real estate builders, greedy industrialists, this gives hope for a better future!

She braves grinding hardships, argues, wins case!

The illiterate woman who runs a grinding machine in a small village had the guts to come to Chennai court, argue her case and WIN it too! Read it, you will be happy to know that our Court solves cases in a jiffy, sometimes! I am happy for Maheshwari!

State says 'no' to chewable tobacco!

This might be a good step taken by our AMMA! I might be wrong, but I feel that I see more of the migrated workers using paan than the local workers. They chew paan all the time and spit everywhere! I remember once a man spitting on me when I was walking near a bus in Mathura, when I went there on a tour! I am very allergic to paan chewing people, esp. after this incidence!

The science of dosa making!

This news might not help individuals but I admire the way this person, K.Mohan, a final year Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering student from SRM University keeps on inventing innovative machines...he is a recipient of six national awards and several state awards. He first started inventing when he was in class VII...it started with a herbal mosquito repellent. He is such a simple looking person with lots of brains and guts! Read the link please.

I am a happy person and a positive person today after reading so many good news in the paper...just hope that everyday will be like this!

Click on the titles of the news to read from the links of the newspaper please!

GOOD DAY!

Wordless Wednesday!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Wed, 08 May 2013 05:57:00 +0000

India Is Really Unique - Here Is A Temple For People To Help Settle Down Abroad!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:22:00 +0000

Hawai jahaaz Gurudwara (Airplane Temple, Daoba, Punjab). I wonder why the two peacocks are there on both sides of the plane! Some reason should be there!

I came across this news now...this seems to be a very old temple, but had not heard about this until now!

Yes, I know that 90% of the youngsters nowadays want to go abroad for studies first and settle down there later! My two sons had gone abroad, one is settled down there and one has come back. Most of the children feel that the job satisfaction is a rare thing here. But I see that many youngsters are getting good jobs here nowadays and love to be with friends and relatives living near to their family and so come back home. Though this fraction is not much, yet! Mostly girls love to stay/come back here in many cases, to be near their family. Some girls who have not tasted the difficulties of running a home there without domestic help etc., which we are not used to, from childhood, still dream of 'living abroad'. I have met some people who had lived there in the US and the UK, come back with families in a group, after some years, stay in an area together, make themselves comfortable with all the facilities they had over there plus the domestic helps and live happily. Their friendships continue here too. They get jobs in good companies here with their experience, some continue to work for the same companies here and seems to be happy, living here now. The grown up children take some time to settle down though! Some families feel that living abroad is best since the nagging problems from relatives will be less! They can tolerate them once in two, three years for a month or so!

I have read that mostly the Punjabis and Gujarathis dream of going to the US and Europe in our country than the youngsters of other States. I remember my son's school principal saying that a huge group of their school students are in California, for many decades now! They never feel that they are out of India, she said! My son seems to be happy, living there!

Now, let me come to the topic of this post now! This Hawaai Jahaaz Gurudwara, in Punjab, is famous for devotees visiting them to pray for their dream of settling down abroad! We have got temples here for every wish...whether it is for getting good marks in school/colleges, for getting good life partner, for any ailments, for having a child (sometimes male child!), for building a small or dream house, for getting good jobs, etc. etc. Once we get our wishes to our satisfaction, we go to the concerned temple and offer money or do mundan, etc. But, this temple is unique! Here, people donate small planes and pray that they should fly abroad soon...get visa without problem, mainly!

This Sikh temple for Baba Nihal Singh is a very old temple/gurudwara and this tradition is followed by many for many years now. This village, Daoba's families have many youngsters living abroad and this makes people believe in this tradition!

Here is the excerpt from the article:

The gurudwara is most famous among Punjabi youths, who are anxious to immigrate to places like the UK, United States, and Canada, and believe that a prayer can help them significantly speed up their visa and other procedures. Satwinder Singh, a 21-year-old college graduate from a nearby village, says, “I have just put in my application for a visa to go to the UK and am here to ensure my passage by making an offering of an aeroplane.” Surinder Kaur, another devotee, says, “My son was trying hard to go to Canada but was denied a visa. A friend suggested we offer the replica of an aeroplane at the gurudwara and it worked and he is now in Toronto.” So popular has this temple become that it is referred to as the “Hawai Jahaz Gurudwara” (Airplane temple). Several hundreds of airplane models are offered here and the temple often runs out of space to house them all. The shrine management has now come up with the solution of distributing the toys to children. “At least the children can play with them. We cannot stop people from offering them. In the end what matters is the faith with which you pray,”says head priest Bhai Manjit Singh.

I loved the last line in this article: No wonder this temple is believed to possess a power even greater than that of immigration officials.

Don't you think that our country is really unique?!

Picture and article courtesy HERE

EDITED TO ADD ON 30.4.13: My blogger friend Mr.SG has given information about a VISA temple near Hyderabad, in the comment section! Here is the link of the visa temple! This temple has no hundi, doesn't accept money or no VIP treatments for any visitor. This is unique, indeed!

Holidays, Holidays, Holidays...

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 14:10:00 +0000

I am hearing for the past half an hour, a small girl crying 'please pa, please pa...' from an apartment at the back of our house. Both of us, I and my husband, are feeling restless and feel like going and telling the parents of the girl not to punish her like this...the girl is left at their balcony and the door is closed. She must be around 7 or 8 years old. I don't hear anyother child's sound in their house. The girl must be bored and so, must have done something to seek attention.

Another next door neighbour's children are playing the whole day from morning to night. Their relative's children must have come and sometimes they fight with each other and the elders shout back at them. We just laugh and enjoy the sound because our house was like this when my children were small, during the school holidays!

My children used to play carrom the whole day and we too were joining them and then cards! Sometimes scrabble! Yes, my nieces used to come and stay with us during most of the holidays. I used to cook the whole day. Take them for a movie, which was a must during the holidays. One day to the beach, here in Chennai! Then go to other relatives' houses together and enjoy! My main job was cooking...paav bhaaji, paani poori (I used to make even the poories at home!), samosas, different types of parathas, cakes, ice creams etc. God, they used to eat so much!

When we were in Hosur, we used to have cricket matches in our colony playgrounds, during holidays, between teams from other colonies. Elders' match and youngsters' match! It was fun! My younger son was always in the playground...I had to search for him in three playgrounds inside our colony after 6.30 p.m., most of the days! I had to push my elder son out to play! Contrast! Even if he played, it was not an active game. One day, he came from school and said that he played football match in his school. My husband asked him 'in which place'...he said 'I was a Goalie'! My husband started laughing! Our current Goalie (cat) was like him when she was small! Other kittens used to play actively when she was a kitten and this one used to watch them, lazily! So, she was named 'Goalie'!

When the children were in school, I used to take them to Udupi, to my native place, during annual holidays. Unlike now, they used to love going to the Krishna temple, pull the temple car etc. and enjoyed doing it! One of my aunt lived in a village and so the children enjoyed roaming the fields, admiring the vegetable garden etc.

Once they grew up i.e. when they reached 15-16, they started feeling bored with all these routines. They started sitting with a book or sometimes go out to friends' houses. Well, they were reading books earlier too, but slowly, the serious reading time went up!

The next stage was dieting! They were refusing to eat oily foods...the outdoor games had nearly stopped. The younger son, esp. used to play in the school and outside too, until then. T.V. watching started consuming more time! They were not watching serials though...mostly cartoons or English movies...light movies. The serious movies came later!

I see many of the parents send their children to some sort of summer camps now during holidays. During school days, they are sent to some tuition classes. Some lucky ones who enjoy games, are sent to table tennis or badminton classes. Otherwise, tuition, home work, TV...no other outdoor recreation. I feel sorry for them. Going to other relatives' houses are also becoming less and less. Everybody is busy. No time to entertain others' children. So the 'one child' homes mostly go out to some hill station or something for a week or so and the holidays are over. We can't blame them too.

Now, my sons and most of the children in our family (nieces etc.), are grown up and married...we miss those 'busy' days. Those days will never come again. So, enjoy the company of children as much as possible! We can also remember those happy days and they too will never forget them when they grow older!

Edited to add (21.4.13): I forgot to add the story telling session in our house! My mother and sister in law were very good story tellers! I am not! When they told stories to the children...my sons, nieces, all of us elders used to sit around and enjoy the stories even though we heard them again and again! Mine was not a joint family but everyone came and stayed in our house often. My in-laws were dead before my marriage. Now, one of my niece says that because I, her maami, entertained her during the school holidays, she is planning to entertain her nieces and nephews also like me. She too sends her daughter to her sis in law's house during holidays at least for a couple of days. She says that her daughter will learn to mingle with other children in this way. When there were more children, all of them were sleeping in the hall on just plain mats with some bed sheets. At their own homes they will have rooms and beds. I felt the children enjoyed chatting till late at nights, playing word games, names of capitals etc. at night. Even now, my nieces who are grown ups, come to stay with me for at least one night, just for old time's sake. I am so happy about it. Now to my son's favourite song:

Picture courtesy: Google

.

Iniya Tamizh Puththaandu Nalvaazhththukkal! Ugaadi Habbada Shubhaashayagalu!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 00:55:00 +0000

.Happy Tamizh New Year!

Happy Ugaadi!

Vishu Aashamsagal!

Happy Baisaakhi!

Shubho Nobo Borsha!

To all my friends and relatives, here!

God bless us all!

Sandhya

Pinjar (2003)...A 'Don't Miss' Movie!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 09:18:00 +0000

Chandra Prakash Dwivedi's movie, Pinjar !

I wanted to watch this movie, 'Pinjar' which means, skeleton, for a long time and at last did it last Sunday. I had heard/read a lot about it and it was worth watching this movie at a stretch at home without getting up and going inside! It was so engrossing that nobody dared disturb me!

Do you remember the famous Doordarshan serial, 'Chanakya'? The director and the actor who acted as Chanakya, Dr.Chandra Prakash Dwivedi has directed this movie. This is his debut movie. The story, is based on a novel, written originally by the famous award winning Punjabi author Amrita Pritam, revolves around the Hindu, Muslim families during partition.

When the movie started from the year, '1946', I knew, it is going to be a very serious movie. I hadn't read the complete review earlier. The movie starts with Kulbhushan Karbanda (what a booming voice he has got!), a rich Hindu man in Amritsar, who is planning to fix his daughter, Paro's marriage and goes to his village in Western Amritsar with his family. 'Rangeela' fame, Urmila Matondkar, is the daughter...she looks beautiful and has acted quite well in this movie! I had admired her in 'Banaras' also. The partition disturbance had started just then. But the family is happy. His one son, Trilok (Priyanshu Chatterjee), was involved in Congress activities. He stays back and promises to join the wedding activities later. At the village, the wedding is fixed with a local rich man, Alok Nath's son, Ramachandra (Sanjay Suri) and he insists on 'give & take' marriage, i.e. he had a daughter whom he wanted to marry to Kulbushan's son and his son would marry Kulbhooshan's daughter! It was agreed. A grand Punjabi wedding song is shown here! Punjabi songs are colourful and have got good rhythm, so they become famous easily!

The actual story starts now. Paro has got a sister and both the girls roam in the fields and suddenly a man on a horse chases her and abducts her. He is a muslim, Rashid is his name and his family had an old revenge with Kulbhushan's family. This man is the hero of the movie and Manoj Bajpai has acted very well in this role. Very controlled acting. He keeps her in an old village house, which looks very primitive. She keeps on crying and after some days, she runs away and goes to her father's place and to her horror, her father refuses to take her in, since she is tainted now and tells her that her sister also will not get a groom if people come to know about her. She returns and finds Manoj Bajpai waiting for her on the way. They show him repenting for his act and starts loving her.

Kulbhooshan discusses the truth with Alok nath and Alok nath agrees to marry nephew to Kulbhooshan's second daughter, since Alok's son, Ramchandra, refuses to marry the sister. He had seen Paro once and so he refuses to marry her sister. Ramachandra's sister is married to Alok nath's son, who reluctantly agrees but stays aloof because of the grief of losing his sister and not finding her.

Paro reluctantly settles down with the muslim family and then the India-Pakistan partition problem starts. Kulbhooshan's (his screen name Mohanlal has not registered in my mind!) family whose village is in Pakistan, starts their return journey to India. Like we know, they go through lots of problems. Women are abducted and raped by muslims and as per the story, Alok Nath's daughter, Kulbhooshan's daughter in law, who came home for delivery, is abducted and raped by many people. Kulbhooshan's son, Kirti who came for the wedding starts looking for Paro and comes to know about Rashid and sets his field in fire. Rashid objects his family who wanted to attack Kulbhooshan's family for this, saying that any brother would do this for the people who hurt his sister. They show Paro still thinking of her home and Ramchandra...but slowly softening towards Rashid.

Now, the story goes a bit 'filmy' way. Still, the movie was captivating for a long time. The songs are good, though one song where Sanjay Suri sings, sitting under a tree, during partition procession is a bit irritating, knowing the situation! Dwivedi should have avoided this or it should have been in the background!

Watch some songs from this movie now:

The above song sounds clearer here, in raaga.com. but no video! This song is originally from Jagjith Singh's album, 'Marasim'. Gulzar is the lyricist. He is the lyricist for all the lovely songs in this movie. Read what he says about Jagjith Singh here. His voice suits the situation very well. A great singer, but now, he is no more.

This song is sung by another famous singer, Roop Kumar Rathod and the music director of this movie, Uttam Singh . He did the music for the famous 'Dil to paagal hai'. Sounds very patriotic.

Well...this is a 'different' type of movie and you can watch it without getting bored. Good acting by all of them is a plus point!

This film won the award for 'Best feature film' on National Integration, 'Best Art direction' award for Munish Sappal and 'Best actor' award for Manoj Bajpai.

.
Picture Courtesy: Wikipedia

An Unsung Heroine - Chitra (Jagjit) Singh!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 06:01:00 +0000

Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh, the famous ghazal singers!

I did a post on Jagjit Singh's ghazals long back. Our whole family is a great fan of Jagjit and Chitra Singh. The post is here. His wife Chitra Singh also is a great ghazal singer. We have heard her solo songs and songs she sang with her husband too. But mostly people talk about Jagjit Singh and I haven't heard anyone mentioning Chitra Singh's name! I and my son love her voice.

She is born a Bengali and married Jagjit Singh and both of them started giving concerts. Normally, ghazal singing was conducted in elite homes in those days (Mehfil). Slowly some singers like Mehdi Hassan and Ghulam Ali started giving concerts in public places. And Jagjit modernised the ghazal singing by using unique instruments like guitar, santoor etc. So, he and his wife, became very popular. Their songs were easy to follow and we could sing along too! He was particular about the lyrics being clear and simple, but with sincere emotions. He was interacting with the audience who were thrilled to get involved in the concerts.

Now, let me come back to Chitra Singh. She is not a trained singer. She developed singing just by hearing good music. She met Jagjit and married him in 1969. I am not going to write about her personal life. I am an admirer of her and her husband's singing. We will stick to it.

In the beginning, they were singing in jingles. Later on, both of them started singing ghazals and their audio CD's became a hit. They reached the homes of ordinary people who were used to hearing just film songs. Our family includes in that category. I have told you in Jagjit Singh's post itself how we started listening to ghazals. His simple ghazals hooked us to hearing mostly his CD's plus some more, like Hariharan's. We were fans of Latha and Asha and other singers' voices until then. After we got used to hearing Chitra's voice, we started liking her's too. My son used to say that we have to keep on hearing and 'develop' liking to good music! Their ghazal concerts became famous gradually. I have never heard of them performing here, in Chennai. Jagjit gave concerts alone later in his life but his voice was a bit shaky by then and my son wanted to keep his good voice in memory always. So, we didn't attend his concert here. It would have been nice if we had the opportunity to hear them live. But we developed the liking for ghazals very late!

She has got some good film songs to her credit and many ghazals which are memorable. Let me give them here. Her voice is unique.

1. Tum aao to sahi...we can keep on hearing this:

2. Tuu nahin toh...tranquility:

3. Har soo dikhai dete...just admire her voice!

4. Aisa lagta hai...zindagi tum ho....lovely song!

5. Woh nahin miltaa mujhe...

6. Ishq mein...Chitra is singing...Jagjit Singh starts the concert with some humour. This nature of his, has made the pair very famous. They interact with the audience and so the concert is always lively! I have got this CD at home! This is one of my favourites!

7. A Punjabi song...typical concert atmosphere. Jagjit is a Punjabi and Chitra is a Bengali, but she sings this Punjabi song, beautifully! This song is in the CD I have with me. If you had asked me to hear a Punjabi song, just like that, I wouldn't have listened to it. But when I am made to hear with other ghazals, I just let it play and slowly I started liking it! I have noticed in music reality shows also, when we hear Punjabi songs, we notice that have a kind of 'josh' in them which makes people dance! This is one of that type of song. I sing along this also without knowing the meaning and mostly the words might be wrongly pronounced too, I know! But this is good!

When other people sing Ghulaam Ali's or Hariharan's ghazals, we immediately recognise and say that this is Ghulam Ali's ghazal or Hariharan's ghazal. The aalaap or sargam varies from each other's singing. Same thing happens with AR Rahmaan's songs or RD Burman's songs or SD Burman's song. We recognise them with some musical notes or instruments or something. Like that way, we recognise Jagjit Singh, Chitra Singh's songs also. In some way, they sound similar to their previous songs...some thread is there in every song! Maybe, this is called 'Gharana'!

Whenever I played Jagjit and Chitra's CD, I used to think that Chitra is not recognised properly. I like many of her songs. I have compiled the songs I got in 'You tube'. Some of my favourites were not available. Now, watch the concert! Both of them look very young here and their voice at their best. I am not very familiar with this song, though! Should keep on hearing it and then we will like it...like it happens with AR Rahmaan's song!

I love Chitra Singh's 'Safar mein dhoop toh hogi' a lot. You can hear that in my earlier post on Jagjit Singh here.

Which song do you like of Chitra Singh?

Picture Courtesy: Thank you!

EDITED TO ADD ON 28TH MARCH '13: Rahul Aggarwal said in the comment section that Jagjit and Chitra Singh's Punjabi Thappe songs are very famous. I don't have it in my CD collection, so I am not very familiar with it. But I heard it now and it is interesting, though I don't know Punjabi! Have a look at the song. Both the singers are very young and it is a live concert in London:

Wordless Wednesday!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 05:55:00 +0000

Our Interesting Trip To Rameshwaram And Dhanushkodi - II

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 09:51:00 +0000

.
This is the second part of our trip to Rameshwaram. You can read the first part
here. The story continues...

As I told you earlier, we went by jeep for 24 km. 14 Km were on tar road and then we reached the Dhanushkodi beach. The jeep went on the beach sand for 10 Kms.! Let me write about the passage at the end of this post.

.

This is the area where we did the concluding part of the Tila homa! We didn't go the to tip which is visible from here, since we were told the waves would be too high. It would have been a bit scary standing at the tip of the land, surrounded by ocean and sea on all sides except for a strip of the land at one side! The wind was strong too!

This area was lonely when we reached the place. Later a jeep full of people came here...tourists. The junior purohit did some pooja via my husband to the ancestors here and then carrying the tray with the ancestors' images in steel plates (it is presumed that these images are our ancestors), along with the til etc. both of us were asked to go a little deeper into the sea. There, holding the tray on his head, my husband was asked to throw the contents into the sea from the back of his head. It is said that if we do this here, our ancestors who are roaming between heaven and earth will reach heaven instantly. We can do this 'tila homa' only once in a lifetime. Once the ancestors are sent to the heaven, doing this homa again is a waste, the purohit said. Then we were asked to take three dips in the sea. My husband is always scared of water. He never enters water even in Marina beach which is quite shallow! Unlike the Rameshwaram sea shore, here, the waves were quite high. So, it was a bit scary, esp. for my husband. My brother in law and the junior purohit helped him...I was also holding him(!). I was giggling when we were falling down and he was so furious. It was very difficult to stand up and wade back to the shore! I started walking on my knees and again my husband was furious! He was also laughing loudly after sitting safely in the jeep on our way back to the town! He was really scared in the water. The junior priest poured the water in the brass pot which was kept in the pooja (kudam), on our heads after coming out of the sea and the homa was complete!

Now, to a brief history of Dhanushkodi! This place is situated at the tip of the island of Rameshwaram. Dhanush means 'Bow' and Kodi means 'end/tip'. Rama after coming back from Sri Lanka, after the war with Ravana, broke the bridge in this area, which connected this place with Sri Lanka. This bridge was used by his sena to reach Sri Lanka. It is called Rama Sethu now. Sethu means, bridge. The whole of Rameshwaram is connected with the Hindu mythology, Ramayana. Sri Lanka is just some 31 Km from this place. The tip joins the Bay of Bengal and the Indian ocean. You can read more about this place here.

It is said that the pilgrimage to Rameshwaram is not complete without visiting this place and doing 'tharpanam' here, for the ancestors. We can see both sunrise and sunset from this tip of the island. We didn't touch the tip on that day. Husband was very tired. I got one clear picture from google which is shown below:

Sunrise at Dhanushkodi. Literally 'end of the road'!

My husband's aunt, who is in her 80's now, said that their family had visited Rameshwaram, nearly 50 years back. They got down at the Dhanushkodi railway station and went to Rameshwaram temple, by bullock cart, it seems. This station got devastated in the 1964 cyclone. This area was a famous tourist/pilgrimage centre in those days. A Ram temple (Sethu Maadhava Perumal) went under the sea. A train full of passengers got drowned here, during the cyclone. Nearly 1800 people were killed. Wikipedia says:

Dhanushkodi in those days had a railway station, a small railway hospital, a higher secondary school, a post office, customs and port offices etc. It was here in this island in January 1897, Swami Vivekananda after his triumphant visit to the west to attend parliament of religions held in the USA in September 1893, set his foot on Indian soil from Columbo.

Some remnants of the town are still there, but the whole area looks deserted. Our jeep went on the old track marks, very close to the sea water, sometimes into the water. The driver was not diverting from the track marks. There had been a tar road earlier and so the jeep didn't sink deep into the sand. We saw some huts and a small church also. Mostly fishermen live here. We saw some children with plastic - blue, red crosses hanging in their necks. I clicked some pictures on my way back from the jeep. The road was horrible. The driver was just 19 years old. He does 3 trips max. a day, it seems. He had finished an ITI course, but his parents didn't allow him to go out of the town for work! We paid him Rs. 1000/-. The purohit had arranged for this trip. It is really cheap. Now, to more pictures of Dhanushkodi!

We saw some jeeps (mostly) with passengers, on our way back to the town!

The road goes into the water in this area! My sis in law was scared! Husband didn't show his fear, though!

Here, the jeep is out of water, but still very close to the sea!

Look at the vegetation in the salty sand. I saw some flowers too!

I noticed some horse also, here. Might be for tourists!

Notice the small white church on the right side corner!

As I told you earlier, the jeeps go on the same tracks. If one jeep is coming from the opposite side, this jeep waits and the other one crosses very closeby!

Noticed some birds too!

Are these flowers or cactus? Click on the pictures for a clear view please!

This place looks unreal! But I saw this soft sand and sea! The picture was taken from the jeep, by which we were going back to town!

The 'shops' started! It is clearly visible that the fishermen folks are very poor, here! The area is full of Sri Lankan refugees too!

Watch tower? The place looked deserted in the afternoon sun...around 1 pm

Typical sea-shore shops, selling sea-shell artefacts!

The warning board asks people not to take bath here...many people have died while doing it!

The usual Indian picture...plastic bags everywhere!

This is a new trend in Tamilnadu! People display their wedding in posters with their favourite actor or saint(!) on main roads! I saw more than 10 posters like this!

They call this town a 'ghost town'. For us it was a town full of poor fishermen. But they say that this is a rich fishing belt in India.

I would have liked to see the ruins of the town, but all of us were tired this time. There might not be another time. We came back to the hotel, took some rest. Went to the ancient temple once again and left for the train at night. Next part will be about the Pamban Bridge. I might write about the 4-5 temples we visited, which were full of Ramayana stories later! All were ancient temples, which was the attraction here!

I am tempting my son to visit this place for the thrilling experience of watching the ocean and sea meeting point!

.

Ohm Sivoham...Sanskrit Song! Music By The Famous Ilayaraja!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 12:20:00 +0000

'Ohm Sivoham'...I heard this song by the great music director Ilayaraja for the famous director Bala's film, 'Naan Kadavul' in my blogfriend, Destination Infinity's post, for the first time. Playback singer, Vijay Prakash has sung the song. Today I was watching in Vijay TV, a concert by Ilayaraja which was held in North America. The whole song is in Sanskrit and starts with Rudra Mantra. I had goose bumps while hearing the song. Playback singer Karthik was singing on the stage here with live full orchestra. Vijay TV's transmission was very clear. I wanted to post this song from the concert, for the orchestra! No, it is not available. The song is based on raaga Purvi/Panthuvaraali. Hear this song without the film's distraction.

Vijay Prakash is singing the same song with some classical touch here. We can see his knowledge of classical music very well here. I have heard him singing ghazals also in some TV channel. He has got a booming voice unlike many playback singers of current times, after our Kishore and Abhijeet. He has sung many Hindi film songs too.

Now, to the filmi version. This movie was a hit movie. The hero was a muslim and became famous through this movie, thanks to Bala's direction.

I heard this in the morning in the TV. The orchestra was very good. Now, I must have heard 4-5 times today. I am not bored of the song at all. Hope you too will like it.

This is a sanskrit song!

EDITED TO ADD ON 17TH MARCH, '13: At last I got the video I was looking for and I got it today! Ilayaraja is singing a song first and then the 'sivoham' song is here. The live concert is too good:

The lyrics:

Hara hara hara hara hara hara hara hara Mahadev…

Om Sivoham.. Om Sivoham.. Rudra naamam bajeham..
Veera bhadraya agni nethraya ghora samhaaraka..
Sakala lokaaya sarva bhoothaya Sathya saakshatkara..

(chorus)Sambo sambo Sankara..

Om Sivoham.. Om Sivoham.. Rudra naamam bhajeham..

(Chorus) Hara hara hara hara hara hara hara hara Mahadev…

‘Namah somaya cha Rudraya cha
Namah stamraya charunaya cha
Namah shangaya cha pashupataye cha
Namah ugraya cha bhimaya cha
Namo Agrevadhaya cha dure vadhaya cha
Namo hantre cha haniyase cha
Namo vrukshebhyo harikeshebhyo
Namah staraya Namash shambhave cha
Mayo bhave cha Namah shankaraya cha
Mayaskaraya cha
Namah Shivaya cha shivataraya cha’

Anda brammanda koti.. Akhila paripaalana..
Poorana jagat kaarana sathya deva deva Priya..
Vedha vedhartha saara.. yagna yagnomaya..
Nishchala dushta nigragha.. sapta loka samrakshana..
Soma soorya agni lochana..Swetha rishaba vaahana..
Soola pani bujanga bhooshana.. tripura naasha narthana..
Yoma kesa mahaasena janaka..pancha vaktra parasu hastha namaha..

Om Sivoham.. Om Sivoham.. Rudra naamam bajeham..

Kaala trikaala nethra trinethra soola trisoola dhaatram..
Sathya prabaava divya prakaasha manthra swaroopa mathram..
Nishprapanchaadhi nishkalankoham nija poorna bodha ham ham..
Gathya Gathmaagam Nithya Bramhogam Swapna Kasogam Hum Hum

Sachit Pramanam Om Om Moola Pramegyam Om Om
Ayam Bramhasmi Om Om Aham Bramhasmi Om Om

Gana Gana Gana Gana Gana Gana Gana Gana
Sahasra Kanta Sapta Viharaki

Dama Dama Dama Dama Duma Duma Duma Duma
Siva Damarugha Nadha Viharaki

Om Sivoham.. Om Sivoham.. Rudra naamam bajeham..

Veera bhadraya agni nethraya ghora samhaaraka..
Sakala lokaaya sarva bhoothaya Sathya saakshatkara..

(chorus)Sambo sambo Sankara..

Hope the shloka is correct. 'Aham Bhrahmaasmi' means, I am Brahma...in Tamil, 'Naan Kadavul' means I am god, is the name of the movie. By the way, I have not seen the movie, yet!

I must do a post on the great Ilayaraja one day!

Wordless Wednesday!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 05:09:00 +0000

I Had Walked Up These Steps...At Kodak Theatre!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 16:07:00 +0000


Kodak theatre...Dolby theatre where the Annual Oscar award ceremony is held!

I watched the Oscar Award ceremony today morning for sometime, in the TV. I remembered visiting this place with my son in 2008. Until a few years before that, I had never dreamed of walking the streets of Hollywood! I have not yet visited our Bollywood streets or even Bombay here, in our own country! Must visit one day to watch Aamir's shooting! Both of us, I and my husband were going through the old album of our visit to this place now! Thought of sharing some pictures of the Kodak Theatre! Kodak Theatre is called as Dolby theatre too! Read more about this in the highlighted links, please!

The above picture was from wikipedia, thanks to them! All the other pictures were taken by me! I wrote the comments while uploading the pictures to Picasa. I am copy pasting them. It is nice to read them now...we had forgotten most of the details of the pictures! So, I learnt a new lesson now...we should jot down the captions as soon as we upload pictures!

We went up the stairs to the theatre entrance. Some 10-12 screens are there, showing movies. Other stories in this building are full of shops and restaurants!

This is the entrance to the Kodak theatre, which is very familiar. The stars walk to the function of the award ceremony via these stairs. I too walked up the stairs on that day!

This is the close up of the Kodak theatre, where the Annual Oscar award ceremony takes place.

Oscar winners through the years. This is near the entrance of the Kodak theatre.

The pictures which are featured below were on the pavements in front of the Kodak Theatre. The imprints/foot and hand prints of famous singers and film personalities along with the famous Mohammad Ali's...I wonder how he got the honoured place...yes, he was a great man indeed, but not in filmdom!

The Hall of fame. We saw this star on the platform along with the names of famous film stars! This is my favourite singer, Phil Collins.

This is the star of stars, Donald Duck.

Shoe and hand prints of Warren Beatty, 1/98!

This is the shoe and hand prints of Humphrey Bogart, 7th Aug. '46. Sidney - Sid, was the founder of the Kodak Theatre. Did you notice the writing? 'Sid, May you never die till I kill you!'

Hand and shoe prints of Gregory Peck - Year 1944, 15th Dec.

Hand and boot prints of Cecil B.Demille - Hollywood director - year 1941, Aug. 7th.

The name of all the other stars were on the pavement. But Mohammad Ali's was on the side wall of the theatre! Great! I don't see the date, though!

After visiting this place, we walked/drove through the Sunset Boulevard, where the famous stars of Hollywood lived/live!

Yes, we had an unforgettable experience and I relived it now, while preparing this post! I have not seen any movies which won the Oscars, this year, 2013. I am happy that 'Life of Pi' won 4 Oscars! I would have been happier if Bombay Jayashree had won an Oscar for her song in the film!

Have you seen any of the movie which won Oscar this year?

.

Our Interesting Trip To Rameshwaram And Dhanushkodi - I

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 08:29:00 +0000

Ramanathaswamy Temple, Rameshwaram

We had been planning to visit Rameshwaram for a long time. We had been to this place, some 22 years back for doing kriyas for my father, when he expired. It is said that if we do kriyas for our ancestors (pithru) here, their soul (atma) will reach the heaven without much difficulty. Even if we do some mistakes while performing the kriyas here, since this is a holy place, it will not be considered as a mistake. We call it vibrations now. Since so many people pray, not only in this place, but in all the major pilgrim centres, they become holy places with lot of good vibrations. Pithru kriyas are performed mostly in 'Sangamam' places where two or three water bodies join together (sangamam means joining together). E.g. Triveni Sangamam. In the recent 'Kumbh Mela' held at Allahabad, people did kriyas on the banks of the river. Rameshwaram is situated on the Bay of Bengal sea shore.

9th Feb.'13 and 10th Feb.'13, were very important days for taking a dip in the sangamams. Kumbh Mela is very famous and this year it was Maha Kumbh Mela which comes once in 12 years. 9th Feb. was New moon day of the Tamil month Thai (Thai amaavasai and Maagh Amaavasya in Hindi, I think) which is a very auspicious day for Hindus. People come from all over India, to take a dip at the Rameshwaram beach - Bay of Bengal if they don't go to the other sangamams. They do tharpana (offerings/a ritual for the ancestors) on the beach.


People come from everywhere to take a dip here on the New moon day of Tamil month Thai.

We were asked to do Thila Homa - a havan for our ancestors in this place and we planned to do it on 11th Feb. because we thought the place would be too crowded on 9th. Some relatives asked us to go there on the 9th and take a dip in the sea because it is auspicious. We always run away from crowds. But when we reached the place on 10th, our priest (shastrigal) said that Amaavasya was there till 9 a.m.! So we went and had a dip in the sea. The place was crowded and the water was dirty. We were asked to go into the temple to have the '22 well bath ritual' (theertha snaan)! I couldn't think of standing in the long queue dripping with dirty water...we went on the next morning. Later in the day, we went to other temples which were in the Rameshwaram island. I am not writing about the location or other details of this place. The highlighted links of wikipedia explains them very well. Let me write about the other temples later. I will write what we did here, at Rameshwaram first.

My brother in law had arranged for a good priest from Chennai itself. He asked us to take samudra snaan again, the next day morning and then we had the 22 holy well/theertha bath. The sea water had cleared and we happily dipped in the water. This side of the sea did not have much waves. So we were not scared. The purohit had arranged for a person to guide us to the temple. He came with us with a small bucket with a rope. He stood on the wall of the well, dipped the bucket into the well and poured one bucket of water each, on our heads. Then we went to the next theertha/well. All the wells are situated inside the praahaara (compound) of the temple. We had to visit one by one. The link in the earlier paragraph explains about the links. The water was slightly, very slightly, salty. The temperature varied from well to well...taste also! The water in the wells was within 5-6 feet. So it was easy for the guide to pull water from the well. Only 17 wells were being used now. They were changing the tiles in other wells. We brought home 'kodi thertham', which will be added to our bath on 'Maasi magham', which is also is an auspicious day. It comes sometimes next week.

One of the 22 theerthams/holy wells, where we were asked to take bath.

Then we went to the house of the priest, where the Thila Homa was performed. The link explains why it is done and how it is done! My husband's elder brother had an unnatural death, some 30 years back. He was not married. So we were asked to do this homa/havan. A steel plate with a human impression was placed/stuck in a banana. One more for my husband's younger brother who died at the age of 35, by brain hemorrhage, was placed in another banana. Two more were placed for all the male and female ancestors of our family. Ganapathy pooja was done first. Then a havan was performed (30000 aavruththis with mantra). Til/sesame seeds and paddy were used for this (they were thrown into the havan flames). After this, pinda pradhana (Balls of cooked rice are offered to the ancestors) was done. Pinda pradhaana was for 3 generations of my husband and one for 'Ajnaatha pithru' i.e. for the ancestors unknown to us. The rice balls were kept on the terrace for the crows to eat. Hindus believe that the ancestors come and eat the rice in the form of crows. Then, we were asked to keep the Steel plates (2 by 1" plates) with the impression of humans in the bananas in a brass plate. A jeep was arranged for us to go to Dhanushkodi with the plate and a brass pot with water for which some pooja was performed before the havan. I think I should have jotted down the names of the poojas. I will write about our Dhanushkodi trip in the next part.

The queue outside the Rameshwaram temple for taking the 22 well/theertha snaan. The crowd dispersed in the evening of 10th Feb.'13. Amaavasya snaan was over!

Like most of the pilgrimage centres in India, this place also is not clean. Hotels are OK. We stayed at Hotel Saravana (it was clean and the service was good. Our priest had booked the rooms for us) from where I took the above picture. We had our food at Krishna hotel which was just nearby. The Rameshwaram railway station was stinking. Many people were sleeping on the platform with small kids. It was very difficult to walk on the platform. Our priest told us that most of the pilgrims to Rameshwaram are North Indians...here, North Indians means, people excluding, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu people! We saw some foreigners also dipping in the sea. Like other people, we too gave our wet clothes to poor people. We saw many of them waiting with huge bundles of clothes in their hands at the entrance to the beach and entrance to the hotels!

Now, to some pictures I took from our hotel window and terrace. The Bay of Bengal looks beautiful from here! I could see so many colourful fishing boats.

I didn't take the camera to the beach, where we took bath or inside the temple. So, the first two pictures are from wikipedia and google.

Let me write more about the Rameshwaram temple and Dhanushkodi, which I liked most, in the next part.

P.S. The priest had arranged the rooms for us. A taxi came to pick us up from the Rameshwaram railway station. Then he had arranged for the guide too. The jeep which took us to Dhanushkodi also was arranged by him. The havan was performed with 12 brahmins and it was done very well. We had lunch at his house and he packed idlys for our dinner in the train also. He patiently explained about most of the matras/rituals. So, it was not boring/mechanical work for us.

If anyone needs his contact no., here it is: Sundara Shastrigal, Cell no. 9443321641

.

Wordless Wednesday!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 14:03:00 +0000

.

.

Kadal... Manirathnam's Movie...

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 13:28:00 +0000

Manirathnam, movie 'Kadal' had been featuring in many magazines before its release. Very rarely we go to a movie so early after its release. This movie is playing in a nearby theatre, a good theatre (Old Thyagaraja, now into Sathyam theatres group) and so I went with my relatives, yesterday.

The first scene itself shocked me...I felt as if I was watching an English movie!

Old Tamil Actor Karthik's son, Gautham, is playing the lead role of Thomas, a prostitute's son, living in a fishermen's hamlet. The next scene of the fish market is very natural. Their, fishermen's slang...you can learn some swear words in Tamil(!) and the expectation of a good movie develops. No, not because of the swear words but because of the natural acting of the fishermen characters! You can see these characters near Thiruvanmiyur beach, which is just a few kilometres from our area! Then the priest Arvindswamy enters...and the expectations develop still more! Then the story begins. The story is mainly about the rivalry between Arvindswamy (Sam, the priest) and his childhood friend, Arjun (Berchmans, the villain). The character of Thomas gives a bit different angle to this story. His rogue-like character changes the routine for some extent. Then comes the heroine (!) of the film, Beatrice, which is played by the old Tamil actor Radha's daughter Tulasi. Because of some childhood trauma she gets upset often and Thomas is trying to help her. Now, let me not write 'spoilers'!

The best things in the movie is, Arvindsway...his acting is very good. He has come back to acting after 12 years!

Arjun, is a good actor and plays the negative role very well.

Gautham, has done a good job. He was trained in an acting workshop before the shooting for this movie it seems, along with Tulasi.

Tulasi, hasn't got much scope for acting...a plump 16 year old girl!

THE AREA I liked the most in this movie is Rajiv Menon's Cinematography! I thought I was watching an English movie. The climax scene in the sea is THE best. I can still visualise it today. Beautiful! Tsunami waves were used in this scene, it seems.

The dialogue by Jeyamohan is good.

A.R. Rahman's music is good. I loved 3 songs. Vairamuththu and his son's lyrics are very good. Others, OK!

The weak part is the STORY! Nothing is new there. No Manirathnam's touch except in a few scenes.

Next weak part is, the fishermen's coloquial language. Though I know Madras Tamil very well, I was not able to follow their language in many parts. Too fast for us to decipher! And A.R. Rahman's background music didn't help us to understand the language...it was a bit loud!

The whole movie is based on Christian Fisher folks. So, the Christian community has lifted the flag of protest now (link here). Already the bad precedent of banning 'Vishwaroopam' because of the Muslim protest, is hovering, though it is cleared now with major cuts! Manirathnam is lucky, the movie is already released. The last scene of the Christian festival is new to me and looked nice.

Now, here are some songs from the movie:

This is a good song sung by Rahman himself. You can have a taste of the movie here. I couldn't get the whole song. Notice the picturization. Beautiful.

I liked this song first in MTV unplugged prog. Have a look at the song by the creator Rahman and singer, Shaktisree (lovely voice). You don't need to know the language. The song is a background song in the movie, though. So, we were not able to enjoy it there. The tune is very good to the ears:

Lyrics by Vairamuththu in this song is good. Rahman's tune is perfect for the mood.

This is one more trailer of the movie:

Well...the verdict is, you can watch this movie once, if you know Tamil very well! Or watch it once for the beautiful climax scene!

Poster courtesy: Google

Foto Friday!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 14:18:00 +0000

I Want To Add This Man In My People Whom I Admire List!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:48:00 +0000

Our whole family had been fans of this man for so many years now! We have watched many of his films in theatres which is a rare thing now, since we get everything...DVDs in our doorstep. He was always experimenting new things in making films, in acting, in singing etc. I am talking about our Kamal Haasan, the actor, director, singer of Indian Cinema! Many times he had lost lots of money...still he has not stopped experimenting. Even now, he is into a new experiment, with the movie 'Vishwaroopam' The release date is again posptponed in Tamilnadu! Is it Politics or the muslim agitation which is stopping this ? Both, they say. We had watched so many movies with terrorist background. Why this new agitation? God only knows...sorry, Kamal is a 'non-believer'...He has nearly pleaded to the muslim agitators (which is a very tiny percentage of the muslim population here in Tamilnadu)saying that the muslim character in the film is a good muslim one. The tiny percentage is affecting the whole muslim people's reputation. Rajinikanth gave a supporting statement only yesterday. Others are keeping mum.

Now, to some of my favourite songs from his films! All the best, Kamal...waiting to watch the movie!

1. This is not the first time I am mentioning this song as my favourite! I love this song and Kamal's acting! The film is, 'Guna'!

2. Kamal had said that this is one of his favourite movie! He had produced this movie, Raaja Paarvai and acted like a blind man...one of his best movies ever with Ilayaraja's lovely music!

3. I love this song and never get bored of watching this! The film is, 'Michael Madana Kamarajan'

4. This is one of my favourite film of Kamal. He is entirely different here. The film is 'Anbe Sivam':

5. You can see the baby Kamal Haasan (just 6 years old!) here! Take note of his expression and the film is 'Kalaththur Kannamma'

6. '16 vayathinile'...this was a very different movie of Bharatiraaja. I think Kamal started acting 'differently' from this movie. You can see a very young Kamal and Sridevi in this movie and they became a hit pair after this and acted together in many movies!

7. 'Salangai Oli' This movie showed Kamal as a dancer which he really is! It was a famous movie in those days. Have look at this song:

8. 'Avvai Shanmugi' A re-make of 'Mrs. Doubtfire' - made to suite Indian audience. The Hindi version was 'Chachi 420' which got Kamal a good name in the Hindi belt. Kamal acted very well in this movie. I am not very fond of this song. But you can see a 'different' Kamal here:

9. 'Thenaali' This is a hilarious but 'different' movie. Kamal speaks Sri Lankan Tamil and the acting is superb! I watch it again and again!

After '16 vayadhinile' in most of his movies, he did something 'new'. I should mention director Shankar's 'Indian', Mani Rathnam's 'Nayagan', K.S.Ravikumar's 'Sathi Leelavathi' (comedy), 'Apoorva Sahodarargal' in which he acted as a circus dwarf and Balu Mahendra's 'Moondram Pirai' (Sadma in Hindi). I liked 'Unnal mudiyum Thambi', 'Nammavar', 'Pammal K.Sambandam', 'Virumaandi'. 'Thevar Magan' was one of his best movies with Sivaji Ganesan. They competed with each other in acting. Wikipedia says he won 19 Filmfare awards apart from 4 national Awards. Have you watched his silent movie, 'Pushpak'? You will know his calibre there. 'Mahanadhi' was one of his classic movie. The story is so strong that I get upset whenever I see this movie. His acting is superb in this movie.

I have got a longer list of Kamal's songs, but I have given importance here to the different roles he played in different movies. We should be proud of him, instead he is being punished for experimenting different types of cinemas. I heard from a relative of mine that her relatives are going by two cars to Bangalore to view Viswaroopam! Problems are there for screening this movie in Kochi and Hyderabad also, it seems. He had screened this film to the agitating muslim group, last week according to their time. He let them do namaaz in his office itself because it was time for evening namaaz, before watching the movie. I feel very sorry for him. This is just a movie, people! He is an extraordinary actor. Support him!

10.Well...let me show a normal Kamal Haasan song, no, two songs(!) in which a beautiful Sridevi also acts! This movie, 'Varumayin niram sivappu' was also a most talked about movie of Kamal! His acting was superb in this K.Balachandar movie! The second one is from 'Moondram Pirai' (Sadma in Hindi). Now, to the songs!

Hope you enjoyed this post! You can add your favourite Kamal song in the comment section please!

Hope he comes out of the current problem without much hassle. Reviews seem to be positive. The movie is running full houses in Hyderabad.

EDITED TO ADD ON 30.1.13: This should not happen to him, he doesn't deserve this.

Reacting to the controversy surrounding the film, Leela Samson, chairperson of the Central Board of Film Certification, said that it was 'unjustified'.

"This puts the entire film industry and the artistic creative spirit of Indian people under a strain. How will people express themselves freely? And he (Haasan) is not irresponsible. I have seen a lot of irresponsible film but this is not one. So I think it is absolutely unjustified," Samson said.
http://www.rediff.com/movies/report/emotional-kamal-haasan-says-tamil-nadu-does-not-want-him/20130130.htm

EDITED TO ADD ON 1.2.13:

As soon as I woke up in the morning, I remembered the Vishwaroopam controversy! What is happening is not good. This is not good for us Indians. Kamal is ready to cut more portions from the film. This is going to be a bad precedent. Jaya is not doing the right thing. Her name is maligned now in the whole country. A fraction of muslims is promoting hatred for other peace loving muslims too. I have muslim friends but all are normal people like us. God save us and our country. Feel sorry for ourselves. Have a look at this http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Vishwaroopam-row-How-the-truce-came-about/articleshow/18283262.cms

Happy Republic Day, To All Of Us, Indians!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 00:33:00 +0000

.

We had been watching this video for so many years now. Even now, the Doordarshan channel transmits this song often. This video is not very good. We get overwhelmed when we see this clearly in DD. The song and and the video - both compliment each other. Wikipedia link says:

The concept for Mile Sur was developed in 1988 by Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad and promoted by Doodarshan and India's Ministry of Information. The song was composed by Ashok Patki, co-composed and arranged by Louis Banks with lyrics by Piyush Pandey, then an Account Manager and presently the Executive Chairman and Creative Head of Ogilvy & Mather (India). The project was conceived and directed by Suresh Mullick (then All India Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather) and recorded by people from all walks of life, including a super group of Indian celebrities, musicians, sports persons, movie stars etc.

The National Integration video was intended to instil a sense of pride and promote unity amongst indians, highlighting India's different linguistic communities and societies - India's unity in diversity, so to speak. Mile Sur was telecast for the first time on Independence Day in 1988, after the telecast of the Prime Minister's Speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort. It quickly captivated India, gaining and maintaining near-anthem status ever since.

We can see prominent persons from art, like music & dance, literature, sports and cinema.

Singers: Pt. Bhimesen Joshi, Dr.Balamurali Krishna, A.V.Ramanan, Lata Mangeshkar and Suchitra Mitra

Dancer: Mallika Sarabhai

Authors: Sunil Gangopadhyay, Anandashankar Ray

Cartoonist: Miranda from Goa

Film Maker: Mrinal Sen

Sportsmen: Narendra Hirwani, S.Venkataraghavan, Prakash Padukone, Ramanathan Krishnan, Arun Lal, P.K.Banerjee, Chuni Goswami, Syed Kirmani, Leslie Claudius, Gurbux Singh.

Film and TV personalities: Amitabh Bachchan, Jeetendra, Mithun Chakraborty, Kamal Haasan, Raj Kapoor, Tanuja, Waheeda Rehmaan, Hema Malini, Sharmila Tagore, Shabana Azmi, Meenakshi Seshadri, Pratap Pothen. Deepa Sahi, Om Puri, Dina Pathak (from TV serial Tamas which was a famous DD serial).

One ragaa, Desh, connects all the regions of our country...languages, locations, people etc. in this video. I think the regions' instruments also are used. I must hear and see the video again! Tell me your feelings also, friends, when you see this video!

I think I have mentioned about this song in my earlier posts on Door Darshan serials Here. This time I am quoting all the details!

We hear this song so much that we forget that we are lip-sinking the other languages also, nearly easily! I can never stop humming along whenever I hear this song! We are a great country with so many languages and cultures...still we are together always!

GANATANTRA DIWAS KI SHUBH KAAMNAAYEIN!

VANDE MAATARAM!

EDITED TO ADD IN THE EVENING: Our salute to these people of ours...we are living a normal life, thanks to these people.

Pongal Festival At Home!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 09:19:00 +0000

We celebrated Pongal festival at home this morning! This is a very important festival celebrated throughout India in different names in different states. Pongal in Tamilnadu, Makar Shankraanti in Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra, UP, MP, Goa etc. Uttarayana in Gujarat and Rajastan, Lohri in Punjab. This is basically, a 'Harvest Festival' Our country is mainly a farming country. So this festival gives importance to the 'Sun god' who helps the farmers for their cultivation. This festival comes in the month of Jan. (around 14/15th and in the Tamil month, 'thai'). The previous day is called 'Bhogi', when we clean the house and destroy all the old and unwanted things. The next day to Pongal, is Maattu pongal, which is like thanksgiving for the cattle which helped them in farming...Maattu pongal is celebrated in a grand way in villages. Read more about Pongal in the wikipedia link here .

At home, we clean the house for 'Bhogi'. The sweet for the day is 'pooran poli'. The next day is Pongal. We draw beautiful ronglis/kolams in front of our house in the morning (You can see them in the wikipedia link!). We hang a bunch of mango leaves on the door step to indicate that we have a festival/celebration at home. We cook Sweet pongal (Raw rice, moong dhal and jaggery combination dish), Ven pongal (same rice and moong dhal with salt, pepper etc.), Yezhu curry koottu (koottu is a typical Tamilian dish prepared with coconut, dhania, chilli, hing etc. alongwith minimum 7 vegetables like root veg. (Potato, yam, sweet potato), veg. from creepers (avarai kaai - val beans and its seed, pumpkin - red and white), veg. from plants like beans and raw banana. We make black gram vada also. Curd rice as usual.

We cook the sweet pongal in a brass vessel which is visible in the photo. Then tie the vessel with ginger and turmeric plants and take it outside to our backyard near the tulsi plant. We draw a small kolam of sun god (one circle surrounded by small small lines!) and place the vessel on it. Then we do a small pooja and offer the sweet to the Sun god (in our earlier houses we were doing this in our balcony). Then bring the vessel inside and keep it in front of the gods and do the normal pooja. We have to decorate the pooja room with sugar cane like you see in the picture. Sugar cane is a a must for this festival. Then...'pet pooja' means eat them!


We do the pooja near the steps in front of the Tulsi plant, placing the vessel facing east!

Turmeric and ginger plant...these are very important for this festival!

The next day to Pongal is Kaanum pongal...i.e. visiting relatives, mainly visiting mother's place or go out and enjoy! In our house my sis in law and other relatives come home. This festival is celebrated by the women/girls of the house for the well being of their brothers. In the morning we keep coloured rice balls which are made from the left over sweet pongal and curd rice. We add some haldi and kumkum to a portion of the curd rice. We keep these balls in 3 to 5 lines on turmeric leaves along with beetel leaves, nuts, banana and a sugar cane piece. We do this mostly on the terrace. We do a small pooja and offer them to the gods and pray for the well being of our siblings, mainly brothers! Have a spoon of the previous day's sweet pongal and take head bath after this small ceremony.

For lunch we make different types of mixed rice like pulianjaatham (tamarind rice or lemon rice), coconut rice, ellu saadam (til rice), karuveppilai saadam (curry leaves rice), curd rice etc. We make the pastes for all these rice before hand and just mix them on that day. More kuzhambu with White pumpkin to mix with the mixed rice. Vada and paayasam will be there. Eat and then we mostly play cards. We used to have many members in our family earlier. Now the children have grown up and got married and have gone out. Slowly our family is getting smaller and smaller! We, nearly 12 to 15 people, used to sit in a BIG round and play cards till night! Those days are gone! We used to have the sugar-cane eating session after lunch...now except for a small piece, others go to the servants!

Next year's pongal will be in our new flat...pongal will be offered to the sun god in our new balcony!

Happy Pongal to all!

Edited to add on 16.1.13:

Kaanum Pongal...comes on the next day to Pongal

I have written about Kaanum pongal above. This is the picture of the small ceremony which we did yesterday morning!

The crows which come home to eat my curd rice (link) never eat this coloured rice with haldi, kumkum etc.!

Classical music concerts in Chennai in December...!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 09:49:00 +0000

.
I have already written about Ajoy Chakraborthy's concert in Chennai here. As I said there, nowadays we are attending both Hindustani and Carnatic music concerts, here in December season. I make it a point to attend Bombay Jayashree's at least once in the season. She is a great singer, trained in both Hindustani and Caranatic classical music. Her wikipedia link is here, which is very interesting to read.

I enjoy her bhajans in Kannada, Tamil and Sanskrit. Her voice is very expressive and soft. This time we went to Krishna Gaana Sabha for her concert. It was housefull. She never speaks in between two songs. Never explains the raagas...some singers do explain. She sang continuously for 2 1/2 hours without break. Normally people go out, have coffee and snacks in between songs. Every sabha arranges for food from famous caterers and some people attend concerts in different venues and finish their breakfast, lunch, evening snacks and dinner and go home! We can see many foreigners who attend these concerts seriously. I didn't see much poeple getting up and going out in this concert!

Now, hear her beautiful, melodious voice here in different type of songs:

This is a thillaana (type of song) in raaga Desh:

Yaadava nee baa yadukula nandana... a soft song:

Jagaddhoddhaarana...Purandara dasa krithi in Kannada....fusion...It's different!

She has sung some film songs in Hindi and Tamil. This is a Bharatiyar song from the film 'Bharathi'...music Ilayaraja...a beautiful song!

I like the way she closes her eyes and enjoy singing. She enjoyed thoroughly in the concert we went this year. She moves her hand like Pt. Jasraj and enjoys singing. And we enjoyed with her.

Here she is singing at the Sai aradhana festival. Amjad Ali Khan's son, Ayaan ali plays sarod later in this video.

The next concert we went was Pt.Jasraj's. I have got some very good cd's of his songs. He has got a booming voice! This concert also was 'housefull'. The standing ovation after the concert was nearly for 5 minutes! Now, nobody will say that Chennai music festival is just for Carnatic music lovers! We love Hindustani music too! And the concert was at the famous Music Academy.

Mata Kaalika...Pt.Jasraj is singing this bhajan on Mata Kaali...normally I don't like to listen to male singers. But hear Pandit's voice...beautiful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVkdkl1yxBU

Pt. Jasraj with Ustaad Zakir Hussain

Pt.Jasraj is singing here...a clear live concert video:

The concert we attended was a bit like this. He was singing with his disciples. They call it 'vocal support'. Still, we enjoyed this concert because of his voice.

In this rare video, you can watch our Carnatic singer Smt.M.S. Subbulakshmi and Pt. Jasraj singing during Gandhi Jayanthi (1988). A young Durga Jasraj (Pt.Jasraj's daughter) can also be seen. The then President Venkatraman, Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and other political leaders can also be seen. Smt. Subbulakshmi is so comfortable here. She had the opportunity to sing in front of Gandhiji, just a few months earlier to his assassination, a commentor says.

The last concert we attended this year was Swamy Haridas Mohotsav... Hindustani music concert. My niece Ashwini was compering and I went there to watch her...she is learning Hindustani music now and is quite a good singer. But we had a feast of the year! Smt. Lalitha Sharma, about whom, we had never heard of, sang for more than two hours! Her voice was too good to believe. She is a desciple of Pt. Jasraj. She finished graduation in the Madras Music college (carnatic music) and then went to Calcutta and Bombay and learnt Hindustani music. You can know more about her here. I noticed her mannerisms...it was just like Pt. Jasraj's! The mini hall of Narada gaana sabha was full! Actually, Chennai audience are famous for leaving the concerts as soon as it was 9 pm. But on that day, we wanted to hear more of her songs! Will wait for next year! I looked for more good videos of her songs, but couldn't get. Again, I will do a post on her concert next year!

A video of Smt.Lalitha Sharma is here. It is not very clear, though. I couldn't get more of her videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXKltH9ZRXw

Sorry, the post is too long...as usual...no, too longer than usual!

EDITED TO ADD ON 9.1.13: I came across this photo today and thought I will add it here in this post, so that you can know how we felt while watching Smt. Lalitha Sharma's concert. The hall was very cozy with minimum audience. We were sitting closer to the stage and could watch the expressions and mannerisms of the artist clearly. And this was a free concert. We paid Rs.100 or Rs.200 for other concerts! Have a look at the atmosphere:

Smt.Lalitha Sharma's concert! Click on the photo to get a bigger picture!

Happy New Year - 2013!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 07:44:00 +0000

Wordless Wednesday!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 12:28:00 +0000

Next Phase In Our Life...Shifting From House To A Flat!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:55:00 +0000

I will miss my garden!

Everybody must be familiar with my house by now via 'my garden', 'pets' and other posts. This is my husband's dream house. He built it at the age of 50! Until then we were living in rented houses! So, this house is special for us!

When we built this house, it was in the outskirts of Chennai. Now, it is inside the city. This area was an industrial area, so it had less residential houses. It had started developing then...i.e. 16 years back. Now, this is an IT hub and many IT staff live here and naturally, many new colonies have sprung up in this area...Perungudi, Old Mahabalipuram Road.

Our house is in the main road and all the vehicles and people use this road to reach their places. The dust is so much that even if I clean the furniture in the morning, they will have a coat of dust by evening! When we go out of town for a couple of days, we keep all the windows closed. Still, when we come back, the whole house will be full of dust...we start sneezing and our throats get irritated. Everybody was asking us to shift to some cleaner atmosphered area for a long time. So, we decided to move to a flat, a couple of years back.

The flat is in a 'gated community' and is in a dead end road. We will get good sea breeze which will make the area less polluted. But I will miss this house for a long time...until I am active and healthy at least! This is quite a big house. It is not easy to get servant maids to clean it. I don't have many close friends here...well, not even one 'close' friend!

I will never have a pooja room as beautiful as we have, here. Though we are trying make a replica of this pooja room in the new flat! Though I am not very religious, this pooja room gives us a nice feeling when we enter our house. Everybody says so! I love the ritual of going round the house and upstairs with my cats in the mornings, to pluck flowers. I love watering the plants. I can sense the plants' happiness when I spray water on them to remove the dust! I will definitely miss my garden. I will miss watching the butterflies which come to suck honey from the exora flowers. Though I don't hear the sounds of birds as much as I heard when we moved in here, still some koels and humming birds and brown sparrows make enough sounds. The crows which come everyday to feed on the curd rice from me, will miss me, I am sure! We have a coconut tree, a teak tree, a huge neem tree which attract birds all the time. I love watching them in daytime when I am alone at home to entertain myself!

We did the gruhapravesh function of the flat recently. This Kaarthigai month is good for doing the function, it seems. The flat is not yet ready for occupation. It will be ready in March/April. We invited just a few close relatives but did all the homas...Ganapathy homa (Lord Ganesha should be worshipped before starting anything), Vaastu homa (asking nature to pardon us for disturbing her...cutting trees, disturbing the birds, digging the earth etc.), navagraha homa (to pacify the stars which influence our lives), Dhanvatri and Mrithyunjaya homa (for peace at home and good health) and Sudarshana homa (read the link for detailed description of this homa pl.).

But the function started with Gopooja...'Go' means cow... for us, Hindus the animal cow is very sacred. We believe that Goddess Lakshmi resides at the back of the cow. We do pooja first to the cow along with her calf. Both of them should enter the new house and sanctify it. Govisarjan is treated as a purifier in our religion (in the early days the cows used to eat lots of herbs in the fields or open space along with grass and so their urine was treated as medicine...now green grass is not to be seen in the city and they eat dry grass/straw and sometimes paper too!). Still the rituals continue! And I forgot to tell you one thing...we do Gruhapravesh when the house is 80% to 90% complete/ready for occupation, as far as possible! If we are buying a ready-made flat, we ignore this point! My son laughs when I talk about the rituals. I just ask him to take everything easy...'we had been following these things and have not lost anything and these are harmless easy rituals too! Just enjoy even if you are laughing inside your heart!'

Gopooja...cow and calf! The mother ate the bananas with skin but the son wanted me to remove the skin and feed him! I did happily! He had a nice, shiny coat of fur!

We had arranged for food with a caterer, Aiyyar Caterers. One plate of breakfast food costed Rs.100 (Idly, Vada, Khichdi, Sevai, Halwa for sweet with saambaar and 2 chutneys). The cost of one plate of lunch was Rs.200 (the normal 2 currys,avial (mixed vegetables cooked with curd and coconut), 2 salads/pachchdis, mixed rice, appalam, chips, thayir vadai (dahi vada, which is his famous item!), Paayasam, Saambaar, more kuzhambu, rasam with a special sweet, Kaaju Mysore paak! Everybody said that the food was superb. I write this in detail for people to know how we serve food when we conduct a function at home! If anybody is interested in good food, you can call him in this no. Hari (9840027800). The food was so good that I am advertising him!

We follow another custom here. When we build a 'house', we feed the workers on the day they put concrete on the roof. It is tradition. Most of us follow. When this house was built. I made paayasam in a big vessel and brought here and distributed in paper cups. We had asked a few workers to cook veg. biriyani to feed them. Now, in this flat we fed around 110 workers on the day of the Gruhapravesh. Our lunch. I felt happy to see their happy faces. Some of them told me that the food was good.

Another reason for us to leave this beatiful house is the ditch which flows close to our compound. Let me write about it later.

My feeling is sort of 50/50. This is a nice house but difficult to maintain/with all the pollution. The flat is a 'flat' but in a cleaner area. We have stopped going for the morning walks because of the heavy traffic on our road - IT taxis which come to pick up their staff. Hope to resume it in the new area. Everything looks green green now. We will know how life is going to be once we move in, in the flat.

Wish me luck, friends!

Sorry, my story has become tooooo long!

I Got An Award...Sunshine Award...lallallaaaaa...!

noreply@blogger.com (Sandhya) — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 12:06:00 +0000

Haaa...I got the above 'Sunshine Award' from Destination Infinity recently with a beautiful note on me!

About Sunshine award:

The Sunshine Award is an award given by bloggers to other bloggers. The recipients of the Sunshine Award are: “Bloggers who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere.” The way the award works is this: Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to them. Answer questions about yourself. Select 10 of your favorite bloggers, link their blogs to your post and let them know they have been awarded the Sunshine Award!

Am I inspiring somebody? If so, I am very happy! This is a booster to me, D.I.! Destination Infinity alias Rajesh (I address him as Destination Infinity always because I came to know him by this name!) is a serious blogger who covers all subjects like music, travel (which is new!), short stories etc. and many more. His auto-biography is talk of the town (bloggers') now. He has got a great sense of humour. I remember reading some stories which made me laugh a lot! The short stories are old I think. Write more D.I.! And I should not forget to mention about his posts on cookery! I had been reading his posts for a long time now!

Ten questions (and answers) about me:

1. Favorite Time of the year?

Chennai's rainy season which we get occassionally!

2. Favorite festive movie?

Same like D.I. said! I haven't seen any movie based on festivals! My favourite movie list is long in English, Hindi and Tamil! I seem to write often on 'Sound of Music' and quote 'Gods Must be crazy', 'Chupke, Chupke', etc.!

3. What’s your passion?

It was reading earlier, then music, now blogging and reading others' blogs! Passion of cooking is slowly slowing down! Music is still there!

4. Favorite colour?

Green!

5. Favorite time of the day?

Early mornings!

6. Favorite flower?

Jasmine!

7. Favorite non-alcoholic beverage?

Fresh juices!

8. Favorite physical activity?

I would like to say sleeping like D.I., but it is evading me nowadays! It is exercising...yoga or anyother way! Walking too!

9. Favorite vacation?

Would love to visit the places near the Himalayas!

Now, awarding the award starts. Most of these people don't do tags. I also don't do tags often. Am very lazy about it. Anyway, let me acknowledge them. But D.I., you come first! The others follow:

1. Kavita I love to read her posts about Assam...their foods, interesting places etc. I came to know a lot about North eastern countries because of her!

2. The Cyber nag I started reading her posts recently. Her writing is amazing...clear thoughts...writes to the point on different subjects. I am learning a lot from her.

3. K.Parthasarathy He is good in writing short stories with interesting twists. The narration is always interesting. An interesting person to interact!

4. Bikram He is everybody's favourite person here, in this blogworld! He writes about anything and everything passionately! Very soft-natured person!

5. Rama I have read just a few posts of hers and she visited me once, I think! But I like her writing....I enjoyed reading the post ... series...How I met my husband!

6. Saritha Saritha used to be a serious blogger earlier. Used to write a lot about her daughters, nature etc. She took a break and now has started blogging again. She writes everything emotionally...a simple soft-natured person.

D.I. has covered some of my friends who write well and are active in this area. They are already tagged. Anyway, this was a good experience writing about others and thanking them in a way. I admire Ashok (for his art and poetry), Bhagya (for her beautiful, day to day happenings' stories), Suranga (Poetry and interesting posts), SG (I love his travel posts) and SM (as D.I. said for his latest news posts). Some more are there but they have nearly stopped blogging but are active in facebook. I miss them a lot. Thanks friends!

Thank you, once again, Destination Infinity!

Edited to add: I remembered early in the morning (next day!) that D.I. had 'awarded' an award and did not ask me to do just a tag! It is not that if D.I. awarded an award to some people whom I admire, I can't give the award to them! And I missed to mention some very good bloggers whom I admire and keep them in a pedestal, like Manju! The way she links different subjects to blend into one to give a message, is beautiful! I tried to do a couple of posts in that way, but it was not that good! Please remember people, I must have missed some about some friends to mention here, I am 'maradhimanni' (queen of forgetfulness!). It won't be nice to add more 'edited to add'!

I would be happy if the people I have mentioned that I admire them too accept this award! No need to do a post on it! Thank you!

.