Of all things inconsequential!

Endings

ramblifixion — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:56:29 +0000

Last week was “The End” week. Started off with Pongal, our Thala Pongal, to be specific. Since I assume this blog has a cosmopolitan readership(:P), I will take a moment to explain that “Thala” festivals are the first time festivals celebrated after one’s wedding. Thala-diwali,Thala-pongal and the likes. Of course extrapolated to thala new year, thala birthday etc. No, that does not mean we celebrate thala sister’s week, thala international wear-a-pink-dress day and all. Those are solely Facebook’s “Life is a festival” initiative. So the thala year ended with K’s thala birthday. Despite being a person who has kind of started to accept that birthdays are only an indication that you are getting older, he was generally fussed over, dragged to buy birthday dresses and gifted with oh-so-lovely presents(by who else!). One’s hope is that he now knows the level of expectation he has to face, come May!

Oh and the birthday was occasion for a carrot kheer experiment. Though not as brilliant as mom’s turns out, it was a fair attempt, I should say!

The week also marked the end of my career at R. It ended with the most awesome Mango Blueberry cake I have ever tasted. That was the only high point of the end. The place holds a huge bundle of fond memories, and I was truly sorry to leave. It is rather hard to think of another workplace as “office”. Too much sentiment for one office,no ? I know. Sigh!

Just to end on a more cheerful note, pick up Dork by Sidin Vadukut if you have time to kill and want to laugh it out. It is like this glorified blog, nothing literary, but super fun to read.

PS: First post from the new office P, on Day 1. HUGEE sign of productivity, I know

This day, that age

ramblifixion — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:58:45 +0000

Attended my first ever concert with K, on new year’s eve. It HAD to be Sikkil Gurucharan, no? It was. Turned out to be an amazing concert(Being me,I had decided it would be one even before I went there). Bilahari is officially the more sprightly ragam of this season. Love. I was a little concerned that K might get bored thro’ the 3-hour concert, but he enjoyed it as much for the most part – atleast thats what he said(He SHOULD know I take that as a sign to drag him to more concerts next time around). On the same note, managed to catch most Margazhi Mahotsav excerpts on TV – Abhishek Raghuram ! What-A-Talent – should listen to him live, soon – maybe off-season!

…Dont remember when I attended my first kacheri – reckon it should have been earlier than I can possibly recollect given how carnatic music crazy dad-mom are. But I do remember the time when the likes of Bombay Jayashee, TMK and Sowmya were regarded as “upcoming artistes” and would be slotted in the morning free kacheris in most sabhas. There were fewer sabhas, but hey! those were simpler times right ? The three of us would go piled up in dad’s blue Chetak, sometimes with A perched up in the front when there was noone to take care of him. Now I think we must have looked like a spectacle right out of Jumbo Circus. The tickets would cost no more than Rs 25, dad and mom would have deep misgivings to buy 50-rupee tickets. It was an expense-overhead, and we would try to stick to sabhas that had Rs 25 seats. Each song would start off with a combination of anticipation, tension and pressure – the Ragam HAD to be figured out. I had exactly a minute into the song/alapanai before dad played spoilsport and triumphantly announced the ragam. I would put my fingers in my ears and beg him to not reveal it till I figured it out myself, and then there would be a debate in hushed tones in case there was a difference of opinion. Beyond the ragam identification, the rest of the song was only waiting time for the next song to begin. I would lose patience thro’ the main piece and tani avartanam and wait impatiently for the RTPs and tukkdas to begin. It was much later, maybe from around 10 years ago, that I started actually revelling in the music itself and not stopping with just ragam identification. The margazhi of 2010 that I spent in Mylapore is easily the best, music season-wise. So many sabhas, so many kacheris, a more mature ear for music – but, the first minute tension for each song never left ! Some things never change, do they ?

Mom-Dad’s company was sorely missed this season. Man! I cant wait for them to get back to Chennai !

Fourth edition of the Chennai TAP happened again this year! TAP ? In Pilani, TAP stood for the annual Tyagaraja Aradhana Practice. Over the years, the actual Aradhana we held at Pilani came to be referred to as TAP too, and hence the name sticks to the Chennai edition! We have been hosting TAP in Chennai for 4 years now(Sigh! Thats how long it has been since I graduated ). With each passing year, though the BITSian representation in Chennai has been slowly diminishing, we have managed to pull off full house Aradhanas(never mind that the “house” in question is pretty small), thanks to brilliant enthu levels of the Raag alumni to take up organization of the event. Despite the initial to-have-or-not-to-have TAP confusion, things somehow fell into place this year and after a hurried rehearsal, we went up on stage with more junta than we had hoped could participate. The show was not without its usual share of goof-ups and eye-winks and coverups – after all, those are the things that contribute to the fun and laughs of such annual gatherings, but overall, it was a good effort. Saint Tyagaraja, hope you were pleased

…TAP in Pilani was a regular second semester event that happened on the Founder’s day every year. Apart from the actual Aradhana itself, the practice sessions that we had for nearly a fortnight and an exclusive dinner grub on the day of the event were the most memorable aspects of TAP. Every year we would have a couple of people from Raag teaching the Pancharatna Kritis to everybody interested, and we would perform them to faculty and students on the day of the Aradhana. Have very fond memories of certain regular goof-ups we were known to make, like mixing up the last few charanams of Dhudukku gala, starting Endaro on samam etc – and unfailingly, every year, atleast one of us would promptly execute these goof-ups!

This year was no exception too – but that SOOO brought back memories of campus, of chilly wintry evening practice sessions in 2217 and the old Raag room in FD-2, and Vind/Nimmy/Enthu/Chak and the Raag enthu !

PS: I have a strong suspicion that I might have been Cheran’s sister in my previous birth. It freaks me out how I go off into the gyabagam varudhe mode so often! *Should ask him if happens to have a mortal fear for dogs now and hopefully rule out suspicion.*

Picking up from where I left…

ramblifixion — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:27:22 +0000

2 years. A very long time for blog dormancy I know. That puts my prospective biographers in a very sticky spot indeed. Imagine, 2 years of undocumented life! It would probably leave a huge section of the world guessing what transpired then. HENCE, being the gracious subject that I am, I have decided to give a quick round up of the last two years to plug this gaping hole.
Did I hear someone grunt ? Haan ? No ? Ok good. I thought not.

So well, the last 2 years, at the risk of sounding extremely cliched, have indeed FLOWN by ! Looking back I realise there were so many things I should have put down then and there, and would have made pretty reading for me at 40, but because of , I somehow never got around to doing it ! So, as a comeback post, I thought I should put down all that I remember now, and all that need to be remembered, lest old age catches up

1. Got married! Not that I am likely to forget that, but still, since it ranks amongst the most momentous happenings of life, it comes there right on top! Also, simple as it is to say “I got married last year”, the process behind that was extremely long winded(to put it mildly) and took up more than a year of the 2 year hiatus ! From tamilmatrimony.com and numerous jaadagams and conflicting astrologer views and a million phone calls and inquiries, to skepticism, hope, disinterest and apprehension, it seemed to loom out like it would never end, but things took shape and miraculously fell in place in the eleventh hour, and as it so turned out, the quest ended in the office work station next to mine ! Ah, so all IS well that ends well. Following which were the frenzied wedding preparations. Now it seems like those seven months were just ONE LONGGGGG DAY – nothing else was thought of/spoken about apart from the wedding. Drawing up lists, striking items off them, countless rounds of shopping, arrangement check lists – take it from me, Indian weddings are NOT overrated – they ARE truly truly big ! And then, the move to the husband’s place. (Ok, that sounds wierd even to me, even now. Henceforth, he shall be referred to as K). So the move has been smooth enough. More than I could have hoped for, actually. I ve lived away from home for 4 years of engineering, I am used to it, is what I thought. I was wrong. Living on your own, and living with people whom you suddenly start considering family are two different things. Thankfully, the bouts of homesickness have been few and far apart, thanks to K’s parents.

2. Visited places – quite a few of them. Going to new places came to a pretty abrupt end after campus trips stopped. 2011 brought in a good amount of travel, and my first passport stamping ! Yay !! Srilanka it was, for the record. That apart we visited Alleppey(heaven-ish, really!), Pondy(my first time after 16 years of living in chennai ), Lonavla(touch and feel clouds) , Pune(dad’s transfer ), Coorg(the office gang trip), Trichy and a host of temple towns. Missed travelling to the US by a whisker, but thats another story altogether.

3.Watched IPL matches live – 3 of them, with friends from work. On that note, the GAENG at work (comprising of animal planet and a couple of human beings) has been hugely responsible for a lot of laughter and fun over the last couple of years. Yards and yards of chat on Skype(we have concluded that if someone wants to look for something in the chat, the only way to do it would be to data mine it.), eat-outs,food obsession, gossip, cribbing and a whole lot more. 2012 holds a new job/workplace, and not to be pessimistic or anything, but I am quite convinced that workplace is never going to be so much fun as it has been these 3 years.

4. Started watching sitcoms and serials – now this surprises even me. For someone who was not bitten by the F.R.I.E.N.D.S bug even in college, when the whole place was going gaga over it, I have definitely come a long way. I think it just caught up a little late. So now it is Big Bang Theory – check. Dexter – check. HIMYM – on and off. 24 – current fever. Lined up – Prison Break and House. Agreed, I still fall asleep mid-episodes sometimes. But the frequency is coming down

5. Watched more movies in the theatres this year than I have in my entire life. True story. This includes many downright crappy movies that noone in their right minds would even think of downloading, leave alone , watching in the theatres. But the film-buff in K is indomitable. He truly considers it his duty to write off a share of his income to the film industry religiously.

6. The passing away of thatha – by far the most saddening thing ever and shaken up seeing death at such close quarters. It is still way too hard to digest even as I am typing this, and has left a void nobody can possibly imagine to fill. I feel proud and blessed to have shared my childhood with him, have him tell me stories, teach me shlokas and let me see a part of the great life he led. If I had to attribute the word “godly” to a person, it has to be, without doubt,to him. It is an absolute privelege to be addressed as “Venkatesa Iyer pethi“. The way I felt/feel about his greatness is not something that can be expressed in this triviality of a blogpost. Plans are on to write his biography – an attempt to put down the gratitude of the many many lives he has touched by his wisdom, humility and benevolence - I hope I will be able to contribute to that. RIP, thatha.

7. Did a good amount of reading – admist managing home and office, this is a real blessing, thanks to the office drives with K. Nothing like good books and music to lighten up office journeys. The Millenium series and the Shiva trilogy are picks of the lot. Hoping to read more good Indian writing AND translated Tamil works.

8. Acquisitions: A Dell laptop, an Amazon Kindle(Yayy! By far, the bestesttt wedding gift), an XBOX with Kinect(ok, this one too! ), an IPhone (a hand-me-down phone, but a giant leap from my earlier phone nevertheless, AND my first smartphone), second earring piercings, status elevation to Chitti and Mami(yes ), LASIK(bye bye soda-buddi and lenses!) and last but not the least, more kilograms of weight than I would have liked

9. Lived the Mylapore life : Despite spending 16 years at Kodambakkam , and currently living in Mambalam, I think Mylai is THE essence of Chennai. The one year and few months of pre-marriage life there are truly memorable. Soaked up in the temples, kacheris, parks, buzz, karpagambal mess, maminess, poshness and the general tam-brahmness of the area !

If you managed to read thus far, I appreciate your patience and would like to test it no further, lest I lose one ardent fan of the blog. Winding up with a whole lot of memories, mostly good of 2010 and 2011, and hoping 2012 brings forth more to write about !

Appy New Year !!

Phil Shots – II

ramblifixion — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 05:44:22 +0000

A walk down the just-washed-by-rain roads with the music from your earphones drowning the activity around you, to think of nothing but the music and feel the freshness of the breeze rushing onto your face, to turn all around and smile at the trees dripping with rain drops and also at the maddening traffic that zooms past oblivious to these little things, and to think, for atleast those few minutes, that there is not a worry in your world – EXQUISITE !

PS: It is truly an exhilarating feeling to conveniently ignore those heaps of work piled at your desk to spend a few moments to ponder about such ideal moments in a day !

Random thought of the moment : There are some things money cant buy. For everything else, there’s mastercard !

Beginnings – II

ramblifixion — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:51:29 +0000

And so the whole of last week was spent trying to bundle up a whole lot of memories, some as old as 16 years, into an assorted collection of boxes to be taken away from the place that had lovingly cherished them for so long. It is still yet to sink in that we actually decided, after innumerable rounds of contemplation to move in to a different house. But shift we did finally, and just over one weekend, what had been “home” for as long as my memory holds became a “house” – to just leave behind a monster collection of stuff that we no longer require, that had accumulated over the years, nevertheless each a trove of memories -

* a forgotten pack of WWF cards that bro badgered dad into buying, after earnestly convincing him that he definitely would not try the stuff Stone Cold Steve Austin(I stunned myself recalling that name ! ) and Undertaker did on screen. For a couple of months or so after we bought those cards, bro and me would religiously settle down every single evening in the world of Yokozunas and Giant Gonzales and scream out ” Height 7’11” ; chest 56″ much to mom’s consternation.

* a whole load of Tinkles, Chandamamas , Gokulams and Champaks that I had saved from mom’s numerous bouts of for-heavens-sake-you-are-no-longer-10-all-this-stuff-is-going-to-the-raddi-wala-RIGHT-NOW . Stuff that despite all that, I love reading – to date. R K Narayan collections that make for THE perfect tea time read, to date. Other odds and ends books.

*I seem to have had this curious, rather sad habit of collecting all exam papers that had anything remotely like “good” scrawled across them. And report cards. Most with ridiculous comments. Class VI report card : “Shows good scientific intent. Slightly slackening in mathematical abilities. Good student overall”. Hmph ! Gladly added them to the wealth of the raddi wala.

Well, and so many more other things that I had wished to put down in this space for the sake of posterity (Yes, it is of utmost importance to posterity what treasures I unearthed in this shifting process), but in the past week, carroms at work have been giving stiff competition to blogging time and hence I have been led to abandoning the noble deed I flagged off for the sake of posterity

***Ahoy Mylai ! ***

Ramblifixion Shots – III

ramblifixion — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:01:07 +0000

Dog, cat, ant, bat, or any-living-species-apart-from-human-beings lovers, do not read ahead. What follows is a vehement expression of fear and hate (more of the former inevitably leading to the latter) targeted specifically at dogs, but generally applicable to yes, any species apart from human beings. I am justified. What business do these fellows have to come sniffing at an unassuming girl’s ankles at 6 in the morning when she s executing THE “walk” that’s been in planning stage for at least six months now and has finally translated to action prodded by numerous guilt trips/taunts/nightmares of blowing up to a level of not being able to walk thro the doorway (Ma! Stop exaggerating!) Don’t they have the common sense to realize that I am not too likely to parade at 6 in the morning with cat flesh/bones hidden under my slippers! Gah! Guys! Stop giving me nervous breakdowns – the world hasn’t had enough of me yet!

All ye Fords and Nissans! Listen up. What follows is an idea that could change your life. Well, not that I care about that, so more importantly, mine. Please make cars that I can drive around EXACTLY like the Scooty. I have absolutely no complaints against the Scooty. Except that I want a roof over me. And some funky doors on the sides. And I want to be able to drive more than just one person around. Well, that aint asking for much is it? I honestly have no use for four gears. Second 15-day stint at driving and I have started resigning myself to the fact that 4 gears+ clutch + accelerator + brakes + rear view mirror + steering = more than what my reflexes + grey cells can handle. Did you HAVE to complicate it so much!

My near-perfect playlist for the fortnight more than makes up for the monotony at work. Runs to a grand total of 3 albums – Dev D, Wake Up Sid, and Blue, with the preference quotient running in that order. Blue behind Wake Up Sid for the sole reason that Fiqraana sounds out of Yuva album, Rehnuma could pass off as a Hindi version of any Evanescence number and the starting of Aaj Dil Gustakh hai sounds like the starting of a local Vijay Antony number (no offence to VA, and I love the album all the same for the ARR factor ). Dev D undoubtedly bags the “Pavithra Album of the Year” award (You can stop reading right away if you haven’t heard of that. :@). Thanks Girish for re-introducing me to Dev D, after I’d dismissed it off right away after listening to just Emosanal Athyachaar. I haven’t heard better Hindi music in a long time, and am sure Dev D will continue to be on the playlist for a LONG time to come! For the record, I’ve now started to like Emosanal Athyachaar as well.

Ok. The rant for the post is over. Giving it a nice, logical ending doesn’t tally with the rest of the post. So, I am leaving it at that.

Yippie!

ramblifixion — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:12:14 +0000

Yay ! Its stopped raining in Chennai! Rains are nice and romantic and all that mushy stuff ONLY when you can curl up on your bed with a novel and music and gaze out from your window. No, it aint all that pretty when you KNOW you SO want to do all of that , but you HAVE to (Sigh!) wake up and force yourself to a workplace – with so much work to do that it s only a matter of time before – sigh! forget it! I shudder to think of whats the worst that could happen.

Double Yay ! It aint blazing in Chennai either. It is SO awesome that rightfully you should kill yourself for wasting away at your work desk when there are a zillion better things that can be done.

Triple Yay ! Just when you think you should indeed kill yourself, you suddenly get a 2 day leave approved and have a best friend’s wedding to look forward to !

Goodbye work ! Aadoo darling ! Here I come !

Flashes!

ramblifixion — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:40:03 +0000

Ah! And here it is – my first brush with code tweaks to put this stuff up on this page. Till date I had no clue that it was not possible to host videos, flash widgets etc on the normal WordPress blogs. Now, given that I am the kind of person who thinks about tube light replacement without even thinking of fiddling around with the starter, I should say I kind of surprised myself when I actually took the effort to Google around a bit and find a workaround. OK, now that is not really rocket science, and definitely not worth half a day ( a working day at that, on the workstation at that ! ), but still, pat on the back, for whatever its worth ! GeekyCoder - Take a bow !

Phil Shots – I

ramblifixion — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:45:33 +0000

Life seems so much more pleasant in the rewind and fast forward modes – it is only the play button that sucks !

Ramblifixion Shots – II

ramblifixion — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:56:33 +0000

Felt good about not having to set an alarm before going to sleep.

Felt good to wake up at periodic intervals right from 9am, sigh contentedly about not having to race against time to make it to the cab pickup point, dream in a half sleep-half wakeful state of all things inconsequential and finally drag myself out of the bed at 11.

Felt so good to dish out a long-forgotten DVD of Mani Ratnam flicks and run thro my favorite scenes of Mouna Ragam, Alaipayuthey, Iruvar and Ayutha Ezhuthu – letting so many random memories gush in. And a couple of FRIENDS episodes (yeah, I STILL haven’t finished watching them all ). AND an age old video tape–converted VCD of an aunt’s wedding that happened a couple of decades ago (aarrgghh – the fact that I am recounting something that happened a couple of DECADES ago makes me feel REAL old ) – pausing the VCD every time I caught sight of that absolutely adorable, roly-poly kid in green pattu pavadai, with that fountain on her head strutting up oh-so-cutely(she called it Pilki ), running all over the place with her almost-as-adorable nandu sindu gang , religiously obliging every time she was asked to recite the “latest” nursery rhymes she had been taught, trying to brush off the attention her brother was starting to get, with a gentlewomanly air, yet so hopelessly unable to conceal the pout every time the center of attention shifted off her ! Ah ! Good times don’t last too long, do they ?

Felt SO good to roam around the streets, to feel the Chennai afternoon again – to look at what life is between 9am-9pm in the city. No kidding, I AM serious! Cooped up in an office cube miles away from ground level, I get to see Chennai temperatures soar and fall only on news reports and I was beginning to get so paranoid about this that being roasted for an entire afternoon in Pondy Bazaar almost came as a welcome relief!

Felt so good to wake up (in the aforementioned manner of course) on a lazy Saturday morning – wondering how the day was going to be killed, rummaging thro’ the Hindu for some activity, ANY activity – and there you go! Sikkil Gurucharan concert scheduled for the evening. Three hours of absolute bliss – unadulterated. I am not even going to try and put into words the level of peace I felt in those three hours. The level of mastery of each accompanist- it almost felt like a rehearsed conversation between the instruments- yet the spontaneity of it was startling! Mentally resolved to learn up Santhanagopalakrishnam in Kamas – the sheer beauty of the raga and the composition! Am already counting days to December – and I am going to make sure I manage to catch as many concerts of Gurucharan, Ranjani-Gayathri and TMK as I can!

Fast forward to present. Life has not changed, not one bit. Back to the same work desk with the same work staring back at me ruthlessly. But what a world of good the five-day holiday of vettiness and nothingness did!