Hospital, Little Champ, Kishore's Unheard Song

Hospital days again! Mom is in the hospital again. The good news is that I have not yet fought with the nurses or any of the hospital staff yet.:) Yep, they have been very helpful. Also, mom has been showing signs of improvement. Last two years have been really very difficult for her. Hopefully there are some hopes, happiness and laughter for her in the coming years.:) In spite of her pain and weariness in the hospital, she has not stopped filling the crossword.:) Way to go, Mom.:)))

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I have been watching the LITTLE CHAMP episodes of SaReGaMaPa. It is amazing to watch the little kids belting out complicated songs with so much of ease. Thanks to them- I have been getting the opportuity of listening to some rare songs. One thing that I noticed was that the parents seemed more tensed than the kids who were performing. They were acting as if it were a matter of life and death. I wish they had let the kids just enjoy their singing without thinking about the results. Among the judges, Alka Yagnik and Bappi Lahiri have been very equitable. I like the way Alka gives tips to the kids to improve further. On the whole, kudos to those little champs for giving such stunning performances.:)

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Speaking of LITTLE CHAMPS, one of the kids sang "Chanda O Chanda" on the show the other day. I was listening to it for the first time. So did a bit of research on it. The song is from "Lakhon Mein Ek" and is sung by Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar. Lata has sung the last 4 lines. So the song is dominated by Kishore Kumar. The music was composed by R.D.Burman and the lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi.

I am a great fan of Kishore Kumar. But I had never heard this song before. It is such a touching and very beautiful song. I have fallen in love with it. Every time I find out that there is some song of Kishore Kumar that I have not heard. I wonder how many more such gems of Kishore Kumar are yet to be discovered.:)

Classical Delight

This sunday, we had gone to a special music concert. My uncle had invited us to an all day long music concert on the occasion of Guru Poornima. The concert started at 10 AM and ended at 10:45 PM.

On Guru Poornima, usually the disciples of a guru perform. It is their way of offering tribute to their Guru. When you go to such concerts, you need to remember that you will see lots of novices as many of them will be performing for the first time. It is a great pleasure to go to such concerts because there will be no known faces and so the audience is open minded.

I go to the Guru Poornima concert every year. This year, nine of his disciples performed. And my uncle gave a grand finale to the concert. Most of the disciples were between 15-28 years. They brought so much of freshness and enthusiasm in their music. I was thrilled when I heard them presenting complicated raagas. Kudos to all of them for puting so much of hard work and dedication which definitely showed in their performances. Let me try recalling some of the raagas:
- Chaitanya sang Jogkauns ( I had heard jogkauns by Rashid Khan and it is mindblowing. I must say that Chaitanya provided fair justice to the raaga)
- Aathma sang Bilaskhani Todi ( I had heard this Todi by Ajay Pohankar. Aathma sang it very flawlessly and melodiously.)
- Kaushik sang Shudda Saarang ( I had not heard much if this Raaga. Kaushik presented the Raaga very technically and effortlessly.)
- Siri sang Pooriya Dhanashree ( She has just finished her 10th. Siri has got a very powerful voice and I must say that she is definitely on the way to carve a niche in the field of music.)
- Amritha sang Bhageshree ( I have been hearing her every Guru Poornima. every year, she seems to come up with better performances.)
- Nethra sang Vaachaspathi ( This is a very rare raaga. Netra sang it beautifully.)
- Meera sang Jeevanpuri ( I was listening to her for the first time. She has got a very impressive voice.)
- My uncle sang Oudhava Bhageshree as the final event in the concert. I had not heard this Raag before. His performance was the cherry on the cake. It is always a great pleasure to listen to him.

Hoping to attend more of such concerts in future.:)

Main Zindagi Ka Saath Nibhata Chala Gaya

This song is exactly what I have always felt and what I feel now. This song also expresses what I want to be. Each line is a message by itself. Yes, it is the closest to my heart. Jaidev's music added more beauty to these amazingly simple, yet rich lyrics by Sahir Ludhianvi. Rafi was the soul of this song. Dev Anand added more color to it.:))

Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya
Har fikr ko dhuye mein udata chala gaya

Barbadiyon ka sog manana fizool tha
Barbadiyon ka jashn manata chala gaya

Jo mil gaya usi ko muqaddar samajh liya
Jo kho gaya main usko bhulata chala gaya

Gham aur khushi mein fark na mehsoos ho jahaan
Main dil ko uss makaam pe lata chala gaya

U better than me? I better than u?

How can you compare two people? When we know that each one of us is unique here, how can we compare two personalities? Is it because we try to search for negativities or imperfections in people?

She is beautiful;she is ugly. He is rich;he is very poor. She sings well; he croaks. She is fair;she is dark.The list goes on and on.

Each one of us here have unique traits and characteristics. And we are all special, aren't we? Each one of us are bundled with positive and negative factors. It would be unfair to expect mirror images in all. How fair is it would be to compare Rahul Dravid to Shahrukh Khan? How fair is it to compare Sophia Loren with Medha Patkar? How can you say one is better than the other? If you carefully observe, then they become good, worse or best according to your judgement or opinion. And we judge them according to our set expectations.

Comparisons are more when two people work in the same field. There are comparisons between friends and even siblings. And the saddest part is that I know of some cases where these comparisons have actually led to lot of superiority or inferiority complexes.

Do comparisons happen when we don't accept people as they are? Do we try to find someone else in that person?

Well, I know that despite of whatever I am trying to say here, people will definitely continue with their comparisons. Maybe just turning a deaf ear to them and surging ahead with faith in ourselves is the best way to tackle these empty, hollow comparisons.:))

My condolence to those people who lost their near and dear ones in Mumbai and Srinagar blasts yesterday. It was really heartrending to see the after effects of the blasts. As mentioned in my earlier posts, I am still not very clear about what these terrorists are trying to tell us through these blasts!!! Why are they targetting the innocent masses? And if they call this JIHAAD then I think they should fight in the open and stop these cowardly acts!

My rekindled pastime:)

Kannada was a part of my school syllabus since first standard. It was the third language. But then at home, my mom used to make me read kannada books and magazines. I remember that when we went to movies, she would read out the titles written in Kannada loudly so that I could start recognizing the Kannada letters. So after all this initial training by mom, I read my first kannada novel in seventh standard. And I continued reading kannada novels all through my high school, PUC and initial years of my engineering college. At the same time, my interest in english books increased and before I knew I was busy reading english fiction. Thus my kannada novel reading discontinued. Still sometimes amidst my english novels, I would read some kannada masterpieces here and then.

Since one month, I had been feeling a bit restless. I was getting bored with the routine. So I was planning to join a class. Then I remembered that I had this membership in a private library near by. But I had never got enough time to read the books at the library. Therefore I thought that I should make use of that library and get rid of my boredom.:)

So I have started my reading spree of kannda novels again. And I must honestly confess that I have been enjoying it a lot. It had been ages since I read books of Mangala Satyan, Usha Navarathnaram, H.G.Radhadevi and so on. I am trying to finish one novel every day ( No, they are not very voluminous). I have completely stopped watching TV now. Instead I am hooked to these novels. I donno how long will I continue this rekindled hobby of mine. But at least now, I am thouroughly enjoying it. :))))

All of a sudden, my blog crashed today!!!!!!I was just getting an empty page. I tried in different browsers in vain. I asked my friends to access the page. But they also got to see the empty page. So I reset the template and tried again. It worked this time. But then I lost all my customizations.:((

Some snippets of July 4th, 2006

My friend from Assam was feeling very bad about the news coverage by the so called news channels. She was telling me that there was not even a mention of the bomb blasts that have been happenning in Assam but the Rakhi Sawant-Mika news made the headlines everywhere!!!!!!!!So are the news channels listening???????

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People in the I.T industry atleast have been busy making their lives more luxurious. But does happiness follow these comforts? Why is this word "stress" becoming so prominent? I am sure that our elders would not even have heard of this word "stress". Life is getting more and more complicated. And most of the times we find ourselves entangled in the webs that we weave. It looks like we are all searching for that "something" for our life. But then haven't the wise people told us that all the answers lie within us? Haven't they told us that all the peace and happiness rest in our souls?

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My latest crush is "Mitwa" from Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna. When I heard this album for the first time, I had missed out on this song. I did not like this album at all because I really had lot fo expectations from Shankar, Ehasaan and Loy. But then I listened to "Mitwa" due to my friend's reccomendation. The singer is Shafqat aamanat Ali from Fuzon. I had heard him before. But in this song, his voice touches your soul. The music directors have done a good job by choosing him for this song. No one would have sung this like him.

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I saw Fanaah sometime back. Few people told me that the movie was nothing extraordinary and that I should not really take the trouble of watching it. But then how could I afford to miss the movie with Aamir and Kajol [they are my favourites:)]!!!

Well, the story is nothing new. But the performances by the lead actors are worth watching. I wonder why Aamir and Kajol have never been paired before! I think they share a very good on screen chemistry and complement each other.