Is Woman a necessary evil?

Hi all women.. This is for you..

Friction is a necessary evil. I still remember my physics teacher telling this.

Friction is  needed for survival.  If it is in excess, then it causes problems.

I later redefined the quote. 'Money is a necessary evil'. At that time I didn’t have enough money. No earning, only expenses.

Now I have redefined it once again. 'Woman is a necessary evil'.

Without woman you can't live. But with her, sometimes your life may be miserable. Woman can break your peace of mind.

You know why god created woman? It is because he wanted man to suffer!!

But this suffering is only a side effect.

To all my female friends, let me tell you.. Without you people, without you woman, this earth is nothing but a big desert. But with you, this world is a tiny hell!!

You women make this earth a beautiful place.  You make our lives colorful. You give meaning to our lives. You give life to this universe. It is amazing. When live together, even those small sufferings are blessings. I salute you woman. I salute the mother, the goddess, the child, the Guru in you.

Mobile mania Keralites

I would like to share a few glimpse on the new mania of mallus. It is nothing but taking videos by using mobile phone cameras. Taking photographs is okay but continuously taking the video, that too disturbing the people around them is what's happening here in God's own country. Not only in Kerala, you could witness the same pathetic view anywhere you found mallus.. They have been degraded to such a low level that they do not feel ashamed of what they are doing irrespective of the situation they are into.

Last month, I went to Mookambika mainly to listen to Yesudas performing on his 71st birthday. He visits and spends his birthdays there at Mookambika temple. I entered into the temple after a long queue very early in the morning. After the darshan, anyhow I managed to secure a small space on the swara mandapa where Yesudas performed. I was sitting very close to the accompanists. In-fact just sitting behind them and almost touching the body of the khatam maestro.

Before the arrival of Yesudas, singer Manjari and co were singing as a tribute to Yesudas. The mallu guys were absorbing the beauty of Manjari into their mobile phones. Manjari on that early morning had a well designed hair style. I guess that could have consumed more than 3 hours to make that hair style. I was amazed and guessed at what time this singer got up to get it done to reach here to perform this much early in the morning!!

There was not a single inch of space to move your legs to avoid the pain. When Yesudas arrived, it became very hard to manage the crowd and they were hanging over my head due to lack of space.
I could see a lot of hands with cameras taking videos/photos over my head.

In short, lemme tell you, it was very horrible to sit there, as the mallus with mobile phone were over my head taking videos of Yesudas performing. Some guys did dare to tilt my head to left or right according to their needs. A few people squeezed their hands and cunningly inserted their mobile in between my shirt and my  elbows making my sitting  uncomfortable. It was not Sukhaasana!

I knew Yesudas would not like people taking videos. But who cares. Nobody wanted to listen to him. Everybody wanted to record him singing. Later Yesudas himself told them to stay quiet and listen rather than struggling to record it. Finally police had to come to make the situation somewhat manageable. They threw many people out. I was almost caught, but I told them that I was assisting the Khatam maestro :)

Last month, I was fortunate to attend many art/music performances at Nishagandhi, trivandrum by KTDC. They conduct Nishagandhi festival every year in January. This time Yesudas's concert was the main attraction on the first day of the festival. I could see a lot of guys with digital SLR, tripods, mobile phones standing in front of the dais blocking the view of the connoisseurs sitting in the front. A lot of foreigners too were present. They had come to watch the traditional dance forms of India and to listen to the hindustani/carnatic vocals and instrumentals.

The doyen ace singer Yesudas before starting the concert, demanded people to not record the concert and allowed the media to record it for the first 2, 3 minutes.. A big Thanks to Yesudas. That was really helping people like me. It helped me avoid watching the back of guys taking the videos!
But sad to say, on all the other occasions no other performers demanded like what Yesudas did and it was difficult to watch them perform as these uncultured mallus made the situation uncomfortable.How could the people do like that? And the foreigners too were struggling to watch the events.. They were fed up watching the backs!! This is infact an absolute shame to the entire keralites..

Double Violin

At Nisagandhi festival, I was fortunate to attend the double violin concert last month. It was by Neyveli Radhakrishnan. One key point about double violin is there is only 1 double violin in Asia and a few in the world. Now you can say who owns the single double violin in Asia.

This instrument composed of two violin stems with 5 strings each. Thus making a total of 10 strings. You can play bass, cella, viola etc on this double violin. Hence this is widely accepted in east and west. By his scintillating performance, both east and west merges into a single entity called music! Amazing..

Sarangi

In January, I attended the Nisagandhi festival here in Trivandrum, a 7 day music and dance festival including various forms of dance like Mohiniyattom, Kuchippudi, Odisi, Sufiyani Kathak, Bharathanadyam and the concerts of Yesudas, Sarangi + Gazal, Khawali by Hussain group, Hindustani/Carnatic Jugalbandhi by Sriram & Anuradha Sriram, Double violin.

I'm now tuning Sarangi before you!!

This Sarangi is a fantastic instrument with some 40-50 strings, fretless indeed.

It is very rare to find out a recently manufactured sarangi. Actually a typical sarangi is morethan 100 years old and has been passed from generations.

According to the famous sarangi maestro Farooque Lateef Khan,

sarangi banana muskhil, milna muskhil, aur bajana mushkil hai (A sarangi is hard to manufacture, difficult to source, and tough to play).

As for the “tough to play” part, we agree as the sarangi is notoriously difficult to tune and play – the use of the fingernail/cuticle makes the physical effort very painful.

We know the sarangi as a beautifully expressive and evocative instrument. Both the chitraveena in Carnatic music and the sarangi in Huindustania are perhaps the closest to the human voice. Chitraveena by Ravikiran is a must watch concert.

onnu poyi kidannurangu penne..

Recollecting those days at CEK(College of Engineering Kidangoor).

The star of the story is Dhaneesh alias Dhairan.

I don't remember in which semester we were in then. 6,7 or 8? It does not matter. From 6th sem onwards I started staying with Rajumon n co at Punnathura. The rented house we stayed there was located in the middle of a rubber estate,  a kinda forest!!

Though it was a small place, Punnathura had everything needed for common people. Church, temple, Meenachil river, Ladies Hostel(We called it Bhargaveenilayam), Shaap(Toddy shop) etc etc. But we didn't like the hotels there. So we liked going to Kidangoor or Maanthaadi junction for dinner.

We used to catch the bus 'Nandikesh' at 7 pm from Punnathura. Then we either bought parcel or quickly finished our dinner to get the same bus returning at 7.45 pm.

Our star Dhairan was staying at Maanthaadi junction with other friends as a PG. Most of the days we guys(non PG guys) too  had food from his PG home and stayed there many nights. 

This guy used to come with us to Punnathura and used to stay with us once in a while.

One night, Rajumon and I bought parcel from Maanthaadi junction and were waiting for the bus to come.

At 7.45pm. We saw the bus coming and then saw this Dhairan running towards us. He then told us that he too would be coming with us. We immediately hid our parcel. I think I hid my parcel in the pants pocket.

That was the first thing I did upon seeing him coming towards us.

While returning to Punnathura in the bus, I was imagining Dhairan finishing the porotta and beef. We would have bought more porottas and beef, had he informed us earlier. For Dhairan, this kind of parcel is simply nothing. And he didn't have any such formalities and would simply clean the plate alone. So we were in dilemma.

We didn't tell him any words like food, dinner, parcel, etc. Dhairan might have thought that we had our dinner from the hotel itself.

We reached room around 8pm. Dhairan straight away occupied Sunu's room and started studying.

Rajumon and I felt the danger of taking out the parcel then. We decided to open the parcel only after hearing Dhairan snoring.

We too opened a few books and started learning. 9,10,11. clock ticked.. This guy was not sleeping. We visited Dhairan every 30 minutes. At 11pm, I was saying 'onnu poyi kidannurangu penne' inspired by the  Priyadarshan movie 'Kilukkam'. There is a similar scene in that Mohanlal-Jagathy starred movie.

Mohanlal& Jagathy decides to open the parcel(porotta and chicken) after Revathy sleeps. But she is not sleeping. Then Jagathy says 'onnu poyi kidannurangu penne' means 'please go to bed'. The climax of this scene is interesting. After ensuring Revathy slept, the duo removed their blanket and crawled to kitchen only to watch Revathy finishing the parcel food. Rajumon and I recollected this scene and were just saying this dialogue to Dhairan. But Dhairan took another book and started solving some programming examples.

Time passed midnight.. 12.30, 1'o clock..  No hope. Finally at 1.30am, we decided to take the risk. We came out of the house, moved to the back side, opened our parcels, stuffed the porotta with beef, put it in the mouth and tried to swallow it like a python does with a rooster. We  were able to finish the food within no time.  That was the first time in my life eating food with that much  pace.  Oh, what a huge relief that made. I drank some water after that to just push the porotta down from the throat. I still don't know at what time Dhairan slept that night. Till now, Dhairan is unaware of this story.  I have not told him this. Whenever I watch that comody scene on TV, I do remember Dhairan and this story..

Love is a Feeling

True Love Can not be Expressed..
It can Only be Experienced..
Like the Smell of a Flower,
You can Feel it, but you can not Express it..
Hence Love is a Feeling..

@ Santhigiri Asram

@ Santhigiri Ashram..

nice place.. the lotus building made out of marble is fantastic..
there is a school inside..
visited the bampoo hut where the currently leading the sanyasini matha stays for giving darsan..
had a glimpse of her.. she looked tired.. without any feelings.. without any joy on her eyes n face..
was that absolute vairaagya??
had free lunch from there.. nice food with paayasam...the mango pickle was superb..
they have a  jeep like vehicle which produces almost no sound..  it has only roof.. no side walls.. like a boat on earth.. thats cool.. n eco friendly..
now admiring their hospitality..
n a big salute to Karunakar Guru..